Civilization Balance

[leo.]

It's not easy to give a civilization a general balance value, and my ratings are just a feeling about their potential to be more powerful than the others after playing a time.

It would be better to rate certain civilizations with certain parameters.

That would make it much easier to work out their pros and cons and discuss about them.
Would be fun to analyze different aspects of them, to see how people play them and to see how useful the unique features really are.

The other question is, how much balance does FFH really need?
Of course a random generated map is always unbalanced in some way, at least for me, because i like to play on maps with a rich variance, and btw that's what i like on civ4, to make the best of your situation.

Because of some desirable conditions/prerequirements for the civs or religions, i think a game like FFH is especially nice to play on pre-made scenarios or good mapscripts.

 

[WCH]

Finally:
6)
WCH:


As xienwolf mentions it's pretty easy: Assets/XML/Gameinfo/CIV4GameSpeedInfos.xml is the file to change and the tags are obvious. "BuildPercent", "ResearchPercent", etc.

It depends on the map settings, etc., but I found games quickly becoming even more war/rush focused as the build times shortened. Because the advantage of a lead in military tech is magnified, I believe.

Well I didn't mean "how could I mod this myself," more "it'd be cool if there were two (or more) speed sliders instead of just one." And if the speed options were actually on a slider, because sliders are cool.

 

[Slvynn]

True enough. We know that its impossible to make all civs equal in all environments. We could mitigate that with a fixed map, but no one wants to give up all the cool map scripts and options out there.

So I look at the feedback here and looks for trends more than any specific feedback. In aggregate I think the feedback is really good, but dont worry about arguing any particular posters view as we are very conservative in our changes so we dont tend to make large changes unless the evidence is overwheleming (and usually requires the teams personal experience, though we use you guys a lot to tell us where to look).

That said I agree with most of what has been said in general, except for the statement that the clan is weak. I think they are well balanced if not a little overpowered.

in MP they are weak , because their pros can be countered easily, and they are easy to outtech. Who need not promoted tier 1-2 units, when some civs easy get some nationals (Druids for example) or load of mages (Amurites, Chm traits, Arcanes) very early + powerfull heroes. They lose at founding each single religion (i mean not in SP Monarch level, i mean PvP or Deity MP games PvE. Yeah i know their strenghts in SP , but still, in battle against Svalt or Coastal FoL lanun they will lose always (assuming players have same skill). Double Ogres are long way, Riders are cool, but not enough to deal with alot of races counters.
Solution: Our player team suggestion was that getting ablaze forest should take less time (so then they get early adepts that combined with riders can wreac havoc really)

that will not buff rocs while add to them some more usefulness of their unique feature, which is incerdibly fun, shame fires are hard to get and you neeed to wait soooooo long time

 

[Alzara]

Ok!


1) The way you play the game is fine Alzara but your taste in clothes is abominable.

That's just my assumption, btw.

Nice assumption?

What do you think I wear?

Al

 

[hiphopin]

Amurites 9 I love the change to the magic system for the most part, although I do wish there could be a few spell changes, but govanon + every troop with summon skeleton=uber defence and the 4 liches and 4 archamages that you are going to get can rape.

Balseraphs 8 On larger maps gypsey wagons and loki just destroy, loki probablem the most powerful hero for the early game, you can literaly take every city the oponent has if your patient, mutation ftw, hall of mirrors ftw, arena ftw.

Bannor 1 no just kidding 10. Bannor, can to put it shortly, kick your ass in several seconds if you cottage spam, I was at the point where I had 150+ towns playing them so crusade + rally and I wiped out 2 civs and vassalized another one.

Calabim 9 Basicly there vampires are like grigori heroes plus 50 xp. Nuff said.

Clan of embers 7 Very good early rushing with them however golds a big problem, rush for runes though and you should be good.

Dovielo 3 I see no use for them at all when theres the clan, the extra tundra defence is a joke.

Elohim (by the way I use elohim with salsa mod) 8 There unique buildings rock and with the mod there military might is quite strong, easy arse altar victory, and you can EASILY win with just 1 city. Just make sure you get spirit 3 for relations boost, and if the majority of civs are good found empyrean, if not go council since you dont get negative relations on religon. Otherwise overcouncil kicks ass.

