Do you think that there should be a better balance among civics?

[marioflag]

I think that civics really need more balancement, there are some civics which are too strong and other ones which are too weak. It really restrict gameplay making the choice of the civic less interesting.

Among Government Civics, City States is the best choice nearly in any situation so you can stick with that civic all the game as soon as you research education.
This civic really needs a nerf to its mainteinance cost reduction effects, or should have more disadvantages so that its choice is not so obvious.
Among the Labor Civics, Apprenticeship need some boost, compared to the other alternatives +2 experience points for units and -10% military production, doesn't make it interesting.
Slavery perhaps could get the same effect introduced in BtS, the slave revolts which create anarchy in the capital.

Compassion civics seems to me a bit uninteresting, there is not a great difference among Fend for themselves, Basic Care and Protect the meek.

Guardian of Nature and Sacrifice of the Weak even if are religion specific civics are too much overpowered.
Sacrifice of the Weak is also in the Compassion civic where there aren't interesting civics, so there isn't a real choice for an Ashen Veil player.

Even if some civics require a later tech or have stricter requirements, for the sake of balance they shouldn't be the best choice in any situation because it just limits gameplay.

 

[Ahriman]

Agree that there are some civic imbalances, disagree with some of your comments.
Apprenticeship is great, +2 XP means level 2 rather than level 1, which is a 20% combat strength difference.
The high-end compassion civics aren't worth their upkeep costs, and many of the High Upkeep civics aren't really worth their upkeep costs either (scholarship).
Given how nasty WW is and how impossible a cultural victory is, Liberty is pretty awful.
Aristocracy is awful; you can do better with a mix of farms and cottages.

Part of the problem is just how amazing Agriculture is; I stay in this almost always except for Elves or Lanun.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I don't agree that there are such clear winners in the government and labor categories. I find myself using GodKing a lot, helps with wonders and expensive buildings.
And I value +XP civics theocracy and apprenticeship, and lately even conquest, since promotions are so valuable.
Saccrifice the weak is intended to be a counter to the drawbacks of hell terrain spreading and the lack of health that usually brings.

 

[MetalMilitia-]

Guardian of Nature and Sacrifice of the Weak even if are religion specific civics are too much overpowered.
Sacrifice of the Weak is also in the Compassion civic where there aren't interesting civics, so there isn't a real choice for an Ashen Veil player.

In this particular case, why would you be nice to your people if you are evil? "Join us in hell!! we have a caring and affordable healthcare plan! wait what?"

You cannot compare civics that are specific to a religion to other civics in the same group, ofc you would want to prefer that civic over the others otherwise what would the point be in having religion specific civics?

On apprenticeship id say that for an early civics it is quite decent, you get 2 xp per unit which will get you combat1. Effectively thats aggresive trait.

 

[Vehem]

Saccrifice the weak is intended to be a counter to the drawbacks of hell terrain spreading and the lack of health that usually brings.

One thing I did implement in another mod I was working on was the ability to set decimal amounts of food required per citizen. As the mod was based on a post-apocalyptic setting, starting civs used "Survival" as their "Focus" civic - the effects of which included 1 food per citizen. Later on they could adopt "Control" or "Civilization" which required 1.5 and 2 food per citizen respectively.

The 1.5 food option might actually work well for Sacrifice the Weak as well - it basically worked as follows

Population	Food Required (1.5)
    1		      2
    2	              3
    3		      5
    4                6
    5                8
    6                9
   etc...

It pretty much provides the buffer against the effects of hell terrain without encouraging the use of Sacrifice the Weak as a "first choice" civic for anyone regardless of Hell Terrain. I know that I personally have used Ashen Veil and StW for a short period of time when playing Calabim to feed the initial Vampires quickly, then switch to Order shortly after to avoid the Hell Terrain effects. Seems very "gamey", but it's a very powerful tactic because of the potency of StW to non-hellterrained civs.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

That's neat. Have you made this change in FF? I'm not sure if it is overpowered now or not, personally, though it is very strong.

 

[marioflag]

I find that City States is the only civic you can use when you have to mantain a large empire, it is also a really early civic considered the prerequisite is Education and it's low upkeep.
I agree that God King is not bad but you have also to consider that this civic has High Upkeep unlike City States.I find it more useful than City States in the rare situation when your capital has also the shrine of one of the religions.
About Apprenticeship i don't agree, it's true that your units begin at level 2 instead of 1 but it's also true that in FfH2 you get experience a lot more easily than in Vanilla, infact you can go to level 2 with a single fight.

