Ashen Veil balance issues

[ascen]

If this has changed significantly, I apologize for redundant posting.

In FfH 0.23 the Ashen Veil is so utterly IMBAlanced compared to any
other religion, that it's not even funny. Let's have a look at the religion advantages:

Order:
* High Priests and Inquisitors get Pillar of Flame & Ring of Fire
* Confessors get the Ring of Fire
* Sphener
* Free acolytes from spreading order
* Possibility to have -100% maintenance, if you are willing to spend nearly 500 hammers on producing the buildings on each city.
* Religion civic that is "ok", but too expensive to be useful.

Kilmorph:
* +1 Money from religion
* Arete gives +1 hammers from mines and "Can buy units with money"
* Soldiers of Kilmorph, if you have a long period of peace you can boost your production.
* Graft
* Mines of Gal-Dur, that can make up for having bad luck with resources.

Leaves:
* Guardian of Nature, even with the High Upkeep it's THE thing for Ljosalfar. For others, it's pretty much useless since they have no way of producing commerce in the Ancient Forests.
* Bloom, once again good for Ljos.
* Woodsman 2, making Recon units practical.
* The only religion to get Dispel Undead and Poison Blades on their priests.
* High Priests get Heal

Overlord:
* Hemah
* Krakens
* Asylums, if you have time to build them
* Burning Blood, for dealing the first damage to high strength units in cities.
* Useless civic, Slavery is worthless in it's own tree.

Ashen Veil:
* Sacrifice the Weak, the best civic in the game, that is FREE on top of everything else.
- Population consumes only 1 food. Results in maybe 50% increase in production of whatever you want, since you don't need farmers any more and can use your population effectively.
- +10% Money and Research.
- 2 Unhealth. Seriously, how does this affect anything? For a city of size 15 you get 15 more food and lose 2. Make this -10 and it starts having an effect, but StW is STILL the best civic to use for developed civilizations.

* Ritualists, the most powerful unit for their level. Can cast Ring of Fire (which is the best offensive spell for the level) and summon Sand Lion (which is the best summonable for the level), and they still have Medic II. The Unholy taint makes sure you get enough exp to get whatever you want for them, as your Ritualist shouldn't have to fight anyways.

* Infernal Grimoire, free tech is always nice to have.
* Tech bonus from temple.
* Diseased Corpse, str 5 (3+2) unit that is 25% cheaper than Maceman, and can use up to Mithril Weapons.
* Mardero

Trying to think of a downside to using Ashen Veil I can come up with.. not having Cure Disease - which does not matter as you use Diseased Corpses anyways for your melee.
Not getting Altar of Luonnotar because of your alignment? Boo-hoo, you can instead spend your GPPs on Great Sages and improve your already impressive tech production.

Veil has every good thing in the game, or similar-but-better alternative (Arete mine bonus vs. StW food bonus) to match them.

As a disclaimer: I only play FfH as multiplayer, so these balance issues both really distort the gameplay. Having one religion be such an overpowered choice in every way might add to fun if you want to have evil uber-sheaim as your AI-opponent. Not quite so if you are looking for a somewhat equal-opportunity game with human players.

 

[Gritty_Git]

I pretty much agree with everything in the above post.

I'd also like to note the following things about the ritualist.

Ritualist gets RoF, a spell causing stack damage with no mana prerequisites and no other technologies than priesthood. To get this effect from elswhere you need both sorcery tech and fire mana.

In addition to this they get summons. To get this from elsewhere you need the summoning tech and an appropriate mana...

All in all veil gets ready offensive stacks from just building their priests. You get stack damage, disposable units and medical care from just a single unit type... For any other religion you need the priest, mage and sorcerers...

 

[attackdrone]

I have found the religions to be pretty well balanced all told. The Dwarven Synergy with Runes of Kilmorph and Elven Synergy with Fellowship of Leaves are just too incredibly useful to not want to choose them over the Ashen Veil in most situations. Also, if I am in a forested area, I often go Fellowship of Leaves irregardless of the civilization I am playing - quite handy on Arborea worlds and indispensable on the otherwise food-poor Boreal world. Runes are a superb choice on a highlands map due to the large number of mines you will end up creating.