Grigori 10 when I played them pre meteor kick. Otherwise 6 mages/liches with twincast combat 5 mobility 2 and spellsticks=64 meteors per 2 turns, which was probably the easiest game I have EVER EVER EEEEEEEEVVVVVVEEEEEERRRRRR had. Glad they nerfed magic, have not played the recently though so dont know yet. score = ?

Hippus 9 Raiders + guild of the nine=not even funny, you just pillage your enemies to nothing use that gold for mercs to defend your newly captured cities and continue. Too easy.

Illians, I actually got to play them because I got a The illian ambassador pleads for your help type event, so I got to play as them. Right now they suck out loud. They look cool though, so just for wilboman and the cool unit graphics I give them..................... score 11.5

Infernal 2 I kick ASSSSSSSSSSSSS with them and for me im very good playing them BUT, you have to use extreme micromanagement with them to use them to there fullest, and while fallow makes it easier to manage cities, I just dont like do have to do it period. other wise score 8

Khazad 10 toooooo much production, lotsa happyness ingenuity+guild of hammers+TONS of gold+runes=Just to damn good.

Kuriotates 7 Have not played them recently but I love there 3 city deal, little micromanagement is awsome. I have fun playing them.
Lanun ? Havent played yet but planning to.

Ljosafar ? Havent played recently and last time I played them I never got to finish the game. However they are a pretty darned good civ from what I can rememeber.

Luchuirp ? Never done more than 100 turns with them but planning on playing soon.

Malakim 8 Fun religous win if you can get all the good and neutral guys overcouncil you pretty much won, just spread your religon and kill all the evil civs with gay ass chalid.

Mercurians ? Havent played a good game with them, the only times I played where when I sucked at FFH, want to play them after I finish my Khazad game.

Sheim 10 if you can turtle till the ac gets really high. 10 If you pyre zombie swamp the world. 10 Period, unless you hate hell in which case I do then they suck. Score 1.

Sidar 9 I can not belive no one (from what I have seen) has said council of esus for sidar O_O are you friggen kidding me, HN shadows get to level six so effing fast, just have a valor mage and you can wane all night long, and it totally screws the AI when attacking your civ if you turn all your troops invisible, they dont know what to do (at least in my experience) Sidar are fun, and really really good.

Svartalfar 10 With concil otherwise very good builder with leaves, just kill the AV founder ASAP. You do NOT want hell, get sanctify adepts otherwise. Hero just rapes, and raider=Fu**loads of gold with gibbon twincasting Mistforms to pillage. All without declaring war, then when the other civ has literally no defence left just declare war and begin the ass rape. Also if you have had a crappy game with them (gasp how can you) just send gibbon to the most powerful civ, impersonate leader and declare war with everyone, change the religon to a crappy one same with civics and move all the troops out of city and produce scouts, so much fun.

Well as you can see I rated all the civs I have played high. I play on prince and have never had a problem with those civs so far, so I guess you just gotta find the best in each civ.
I do need some help, I would like more of a challenge, but not to much, I play vanilla civ (although its been a while) on warlord I just suck at doing noble, but on FFH everything is easier and I just want to ask what you think would be a good difficulty for me, so that I could win, but have a good challenge ( I hate losing) BTW I use small maps most of the time and quick speed, no AI building requirments and the modmod that lets them build mages/archmages and also I have wildlands and living world toggled on. Help

 

[Ecofarm]

It's not easy to give a civilization a general balance value, and my ratings are just a feeling about their potential to be more powerful than the others after playing a time.

Of course. Relativity is unavoidable, between civs, settings and experiences.

It would be better to rate certain civilizations with certain parameters.

As a minimum, I recommend map size and game speed.

---

We all have different favorite and secondary civs, and sometimes try new ones (under the various settings we play). For examples, netcort likes luch and kur, I like svalt and bals, sorc likes lanun and ? Hege ran most, if not all, of the ancient civs for us (hippus, clan, dov, banner)... When you play together, especially when in teams so that you see what the other person is doing (you can look in their cities as well as having their visability etc), and you discuss on chat, well...

