Fall Further 0.51 Balance Discussion Thread

[Randomness]

Accually, since the no Austrian matenece cost for distance, I've seen the AI Austrians do very well. In fact in very few of my games on Prince difficulty do they do poorly, and when I play as Austrians, which I don't do very offten, I steam roll my opponents. I don't know if this is where they need a nerf, but they do need it somewhere. Personally, I think we are long due for an anti-recon promo (why isn't there already one?)...

 

[Iceciro]

There's about to be one. Yay modular mods ;-)

 

[Lemminkäinen]

I have never seen the austrin do well, admittedly. I see them get killed off early pretty often, actually.

I see them do well every time and they always spam the Explorers like hell. Had a game where I hadn't seen the Austrin but they just kept rolling over other AI civs. I wasn't worried as I had big heroes and stuff but then a stack of 200 Explorers came knocking on my door

Allright, that's probabaly the biggest rant I've ever thrown about anything I've ever seen in Fall. Feel free to heckle, tell me how it's not a big deal, or whatever. *dons flame-retardant suit* I know I can just change this lickety split, but I wanted to bring it to attention before someone else suffers OMEGA EXPLORER DOOM. >_>

I still like them more than stacks of bazillion Archers - Explorers are at least proactive unlike Archers who just sit there shooting and being annoying.

But yeah - taking away the extra 2XP from a charismatic leader is probably a good idea.

Accually, since the no Austrian matenece cost for distance, I've seen the AI Austrians do very well. In fact in very few of my games on Prince difficulty do they do poorly, and when I play as Austrians, which I don't do very offten, I steam roll my opponents. I don't know if this is where they need a nerf, but they do need it somewhere. Personally, I think we are long due for an anti-recon promo (why isn't there already one?)...

The Settling ritual's cost doesn't seem to scale like Settler's so it ends up being quite cheap. It's also very, very good. So that might need some looking at.

 

[WarKirby]

Well, I just had a game cut short, so this is kinda a whine post. Take your cheese at the door, sit down.

I have never seen the austrin do well, admittedly. I see them get killed off early pretty often, actually.
But my friend was just decimated by the Austrin. Is it really necessary the Exploration guild give 2xp out to every recon unit? It doesn't seem like much, but remember, there's no counter promotion to Recon units. And Dierdra's Adaptive on her expansive trait. And the guild itself passivetrains up to half the level of the Hunter's Hall.
This is what my friend was faced with:
Dierdra goes to Aggressive/Charismatic. Dierdra is in Apprenticeship. Not a big deal, right. Not at all... until you get wave after wave of Combat 3 Explorers charging you. Wave, after wave, after wave. Because they're Recon units, there are no "solve problems" promotions. So we're looking at when the Austrin have Hunting and Education, they're dropping Combat 3 Str 4 non-counterable units on you.

Sure, you can do this trick with a lot of civs using the right combination of civics, but does anybody get it at Hunting? Dierdra's getting 6.4 strength units for 60 hammers at Hunting. Sometimes they sit and marinate and get stronger, but they don't need to. This is probably a balance issue that doesn't come up because often her AI is lukewarm at best, but watching it happen firsthand is a different matter. It let her steamroll the other AIs and have 15 cities when most of us had 4-5, and have a bunch of great commanders, that she used to build Command Posts, by the way, giving her units another exp boost.

I think this is a lot like removing Death Magic from the Vampires. They don't need it to be strong. This is a bit much. 2xp doesn't sound like a lot - but for free, to a charismatic leader, on a building that already has two other great buffs (an additional trade route and a higher passive training cap, equal to the passive-training designed building -making that obsolete) on its regular cousin for no increased hammer cost is a bit much. The kicker to all this?

The Austrin version of the Hunting Lodge is available at Cartography. Not hunting. They can pull this off with their SCOUTS.