As for Octupus Overlords, if ever I find myself choosing cultural conflict over military might, that religion takes the cake. The Order is great for the extra 20% military production - 10% from the Social Order civic and 10% from the temple. This extra military production lets me build an effective army much faster, and the availability of the Basilica lets me support the empire I then conquer.

Looking at the overall balance of the religions in regards to strategic options and not just straight mechanical benefits, I find them to each hold up pretty well. Also, combinations of two can be quite handy - try going Fellowship of Leaves for a while, then once you have all your ancient forests, hop over to Ashen Veil. Perhaps run Runes of Kilmorph, acquiring Stonewardens, then switch over to the Order and build a large number of Altar of Luonnotar enhanced Crusaders - the +1 strength bonus from Spiritual Hammer is pretty handy. Also with the Runes you have even more gold to support an expanding empire. Just a few ideas.

 

[xienwolf]

You also have to remember the tower for the religion in thinking about their balance. Earth Mana free from RoK, Law from Order, Water from OO, I think Chaos from AV? and is it Nature for FoL? At any rate, I have often found my religious decision to be motivated by my mana needs almost as much as anything else. In an epic game it can take quite some time to get from Knowledge of the Ether to Elementalism when you are mired in deserts. Also, a super early game Earth Mana means WONDERS for your eventually resources. And on a larger map in a bad mana spot, I never argue with more Law mana.


Yes, for priest considerations only, I often really want to go Order or AV for the Ring of Fire. Unless I am Luichirp, then I adore the Stonewardens. Otherwise, I seldom bother much with priests. But as attackdrone has said, there are a lot of features to consider them on, and I do not think you give them proper weight in your initial post. (Krakens are a HUGE power in a map of many small islands, or Maze maps, Leaves is also nice for the Svartalfar since they are a recon heavy civ, Sinister+Poisoned blade = +2 strength to all recon)

 

[Blakmane]

AV is also partially balanced by the fact that all other religions hate its guts, and will start dogpiling AV civs when the AC counter starts to rise. However, if you are playing against purely human opponents this wouldn't really apply I guess. In the end, I think FFH is more designed as a lore-heavy singleplayer or player-vs-AI game, rather than a totally perfectly balanced competative game. If you want perfect balance, vanilla civ is the way to go.

 

[Bad Player]

A big downside is the spread of hell in evil (AV) lands which is why Sacrifice the Weak uses 1 food per pop.

A minor point to note is that infernal grimoire can be built with any civ IIRC. Also OO is good for helping you early game with units such as the Drown and Saverous. This is important for late game powerhouse type civs (credit for this point goes to someone else I can't remember who).

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I don't see any imbalance between the religions, given the proper circumstances. If anything, I would want them to be more imbalanced, all over powered but in very different ways.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

People, read his disclaimer. He plays multiplayer. I don't think you shoot for cultural victories when you're playing online.

I am not agreeing that the AV strategy is the best when it comes to killing your human opponant, but I do agree that things like "diplomatic modifiers" don't matter online.

As for "overpowered in their own way", this is the classical "trade-off myth" between balance and diversity. A game could either be played for eternity, or not be played for eternity. In CIV4, there's a time limit, so it's a closed game. In a closed game, EITHER it's a "stone-paper-scissors" game with the strategies (or religions, in this thread) and it boils down to luck in starting positions and combat odds, OR it does have a dominent strategy, and hence it is by definition balanced but no diversity. In a game of chances, if everyone uses the same strategy and has the same chances of winning, the game is "solved" and we might as well play dice, BUT...

...chess, with it's 50-move-limit for no pawn move or no pieces captured, is a closed/finite game, and theoretically, the is only one "perfect" game that will lead to only one possible result with certainty. We know that for certainty, but we don't know which result it must lead to, and even if we somehow did know which result, we still have to figure out how to get there. That's why chess is still a living game.

It's hard to "prove" that AV is a dominent strategy unless you play 1000 times against every other strategy and end up with the highest percentage of wins.

 

[wilboman]

If you think that AV grants greater power than any other religions, that is entirely in fitting with the flavour of the AV, so great. FfH is more about flavour and the single player game than balance and multiplayer, I'm afraid. The Ashen Veil is supposed to grant huge power at the price of your immortal soul.

