Balance Feedback

[Gerk]

Hillgiants/Minotaurs need to be stupidified a little bit, IMO.

Currently they won't attack unless they think they can genuinely win a skirmish, which leads to them doing "the dance" in your land. This also leads to a mindly amusing "that is BS" moment where you can take a worker out of hiding and they'll immediately start pursuing it...20 tiles away.

 

[tufloss]

And we wonder why the AI is having trouble with barbarians

Actually have the easier animals as barbarians module installed so they are all leashed. Good thing Clan of Embers is allied with barbarians.

 

[Valkrionn]

The awesome thing is... The barbs were never really buffed, the animals were just nerfed.

Honestly, the main source of the AI-killing barbs are lairs, and that will be changing in 1.31. So will barbs in general.... Let's just say, Hidden Nationality may well be viable in multiplayer soon.

 

[isthmus]

Ok, just played as the illians.. and woah, they're a bit strong
Also a few quibbles on the usefulness of the white hand for other races.
There's a lot to read, sorry

So, the Illians -

• Firstly for the AI, they tend to do well as the Illians but they have the ridiculous habit of getting Auric killed. Is it possible to leash him to the capital before he upgrades at priesthood? It'd help the AI to not lose him early on.
• Also, a bug I think... The Illians under Auric can found religions. This is before he dies (I checked), shouldn't he be stopped from researching religious techs while he still has his traits? After he's dead it should be allowed really though. I had the Illians found AV last game
• The white hand also makes auric turn from evil to neutral. Probably an bug/oversight there. I'm assuming he should be evil at all times
• I know it's an old issue, and there was talk of a rebalance before the most recent patch, but I thought I'd bring it up again for this version. The 3 named priests that come with the white hand ritual are waaay over the top. I'd even go as far to say that the generic ones are a bit powerful given that they have access to both arcane and divine spells.
  Other religions have damage-dealing spells but the important thing to notice is that none of them can kill, unlike the summoning spells of the white hand.
• Frostling summons are permanent on ice..and more can be summoned each turn. They really need a limit on no. of frostlings per priest (two would be ok?) since you can very easily sit there and make unlimited numbers of free maintainance warriors (who come with empower promotions) to wear down stacks and defend newly conquered cities. They also can gain experience on top of empower.
  They also don't have unlimited life on glacier terrain, is this intended?
• Ice elementals really shouldn't spread tons of ice when they die. It's a bit over the top, completely screws over the countryside outside a city for your enemy, and gives your frostling army a nice carpet to run over on their way to the enemy. It also completely cuts the time required to terraform the place when you capture the city.
  They're also quite strong at the time they first appear.
• Terraforming bonuses are a tad strong at the moment. I get the feeling that the Illians probably shouldn't get the full bonuses from ice now that they have an upgrade to glacier terrain on top of that as well. One solution is to lengthen the amount of time it takes to terraform. I think that the time to go from tundra -> glacier (about 40-50 turns?) is a bit much, but it's closer to the amount of time it should take for all auto-terraform changes. 25-30 turns seems better for all changes between the climate levels, and it keeps the illian (and other terraforming civs) terrain varied for quite some time at the start of the game so they don't get a super headstart on the other civs.

Also, the white hand seems to be going the way of the ordo did before. It's very civ-linked and I'm not sure if a religion available to all civs should be so exclusively advantageous to one. Ok, maybe the jotnar or doviello do quite well from following the white hand, but they're the only other civs that gets any benefit from it, and they tend to get better results following other religions. That said, lorewise it's cool and it would be good to make it fill a larger niche.

I can't see how it protects from hell terrain...does it prevent the spread, or does the spread just not affect it? The ice actually has worse tile yields on average than hell terrain since the hell versions actually don't change the yields of grasslands and plains - they only "snake pillarise" some health resources and boost demon strength a little.

Hell terrain is not a very common sight in many games due to the sheaim underperforming or AV just being smothered by younger religions. If AV/order were made easier to get to it might be more common as a state religion rather than just present in a handful of cities. At the moment any civ that tries to go for AV and spawn Hyborem gets mauled because it's a significant diversion off the tech tree. Subsequently Hyborem makes little impact since he's behind in tech too

The White Hand is a bit too situational for my liking when used by the other races, as a full religion it should be fully accessible and have benefits for all races at most times during a game. At the moment if I had a choice between being agnostic for a game or being forced into the white hand for it as a non-illian/doviello/jotnar, I'd probably choose agnostic. I'd probably pick religion over agnostic for all other religions however. In my opinion a religion should be additive rather than negatively affecting certain aspects of your civ, even just to make it an advantage over agnostics.

