balance issues (not bugs)

[Azhral]

A weird little thing in a recent game. Perhaps more a bug tbh. Anywho, the Gao Lun legion consisting of one cavalry advanced on a city. Next turn, right outside the city, the legion disbanded. I attacked, won and captured Gao Lun right away.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Maybe the automatic legion disbanding should be disabled while at war. Double negative, sorry.

 

[Azhral]

Theres automatic disbanding? Why?

The main thing was I couldn't beat the unit while it was in the legion, but was easy pickings one it had left.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Auto disbanding because if not the AI keeps the same units in the legion (presumably). Which shouldn't be a problem usually if they upgrade them, but maybe they won't add new legion members if the old ones die.

 

[Azhral]

Also is there a reason there is no hero that can upgrade to S in mounted units?
What does the S stand for by the way?

 

[stmartin]

the reason for auto disbanding is, to regroup legion to suit the current situation.

However, in most cases, the AI will reform legion right away, in the same turn.

The situation you mentioned will only happen when the AI changes its area strategy, which will happen extremely rarely when the AI is fighting a war at the moment.

S is a convention. I don't know what it mean.

S is not used simply because no one deserves it right now. Those great cavalry commanders are not in the game in the current release.

 

[Azhral]

Yea, I noticed that. Most of the cavalry generals are in place as leaders. I'm trying to remember some more generals, but its been so long since I read the book. Didn't Zhuge Liang's wife lead cavalry in Lui Bei's campaign against the Nan Man? Then again, that never actually happened, did it? Also didn't Guan Ping command cavalry too?
I suppose in a pinch Zhang Fei would be considered a cavalry commander. And Zhou Yun.
Shows how much I know about the other factions doesn't it .

 

[Shiggs713]

I don't know how accurate this is (I've heard everything about China on wiki is wrong) but it seems like a fairly nice list;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personages_of_the_Three_Kingdoms

edit: heres another that I found linked up to wiki as their reference, its even better http://kongming.net/encyclopedia/

 

[admtanaka]

Why not make Ma Chao a general and not a leader? Most of his life was in service of others.

 

[Azhral]

Yea, was a bit surprised to find Ma Chao as a leader.

Just had an idea. In the scenario, since all the leaders are set, how about make some new Legion/heroes out of the Leaders that aren't used, and make them availible only in the Scenario. So Zhuge Liang, Sima Yi, Zhou Yu, Ma Chao and perhaps some others running around as Legions instead of unused leaders.

 

[Kalimakhus]

Why can't leaders themselves be represented by heroes in the game. So in case they are killed you get a new leader with different traits besides having your empire fall into time of strife and rebellion? Whatever cities that can be liberated will join their preferred civ. A captured AI leader would be forced to capitulate and join the victorious as a normal hero. A human player would simply lose the game.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

That's a good idea: Lu Bu, hero with 4 strength but 50% chance of defection each time he attacks.
Yuan Shu: hero with -1 strength.

 

[Azhral]

FFH has a system where certain heroes who are also the leaders of their respective civs, when they get killed the civ loses its leader traits. A similar system could be implemented here, but after a few turns of having no traits, a new leader is selected (by the player, or the best unit the AI has) and a new set of traits are granted due to having a new leader. Would also allow the player to mix and match leaders for certain situations, but of course having a period of unrest or somesuch while changing leaders. As for the scenario, the AI leaders could change at certain points in the timeline. Also, would be nice if leaders special traits are granted to units in their legion (e.g. any Mounted units Ma Chao is with over level 6 get blitz, not every cavalry unit. Same with Sima Yi's and Zhou Yu's trait.)

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Yue Yang Tower seems to be too early, and only the largest cities can build it. (Cao Cao's great engineers can build it in 1 move, but others usually need an additional 5-6 moves after that because it's kinda expensive) Traditional schools are not available until the very end of the tech tree and give such a massive boost in research, and probably shouldn't be available until the tech is researched.

