Fall Further 050 Balance Issues

[Sarisin]

The Eholim start the game with every Unique terrain visible

You cant see anythign but the actual square (nothign in between) but you know where tehy are

I took my starting scout and hit 6 of them gaining 3 new civ traits..


(5 possible? I have GOT to try them again that game crashed/became corrupt)

OK, I went back to the beginning of my game and see what you mean. It is a little difficult making them out on the Huge map, but they are there.

I am totally flabbergasted that you were able to use one Scout and make it to 6 of those without getting killed. What size map do you use?

Maybe I should start a do-over game as I didn't know this about the Elohim, a civ I don't play often. Also, I have to adjust my offensive exploration game with them. But, I just don't see how you can avoid getting your decreased strength Scouts/Warriors killed. Yes, the defensive strength is the same, but you don't gain a lot of XP defending and you are dead in the water waiting for your unit to heal - this can be a lot of turns. If you attack and kill an animal you get much more XP and with promotions can even defend better too.

Oh well, one good thing about this modmod is learning and I learned a lot today.

Thanks to all for bearing with me.

 

[Vehem]

I am totally flabbergasted that you were able to use one Scout and make it to 6 of those without getting killed. What size map do you use?

Maybe I should start a do-over game as I didn't know this about the Elohim, a civ I don't play often. Also, I have to adjust my offensive exploration game with them. But, I just don't see how you can avoid getting your decreased strength Scouts/Warriors killed. Yes, the defensive strength is the same, but you don't gain a lot of XP defending and you are dead in the water waiting for your unit to heal - this can be a lot of turns. If you attack and kill an animal you get much more XP and with promotions can even defend better too.

Oh well, one good thing about this modmod is learning and I learned a lot today.

Thanks to all for bearing with me.

No problem. Regarding the "one scout" - I've never managed that on a standard size map (the wilds are rough, and you do tend to lose quite a few). Sending them out in pairs helps - can protect each other if injured and spot for each other to help avoid both units running blindly into big nasties. In the end though I think the rewards for reaching the locations are worth a half-dozen dead scouts.

They do definitely need an approach other than the "rush-mentality" though. -1 offensive is far less to the higher level units, so those are the ones that the Elohim should use for war if they fight at all. Alternatively, order priests are a valuable addition to your more standard armies - with their Bless spell negating the penalty (as well as granting an additional double-boost against demons - both a +% mod and a damage type they are weak against).

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I'm curious to know why exactly you chose to have the demonic barb faction start at peace only with AV sheaim, instead of all AV civs... it seems to make AV too unattractive to anyone who isn't the sheaim

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

well, xienwolf told me to post this here, so I will :

am I the only one whose ruins and barrows ( patch G ) seem to not be spawning any skeleton and lizardmen?

also, I think that tying lair exploration results to game difficulty ( similar to how tribal villages work ) would be nice. getting lots and lots of gold from lair exploration at emperor difficulty is not what you would expect from a dangerous place

 

[Seven05]

Speaking of lairs...

I also don't seem to be getting very many (if any) skeletons or lizardmen running around. I will see one out of maybe 20 barrows with a skeleton guarding it and probably about the same number of ruins guarded by lizardmen.

Also, I'm still getting some of the un-named but still nasty spawns very early. I popped a lich next to the Bannor border right around turn 100 (normal speed), they had nothing that could stand up to the wraiths let alone the lich himself. I also get gargoyles very early, although they aren't the toughest critters out there at strength 8 they make quick work of any units you have available that early.

And, on a different note all together, playing as the Archos I discovered that the barbarians can kill my spiders the instant they spawn giving me no chance to even declare nationality with them if I wanted to avoid their death. This may explin why I seldom see AI Archos spiders in the game. Once you're spawning giant spiders it's not as big of a problem unless you're unlucky enough to have a stack of barbarians right next to your capital.