Allright, that's probabaly the biggest rant I've ever thrown about anything I've ever seen in Fall. Feel free to heckle, tell me how it's not a big deal, or whatever. *dons flame-retardant suit* I know I can just change this lickety split, but I wanted to bring it to attention before someone else suffers OMEGA EXPLORER DOOM. >_>

I guess I'm not really seeing the problem here. If you pick any aggressive leader, run apprenticeship, and build axemen with bronze, you can outdo her easily. Axemen with Combat II are stronger and easier to get than hunters with Combat III

Also, recon units have a city attack penalty. Or they should have. If explorers don't, that's something that should be corrected. But waves of hunters shouldn't be taking cities unless they're in MASSIVE numbers. And if she has those kinds of numbers of anything, she's going to win anyway. Dierdra doesn't have anything special that improves her industrial output, so my guess is she worked pretty hard for those 60 per unit. Even with that 2 free xp, I think you'd get more value for your with axemen/highlanders.

The best idea is to build archers and hide in your cities. One unpromoted archer easily stands up to one lv4 Hunter. And can also shoot to weaken them, allowing your axemen to finish the job.

It sounds like you got outeconomy'd. The extra xp helped her a bit, certainly,. But the problem here is that she HAD that many explorers. She invested in an industrial base and built a big army. If you had just as big an army composed of archers and axemen, plus a palisade or walls in most cities, she'd just have been forced to stand around outside your cities making scary faces while you pick them off, because recon units can't even pillage.

dierdra steamrolling is quite rare. She's usually actually better at siege tactics. She often swarms enemies with hordes of untouchable trackers, and stands in forests outside their cities. Having played with the austrin a bit, they're very much forced to fight a guerilla warfare style.

Also, what difficulty was this? That's a significant factor.

 

[Iceciro]

The problem is that she didn't invest in an industrial base so much as she invested in using the ubered up scouts to take cities away from the other AIs - nothing much you can do about that.

20% attack penalty isn't much when you have a 60% overall bonus and are a unit type that cannot be countered with a promotion. Remember, she's Charismatic - her XPs count for more than yours. And more than her neighbors.

Bronze axes are stronger - but you need Bronze for that. You may not have any bronze - happens to me all the time. Explorers can take Shock/Cover - axemen and archers can't take "go away, annoying recon units".

I feel better seeing that other people have had similar issues to my buddy.

 

[WarKirby]

The problem is that she didn't invest in an industrial base so much as she invested in using the ubered up scouts to take cities away from the other AIs - nothing much you can do about that.

you can build palisades and a defense force. Hunting is a more expensive tech than archery, if I recall.

20% attack penalty isn't much when you have a 60% overall bonus

on 4 strength.

4 strength + 40% = 5.6.
At lv4, that's just barely enough to beat an unpromoted archer in the field.

If you put an archer in a city, he's getting +25% from that, another 20% if you build a palisade (if you don't build them you deserve to die), plus whatever defensive bonus the city offers. Even being 3 levels above you, that hunter is going to be looking at 10-20% odds if he's lucky. And remember, you can run apprenticeship too. Get 2 free xp on every archer, teach them Drill I. Enjoy beating 2-3 explorers with every archer, and they have the same cost

And ranged attacks haven't even been taken into account, which can often weaken a higher level unit enough for your weaker troops to kill.

You never mentioned the difficulty. And what did your buddy have for defense ? Did he have a palisade and an archer or two in every city ?

 

[WarKirby]

PS, have you ever tried playing the archos ? Their axemen have 5 Base Strength (before weapons) and their leader is aggressive/defender. You can steamroll the world with brutes. The austrin are quite laughable in comparison.

 

[odalrick]

you can build palisades and a defense force. Hunting is a more expensive tech than archery, if I recall.

Actually, Hunting is slightly less expensive than Archery. Not that it matters, Explorers are available at Cartography, which costs only about half of Archery.

Explorers also cost less than Hunters, move faster and can found cities.

I really didn't think they were that powerful before I looked.

Despite that, I don't think removing the experience for the Exploration Guild and adding anti-recon promotions is the right way to nerf them. I'd give them an auto acquired promotion when inside any borders that knock off 20% strength. Maybe raise their cost to 75 too.

