Balance issues & suggestions

[Rosetint]

I'd like to suggest that other civilizations that temporarily acquire Alcinus when he's being crazy, shouldn't be able to cast Create Thaumaturges Keep. It gives them access to up to 2 free mana nodes, plus some really impressive bonuses to Adept xp. Since there isn't really any way of making sure that Alcinus doesn't go to other civilizations, you can't stop it from happening.

 

[Cylnar]

Should be pretty easy to make Thaumaturge's Keep require Scions civ to build (or "The Gift" tech). I've built the TK in two games (as the Amurites and Balseraphs) and while it's a cool feature to just get a free building that provides mana and stuff (even with the health and happiness hits) I suppose it could be considered OP.

 

[Opera]

Okay, so, the Thaumaturge's Keep issue has been fixed in the latest patch(es). Onward to a new subject and I'd need huge feedback here, people! Civics balance!

What are you thoughts on civics balance?

My own opinion is that the combo Aristocracy+Caste System is too powerful right now, giving +2 free specialists, especially since, iirc, Caste System provides unlimited specialists of some kind.

Also, if you feel any civic name is wrong or a new one should be added, or tech prereq changed, or anything, please tell. Your feedback is always good to hear! (or nearly )

 

[readercolin]

Aristocracy + caste system would be fine - if the cottage economy was buffed. As it is right now, it is better to spam farms and use specialists than it is to spam cottages, no matter what tiles your city is on. The big problem here is that farms were buffed to assist with the whole 3 food thing, as were plantations (slightly), but cottages, etc weren't.

Changes I would make. Yggdrasil provides more food (say 6 food base, +3 with FoL, +3 with Commune with nature). Cottages changed to provide +1 food at all levels, increase commerce by 1-2 for villages and towns (best would be increase by 1, and have taxation increase by 2 instead of 1), enclaves provide 3 food and 1 hammer instead of increased commerce. Auls increase either food, hammers, or commerce to remain competative. Plantations provide +2 food instead of +1 (and bananas provide more food than currently), as well as increasing commerce by 1-2.

Alternatively, you can look at it as the cottage economy is fine, and specialist economy is too powerful. I would disagree with you, but if you want to nerf the specialist economy, the best way to do that is to move aristocracy to code of laws (instead of writing, where it is now), and move caste system to a later tech down the line, with emphasis on putting at least 1 tech between it and aristocracy, instead of having writing unlock code of laws. As it is, writing unlocks code of laws, meaning that you get aristocracy and caste system together in short order. I you were to keep aristocracy where it is, or move it to code of laws, and then move caste system to, say, taxation or something, or maybe currency (can't have a caste system without money really), it would significantly reduce the power of that combination.

-Colin

 

[Opera]

Hmm, just realized something. Why does stirrups require archery? It doesn't make any real sense to me, as stirrup aren't exclusively reserved to mounted archery. Furthermore, some units enabled by the tech have nothing to do with mounted archery... like Ogres... Might be better to put the Archery requirement on the units rather than on the tech itself.

 

[Evalis]

Two Balance Issues:

Affinity+Map Size/#of Players

Affinity should scale with map size and # of players. That is.. on a small map, one player might be lucky to get 2 extra mana nodes to strengthen their summons. On a huge map, that same player might be likely to have 5. By the same token, having 20 players instead of 5 means there are that many more potential vassals to horde mana resources from.

Trade Value of Mana Resources

Also.. on that note, mana needs it's value seriously decreased in the eyes of the computer. Any time I ask for a mana resources, they drop my whole table of resources down as the trade (including any extra mana I might have). Seriously, this is silly for the reason that I would certainly give up a mana node for mithril (and the computer should too), and that it can be abused by trading away your excess mana to the computer for everything that they have (see the Aggressive Trading article).


