Balance Feedback

[Milaga]

Terraforming civs are bu far the most fun civs to play with imho. Nothing beats covering half of the world in ice, swallowing the lands of your former enemies in a seemingly endless jungle or watching enemy armies struggle to advance through the burning desert which is home to your people.

If there is already life present, terraforming is an incredibly evil thing to do. You are displacing and probably destroying life on a massive scale. The only terraforming that makes sense to me come from the Infernal, Illian and D'Teshi civs. I think it suits them well, and these are pretty much three of the most evil civs out there.

How does the Malakim turn their lands into desert? Does the rain just never fall near a Malakim city? And for that matter, does it rain all the time near Cualli and Mazatl cities?

The Lizards like the jungle, it stands the reason they would want more of it. But the Malakim doesn't necessarily like the jungle any more than the Dioviello like the Tundra. It was just the lot they were given and they have adapted well to it.

RiFE comes with such a good mapscript that gives civs with terrain advantages a nice chunk of land to their liking. All of that is wasted. I once played a small game as the Sidar vs. the Illians, Malakim, D'Teshi and Cualli races. By turn 250 the whole map outside my territory was one of four colors.

It's a little immersion-breaking watching every mountain within my cultural borders blow it's top one-by-one. I think I have 8 sources of obsidian in my current game, coming up on Marathon turn 600.

Agreed. I really think this event should only trigger once per civ per game.

On that note, huge map + marathon speed + 15 civs has yielded zero repeatable CTDs so far. So I'll throw my two cents in now and say, remarkable job with the stability issues, folks.

Agreed.

 

[Opera]

Well, we did make some good work after all...

I agree that I don't like terraforming civs; or terraforming units for that matter. Never liked terraforming, it removes all terrain strategy.

 

[isthmus]

I'd prefer to see the advantages of terraforming toned down a little - or maybe limit the extent to which a tile can be terraformed from it's starting climate. It's harder to maintain an artificial colder climate when you should be in the middle of a burning desert

So for instance you could have a maximum number of stages to terraforming either way. With the illians this could work with two stages, ie grassland --> taiga, plains --> tundra, desert --> plains

Whether this is worth it to implement or not I'm not sure, but at least you'll have cities which arn't surrounded by uniform terrain so there is some choice available with what your starting position is. With the method mentioned above you'll have effectively grassland and plains terrain in ice form around a city (where the winterborn promotion has use) , and some natural plains where you can't quite fully convert a desert.

 

[dunedainjedi]

Well, we did make some good work after all...

I agree that I don't like terraforming civs; or terraforming units for that matter. Never liked terraforming, it removes all terrain strategy.

Honestly I think that being able to spring into a grassland over does it. Plains are fine, whatever, it's nice to be able to get ride of deserts. Certain mapscrips(I'm looking at you WoE) require it. But, if you're a non auto terraforming civ, being able to pick what terrain type you want is over kill. Spring and scorch to plains is fine, plains to grasslands is too much imho.

On that note is it possible to use spring to get crystal plains as the Illians? Because that would be stupidly over powered....

Also the Illians deal surprising well with the new health changes. More so when you get the white hand going....

 

[Valkrionn]

Moin,

I already posted something similar in the bug-thread, now hear it here: in my current game with the bannor i'm sieged by 9 (!!!) big fat Kraken which are constantly destroying my sea-improvements and preventing any of my ships to sail away and this since round 1!!!

This is really unbalanced.

Greez,

Tschuggi

Moin,

tried another game with khazad. Now 4 holy avengers are attacking my city in turn 21. Holy ...

See the attached game.

Greez,

Tschuggi

Again: Remove any modules you have installed, and see if it happens again. There is nothing I know of that should be spawning Kraken that early, and NOTHING should spawn Holy Avengers! They are not added to any barb civ, they are not from lairs, they flat out should not spawn.

On the subject of Obsidian, the event chance for volcanic eruptions really needs to be tied to the number of ash fields already within the civ's borders.

It's a little immersion-breaking watching every mountain within my cultural borders blow it's top one-by-one. I think I have 8 sources of obsidian in my current game, coming up on Marathon turn 600.

On that note, huge map + marathon speed + 15 civs has yielded zero repeatable CTDs so far. So I'll throw my two cents in now and say, remarkable job with the stability issues, folks.

Volcano chance should likely go down.

Glad to hear it's stable.

Well, we did make some good work after all...

I agree that I don't like terraforming civs; or terraforming units for that matter. Never liked terraforming, it removes all terrain strategy.

The terraforming in 1.4 will cost mana, be less microintensive (automatic, if you toggle it; No casting it from units), and be temporary (reverts once you stop maintaining it).

For that matter, I'm considering having it cost more mana for each temperature/moisture point over the base for the terrain.... Would go hand in hand with expanding that chart.