I can see the white hand working well as a defensive religion, with glacier terrain maybe getting a % defense boost and maybe accessing city spells that "blizzard damage" approaching enemy units. It would be nice to see it applicable in some ways to a sidar or khazad leader who needs to "turtle up".
There could be a (non-illian accessible) religious tech that provides access to improvements or a civic that allows glacier tiles to draw level yieldwise with a basic farmed grassland, or a mined grass hill, buildable on glacier terrain.
Either that, or maybe have white hand religious buildings give % bonuses on food and production to make up for lost yields on tiles.

Just a few ideas there, sorry for throwing out another wordwall

 

[Gerk]

Let's just say, Hidden Nationality may well be viable in multiplayer soon.

This isn't 100% topical, but that reminds me - will it be possible for Hidden Nationale units to be prioritized in the "Go-To Order"?

If they move at the very beginning of the turn, it'll be more effective as it will be more difficult to tell which ones are/aren't obviously human-controlled in MP mode.

 

[Viatos]

Forts - first, the AI insists on building them close to their cities, which would be a good idea if the AI were competent players with a solid grasp of defensive strategy. As far as I can tell, they can't even use the Fort Commander ranged attack, probably because they don't treat them like Archers.

Second, there's an exploit where you either drop or take a fort right next to their capital, beat them into submission, take all their techs for a peace treaty - and then just relax in your single square of unremovable culture for ten turns before you finish them off. There are plenty of spells you can abuse in the meantime as well, notably Summon Mistform.

 

[BiffQJ]

• Ice elementals really shouldn't spread tons of ice when they die. It's a bit over the top, completely screws over the countryside outside a city for your enemy, and gives your frostling army a nice carpet to run over on their way to the enemy. It also completely cuts the time required to terraform the place when you capture the city.
  They're also quite strong at the time they first appear.

I actually don't mind the terraforming when they die in battle, but I think that, if possible, it shouldn't happen when a temporary ice elemental just goes away. This becomes a very easy way to totally terraform a desert very quickly. Just send the three initial priests of winter into a desert, and each turn have them summon ice elementals. A bit of an exploit there...

 

[Valkrionn]

Ok, just played as the illians.. and woah, they're a bit strong
Also a few quibbles on the usefulness of the white hand for other races.
There's a lot to read, sorry

So, the Illians -

Long posts about mechanics are always good, they often spawn ideas.

• Firstly for the AI, they tend to do well as the Illians but they have the ridiculous habit of getting Auric killed. Is it possible to leash him to the capital before he upgrades at priesthood? It'd help the AI to not lose him early on.

That's not a bad idea, actually.

• Also, a bug I think... The Illians under Auric can found religions. This is before he dies (I checked), shouldn't he be stopped from researching religious techs while he still has his traits? After he's dead it should be allowed really though. I had the Illians found AV last game

Yeah.... Ice Touched should be preventing it. I'll check it.

• The white hand also makes auric turn from evil to neutral. Probably an bug/oversight there. I'm assuming he should be evil at all times

Yeah, bug. Set the values incorrectly. It should be a lawful evil religion.

• I know it's an old issue, and there was talk of a rebalance before the most recent patch, but I thought I'd bring it up again for this version. The 3 named priests that come with the white hand ritual are waaay over the top. I'd even go as far to say that the generic ones are a bit powerful given that they have access to both arcane and divine spells.
  Other religions have damage-dealing spells but the important thing to notice is that none of them can kill, unlike the summoning spells of the white hand.

Yes, there needs to be a rebalancing of the units.

• Frostling summons are permanent on ice..and more can be summoned each turn. They really need a limit on no. of frostlings per priest (two would be ok?) since you can very easily sit there and make unlimited numbers of free maintainance warriors (who come with empower promotions) to wear down stacks and defend newly conquered cities. They also can gain experience on top of empower.
  They also don't have unlimited life on glacier terrain, is this intended?

I'm thinking frostlings should be like skeletons. One per priest, but permanent. Maybe allow them to upgrade to various frostling types at certain levels.

• Ice elementals really shouldn't spread tons of ice when they die. It's a bit over the top, completely screws over the countryside outside a city for your enemy, and gives your frostling army a nice carpet to run over on their way to the enemy. It also completely cuts the time required to terraform the place when you capture the city.
  They're also quite strong at the time they first appear.