Speaking of barbarians, with the recent changes to barbarians it may be worthwhile to review the barbarian trait, the -10% science hit may not be enough. When playing as the Archos I was the most advanced civ in the game without much effort since I could improve my empire without fear of marauding barbarians. To test the spider issue explained above I played a second game with the barbarian trait removed and it was substantially more difficult despite a better overall starting position. A couple of things may work well for them, such as a hit to GPP or changing the sicence penalty to a more encompassing commerce penalty. Perhaps even preventing them from researching the religion techs (but not preventing them from having a state religion) so they can't easily get a holy city would help. For a reference, with my barbarian Archos I had the RoK holy city and had finished researching Commune With Nature right around the 200 turn mark (again, normal speed). Granted I beelined for it after getting all of the basic economy techs, bronze working and way of the earth mother. My civilized Archos using the same basic tactic didn't even have priesthood by then due to not having the same number of cities as a lot of production was diverted towards barbarian control early in the game. There are a lot of luck factors involved so I don't like making a direct comparison like that between two different games, but the overall feeling is that I didn't really feel crippled at all by the science penalty and lack of libraries. It felt kind of wierd being a barbarian running 100% research, pulling in about 300 beakers per turn and almost 20 gold per turn.

 

[xienwolf]

Are the ruins/barrows in owned territory? Spawning turns off for most of the lairs once they are inside territory limits. Mainly this was intended for the Animal lairs, but I applied it to most everything which I thought gave the AI some early game issues as well when I first implemented it, and nothing has been changed yet.



The gold from LEXs is probably dodging the bad result and winding up with the default. Initially lots of defaults were set to be LOW_GOLD result, but lately we've been retrofitting them to instead just call a slightly better table to find you a new random result.

 

[Seven05]

I checked in the world builder looking at all of the ones I could find, many (most maybe?) were in unowned territory. I did have one barrow right outside of my borders that had a skeleton guarding it but no others spawned before I finally cleared it out some 20 turns later.

I have to wonder if it's because between the AI civs and me the barrows and ruins don't last long on the map but they are constantly 'respawning' elsewhere, maybe they just don't have enough time to spit out some units.

I'll try to run another game tonight and pay closer attention to them.

 

[Bitwise]

The +5 unhappy from the horseman is pretty brutal when the AC jumps by 10 in 2 turns so you get hit with Blight and Stephanos right in a row. Especially when it's early and he's on another continent.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

Are the ruins/barrows in owned territory? Spawning turns off for most of the lairs once they are inside territory limits. Mainly this was intended for the Animal lairs, but I applied it to most everything which I thought gave the AI some early game issues as well when I first implemented it, and nothing has been changed yet.

no, they are in neutral territory. it seems that most lairs start without a defender ( including goblin forts ) and then spawn one only very rarely even if left alone. otoh, lairs popping up later in the game often spawn with a defender already present, but then don't seem to spawn anymore either.

 

[Breez]

OK, I went back to the beginning of my game and see what you mean. It is a little difficult making them out on the Huge map, but they are there.

I am totally flabbergasted that you were able to use one Scout and make it to 6 of those without getting killed. What size map do you use?

Maybe I should start a do-over game as I didn't know this about the Elohim, a civ I don't play often. Also, I have to adjust my offensive exploration game with them. But, I just don't see how you can avoid getting your decreased strength Scouts/Warriors killed. Yes, the defensive strength is the same, but you don't gain a lot of XP defending and you are dead in the water waiting for your unit to heal - this can be a lot of turns. If you attack and kill an animal you get much more XP and with promotions can even defend better too.

Oh well, one good thing about this modmod is learning and I learned a lot today.

Thanks to all for bearing with me.

Do to my PC slowing down the further I get into huge maps I have been playing standard size lately and by 6 I meant he made it to 6 Unique tiles (I play with all of them on the map) but not all 6 did everything, I don't know which do what so I have to visit them all.

It took me a LONG time to do it. 150-200 turns. He got in the occasional fights, but I never attacked, every fight was defensive and I never end a turn not in forest or on a hill (preferably both) unless I ABSOLUTELY have to. Didn't take multiple combat promotions to start, I took Hill defense and Forrest combat asap. (and I am sure I reloaded a few times too) OOOooo and I play on Warlord/Noble... I am NOT the best player in the world.

Since you asked btw, that scout was the funniest thing I ever saw in FF to date. He had several instances where he would take one step and see an barb. So his 2nd step was away from his destination. I had to go WAY out of my way circular in motion to eventually get where I wanted to go. At one point I had about 8 barbs chasing me as I worked closer and closer to where I was going. Once I made open boarders with someone just to drag (or kite if you plat EQ) the barbs through their area just so they would kill 'em off for me.

"Excuse me! COMING THROUGH! Nice party you all have here, Can I have some punch? Yum! OH have you met my friends? Oops time for me to go!"