So can I suggest making it a little cheaper for the other civs to be able to build it more often, and instead of traditional schools it gives free official schools instead. On the other hand, if Encyclopedia can be moved earlier so that traditional schools can be built earlier that would make it more useful. (who needs future techs anyway? Maybe the 10th future tech should allow a spaceship. )

 

[Shiggs713]

I agree that Traditional schools come entirely too late. The last game I finished, I didn't even bother building them, cause I was like 5 turns away from completing the tech tree when I finally unlocked them.

Same with the elite pikemen, they came like 50 turns after nearly everybody had knights, and even still 1 vs 1 they will get slaughtered vs knights, or virtually any unit for that matter.

Also I think the "Formation" promotion should be available after combat 1, instead of combat 2. All these cavalry units are already intentionally overpowered it seems, it would help to be able to combat that without having several elite units with multiple promotions.

its not that big of deal, but the things I mentioned I think are slightly out of balance

 

[AnotherPacifist]

The implementation of halberdier/spearmen/pikemen in this mod seems to be purely defensive (except for the Qiang people). Maybe Elite Pikemen should be allowed to have an offensive bonus also and make the tech come earlier.

Swordsmen are way overpowered in this mod, whether we're talking about Xiandeng/Wuwei/Tiger or Daodun. I build them straight and don't bother with the axes or even horses (now the they are more expensive without a horse around). Maybe their attack should be lessened or the axes should be more powerful.

While we're on the subject of techs, Star Cartography is entirely useless (there's no freaking ocean! at least not that we need to venture out that far) and I never research it. Maybe make the Yu Gong Map available with Star Cartography instead of Improved Cartography.

And Imperial Academy should be moved way sooner to allow Bureaucracy for smaller civs.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Another pet peeve of my is the uselessness of forest preserves and lumber mills. China still has a lot of forests left but the first thing I do is chop them, because lumbermills only give 1+ hammer (as opposed to the various bonuses with the other improvements) and there are no railroads to give them more hammers. Can we give lumbermills an extra hammer or gold and include them in the bonuses with rank classification or land-preoccupied?

Forest preserves I just never build because I just dial up the culture, and there's no equivalent of National Parks in this mod which would allow free specialists (instead you have them with Chu Shi Biao with mines).

 

[xxhe]

Another pet peeve of my is the uselessness of forest preserves and lumber mills. China still has a lot of forests left but the first thing I do is chop them, because lumbermills only give 1+ hammer (as opposed to the various bonuses with the other improvements) and there are no railroads to give them more hammers. Can we give lumbermills an extra hammer or gold and include them in the bonuses with rank classification or land-preoccupied?

Forest preserves I just never build because I just dial up the culture, and there's no equivalent of National Parks in this mod which would allow free specialists (instead you have them with Chu Shi Biao with mines).

Yes I agree with you that forest is kind of useless in this mod, since ancient people were not aware of the danger of environment pollution

But to the game-balancing issue, I agree that lumbermills and forest preserves need a buff. Maybe lumbermills get 1 eatra hammer with Post Road and Forest preserves some commerce and/or happiness with Daoism Civic?

 

[AnotherPacifist]

So 1+ hammer with post road still gives you only 3-4 hammers max (depending on plains or grassland), whereas with a workshop you can max out at 5-6 hammers, and a mine can have 5-6 hammers at the very least. I say give the lumbermill 2 hammers to start (so makes it 3 or 4 hammers with the base 1 hammer from the tree) and extra hammer after postroad, so that it's at least equivalent to a mine.

Don't need more happiness, but I would give more commerce (maybe 2 or 3 gold, as much as a watermill) to forest preserves.

 

[Azhral]

Yea, Lumbermills provide less hammers, but generally they provide more food than mines (certainly more than workshops) as well as health. +1 from Post Road would be fine. Another gold also wouldn't go astray, perhaps coming in at Ranking Classification.

As for the techs, most of the ones useless in the scenario are pretty vital in normal games.