Ice Elementals will be nerfed a bit, and the death effect will be moved to the climate system (and thus temporary).

• Terraforming bonuses are a tad strong at the moment. I get the feeling that the Illians probably shouldn't get the full bonuses from ice now that they have an upgrade to glacier terrain on top of that as well. One solution is to lengthen the amount of time it takes to terraform. I think that the time to go from tundra -> glacier (about 40-50 turns?) is a bit much, but it's closer to the amount of time it should take for all auto-terraform changes. 25-30 turns seems better for all changes between the climate levels, and it keeps the illian (and other terraforming civs) terrain varied for quite some time at the start of the game so they don't get a super headstart on the other civs.

Honestly, I'm intending to expand the times it takes for all of them anyway.

Also, the white hand seems to be going the way of the ordo did before. It's very civ-linked and I'm not sure if a religion available to all civs should be so exclusively advantageous to one. Ok, maybe the jotnar or doviello do quite well from following the white hand, but they're the only other civs that gets any benefit from it, and they tend to get better results following other religions. That said, lorewise it's cool and it would be good to make it fill a larger niche.

You may be right that it is currently a fairly specific religion... However, it will have a wider role to play, once Hell changes a bit and plagues enter the picture.

I can't see how it protects from hell terrain...does it prevent the spread, or does the spread just not affect it? The ice actually has worse tile yields on average than hell terrain since the hell versions actually don't change the yields of grasslands and plains - they only "snake pillarise" some health resources and boost demon strength a little.

The second. And Hell terrain will not maintain yield parity in the future.

Hell terrain is not a very common sight in many games due to the sheaim underperforming or AV just being smothered by younger religions. If AV/order were made easier to get to it might be more common as a state religion rather than just present in a handful of cities. At the moment any civ that tries to go for AV and spawn Hyborem gets mauled because it's a significant diversion off the tech tree. Subsequently Hyborem makes little impact since he's behind in tech too

AI underperforming should hopefully be fixed soon. As for it being a late religion... That may not be the case after 1.5, we're redesigning the tech tree.

The White Hand is a bit too situational for my liking when used by the other races, as a full religion it should be fully accessible and have benefits for all races at most times during a game. At the moment if I had a choice between being agnostic for a game or being forced into the white hand for it as a non-illian/doviello/jotnar, I'd probably choose agnostic. I'd probably pick religion over agnostic for all other religions however. In my opinion a religion should be additive rather than negatively affecting certain aspects of your civ, even just to make it an advantage over agnostics.

I can see the white hand working well as a defensive religion, with glacier terrain maybe getting a % defense boost and maybe accessing city spells that "blizzard damage" approaching enemy units. It would be nice to see it applicable in some ways to a sidar or khazad leader who needs to "turtle up".

Hmm... I could see that. Would be an interesting way of handling it.

There could be a (non-illian accessible) religious tech that provides access to improvements or a civic that allows glacier tiles to draw level yieldwise with a basic farmed grassland, or a mined grass hill, buildable on glacier terrain.
Either that, or maybe have white hand religious buildings give % bonuses on food and production to make up for lost yields on tiles.

I'd prefer to avoid that, personally. Though the building may work.

Just a few ideas there, sorry for throwing out another wordwall

Not a problem.

This isn't 100% topical, but that reminds me - will it be possible for Hidden Nationale units to be prioritized in the "Go-To Order"?

If they move at the very beginning of the turn, it'll be more effective as it will be more difficult to tell which ones are/aren't obviously human-controlled in MP mode.

Not likely, honestly, as from what I understand each AI operates more or less in turn.

Forts - first, the AI insists on building them close to their cities, which would be a good idea if the AI were competent players with a solid grasp of defensive strategy. As far as I can tell, they can't even use the Fort Commander ranged attack, probably because they don't treat them like Archers.

Second, there's an exploit where you either drop or take a fort right next to their capital, beat them into submission, take all their techs for a peace treaty - and then just relax in your single square of unremovable culture for ten turns before you finish them off. There are plenty of spells you can abuse in the meantime as well, notably Summon Mistform.

The first part will most likely be gone... Believe it's an artifact of the FfH fort placement code, not that of RifE.

And Fort Commanders will be used by the AI for attack purposes.

 

[Milaga]

Could be an interesting change... And INCREDIBLY easy to do, seeing as the bFlying tag is essentially just a group tag for a few others.

