Barracks and Heroic Epic

[Ahriman]

What if the Heroic Epic retroactively applies Morale to all units when constructed?

Please no. The whole point of national wonders is supposed to be that they encourage city specialization. You should want the Epic in your unit production city. We lose this if the effect is retrospective and not prospective.

I do think the morale promotion value needs to drop down to at most 15% though.

 

[Tomice]

Tomice, pretty sure it's 20% not 15% right now.

Ok, the larger number gives us more possibilities for finetuning.

What about a 10% morale bonus for all units (old&new, produced everywhere) and 10 addititional XP for new units produced in the heroic epic city?

Since XP can come from various sources, the units produced in other cities would not be permanently "crippled". And there'd still be reason enough to produce most of your units in the HE city. Also, units with 10% more are are easier to destroy for the AI than super-elites with 20% bonus. Finally, the additional barracks wouldn't be pointless any more (since 10 XP is nice to have, but no reason to produce units ONLY in one city).

But again, I'm just throwing random thoughts around here, the national wonder might be fine as it is if a majority thinks so.

 

[agc28]

I believe training is an optional tech? It can be skipped. The only optional tech in the game?

So, in order to get heroic epic, you gotta spend 10 turns to research an optional tech. So it makes sense for it to be overpowered once built.

 

[rtw1323]

Please no. The whole point of national wonders is supposed to be that they encourage city specialization. You should want the Epic in your unit production city. We lose this if the effect is retrospective and not prospective.

I do think the morale promotion value needs to drop down to at most 15% though.

I agree with this. It doesn't feel right to me that units would retroactively benefit from the Heroic Epic. I would also agree with a slight nerf to 15%. In my opinion, the AI still needs all the help it can get in combat against me.

 

[Dunkah]

I would say yes to the morale bonus applied to existing units. However I love the idea of having to have them go to the city that has the HE in it to get the bonus. Posibly even making them Garrison for so many turns. (Training)!

I also don't like the idea of applying the XP bonus to all cities. Only the production city should get that. If you need to build units in multiple cities because of an ongoing unexpected war or something then you just didn't plan all that well.

It would be awesome to put the only 75% of cities need Barracks thing back in. I loved that effect.

 

[Ahriman]

I love the idea of having to have them go to the city that has the HE in it to get the bonus.

The human player would understand how to cycle their entire army through the city to get the bonus; the AI wouldn't.

 

[mystikx21]

I believe training is an optional tech? It can be skipped. The only optional tech in the game?

So, in order to get heroic epic, you gotta spend 10 turns to research an optional tech. So it makes sense for it to be overpowered once built.

It's not supposed to be an optional tech. I'm pretty sure that's a bug in the design right now.

 

[Drakir89]

The human player would understand how to cycle their entire army through the city to get the bonus; the AI wouldn't.

Does the AI even understand to focus military production/rush buys of units to a heroic epic city? I can't even remember seeing AI units with morale.

 

[mystikx21]

I've seen them, but the AI doesn't seem to understand using units in combat so they get killed just about as easily as other units. They're rare as a result.

 

[Stalker0]

I think heroic epic is fine as is, but I would love the 75% rule to put back in place. I hate having to wait on expanding because it will cancel a national wonder I'm building.

 

[Ahriman]

How does rounding work with the 75% rule? If I have 3 cities, do I need 2 barracks or 3? If I have 5 cities do I need 3 barracks or 4?

I have no objection to the 75% rule as long as it rounds up (ie it must be that at least 75% of cities have the building, so 1/1, 2/2, 3/3, 3/4, 4/5, 5/6, 6/7, 6/8, etc.).

 

[mystikx21]

I'm not sure about the rounding issue, but the previous 75% rule in VEM also included the ability to start building it once you could and it only increased the price if more cities were added after rather than stripping away the construction ability. I think you were even able to queue it and have done no work on it first.

 

[Ahriman]

the previous 75% rule in VEM also included the ability to start building it once you could and it only increased the price if more cities were added after rather than stripping away the construction ability.

I don't really like this. A rule should be a rule, you shouldn't be able to get around it by messing with building queues. The AI won't do that.

National wonders are supposed to be hard to get if you have lots of cities, they're one of the balancing factors for tall vs wide.

 

[Thalassicus]

Remember a 10% promotion is actually a 5% increase in combat strength in average situations, since multipliers add instead of multiplying. That's much too small to matter.

The whole point of national wonders is supposed to be that they encourage city specialization. You should want the Epic in your unit production city. We lose this if the effect is retrospective and not prospective.

I believe you misunderstood. We still build it in our unit production city to give the bonus to all future units built in that city. The difference is it also applies the bonus to past units.

 

[mystikx21]

If that's the design, you may be able to wait and build it later in the game like Heidelberg and use it like a nationalism XP bonus for a much larger force. There are incentives against that, but only if the AI really hates you.

 

[Ahriman]

Remember a 10% promotion is actually a 5% increase in combat strength in average situations, since multipliers add instead of multiplying.

The exception is siege units, because of the -50% penalty. Artillery built in the Heroic Epic city with 20% morale promotion can just blow everything away.

The difference is it also applies the bonus to past units.

Why would we want this? That encourages you to delay it, because it gives the bonus to everything you build anywhere in the intervening period. We should never give larger effects from building something later than earlier. The point of Heroic Epic should be to build it in a city where you want to build units, not to build an army and then build the wonder.

And it's already very powerful - too powerful IMO. Why would we want to make it even stronger?

 

[Stalker0]

That encourages you to delay it, because it gives the bonus to everything you build anywhere in the intervening period.

Not that I am onboard with the "give all units the bonus" idea, but the Oxford University is a precedent for it. I often will delay building that to get a sweet tech later on.

 

[Dunkah]

Morale is supposed to be just that... Morale. Any army could have a morale boost at any time. So I am for it. When I was in the miliatary any time they did something like building a monument to fallen heros it was a big morale boost.

By the way what would you gain by delaying the building of the HE? Wouldn't it still be better to build early so that you could get the Morale bonus early? What are you gaining?

 

[Ahriman]

Morale is supposed to be just that... Morale.

I think you're interpreting too literally. It's a gameplay mechanic for giving a military boost for units from a particular city, like the various other national wonders.
It doesn't really matter whether you call it "morale" or "superior equipment" or "war college".

By the way what would you gain by delaying the building of the HE?

By delaying, it gives the bonus to every unit that I build in the intervening period in every city, or ones I acquire through other means (MilCS, barbarian capture, melee ship capture).
If I delay, I can have 3 cities all pumping out units and then they all get the bonus, whereas if I build now only units built in one particular city will get the bonus.

 

[Thalassicus]

I'm always in favor of giving players options for new strategies.