That would make it much easier to work out their pros and cons and discuss about them.
Would be fun to analyze different aspects of them, to see how people play them and to see how useful the unique features really are.

Join us, all skill levels welcome (unless you are a double-move warrior-rush ladder obsessive-compulsive... we like tier 3+ units)
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=273686
The learning curve is greatly accelerated when a few people play together.

The other question is, how much balance does FFH really need?
Of course a random generated map is always unbalanced in some way, at least for me, because i like to play on maps with a rich variance, and btw that's what i like on civ4, to make the best of your situation.

I think all starts, even the good ones, require proper adjustment to strat for maximum efficiency. I, as well, see no need for balance. I have no desire to see the warrior/axe or early horse civs be as powerful as civs that use units unique to ffh. People need a place to start when making the adjustment from bts to ffh and civs that focus on the things they know is a nice introduction. Besides, having had my butt kicked by the mundane likes of bannor, elohim and hippus, I see no need to improve them.

Because of some desirable conditions/prerequirements for the civs or religions, i think a game like FFH is especially nice to play on pre-made scenarios or good mapscripts.

Disagree, I don't like to be told what to do. I can create a scenario via RP just fine.

 

[Randolph]

I’m sticking to civs that I’ve played enough to get a good feel for.

Amurites 6 – A strong mid-game with adepts built with enough exp to immediately, or nearly immediately upgrade to mages, and a hero that can give a great boost to your whole army.

Balseraphs 7 – I’m not counting druids because that just seems like an exploit to me, but even without that they have a plethora of great UUs & UBs, and a hero that is borderline exploitive.

Bannor ---

Calabim 7 – Yeah, Vamps come late, but that’s not a huge problem in SP as long as you can play the diplomacy reasonably well. They also don’t have any particular weakness early, and both leaders have nice traits. Excellent hero, and god-like vampiric mages and priests.

Clan of Embers ---
Doviello ---

Elohim 5 – I used to love this civ in .30 and before, but they’ve taken a huge hit: loosing a trait (and a very useful one for them), archmage hero is less useful with the new magic system (that for the record I think is an overall improvement), and less powerful good-aligned priests (no more confessors with circle of flames, or stonewardens with spiritual hammer to buff your monks); on top of that Esus assassins make Colindale very vulnerable. Maybe they were overpowered before, but it’s just painful to play them now with my memories of what they used to be capable of.

Grigori 4 – I really tried to get into the Grigori, as I love their back story, but the lack of religious happiness bonuses alone makes them highly depended on resources that are often simply not accessible. Their adventurers make up for the military strength of religion, but I for one can’t seem to make up for the economic costs (happiness, shrines, culture, etc).

Hippus 8 – My games playing Hippus has given me a new appreciation of the power of mounted units for all civs, but no one can do it like Hippus. The power here is pretty obvious.

Illians ---
Infernal ---

Khazad 7 – Khazad is a civ that just works a lot better than it looks like it would on paper. High production means you can build every economic building. You need hills though, it would be great if dwarves could mine other terrain (they do/did live underground), although the probably don’t need the boost. Their biggest downside is their mid-late crap-tastic hero that is more useful as a martyr than a soldier. While they may not need a power boost, there really should be a baseline for Heroes, Maros is barely more useful than a champion with the hero promotion (same tech). He should at least be given some moderately useful gimmick to spice him up a bit.

Kuriotates 5 – These guys have really been paned in this thread, I agree with some of it, but you can get some good synergy out of city specialization with wonders and great people. They are quite dependent on starting terrain, as military expansion quickly becomes impractical (once you’ve founded all your cities).

Lanun 6-8 - They do what they do, obviously dependent on map type and starting spot.

Ljosalfar 7 – It may be a pain to get that forest kingdom up and running, but when you do it’s both an economic powerhouse, and an impregnable fortress. They are extremely dependent on incense.

Luchuirp ---
Malakim ---
Mercurians ---

Sheaim 8 – Ritualists still get circle of flames right, I haven’t played Sheaim recently? I actually don’t quite remember why I deemed them to be super powerful, but I certainly remember coming to that conclusion.