 

[WarKirby]

Raising their cost to above hunters would be a bad idea. They're supposed to be better than hunters, that's what the austrin do. Perhaps they have enough stuff to justify the same cost, but not higher.

And losing strength inside borders is a bad idea, too. Wilderness exists inside people's territory. Recon units are made for the outdoors in general. They only need a penalty for cities. And they have that!

 

[Tarquelne]

Awakened spawning for scions shouldn't scale based on difficulty.

It was put in after a fair amount of discussion, so I'm loathe to remove it. OTOH, I don't remember any details from the discussion, and I *do* remember that the values used are pretty arbitrary, so I'll soften them.

 

[WarKirby]

The thing is, the scions are already fighting the same disadvantages that other civs get from increased difficulty. ie, your enemies get free xp, a better start. You get more maintenance/inflation, etc.

Is there anywhere that the scions are getting to avoid a difficulty penalty, which justifies penalising them in this manner ?

 

[Tarquelne]

Is there anywhere that the scions are getting to avoid a difficulty penalty, which justifies penalising them in this manner ?

I don't feel like digging up the discussion, but IIRC: While there's not an exactly- corresponding mechanic spawning got filed with things changed for both human and AI - like UnitCostPercent - because that's what playtesting seemed to indicate. (So please no "Sure it works in practice, but what about in theory!?") People who played on low dififculty levels were having a really tough time. Putting in a difficulty adjustment wasn't just a matter of making the AI tougher or easier, but making things seem right for the players.

Again IIRC: The final result was that the rate stayed the same for Immortal, got a little tougher for Diety and progressively easier for difficulties lower than Immortal.

 

[WarKirby]

Again IIRC: The final result was that the rate stayed the same for Immortal, got a little tougher for Diety and progressively easier for difficulties lower than Immortal.

Well that's not bad then, IU was more worried that you reduced the spawn rates at higher levels, since most people's average level is monarch-immortal, many would never paly the scions as intended. But if it's only harder than originally intended on deity, that's ok.

 

[odalrick]

Raising their cost to above hunters would be a bad idea. They're supposed to be better than hunters, that's what the austrin do. Perhaps they have enough stuff to justify the same cost, but not higher.

I could have sworn Hunters cost 90. So that part was based on a flawed premiss.

And losing strength inside borders is a bad idea, too. Wilderness exists inside people's territory. Recon units are made for the outdoors in general. They only need a penalty for cities. And they have that!

The wilderness outside borders is more wild than inside borders. Otherwise savages and animals would be able to spawn there as well.

No to mention farmland, towns, plantations and pastures are very different from unimproved land, and wont be that different just because someone comes along and pillages it.

The thing is, they're very early. Cartography takes 20 turns to research, build rouges during that time. Should give at least five rouges. Another 15 turns build an Exploration Guild, upgrade the rouges. Send them towards the nearest rival, continue building recon. With 2 move and ignores movement cost, they'll arrive quicky.

Your adventurer Rouges ran about looking for enemies and treasure the during the first 30 turns, so you should have lots of gold and other loot. They can enter rival territory too, giving great maps for the invasion.

It's like if Hippus got horsemen and stables at Animal Husbandry.

A strength penalty inside borders is fundamentally the same as lowered strength and a bonus outside. Which I think is appropriate, since they're Explorers. What the heck are they doing in explored territory?

 

[WarKirby]

The problem, though. Is that other civs' recon units don't get any such penalty inside borders.

If austrin explorers got that, in addition to their city attack penalty, they'd be much weaker than other civs in using recon for combat, and thusly it would shift the Austrin focus away from recon. Vehem warned me about not making highlanders too strong, because that's exactly what is intended to avoid.

The austrin, both for exploration and military, should be primarily using recon units. Attacking people with big stacks of them is one of the things they're designed to do. Austrin recon units SHOULD be better than almost anyone else's (svartalfar aside, whose recon line is still stronger for warfare). The austrin don't get any extra strength, though. In fact, their rangers are weaker. What they do have is better utility, a bit more xp, and earlier tech requirements.