The problem with Sacrifice the Weak in my opinion is mostly because its alternatives are so weak.The fact that Sacrifice of the Weak is a counter to hell terrain make its choice even more important, so an Ashen Veil player has no reason to choose another compassion civic, because they are worse in any situation.A good balance among compassion civic require that at least all civics can be useful in a particular situation but it doesn't happen because as i said before Sacrifice of the Weak is just better.

About Guardian of Nature i played my last game as Ljosalfar and that civic just won the game for me, it was like having a Globe Theater in every city which simply dismissed any chance to change that civic.

 

[cabbagemeister]

About Apprenticeship i don't agree, it's true that your units begin at level 2 instead of 1 but it's also true that in FfH2 you get experience a lot more easily than in Vanilla, infact you can go to level 2 with a single fight.

Hmmm, that's a really good point. In Vanilla the wartime civics gave +2xp, and that could win a war for you when your units were level 3 and your opponent's units were all level 2. But in FFH2 where the bulk of my army is running around with 25+xp, 2xp is not very attractive. I think these xp-oriented civics would start to get powerful if they gave +8 or +10 xp instead of 2.

 

[Vehem]

That's neat. Have you made this change in FF? I'm not sure if it is overpowered now or not, personally, though it is very strong.

After posting I pretty much decided that I would add it in and see how it plays. I'd had the code for a while, but as it was for a different project altogether I'd never really considered using it here.

 

[MetalMilitia-]

Hmmm, that's a really good point. In Vanilla the wartime civics gave +2xp, and that could win a war for you when your units were level 3 and your opponent's units were all level 2. But in FFH2 where the bulk of my army is running around with 25+xp, 2xp is not very attractive. I think these xp-oriented civics would start to get powerful if they gave +8 or +10 xp instead of 2.

Oh sure +8 or +10 on all units built including spellcasters(!). Come on, that would be nuts, you could upgrade adepts instantly to mages. And on the subject of spellcasters, if i was building a caster army, id use apprenticeship as it is. XP for your casters is awesome even if it is only +2.

 

[hbar]

I'd like it if some civics had more non-traditional effects (although I doubt they'd be implementable).

For example:
-Public Healers would have a chance of converting any wounded enemy (and/or allied?) unit in your culture.
-Protect the Meek would randomly grant the Guardsman promo to units built
-City States would greatly increase the chances of the Minister Koun event and make revolts more likely (City states isn't overpowered, it just doesn't have any drawbacks)
-Mercantilism would increase the yield of blockades
-Liberty would have a chance of 'stealing' neighboring civ's slaves and turn them into workers

Like I said, probably not possible to do most of these, but I think there is a real opportunity to give some of the underused civics some powerful, nontraditional effects.

 

[cabbagemeister]

Oh sure +8 or +10 on all units built including spellcasters(!). Come on, that would be nuts, you could upgrade adepts instantly to mages. And on the subject of spellcasters, if i was building a caster army, id use apprenticeship as it is. XP for your casters is awesome even if it is only +2.

Yes, very good point. I forgot about how powerful that would be for arcane and disciple units.

 

[Mailbox]

Remember that just + 2 xp for an aggressive civ means their troops are 60% better (Shock I).

 

[xienwolf]

More than the arcane would be the Sidar. You can already push the envelope for building instant Shades.

The ideas for the Civics from hbar are interesting. Some not quite proper (instantly converting wounded units is a tad harsh on the opposition. What if their hero is at 98% health after hitting one of your warriors?), but others quite interesting. All quite possible, though at this point I am unwilling to believe anything isn't possible, the only question is how annoying would it be to train the AI, and how broken would it be not to.

 

[hbar]

More than the arcane would be the Sidar. You can already push the envelope for building instant Shades.

The ideas for the Civics from hbar are interesting. Some not quite proper (instantly converting wounded units is a tad harsh on the opposition. What if their hero is at 98% health after hitting one of your warriors?), but others quite interesting. All quite possible, though at this point I am unwilling to believe anything isn't possible, the only question is how annoying would it be to train the AI, and how broken would it be not to.