Sidar 4 – When I first read about Sidar in the run-up to shadow I was thrilled, but come to find the manes business more annoying than useful. Milking barbs and enemies for exp is already probably too powerful a military strategy, it just seems like to much to make it an economic strategy also. So my ranking may be biased by the fact that I’m not a fan of the primary mechanic. It was a great and inspired idea, but it just doesn’t work in an enjoyable way right now, at least for me.

Svartalfar 7 – While sometimes when I switch between the dark and light elves I’m reminded of that song, “everything you can do I can do better,” the primary thing that makes them rock is the same: building in forests / FoL synergy. I do think I prefer the Svartalfar in UUs, UBs, hero, & traits, so maybe some balancing is in order. The point about Hell terrain is well taken, but I don’t think it outweighs everything else.

[edit] Since there has been quite a bit of talk about settings I thought I'd add that I tend to play:
Emperor
Highlands/panagea (treat highlands as one map size larger for # of civs)
normal or epic speed
~9 civs on standard maps, ~12 civs on large, and 16-19 on huge (more than default).
Agressive AI/no building reqs/no tech brokering
I play around with other settings like advanced start, blessing, raging barbs, etc, but the three above are always on.

 

[WCH]

Have entered all scores up to this point into spreadsheet. Have not yet corrected the math to calculate current order of winners, will edit this post shortly with that list.

More, please. We have 19 at the moment -- that's pretty decent, except that not everyone voted for every civ (which is expected and totally cool, btw), so most civs actually have less than 19 votes. More the merrier.

Remember, it's all about intersubjectivity. All I care about is your individual experience. Which have you found to be more useful, and how much more? The more votes, the more consensus emerges.

Just a request... if you feel like giving more than one score, that's fine, but I can't enter more than one score under your name for one civ. I also don't look at the text of your post when entering data, so please put the number you want me to use right after the name of the civ, with any explanation after that. Not half way through the text, or at the end of the text. Worse, a couple people have one number at the start of the text and another at the end, how am I supposed to know which you want me to use for you? Put the one you want on the left. Thank you.

Okay, the list as it currently stands, number to the right is change since last list:
1 Luchuirp =
2 Calabim +3
3 Sheim =
4 Svartalfar =
5 Ljosalfar -3
6 Balseraphs +1
7 Hippus -1
8 Amurites +1
9 Lanun -1
10 Khazad +5
11 Clan of Embers -1
12 Sidar -1
13 Bannor +1
14 Grigori -2
15 Malakim +2
16 Infernal -3
17 Elohim -1
18 Mercurians +3
19 Kuriotates -1
20 Illians =
21 Doviello -2
Checksum: 0. Hurray for no mistakes!

So, huge gains for Khazad and Calabim, losses for Ljosalfar and Infernals. Others stayed pretty much constant.

More please.

 

[kobo1d]

Here's an idea: Instead of just ranking them in order, you could also list the average value people rated them at. I think that would be useful too so you could see if there was any kind of tier structure, where the bottom member of one group is significantly above the top of the next, etc.

Good work so far though!

 

[WCH]

When I'm satisfied that I've got enough submissions/don't expect any more I'll be running a lot more math on it. I figure, they made me take those courses on statistical analysis, I might as well put it to some use, right? And when I'm finished with that, I'll post the spreadsheet itself.

I can tell you that right now there really isn't much in the way of tiers. The first 17 is a fairly smooth progression... Amurites, Khazad, Lanun and the Clan are fairly bunched, but there's no jump on either side of the bunch. The only large jump in the means is between Elohim and Mercurians... essentially, Mercurians, Kuriotates, Illians and Doviello are in a whole separate category of suck, with everyone else being in a pretty smooth distribution. So though Elohim is the worst of those not in that "utter suck" category, they're not all that close to those.

Btw, the net mean for all scores is 6.32.

 

[Fenboy]

Pretty much what the forums have been complaining about in the last few months then

It seems that the other benefits of playing Amurites (firebows, etc.) balance out the current suckiness of their worldspell. Mercurians and Kurios will get a major boost in 0.32, and Illians aren't due for full development until Ice. That leaves the Doviello, who were summed up nicely once as "Clan without warrens". They're good for early-game rushes, but then so are the Hippus. It'll be interesting to see how Lucian effects this, with the Doviello's metaphorical eggs all in one basket.