 

[[NWO]_Valis]

And of course do not forget that this is not a final version. How can you balance something that has is not finished. There are 2 more religions to be implemented! Civilisations to be reworked.

About balance we will be able to discus after Shadow is released cause Ice are mainly scenarios. For now let this thread sleep.

 

[ascen]

People, read his disclaimer. He plays multiplayer. I don't think you shoot for cultural victories when you're playing online.

I am not agreeing that the AV strategy is the best when it comes to killing your human opponant, but I do agree that things like "diplomatic modifiers" don't matter online.

...

It's hard to "prove" that AV is a dominent strategy unless you play 1000 times against every other strategy and end up with the highest percentage of wins.

Diplomatic modifiers really have very little or no effect in multiplayer - only effect that has been noticed is when you team up with Mercurians and are enough of a role player to declare war on all Veil.

As to "proving" that AV is a dominant strategy, you don't need to play an indefinite amount of games to get statistics: You can get a good idea of the power levels by assuming the gamers to be of equal skill, in equal circumstances and have the religion be the only variable. In that setting, the real questions are:

1) What kind of tech level is required to get certain advantages:
While Leaves, Overlord and Kilmorph are cheaper tech-wise to found,
you need to tech them AND Philosophy before you can get Priesthood.
So Veil (and Order) are only slightly worse in that they require a bit
more RPs for prereqs and primary and secondary religion tech.

2) What do you get for teching just the religion:
* Leaves: Nothing, as health rarely or never is a problem
* Overlord: Drown, very useful in Archipelago setting, rather useless otherwise. You can avoid building Obelisks if you spread the religion well.
* Kilmorph: Extra money is nice.
* Order: Valin Phanuel is a useful hero. +10% military prod is good for temple.
* Veil: Rosier the Fallen, Tech from temple, Diseased Corpses - a weapon-using Maceman-level melee unit with only one disadvantage (Undead)

3) What do you get for teching Priesthood (with priests):
* Leaves: Bloom, Cure Disease, Destroy Undead, Poison Blades
* Overlord: Burning Blood, Floating Eye, Mutation
* Kilmorph: Spiritual Hammer, Cure Disease, Transmutation
* Order: Ring of Fire, Cure Disease, Hope
* Veil: Ring of Fire, Unholy Taint, Sand Lion, Summon Imp

4) For the secondary religion tech:
* Leaves: Guardian of Nature, very powerful for ljos, limited usability for others
* Overlord: Slavery (useless), Asylums (good tech+ for lots of hammers), Lunatics - weakened macemen with Crazed.
* Veil: Meshabber of Dis (although requires AC70), StW-all round most powerful civic in the game, Free tech for 400 hammers.
* Order: Basilica (good for maintenance, high hammer cost), Social Order
* Kilmorph: Bambur (ok, I guess, still not nearly comparable to Rosier or Valin), Gal-Dur - extra iron is nice, Arete - useful civic


So, making some brash assumptions:
Stage 1) teching veil and order is a pain, so lets assume, say, -20% to civ power for that.
Stage 2) Leaves=+0%, Kilmorph&Overlord=+10%, Order=+20%, Veil=+30% (for getting macemen and good hero)
Stage 3) Leaves&Kilmorph = +10%, Overlord, Order, Veil = +20% (Overlord is debatable, but their priest-spells are very useful in certain situations)
Stage 4) Leaves=+40%/+10% (Ljos/others), Kilmoprh=+20%, Order&Overlod=+10%, Veil=+50% (for Stw and free tech)

So, if you can accept the method of valuing religion bonuses (and realize that it represents your own personal valuations), in my not-so-humble opinion the relative advantages gotten is:
Leaves = 1.5/1.2
Overlord = 1.4
Kilmorph = 1.4
Order = 1.3
Veil = 1.8

This listing does not include Stage 5) - which is the high end units, but considering that if you'd get that much of an advantages in the midgame until the end game, you will be that much earlier there to be able to use the advantages.

