Are the Ljosafar overpowered?

[Xanikk999]

Right now i play ljosofar almost exclusively and they may be overpowered.

Reasons being:

Ability to build plantations, cottages and farms on forest or ANCIENT FOREST tiles makes the race able to get production in those squares also!

My solution to this to make them balanced is that they should not be able to build lumbermills.

and not only that.. they can still chop down trees if they are building a mine over them. For them to be balanced they should not be able to build mines on forested hills or jungles.

And all there unique units get the elven promotion. This is sorta of like having a 2 move unit for all your units. Almost.. And the elven worker is almost like a fast worder in civ4.

And they get 3 leaders and awesome traits. Spiritual is one of the best traits in FFH imo, because civic changes happen so often and the time beetween changing civic is 10 turns, unlike 5 in vanilla civ.

 

[Kael]

Right now i play ljosofar almost exclusively and they may be overpowered.

Reasons being:

Ability to build plantations, cottages and farms on forest or ANCIENT FOREST tiles makes the race able to get production in those squares also!

My solution to this to make them balanced is that they should not be able to build lumbermills.

and not only that.. they can still chop down trees if they are building a mine over them. For them to be balanced they should not be able to build mines on forested hills or jungles.

And all there unique units get the elven promotion. This is sorta of like having a 2 move unit for all your units. Almost.. And the elven worker is almost like a fast worder in civ4.

And they get 3 leaders and awesome traits. Spiritual is one of the best traits in FFH imo, because civic changes happen so often and the time beetween changing civic is 10 turns, unlike 5 in vanilla civ.

This is is a great discussion and Im really interested to hear what others think. But I would ask that you play them again with tomorrows version.

The reason we have shyed away from balance feedback to this point is that it doesn't mean much if the tech tree changes. A unit that was to power, an improvement that was to good, etc are all dramatically changed by their tech tree placement. Regardless of if the actual unit or improvement details change.

So check tomorrow and let me know what you think. Im not saying we have done anything to address this issue, but the environment is to different for me to be able to balance on 0.12 recommendations.

 

[Chalid]

As i stated on other places I would say the following.

The Elves biggest advantage is their powerfull improvements that all gain one additiona production by beeing placeable in forests.
So i would propose:
-no lumbermills
-Farms cannot be built in forests but gatehrer huts or something. They provide one food but do not spread irrgation. and never gain the +1 food bouns
-Elves get an different kind of cottages that can be built in forests but only grow to the size of a village (and do not gain the +1 hammer is that still in?)
-Elves can built normal cottages on flatlands without forests through
-quarries still need the forest to be cut and so do mines and windmills

And of course:

bloom cannot be used on tiles that already have an improvement

 

[Sureshot]

I thought the only reason Ljosalfar seemed overpowered were because they'd had the most work done on them, is that not so?

And while they've seemed great at defense (amazing defenders), they are exceptionally weak at conquering. I always end up surrounded by enemies who have no forests (they've all been cleared for their improvements) so my 2 movement becomes nonexistent, and I haven't seen much in the way of siege or even good city attackers for elves.
Personally I like that, as it means I am able to defend my lands even under duress, at the cost of exceptionally bloody wars if I try to go outside my borders. Wasn't that the intent?

 

[Maian]

While I also think Ljosalfar is overpowered right now, I think a large part of that is due to their synergy with the Guardian of Nature civic and the bloom-over-improvements bug.

 

[Sureshot]

Can't anyone with Leaf religion do that tho? (in 0.12 anyone can benefit from 'elven' type anything with it by blooming under any improvement). And Ancient forests aren't a Ljo thing, anyone with Leaf religion gets them (and can bloom away).

 

[mindlar]

Having played around with a fair amount of the civs, I can't say that they are more or less overpowered than others.

Certainly Ljosalfar with leaves have a great advantage due to being able to take Guardians of Nature. This is exacerbated by having the priests with bloom.

However, they cannot chop forests (aside from placing mines/quaries) which gives a slight disadvantage early game and do not have any real special units.

At the difficulty levels I play (prince/monarch), I have found almost all the empires to be "overpowered". I think a lot of this comes from the AI currently being relatively stupid with all the new functionality. The biggest challenge is surviving if Orthus is nearby.

