Balancing Feedback

[Ahriman]

My point is that the earliest magic that the elves get (at, say, 100 turns into the game) should not be as powerful as the earliest magic other races get (eg after researching education, building 4 univiersities and a very expensive College wonder, 250 turns into the game). 250 turns in, elves will have tier2 spellcasters while other races are just getting their first tier1 magic available. So, elf tier 1 needs to be less powerful than other race tier1 since it comes earlier, while its fine for elf tier2 to be more powerful than other race tier1. So at 100 turns in, Elves have some useful magic while other races have none, and 250 turns in elves have better magic than other races have at that stage in the game, but elf magic 100 turns in shouldn't be as powerful as magic with much higher tech costs.

 

[rocklikeafool]

I'm aware of your point. But I disagree based on the historical accuracy required by the armybooks. So, I think it should stay the same. You think it should be different.

 

[Ahriman]

How exactly you translate tabletop rules into Civ though leaves a lot of room for judgement calls. So, ok, you want Dark Elves to have a DoomBolt at level 1, and to have access to this long before most races have any magic. Fine. But the Warhammer Rulebook doesn't say whether say DoomBolt needs to be strength 5, or whether it could be strength 4 or strength 3, and whether or not it needs to do collateral damage to be able to hit multiple regiments of soldiers at once.

You can be completely consistent with game rulebooks *and* create a balanced game; there is no contradiction here.

 

[rocklikeafool]

Airight. That makes sense. It could be like Str 4 (or even 3). But I don't think it should be any less than that, due to the fact that the DEs are close to the Chaos Wastes. If it was any less than 3 or 4 str, there'd be no DEs. Especially since the DEs have virtually no one to trade techs with for half the game.

So, can we comprise on 3 or 4 Str for Doombolt?

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

i wonder if its possible to make spell summon units get stronger with different techs... so doombolt would get +1 strength with the tech that Old worlders get their magiac?

 

[Ahriman]

Don't see why not. Think of the Tower of Elements that gives +1 strength to elemental summons; so you could create a cheap wonder with the high tech requirement that boosts magic strength. Or you could give the units affinity to some particular resource that was generated by the relevant palace with a late game tech.
Thats actually a pretty good idea for scaling the power of a lot of magic. You could do similar things with chaos magic; higher levels of chaos magic boost the strength of chaos units (chaos incursion, end times).

 

[rocklikeafool]

Yeah, it should be doable. Then, doombolt can start out at like 2 and go back up to 5 and maybe beyond to like 6 or 7. That'd be cool and balance it out a lot.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

yes...... potential indeed ploep what do you think. i think this is a necessary thing to tackel for balancing, and it should be fairly simple and with a lot of benefit to balance.

 

[Ahriman]

It would be even better if this could somehow be expanded to non-summons. One of the biggest balance problems with spells are the area-effect and stack damage spells; the level 1 stack damage spells (like the offensive version of treesinging, chillwind, etc) are far more powerful than most other spells. It would be great if they could start with a damage cap of ~20% and then gradually move up to 30% and 40% with further techs - or with channeling 2 and channeling 3.
It also might be worth thinking about having some of these spells start at range 1 and then extending to range 2.

 

[Ploeperpengel]

yes...... potential indeed ploep what do you think. i think this is a necessary thing to tackel for balancing, and it should be fairly simple and with a lot of benefit to balance.

Gimme some time to think about how to implement something like that. It's definitly a good idea. I probably won't copy the FFH mechanic 1:1.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

It would be even better if this could somehow be expanded to non-summons. One of the biggest balance problems with spells are the area-effect and stack damage spells; the level 1 stack damage spells (like the offensive version of treesinging, chillwind, etc) are far more powerful than most other spells. It would be great if they could start with a damage cap of ~20% and then gradually move up to 30% and 40% with further techs - or with channeling 2 and channeling 3.
It also might be worth thinking about having some of these spells start at range 1 and then extending to range 2.