Honestly I think that being able to spring into a grassland over does it. Plains are fine, whatever, it's nice to be able to get ride of deserts. Certain mapscrips(I'm looking at you WoE) require it. But, if you're a non auto terraforming civ, being able to pick what terrain type you want is over kill. Spring and scorch to plains is fine, plains to grasslands is too much imho.

On that note is it possible to use spring to get crystal plains as the Illians? Because that would be stupidly over powered....

Also the Illians deal surprising well with the new health changes. More so when you get the white hand going....

Illians cannot spring to get Crystal Plains, that is Glacial terrain only.

 

[Tsathoggua]

The terraforming in 1.4 will cost mana, be less microintensive (automatic, if you toggle it; No casting it from units), and be temporary (reverts once you stop maintaining it).

How do you plan to handle "thematically justified" terraforming? D'Tesh, Scions, Illians, and of course the Infernals, could arguably claim this as a defining mechanic of their civilization.

 

[Valkrionn]

How do you plan to handle "thematically justified" terraforming? D'Tesh, Scions, Illians, and of course the Infernals, could arguably claim this as a defining mechanic of their civilization.

Available earlier, available as global rituals (most terraforming, until late game, will be on a city-by-city basis, not empire wide), and be far cheaper.

 

[Tschuggi]

Good morning,

krakens and holy avengers and strange stuff like this from turn 10 or so (also 1) happend already a few times - no matter what modules activated or not. Normally I play with mekara and fall under module, but it happened (Kraken!) also with no active module.

Greez,

Tschuggi

P.S.: Glad to hear that I'm not the only one attacked by strange overpowered creatures in round 6 or 21 when I'm still building my palisade... see bug thread.

 

[Opera]

Honestly I think that being able to spring into a grassland over does it. Plains are fine, whatever, it's nice to be able to get ride of deserts.

No it's not
Hrm, I mean, deserts are meant to not be a good place to settle down. Removing deserts is actually less okay than changing plains to grassland to me. "Oh, only desert... Let's change it all to plains! Wut I gained +1F +1P over nothing!"

 

[Tschuggi]

Moin,

AI-civs seem to die very early, very quickly. In my current game 3 out of 4 AI-civs died till turn 10. The last surviving are the Amurites - only because I improved them with worldbuilder. The reason may be the huge amount of overpowered creatures in very early game and the lame defense of AI. I myself was attacked in round five by 4 psionic golems (don't remember the name of the purply shiny mana guardians that luichurp also have as golems) and survived only because I start with advanced start and had already a palisade and two warriors in my mountain khazad capital (with kandros fir).

Greez,

Tschuggi

P.S.: Now I'm playing only with the amurites and the barb fraction and I'm wishing heavily that you guys will put in some revolution-mechanic so that barbs will develop to own civs...

 

[Koravis]

If there is already life present, terraforming is an incredibly evil thing to do. You are displacing and probably destroying life on a massive scale. The only terraforming that makes sense to me come from the Infernal, Illian and D'Teshi civs. I think it suits them well, and these are pretty much three of the most evil civs out there.

Well, while I might agree with you, looking at it like that, chopping forests/jungle, building a city, draining a swamp and expanding civilization in general is the same amount of evil, displacing and destroying lives on a massive scale... So by that argument only the very most evil civs should be allowed to do any of those

...I don't see what the problem with allowing players to terraform at will is, the difference between plains/grassland isn't much in ways of balance and to me it doesn't break or reduce immersion at all, rather the other way around in many cases, besides, I'm not sure how much the AI uses it outside of automatic terraforming, so it's not hard to just not use it heh...(the new terraforming system sounds a lot better anyways though hehe)

As for levelling, I find that if you use collateral damage or ranged attacks, levelling priests or any unit becomes easy.(As long as you're not determined to finish everything off with your hero)

 

[Calavente]

on the subject of terraforming :

not played yet with auto-terraforming civ but :

-1) it seems over powerful compared to other civs : The terrain converts automatically into a good terrain for your civ.
maybe a good way do to it would be to give the scout/hunter units of those civs the ability to cast scorch/plant forest/plant jungle/become tundra/taiga inside their territory and remove the automated terraforming.

-2) I think terraforming IS thematical.
early terraforming needs adept (tier II unit) (+ generally the elemental tech). Thus it is not really cheap. If Opera think it is too easy, maybe put it at a lvlII water/sun spell, or maybe link it to religion units.
Vitalize uses a lvl 3 spell. It is costly and should be powerful.


I'm not sure I agree with all terraforming being a ritual + costing mana upkeep.
I think that there should be some kind of terraforming (maybe only vitalize) that transforme the terrain and keep no memory of the base terrain humidity/temperature.

ex vitalize has 2 effects :
-change the initial humidity/temperature value of the terrain (if initial h/t is different from actual terrain) (no more mana upkeep for this tile)
-if initial h/t equals actual terrain H/t, vitalize upgrads desert/tundra/taïga->plain, plain->grass +change the initial value of H/T to respectively plain and grass.