Yeah, a lot of these were top of the head sort of things. Regarding unit conversion, I would think that there would have to be a formula taking unit strength, damage (I think a minimum of 70% damage would be fair), no conversion for heroes (exampt national units as well?), must be isAlive(), loyalty promo would block it, etc. into account. Perhaps something like:

chanceToConvert = %damage * max( (15 - strength)/30, 0)

so a 3 strength warrior at 90% damage would have a 90*12/20 = 54% chance of converting, but a 10 strength mithril champion at 90% damage would have 90*5/20=22.5%. Of course, this is open to balance suggestions, etc.

What I'd really like to see is more suggestions along these lines, with everyone contributing creative enhancements to the civics you never play.

 

[daladinn]

the problem stems from the decision to upgrade the AI.

once they started working on improving things they AI would understand and cutting the things it would not alot of other things got left by the wayside.

in the past they argued long and hard over agriculture and aristocracy. as is neither are really good civics because instead of seeking a balance they nerfed the combination all the way to the bottom.

fend for themselves has always been useless and is considered a "known" issue with no intention of being fixed.

given the state of FFH2-32 i wish i could find some of the previous versions and install them again. they were overall much more engaging versions. (32 has been a nice testament for AI experimentation , but in doing so they destroyed its spirit)

 

[westamastaflash]

fend for themselves has always been useless and is considered a "known" issue with no intention of being fixed.

If you're in a epic or marathon game, the difference between No Upkeep and Low Upkeep can start to be significant, especially if you're not AV...

 

[Blackmantle]

@ daladinn: Are you serious about agriculture not beeing a solid civic? (given aristocracy is only really useful for financial civs in conjunction with agriculture and / or Sanitation. Not for beeing weak in itself but because of the other decent options. Including at rare times even despotism. But very decent for financial leaders. Especially on solwer games speeds, normal and below.)
I run it way more often then city states (which is a good civic but i disagree on beeing the best option in most situations).

Also Education fits its place in the tech-tree very well (almost each game i adopt it at the start for sometimes about 100 Turns or more) and is useful beyond that for some rare civs (like sidar.). So run quite freqently for a not so good civic. And im sure im not the only one.


What i really find most problematic are mercantilism
(latest civic in its category / the game? and borderline useless especially with the other decent options left and right. This one does need a serious beef-up or a much earlier place to make sense imo. I whould think +1 to each specialists strongpoint in addition to what it gives now might be a reasonable bonus. And cover an economic field not covered by any other civic in its category.
Compare that one to guilds which comes at a comparable time in the game and offers other interesting incentives in getting the tech.)
and the blandness of the compassion line
(which could easiely need something to make it more interesting like: fend +1 XP (2 whould seem unbalanced imo for something so early and without upkeep), protect the meek with +1 or +2 def for all noncombats / regular Str 0 Units, +25% GPP for public healers.) the rest is more or less alright imo and i use all others depending on occasion / strategy / leader earning their place.
Even though its true that many of the early options are rather strong and stay in long parts of the game / sometimes until the end.


Also as a minor tweak which could be interesting: perhaps republic (or should it on day be replaced its replacement) could be added as a compulsory overcouncil civic. Something else neat to be gained by the council early without gamebreaking effect and with some minor drawbacks.

 

[Ahriman]

I like 1.5 food for sacrifice the weak.
I dislike unit conversion or similar for public healers and such.
I would much rather just increase the happy/healthy benefits from these civics.

Hmmm, that's a really good point. In Vanilla the wartime civics gave +2xp, and that could win a war for you when your units were level 3 and your opponent's units were all level 2. But in FFH2 where the bulk of my army is running around with 25+xp, 2xp is not very attractive. I think these xp-oriented civics would start to get powerful if they gave +8 or +10 xp instead of 2.

A 20% combat strength difference is a *huge* difference in combat odds probabilities. To get to high level, you have to win your first couple of fights, which are the tough ones since you have the biggest chances to lose them. +2xp is very very attractive for helping you have your initial units survive in order to get powerful enough to become a high-level monster.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

in the past they argued long and hard over agriculture and aristocracy. as is neither are really good civics because instead of seeking a balance they nerfed the combination all the way to the bottom.

This had nothing to do with the ai. +2 food on farms was just fabulusly good.
+1 food from farms is still very good.
If aristrocracy is no good without getting +2 food from farms via agriculture, maybe it could get a boost, but I think you are exaggerating on agriculture.