My other ramblings:

Further to the whole mage thing though (which might require it's own thread). I think part of the reason mages aren't used is that their ability to soften defenders has been duplicated in potentially more effective units, such as catapults and archers. On top of this, their summons are highly dependant upon factors having nothing to do with leveling the unit, and if they happen to spend another 3 points into a tree with summons they don't gain any benefit from it (there aren't really enough weaknesses/strengths vs particular elements to justify summoning something different). Balancing this by making the mage gain extra combat prowess just makes them into another direct attack unit that I would argue removes their unique role. What I would suggest doing though, is making summons permanent, and adjusting the mage units to function like commanders (each 3 ranks in a spell tree can let them maintain one more unit), that have their own set of promotions to assist these summons. In the alternative of focusing on summons, mages should be able to select promotions that increase maximum damage of spells, range of spells, and even targeting functions for them (casting lighting on a tile 3 squares away for example). Also.. lower rank spells should scale with higher Ranked casters. So a skeleton cast by a lich might have 10 Str and guardsman instead of 3 Str when cast by an adept. Further.. and one of the biggest concerns.. is that mages should acquire xp from damaging or killing opponents with either thier summons or their spells, so they don't fall behind their 200 xp Mithril Phalanx counterparts. Oh.. and tier 3 creation spell.. clone anyone? ^^;

 

[Master_Hugian]

My other ramblings:

Further to the whole mage thing though (which might require it's own thread). I think part of the reason mages aren't used is that their ability to soften defenders has been duplicated in potentially more effective units, such as catapults and archers. On top of this, their summons are highly dependant upon factors having nothing to do with leveling the unit, and if they happen to spend another 3 points into a tree with summons they don't gain any benefit from it (there aren't really enough weaknesses/strengths vs particular elements to justify summoning something different). Balancing this by making the mage gain extra combat prowess just makes them into another direct attack unit that I would argue removes their unique role. What I would suggest doing though, is making summons permanent, and adjusting the mage units to function like commanders (each 3 ranks in a spell tree can let them maintain one more unit), that have their own set of promotions to assist these summons. In the alternative of focusing on summons, mages should be able to select promotions that increase maximum damage of spells, range of spells, and even targeting functions for them (casting lighting on a tile 3 squares away for example). Also.. lower rank spells should scale with higher Ranked casters. So a skeleton cast by a lich might have 10 Str and guardsman instead of 3 Str when cast by an adept. Further.. and one of the biggest concerns.. is that mages should acquire xp from damaging or killing opponents with either thier summons or their spells, so they don't fall behind their 200 xp Mithril Phalanx counterparts. Oh.. and tier 3 creation spell.. clone anyone? ^^;

I like this idea for making summons permanent, that way when a summon gets experence it doesn't feel like a waste of time selecting the promotions. The summoning trait could also add 1 to the amount of summons a mage can hold.

Other thoughs
Summoning Spells could now take longer to cast (2 or 3 turns) rather than a *poof*, oh look, a balor

To make summons slightly more unique, you could allow the location of the casting to affect the summon.

Examples
Balor: may sacrifice 1 population in a city with a sacrificial alter to give it Burning Blood
(Killing an enemy prevents it from turning barbarian for 5 turns, as does sacrificing a unit, it starts 'sated')

Fire Elemental: When summoned in the Pyre of the Seraphic. they do two extra fire damage. (Or increase collateral damage)

Earth Elemental: When summoned in the Standing Stones they gain the teleportation ability. (Tunneling through the ground)

Spectres/Wraith: When summoned in the Broken Sepulcher the unit starts with cannabalize (Or a new promotions called Terror, has a chance to bypass courage)

Air Elemental: When summoned in the Maelstrom the unit starts with Air II (Thus able to cast the spell Maelstrom)

Water Elemental: When summoned on Aifon Isle, when the unit splits they will start at full health and have half the experience of the main unit. (Perhaps also have a mini water elemental have a chance to turn into a proper elemental after a successful victory, but these won't be empowered by the Aifon Isle)

Ice Elemental: When summoned on Letum Frigus the unit can create a blizzard




A new promotion for summons could be added requiring combat 5 allowing them to free themself from their master allowing more summoned units (perhaps similar to the way freelancer does it)

 

[Plopp]

I really like what Evalis wrote above me here, its spot on. Maybe a sollution to mananodes/mapsize would be to make mana nodes an option next to mapsize option in custom games where you would have a choice from say 0 mana nodes to 20 mana nodes per player in the map. That way you would control the difficulty of obtaining mana and restricting affinity for units in larger maps. I know this would probably destroy the wildmana mod though and force ppl to rewrite it.

I like the mage suggestions alot aswell