 

[onedreamer]

Well... pretty easy to call AV the most powerful religion by disregarding the downsides. Here they are:

1- No gold from the Holy Wonder means that their Holy Wonder is actually LESS useful for researching than any other if you have a big and developed empire.
2- Death mana from the Stigmata and the Evil alignement mean heavy diplomacy penalties. If you don't own key strategic resources, this can become a problem (NOT in multiplayer).
3- Spreading the AV means increasing the Armageddon Counter, which often does more harm than good, unless you're playing the Infernals.
4- One less victory condition (the easier, BTW) available.

These things alone nullify any good thing except Sacrifice the Weak about the Ashen Veil, which has been in fact the most worthless of all religions until the change of its civic. Ultimately this brings to the conclusion that it is the civic to be a bit too much above the standard, not the religion.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

If you think that AV grants greater power than any other religions, that is entirely in fitting with the flavour of the AV, so great. FfH is more about flavour and the single player game than balance and multiplayer, I'm afraid. The Ashen Veil is supposed to grant huge power at the price of your immortal soul.

I kinda disagree. Kael has been unable to get the soul-sucking mechanic to work, so things need to be balanced by other game factors rather than your rl soul.
But of course we certainly are willing to have a great deal more differences than vanilla, so perfect balance is not a goal. If one is better than the others but not to the point that a better player can't win with any, it's fine.
There is certainly room for some adjustments, imo.

 

[wilboman]

Easy for you to say. You obviously didn't have to sign the document I had to sign in order to be allowed to take part in the team. I can't go into details (part of the contract), but it involves Rosie O'Donnell.

 

[Grillick]

A big bunch of pseudo-psience and arbitrary values

You forgot Saverous.

And Building rushing with Soldiers of Kilmorph.

And free Zealot for spread of Order religion, making spread of Order religion easier.

And Leaves UU is a recon unit who starts with woodsman I and doesn't have a penalty attacking cities.

 

[xienwolf]

Arguement against Ascen: You didn't give iron a proper weighting for the fact you can get access to iron weaponry FAR earlier than by normal means, so all of your normal warriors become even stronger.

Also, never even mentioned the Soldier of Kilmorph, stronger than a warrior, weapon upgrades, and can rush production. Send in a newly built SoK and 2 Thanes and you can remove unrest, found the religion, and get a fair chunk of your monument completed immediately after capture. Even better when you get Stonewardens and you can have a new city immediately GAINING gold instead of COSTING it.

 

[Gritty_Git]

ascn brought out the major imbalances pretty well...

Getting hell terrain protects your resources from blight by turning them into their hell equivalents. Sure you lose some food, but gain production, income and more importantly a general boost in unit strengths...
This and your deserts becoming unpassable with fire (since with a lvl 1 fire spell you can conveniently place them at your borders...) adds a nice combat advantage...
This combained by the fact that a civilisation using STW gets the food needed to support a worker from any flatland square excluding desert and ice makes it pretty insane. How anyone can claim this reduces income compared to other religions is beyond me. You can grow a city on grassland with completely unimproved tiles, and actually use specialists... A city on grasslands with cottages supports the citizen on the tile it is working on and another as a specialist or miner etc.

It effectively doubles your food production in every aspect except health. Veil is supposed to be about soleless merciless society and this abundance of food doesn't fit it in any way. A system where you can actually sacrifice population for reasearch points would be a lot more apt...

 

[Wraith367]

The major problem with huge, sacrificing cities is keeping them happy. If you don't have them happy, the extra population can't be used towards production/specialists, and is only good for whipping. Why not have Sacrifice the Weak give a scaling unhappiness modifier? This would make it harder to get excessive production from the cities (except for whipping).

 

[Gritty_Git]

True.

At the moment though one good farm can feed 4-6 citizens... This means the production ratio is insane...

 

[Arqane]

Ascen, while AV might be better overall, you're not helping out the argument at all. Your method seems to be to just say 'meh' to any ability that's not AV, and only give the best parts of all the AV traits.

Most people will do this with their favorite way of playing, which is a good thing. It makes things interesting when people don't all use one strategy. However, I wouldn't dismiss the Calabim player who went with FoL when he comes at you with a 25 (base) strength L20 vampiric Yvain in the mid-game.

AV tends to be fairly direct in how it works, but the nuances of other religions can be more powerful if used well .