 

[woodelf]

I've always disliked lumbermills and elves co-existing.

 

[H.GrenadeFrenzy]

I've always disliked lumbermills and elves co-existing.

yeah but I wouldn't say the Ljosalfar are overpowered but something to replace the practicallity of lumbermills is nessisary even if an Ancient Forest can't Become Ancient if it is being cut down......In the Area in which I live the only forests that exist are man planted....and some are large.....but they are still lumbered and not just lumbered but cut for the health of the forest depends on an ecological balance and even a forest fire by lightning brings new life in a few seasons.........I'm talking of natural occurance...but the rule for lumbering is 3-4 saplings planted for everyone cut and most of that planting is done by the ones doing the cutting and their forest areas are larger now than when they started a century ago by over 10 squared. Not everyone does this in other places but they started with no forests here and now to the south east and west we have several forest and wooded areas.

Ultimately though lumbermills take the personal experience of sacrifice and loving agreement and exchange away from elven society so.......I must concur with Wood Elf.......is that bitter sawdust I taste?////Something could make this better..........and when it does groups that use lumbermills should get a penalty modifier when dealing with those whom have Ancient Forests.......

 

[Moon Hunter]

i agree with that lumbermill issue, elves shouldnt have lumbermills...

but as for the overpowerness issue, i dont believe they are overpowered. even though they do get higher production with ancient forest, as was said before, that is a leaves issue, not an elven problem...

the fact why i dont agree with overpowerness is that they cant build any siege machines at all, which makes is kind of hard do conquer developed cities... only solution is guarding your units with city raider 3... which isnt that easy at all

 

[Bad Player]

As has basically been said, the leaves religion issue gives them a good defence bonus and production bonus but not building seige engines makes conquest hard.

One other advantage they have is that neutral civs are at an advantage. Good civs give no modifier to neutral civs and evil civs give only a -2 modifier (compared to a -4 modifier for good civs). I haven't played against another neutral civ so I don't know if neutral civs give eachother positive modifiers.

 

[Chalid]

One further advantage is their love for Leaves.

Leaves is the only religion that can be easily adopted by every AI independend of their alignment.

 

[wilboman]

Actually, good gives a -2 modifier to neutral civs, just like bad does.

 

[Jono]

Actually, good gives a -2 modifier to neutral civs, just like bad does.

Umm... no they don't.

 

[Kerrang]

Lumbermills are antithetical to the Elven lifestyle, at least in the way they are portrayed in this mod (some varieties of elves, even in D&D, would not have a problem with forresting). Given the existence of magic in the game world, however, it would not be difficult to imagine a different mechanic by which the elves would use and care for their woodlands.

The Lumbermill could be replaced with a 'Treeshapers Workshop', which would work just like the Lumbermill, but you may want to delay the ability to build them until Leaves is researched. The Treeshapers do not actually cut down any trees, they use magic to shape the trees into the forms they need while the trees are still living. The spells they use allow them to harvest needed resources from the trees without damaging them, and in fact, they would use the same magic to strengthen trees that may otherwise be damaged by storms, etc. This same mechanic expains how those trees then grow into Ancient Forrests.

 

[wilboman]

Umm... no they don't.

Fairly sure they do, at least in 0.13 which is what I was last playing. It may be I've been imagining things, tho. But I was the Kuriotates, and thus good, and the Ljosalfar started out by not liking me, IIRC because "You're good".

 

[Chalid]

Its assymetrical wilboman. Good ones do not hand out penalties to neutrals but neutrals hand out penalties to good ones.

 

[wilboman]

Ah. D'oh! Oh well, you learn something new every day

 

[TheJopa]

When combined with guardian of nature, ljosafars are strong. Forests give happines, and you don't have to cut them! Health from forests and GotN civic removes necessity to build health buildings. Ljosafars without Fellowship aren't anything special, and guardian without ljosafars isn't overpowered since you can't build anything on forests and can't plant forests. But these 2 comined are powerful, but I feel it is way it should be.

 

[Bad Player]

A downside to Ljosalfar with Leaves (or e.g. Bannor with Order) is getting 2 of the same type of mana (e.g. 2 nature mana or 2 law mana respectively) - it's kind of useless having 2 of the same (you nearly always lose in trading).