 

[hbar]

First half of first game of 1.3:

Don't know if it's bug or balance: should Stonewardens be able to cast Summon Pegasus (as the Austrin, of course)? Seems a little powerful for a portable temple

Also, just want to reiterate what I'm sure the team already knows: Expansive is very powerful, and the AI needs to know how to use (and protect) workers. Almost 200 turns in on Normal speed, and only one AI civ has more then one city. I'm not playing very efficiently, but I have 5 cities and almost 3x the score of anyone else.

Also, make drakes beasts. They are too powerful to be capturable this early. Harmatt + named LairBoss red drake + Aeron's chosen + (currently) borked AI = win button.

Actually, (currenty) borked AI = win button, the rest is just icing, but I know you guys are working on it.

Everything's great fun so far, though. My momma always told me, RiFE is like a box of chocolates...

 

[Milaga]

The terraforming in 1.4 will cost mana, be less microintensive (automatic, if you toggle it; No casting it from units), and be temporary (reverts once you stop maintaining it).

So all civs will, once they have the appropriate tech, be able to turn their lands into paradise. Right now terraforming is not so bad because, with the exception of automatic climate change (grr) the AI doesn't do it. But with all the civs turning the lands a lovely shade of green ... I bet Seven05 is sobbing uncontrollably somewhere.

No it's not
Hrm, I mean, deserts are meant to not be a good place to settle down. Removing deserts is actually less okay than changing plains to grassland to me. "Oh, only desert... Let's change it all to plains! Wut I gained +1F +1P over nothing!"

I agree with you completely. Terraforming removes so much strategy from the game. Do you build a city that won't grow and add to maintenance in the -25% defense desert so you have access to gold and incense? That's not even a decision you need to make if you can just terraform all the tiles to grassland.

Well, while I might agree with you, looking at it like that, chopping forests/jungle, building a city, draining a swamp and expanding civilization in general is the same amount of evil, displacing and destroying lives on a massive scale... So by that argument only the very most evil civs should be allowed to do any of those

I will admit that chopping a forest down does have a certain level of evil to it. But I will argue that it is considerably less evil than removing all plants, animals and water from the land, covering it in a never-ending winter or turning it, literally, into hell.

And there are a million jokes I could think of regarding Washington D.C., swamps and evil, but I'll resist the urge.

Also, make drakes beasts. They are too powerful to be capturable this early.

I agree.

 

[Valkrionn]

So all civs will, once they have the appropriate tech, be able to turn their lands into paradise. Right now terraforming is not so bad because, with the exception of automatic climate change (grr) the AI doesn't do it. But with all the civs turning the lands a lovely shade of green ... I bet Seven05 is sobbing uncontrollably somewhere.

Not at all. Just wait and see. And keep in mind that I dislike the lack of strategy in city placement as well.

 

[Tschuggi]

Moin,

- turn 82, 4 Kraken (age 62, so since turn 20!). See attached file.

- AI is very lame at the moment. Maybe it's because AI don't know how to explore... I already found two angels and about 4 supplies in lairs. Please make her/it/him more intelligent - I know you already do it... so thanks and forget my complaining self. Is there already a first patch-release planned?

Greez,

Tschuggi

 

[lemonjelly]

I think terraforming should be done more on a scale.

So, Malakim passively turn plains into desert, but they need a little kick (from city spells, whatever) to push it over the Plains threshold and turn it into Desert. Same with Illians. The Frozen/Infernal I can understand, they are archangels.

I'm also getting strange spawns.

Oh, and on FoL, I can't see the problem with Cottage spam, but in the Urbanized Cottages module cottages need a gap between them, and they remove all food from a tile until they upgrade. (that and the Lich one should be added to the module list, they work perfectly with 1.3)

One little problem, Deers are cutting into my lovely massive stretches of forest

 

[Swinkscalibur]

I picture terraforming being done by toggle-able city action spells costing mana per turn (in the new magic system) and effecting the workable radius of the city.

 

[Valkrionn]

I picture terraforming being done by toggle-able city action spells costing mana per turn (in the new magic system) and effecting the workable radius of the city.

Effectively, yes.

 

[Draconian]

I agree with you completely. Terraforming removes so much strategy from the game. Do you build a city that won't grow and add to maintenance in the -25% defense desert so you have access to gold and incense? That's not even a decision you need to make if you can just terraform all the tiles to grassland.

Even without terraforming that decision doesn't come up. You simply drop a fort there that doesn't cost any maitenance.
The number of forts should be limited I think, maybe one for each city or something like that? At the moment it's actually quite easy to cover most of the unowned land with culture control from forts once you get a great commander.