 

[Breez]

well, xienwolf told me to post this here, so I will :

am I the only one whose ruins and barrows ( patch G ) seem to not be spawning any skeleton and lizardmen?

also, I think that tying lair exploration results to game difficulty ( similar to how tribal villages work ) would be nice. getting lots and lots of gold from lair exploration at emperor difficulty is not what you would expect from a dangerous place

I had several last game (patch F) also. Wolf, lion and bear all unguarded and none made any thing for the 30ish turns I left them up just out side my culture. Additionally when i walked onto them, they auto destructed. i did not get the option to explore them

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

Additionally when i walked onto them, they auto destructed. i did not get the option to explore them

this is normal, animal lairs autodestroy when you walk on them. yes, I'd like to be able to explore them just like any other lair. Orbis has this and it's great for two reasons:

1. it's one more thing to explore

2. most importantly, it allows you to walk on the tile and choose NOT to destroy it ( for example cuz you have a hunter with subdue animal nearby... )

 

[Breez]

Ahh I tried Orbi recently, maybe that is where I got the idea I should be able too...

You know, these modmodmodmodmods start to blur together after a while

 

[xienwolf]

I checked in the world builder looking at all of the ones I could find, many (most maybe?) were in unowned territory. I did have one barrow right outside of my borders that had a skeleton guarding it but no others spawned before I finally cleared it out some 20 turns later.

I have to wonder if it's because between the AI civs and me the barrows and ruins don't last long on the map but they are constantly 'respawning' elsewhere, maybe they just don't have enough time to spit out some units.

I'll try to run another game tonight and pay closer attention to them.

Sounds like I need to move the plans to change how lairs spawn up a bit then. Currently they still use the default FfH method of only spawning if there are not too many of that unit type in the local area and they succeed on a very low random chance. I already created the ability to track how many units each improvement has spawned, so I will just remove the check for units already in the area and link spawns only to the defined limit per improvement (and a not-so-rare random). That would mean (ideally) that if you have 6 Ruins in a small valley you'll quite likely have 12 Skeletons hanging around, kill one and it'll soon pop another.

 

[Seven05]

Sounds like I need to move the plans to change how lairs spawn up a bit then. Currently they still use the default FfH method of only spawning if there are not too many of that unit type in the local area and they succeed on a very low random chance. I already created the ability to track how many units each improvement has spawned, so I will just remove the check for units already in the area and link spawns only to the defined limit per improvement (and a not-so-rare random). That would mean (ideally) that if you have 6 Ruins in a small valley you'll quite likely have 12 Skeletons hanging around, kill one and it'll soon pop another.

Are you using the built-in function for areas? If so that's not really a 'local area' except on maps with multiple continents. That would also explain why I see so few since I play on maps with a single large continent for the most part. You should be able to get the number of tiles per area though, so perhaps you could use that to figure out how many are need per area. I think the limited number per area is a good idea though as it will handle problems with a lone lair on a 10-tile island spawning hundreds of them and thus preventing more from spaning elsewhere.

 

[xienwolf]

Yes, it works off the continent system (well, continent unless Erebus or Tectonics generally). And the new system won't be able to have hundreds spawn in a small area since each individual improvement will only be capable of spawning so many. It just prevents the automatic spawning of Barbarians from interferring with Lair spawning mechanisms (but Lair spawns continue to interfere with the automatic spawning, which they should)

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

shouldn't Scorch also turn tundra to plains? btw, right now if you cast it in a marsh it gets turned to a plains, a grassland would probably be more appropriate.

also, the regeneration spell is always highlighted, even if all units in the stack are at full health. maybe it should only light up when some of them are injuried?

 

[GASherbert]

It's still possibly useful even when used on fully healthy units. If I remember correctly, it is not removed until the start of your next turn, so if those units get hurt in the meantime, they will benefit from having it already cast. Which could be nice for a stack that's about to be attacked, especially if it's on the offensive.

It's been a long time since I've played with body mana, though, so I could be mistaken.

 

[WarKirby]

Actually we can change unitcombat with a promotion whenever we want to, so it'd be pretty easy to upgrade them to Beast. The only challenge would be deciding precisely when to upgrade them, but with an AutoAcquire MinAge prereq it should work pretty well.

Please call this promotion "Monstrous Creature"

It's a WH40k reference

 

[WarKirby]

Reading Xien's posts about working on AI in this thread makes me very happy

^_^