Well those spell damages are easy to scale using promotions. havign a promotion chain that adds +10% spell damage at each level (sepparate to combat promos), and another that adds +1 range to spells would be simple.

 

[Ploeperpengel]

Well those spell damages are easy to scale using promotions. havign a promotion chain that adds +10% spell damage at each level (sepparate to combat promos), and another that adds +1 range to spells would be simple.

spelldamage in xml doesn't have any effect on hardcoded spelldamage in python.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

......... so then what does the additional spell damage tag in the promotions xml do?

 

[Ploeperpengel]

......... so then what does the additional spell damage tag in the promotions xml do?

it affects spell damage of those spells which are set up in xml I'd guess.

 

[rocklikeafool]

That'd make sense, don't ya think? Plus, imho, it's easier to edit things in XML.

 

[Ahriman]

Just thought of a two-birds-one-stone idea.
Give recon line units (hunters, rangers) a 50% bonus vs bestial units.
Thus, there is *some* counter at least to a troll-rush. Otherwise there is nothing that early in the game that can deal with 7 strength trolls, and recon units are completely useless.
*Edit*
Also, take away their metals affinity, boost their strength, but have them stay with wartattoo affinity. I like the idea of wartats, and it would be nice to see it in use beyond getting your first metal mine.

I also really dislike the goblin weakness vs elves promotion and the elf resistance to death damage.
Why should Elves automatically get a bonus vs greenskin and undead factions?

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

goblins have no back bone and are terrified of elves, and elves are immortal and can only be killed through natural means.

 

[Ahriman]

Game balance/playability > fluff, and fun >>> fluff. Its no fun for your units to just be useless against a particular foe for somewhat arbitrary reasons.

I'm sure goblins would be terrified of undead hordes, musketeers, heavy knights charging them and monstrous chaos beasts too - but they don't suffer any extra penalty against those units. If you want to represent their cowardice, why don't you keep them low strength units, but add a singificant withdrawal chance, particularly defensive withdrawal. Or create an ability that prevents them from attacking x% of the time (they auto-withdraw), like units trying to attack a dragon or one of the 4 horsemen in FFH.
Arguably though, a goblin regiment in the civ game represents many many goblins - more than are present in a regiment for other races.
And arguably zombies are still mostly tearing you limb from limb and skeletal swordsmen are stabbing you - I don't see how being long-lived somehow makes you massively more resistant to either of these. If you want to represent their health somehow, why don't you make them immune to disease.

 

[frenzyslave]

Gobbos are terrified of elves, as PL said. But then again, gobbos have squigs (squigs dont fear elves). And squigs on a rampage eat everything in their path, including greenskins. Then there is the fanatics, etc. There are other ways around it, as even Grom the Paunch (Gobbo Warboss) invaded and torched some of Ulthuan in 2424.

Instead of instilling fear (which is too overpowering, and gobbos only fear elves if they dont outnumber them by 2/1) maybe -20% strength instead vs elves? And reduce their melee strength and cost perhaps?

What constitutes death damage? To me its about your wounds atrophying, your heart stoping due to immense stress, etc as most of the damage would come from shock. Not necessarily disease.

 

[Ahriman]

Death damage comes primarily as part of the strength from undead units. Eg; zombies that are strength 4+2 death are 6 strength vs most units, but are only 5 strength against units with 50% death resistance.
Similarly, skeletons that are strength 3+1 death are strength 4 vs most units, but only strength 3.5 vs units with 50% death damage.

This is actually worse than it seems, since all the promotions are based off the base strength.
So, a zombie with combat 4 is strength 8.4 vs most units, but only strength 7 vs death resistant units.

Why should elves be resistant to having their arms ripped off?

Part of the fears elves problem is that the greenskin spearmen are gobbos, so you're taking an entire unit class and making it very weak, so orcs will really struggle against elven cavalry.