Ahhh! b-tags are evil!

If you want to dig down, there are a lot of "legacy" tags that are still in use that maybe should not be. I think there is a bInvisible, and it works, even though there are multiple kinds of invisibility.

TBH I'm planning on removing the Well at some point

I fully support this. It was buildings like this that made health become a non-issue. Not that it is over-powered, but just that it is somewhat meaningless and it's benefits overpowered.

Actually, the Well is the better early game building atm since it's cheaper (30 production can be quite a lot in early game), you don't have access to reagents that early in most games anyway and healer are not only useless in 1.3 but actually bad.

Yeah, but the only time I think I've ever built a well is when I miscalculated the health of a city. If I were off by one, the well would solve the problem.

the ability to build forts with great comanders is totaly broken especially if you play on marathon.

You could argue that the ability to build forts with great commanders is broken regardless of the game speed you play on. But the RiFE team (or maybe it was just Valkrionn while in his God King civic) has said that the game was designed for normal speed. If you see imbalances, it's because you are playing at the wrong speed. Marathon is not supported. But please feel free to change the game to suit your tastes, I'd love to see it. That is what is so great about this game and this mod (and this modmod).

Hillgiants/Minotaurs need to be stupidified a little bit, IMO.

Currently they won't attack unless they think they can genuinely win a skirmish, which leads to them doing "the dance" in your land. This also leads to a mindly amusing "that is BS" moment where you can take a worker out of hiding and they'll immediately start pursuing it...20 tiles away.

The problem is really that the AI is MUCH better with units that have 2 moves than those that only have 1. In vanilla FfH a single lizardman with 4 strength 2 moves is much more effective at hurting my economy than 4 orc axemen with 4 strength 1 move because the unit has a lot more tiles it can threaten. You can always count on a stack of slow melee units to crash against your gates, but those 2 move recon units tie up your workers and are just plain annoying. I love it.

Ok, just played as the illians.. and woah, they're a bit strong

Yeah, they are. But this is a really good report. I wish all bug reports that *I* had to deal with were of this clarity. Please don't stop, it is always better to give more information than not enough.

 

[Valkrionn]

Ahhh! b-tags are evil!

If you want to dig down, there are a lot of "legacy" tags that are still in use that maybe should not be. I think there is a bInvisible, and it works, even though there are multiple kinds of invisibility.

bInvisible is the only legacy one I'm really aware of, honestly. The ones I mentioned all have valid uses individually, bFlying is just a useful construct that activates them all.

You could argue that the ability to build forts with great commanders is broken regardless of the game speed you play on. But the RiFE team (or maybe it was just Valkrionn while in his God King civic) has said that the game was designed for normal speed. If you see imbalances, it's because you are playing at the wrong speed. Marathon is not supported. But please feel free to change the game to suit your tastes, I'd love to see it. That is what is so great about this game and this mod (and this modmod).

Yeah, the mechanic is going to change a bit.

As for balance... It's not that it's designed specifically for normal speed, it's just that that is what the team plays on. That's what we use when play testing. So it is far more likely to have balance issues found for it and fixed.

The problem is really that the AI is MUCH better with units that have 2 moves than those that only have 1. In vanilla FfH a single lizardman with 4 strength 2 moves is much more effective at hurting my economy than 4 orc axemen with 4 strength 1 move because the unit has a lot more tiles it can threaten. You can always count on a stack of slow melee units to crash against your gates, but those 2 move recon units tie up your workers and are just plain annoying. I love it.

Yeah, and it will change. Should either be strong OR fast, not both.

Yeah, they are. But this is a really good report. I wish all bug reports that *I* had to deal with were of this clarity. Please don't stop, it is always better to give more information than not enough.

And I completely agree. Posts like that are always welcome.

 

[EugeneStyles]

Hillgiants/Minotaurs need to be stupidified a little bit, IMO.

Currently they won't attack unless they think they can genuinely win a skirmish, which leads to them doing "the dance" in your land. This also leads to a mindly amusing "that is BS" moment where you can take a worker out of hiding and they'll immediately start pursuing it...20 tiles away.

I definitely agree with stupidifying barbarians. It's one thing if they're aggressive - you hole up in your cities, wait for them to attack, losing some improvements and a few turns, but usually you win because of the defense bonuses in cities. It can be a valid strategic point. If they don't attack your cities, they just sit on your tiles, preventing you from working them, preventing you from sending out units, dooming you to stagnating in your capital. There's often literally nothing you can do except worldbuilder them out of there.