As has been pointed out, both of the early military techs (bronze working/archery) give you stronger units than a hunter equivilant. And that's what you should use to fight them.The Austrin happen to be a fairly aggressive race in general, comes with the role of being adventurers. You don't have adventures sitting at home behind a wall.

The case here, is that the AI intelligently chose it's civics and trait, beelined a primary early military tech, and then, and this is the key point, built a LOT of units. If that massive stack of Combat III hunters had been Combat II axemen, which would be easier to come by, Iceciro's buddy would just have been even more screwed, because even without bronze weapons, axemen get +10% city attack, whereas recon units get -20%. That more than makes up for one less promotion due to not getting free xp from a building.

Look at this picture.

. That's 22 units. Most of which, have a city attack penalty. Most of which, despite their high level, cannot defeat an entrenched archer.

When someone rolls up to your doorstep with a 22 unit SoD at Tier II, you have to look inwards for the solution. Unless your opponent is Clan, Infernals, Khazad, or some other civ that's geared towards mass production, the problem is simply that you've been soundly beaten at the economy game. Nothing more, or less.

This guy did not lose because explorers get 2 free xp. He did not lose because the austrin are overpowered. He lost because there are 22 units there, which is more than enough to overwhelm all but the best defences.

Explorers are fine. Learn to defend. Or, expand faster and don't get outproduced next time.

It happens to us all sometimes. I remember losing to masses upon masses of ljosalfar fawns just because their empire was 3 times the size of mine, and they could build them so fast. My own fault for not expanding.

 

[Breez]

I think the Austin are just fine and don't need changed.

I think there DOES need to an anti Recon Promo of some sort. I don't think it needs to be huge or easy but I think there needs one.

Call it Agile or what ever. 3 levels
+10% attack vs Recon/level
+10% Defense vs Recon/level
Level 1 has Prereq of Combat 1
Level 2 has Prereq of Combat 2 and Agile 1
Level 3 has Prereq of Combat 3 and Agile 2

 

[WarKirby]

+10% would be pretty worthless, I think. You might as well just take Combat for 20% instead.

I'd name it Pursuit. +30% vs recon. Requires Mobility I as prereq. ie, you have to be fast enough to catch a recon unit, to be effective against them.

Pursuit II would add another +30%, and have a prereq of Mobility II, thereby only being available to mounted, and other recon units. Similar to how only melee can learn Shock/Cover II.Adds a bit of tactical thought to things.

 

[WarKirby]

Oh, also. just checked. Both Explorers and Hunters have a cost of 60 , exactly the same as an axeman or archer, and the same as each other. Explorers aren't cheaper.

 

[Valkrionn]

+10% would be pretty worthless, I think. You might as well just take Combat for 20% instead.

I'd name it Pursuit. +30% vs recon. Requires Mobility I as prereq. ie, you have to be fast enough to catch a recon unit, to be effective against them.

Pursuit II would add another +30%, and have a prereq of Mobility II, thereby only being available to mounted, and other recon units. Similar to how only melee can learn Shock/Cover II.Adds a bit of tactical thought to things.

I like that.

 

[Breez]

+10% would be pretty worthless, I think. You might as well just take Combat for 20% instead.

True, I would not take them until after I hit Combat 5. (of course that is the same as Cover/Shock if you are fighting mixed forces 2 levels of Combat are better than getting Cover and Shock and they are 40% not 10%)

I'd name it Pursuit. +30% vs recon. Requires Mobility I as prereq. ie, you have to be fast enough to catch a recon unit, to be effective against them.

Pursuit II would add another +30%, and have a prereq of Mobility II, thereby only being available to mounted, and other recon units. Similar to how only melee can learn Shock/Cover II.Adds a bit of tactical thought to things.

I like you idea better really. My devils advocate counter would be that requiring mobility one may be a pretty steep tech requirement. Does Mobility 1 require Combat 1?

Regardless I DO like Mobility 2 as a prereq for level 2 of Pursuit.

Should they be 40% be better to be more on line with the other specialty promotions?