 

[Tiranasta]

Amurites - Never used.
Balseraphs - 6.
Bannor - 5.
Calabim - 8.
Clan of Embers - 7.
Doviello - 5.
Elohim - 4.
Grigori - 8
Hippus - 6
Illians - 3 (WHY are they my favourite??!! ).
Infernal - 6 (1-4 if they spawn in a useless location).
Khazad - Never played.
Kuriotates - 9 (some say the lack of cities is bad, but the most cities I've ever built in any game is about five anyway. I hate having lots of cities).
Lanun - 5 (10 on a highly water based map).
Ljosalfar - 6.
Luchuirp - Never played.
Malakim - 5.
Mercurians - 6.
Sheaim - 8.
Sidar - 6.
Svartalfar - 6.

Note that my obsessive compulsive habits cause me to use some rather unsound strategies, which may be a factor in my ratings. It should also be noted that the 3/10 I gave the Illians was an average for the game, while I find them to be around 8-9/10 in the early game. Charismatic leader + Illian Palace is a DEADLY combination for the early game, while in the late game, obviously, the agnostic trait without the bonuses that the Grigori have makes him severely underpowered.

 

[onedreamer]

Well I was thinking SP in the hands of the player. Either/both would be nice, but I understand that there are enough differences in play for that not to be possible. I'll edit it in.

You should evaluate it only in the hands of the AI instead. How much a human player can exploit a civ is totally subjective, and since you are evaluating SP not MP, you should look at what the player is playing against (ie the AI).

 

[WCH]

You should evaluate it only in the hands of the AI instead. How much a human player can exploit a civ is totally subjective, and since you are evaluating SP not MP, you should look at what the player is playing against (ie the AI).

No.

1) That it's subjective is in no way a bad thing.
2) Doing it for the AI instead would also be subjective, in terms of your individual perception of that AI's power.
3) The AI doesn't know how to use most of the individual civs powers.
4) No. Just, no.

 

[Randolph]

For AI power it would probably be better to just to a buch of tests running the AIs against each other. I'm sure the team will be doing stuff like that when they are working on the AI in the "ice" phase.

 

[Ecofarm]

You mean like this?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=275069

 

[WCH]

*bump*

Anyone else?

and... anyone want to revise their scores in light of the new patch? Maybe I should wait until a week or two after 0.32's release to give time to change scores, before tabulating final results?

(Kuriotates, I'm looking at you here)

 

[Ecofarm]

*bump*

Anyone else?

and... anyone want to revise their scores in light of the new patch? Maybe I should wait until a week or two after 0.32's release to give time to change scores, before tabulating final results?

(Kuriotates, I'm looking at you here)

I'm lowering Kuriotates a point or 2! I've been playing them the last couple weeks, in anticipation of them becoming a tier 1 civ and, I must say, they are rather gimpy. They must wander all over the tech tree and I generally end with hunters or rangers, assassins or centaur archers and one tier 4 unit (generally tower of divination for arches, but lame nature druids are possible if you switch aligns nature druids are not worth changing aligns).

Kuriotates -2 (gimpier than expected upon extended play), Clan -1 (fire is almost impossible to start early and can be put out easily). Clan almost loses 2 points because I'm so dissapointed by the inability to use fire really. There was a time when I thought I could make hellfire for my fire-proof troops. How naive I was.


.02

 

[Monkeyfinger]

You do realize the Kuriotates are getting buffed in the upcoming patch, right? +3 happiness in all cities and an extra cottage stage (post-town) that provides an extra food.

 

[Nimbus]

You do realize the Kuriotates are getting buffed in the upcoming patch, right? +3 happiness in all cities and an extra cottage stage (post-town) that provides an extra food.

Unfortunately, this still does not do anything for my biggest gripe with them, and that is that on a huge map, 5 cities + settlements just isn't enough to let them ever be anything more than an early to early/mid-game power that peters-out mid to late/mid-game. Worse, the AI builds its 5 cities with way too much overlapping of fat-crosses so it never really gets the benefit of that 3rd ring either.