I suppose it will be mitigated by making the barbarian strength scale better, but it's just so annoying to have timid barbarians clogging up my land (especially archers because they're weak enough offensively to not attack, but strong enough defensively they you can't reasonably kill them with warriors).

 

[dunedainjedi]

I definitely agree with stupidifying barbarians. It's one thing if they're aggressive - you hole up in your cities, wait for them to attack, losing some improvements and a few turns, but usually you win because of the defense bonuses in cities. It can be a valid strategic point. If they don't attack your cities, they just sit on your tiles, preventing you from working them, preventing you from sending out units, dooming you to stagnating in your capital. There's often literally nothing you can do except worldbuilder them out of there.

I suppose it will be mitigated by making the barbarian strength scale better, but it's just so annoying to have timid barbarians clogging up my land (especially archers because they're weak enough offensively to not attack, but strong enough defensively they you can't reasonably kill them with warriors).

This is why the AI needs to start actually attacking with ranged units. A few cyclopes aren't a problem with a properly defended capital. One Ogre is completely gamebreaking since it has 6 and won't actually attack.

 

[Sarisin]

One thing I've been noticing in this new version more is I suppose related to the AI tech tree and what they research.

In each of the 4 games I have played to date, three or four of the AI civs seem to have disregarded simple techs that take only a few turns to research in favor of researching techs that take a very long time.

I think we all know that the elves and dwarves research to beeline FOL and ROK religions and if they are in my game, I can count on them getting to these religions before me. This has been around since the very early versions of FFH.

However, in 1.3 of RiFe, I am seeing AI civs get Tier 3 units very early in the game. For example, in my last game the Balseraphs had Mimics, the Elves Longbows, and the Mechanos Handgunners before Turn 200 (normal game speed). Other civs as well as I were just getting Archers, Hunters, and Axemen.

Yet, when you get the popup that shows who is ahead in Research these civs are near the bottom.

I only play at Monarch difficulty and I'm wondering if this is even more pronounced at higher difficulty levels.

I really don't understand how the AI tech trees work with their beelining and such and maybe they are necessary from a programming standpoint. However, IMO it definitely tips the scale balance-wise when you are often finding civs that ignore religious, growth, cultural, etc. techs in favor of just going for techs that make a strong army with advanced units.

In my last game I was creamed by a horde of Balseraph Mimics with iron weapons that I think just showed up way too early in the game.

Or maybe you just have to play the game the same way, by researching techs that take many turns and skipping easier to research techs. I dunno.

 

[Sarisin]

In early versions of FFH there was a Tiger-Spamming problem that was identified and fixed.

I'm seeing that problem again in RiFE 1.3 as civs with FOL spam Priests of Leaves and Tigers. This is true especially of the elves.

Not that Tigers are killer units, but in my last game I killed over 500 and that is a bit much IMO.

 

[Oranos]

In early versions of FFH there was a Tiger-Spamming problem that was identified and fixed.

I'm seeing that problem again in RiFE 1.3 as civs with FOL spam Priests of Leaves and Tigers. This is true especially of the elves.

Not that Tigers are killer units, but in my last game I killed over 500 and that is a bit much IMO.

Tiger's blood for everyone!

 

[Valkrionn]

Well, AI research is being entirely improved by Snarko, so that situation should hopefully not last long.

 

[Till]

I don't think it'd be overpowered if the Sidar hero had enough perception to find his way through mist. Apologies if this has been mentioned already.

 

[Valkrionn]

Yeah, the issue is heroes don't get racials.

It will be fixed.

 

[Evalis]

Yeah, bug. Set the values incorrectly. It should be a lawful evil religion.

What about raitlor? I'm pretty sure she isn't evil, but is set to follow the white hand. Shouldn't this be like octopus overlords? If you are neutral or evil it doesn't change, but if you are good it sets you to neutral.

 

[Valkrionn]

What about raitlor? I'm pretty sure she isn't evil, but is set to follow the white hand. Shouldn't this be like octopus overlords? If you are neutral or evil it doesn't change, but if you are good it sets you to neutral.

That is the intent. If Good, drop to Neutral. If Neutral or Evil, stay the same.

And Raitlor is a tossup between FoL and White Hand, honestly. But if she completes too many Illian rituals, she gains Ice Touched and is locked into the Hand.