Fall Further 050 Balance Issues

[Vehem]

But the villages do look pretty.

And playing as malakim, I find rather a lot that I'm forced to put cities in pure desert. Rivers aren't everywhere, and even the sea is only self sufficient, unless there's food resources.

I'd personally rather see the hammer bonus removed, than reducing the food. Possibly even less commerce, too.

You still can have cities in pure desert - they'll just grow suitably slowly, but can still work every tile eventually. The problem I had was that you could work every tile as pure desert, and run ~10 specialists (extreme case, but the growth rate getting there was still very high once the villages were built).

The hammer bonus is a solution to the "Man cannot live on desert alone" problem. There are few sources of hammers in the desert - desert mines/hills are relatively poor, there aren't really any hammer-resources that spawn in desert and Workshops require a yield of 1 food on the tile. I found myself drifting over to "desert-bordering plains" to grab a few plains hills, which is against the Malakim+ doctrine of "scorch is good".

Having all of the desert tiles produce a small amount of hammers means that the production capability is well scaled to the size of the city. There is typically no "uber-tile" for production, but they can still produce well enough.

 

[WarKirby]

The hammer bonus is a solution to the "Man cannot live on desert alone" problem. There are few sources of hammers in the desert - desert mines/hills are relatively poor, there aren't really any hammer-resources that spawn in desert and Workshops require a yield of 1 food on the tile. I found myself drifting over to "desert-bordering plains" to grab a few plains hills, which is against the Malakim+ doctrine of "scorch is good".

Having all of the desert tiles produce a small amount of hammers means that the production capability is well scaled to the size of the city. There is typically no "uber-tile" for production, but they can still produce well enough.

It means that their mines produce as much as plains mines, as well as +1 commerce.
It also means that bedouin villages, capable of producing reasonable commerce and still 2 food, are also giving a hammer

The Bedouin villages are really the least of the problems. +1hammer on deserts gives a massive advantage.

If the production really is an issue, a less overpowered solution would be to give mines +1 and -1 in deserts. So that they can for all intents, treat them as plains mines. But without getting silly extra production from farms, cottages, and bedouin villages too.

Also, you didn't mention the free maintenance part. It seems a buit unfair that dunespeak allows the entire malakim army free maintenance while in your borders, essentially. Valkrionn removed that, and I think you should for FF too. It's a bit much. Dunespeak already gives a crazy list of advantages.

 

[pimparel]

Malakim desert should only grant 1H. The 1C is the culprit of the malakim overkill, they cause huge tech leaps and with 90%T 10%C you can upgrade all your units with plenty of cash leaftovers.

Also, desert bonus is added to the oasis bonus, making oasis also a must have tile, maybe this should also be reviewd

 

[Vehem]

Also, you didn't mention the free maintenance part. It seems a buit unfair that dunespeak allows the entire malakim army free maintenance while in your borders, essentially. Valkrionn removed that, and I think you should for FF too. It's a bit much. Dunespeak already gives a crazy list of advantages.

Aye - I just straight out removed that. It was good whilst we needed to give a real incentive to use the deserts, but again - we have that in other ways now. Dunespeak still exists (and as you said - still has a lot of useful features), but some of the "crazy-commerce" is now going to be going on unit maintenance too.

EDIT: Going to try them out with -1 commerce on Mines and on Farms (desert farms become the same as normal farms, non-desert farms are actually slightly nerfed).

 

[WarKirby]

Also, desert bonus is added to the oasis bonus, making oasis also a must have tile, maybe this should also be reviewd

I don't see an issue with this.

The entire point of oases is to make them desireable. They paint a stark contrast to the wasteland around them. It's why they have this role in all manner of myths and stories. And why the word oasis has come into common cultural use for anything special amongst many lesser things.

I think oases should be must-have tiles.

 

[Vehem]

Going Plan B. One thing I've been spending a lot of time trying to get around here is too much commerce on tiles that shouldn't have it. Simplest solution, no more commerce from desert... Can tweak the relevant improvements as needed instead...

Oasis for Malakim is now +1, +1, +1 better than other civs
Mines work as Plains mines
Floodplains Farms are as normal for any other civ
Oasis-sourced farms are slightly better than for other civs, with 1 hammer
Bedouin improvement tiles provide a combination of commerce production and food - but nothing too overpowered.

If the production really is an issue, a less overpowered solution would be to give mines +1 and -1 in deserts. So that they can for all intents, treat them as plains mines. But without getting silly extra production from farms, cottages, and bedouin villages too.

This would be nice, but we have CivSpecific ImprovementYieldChanges and CivSpecific TerrainYieldChanges - but not CivSpecific ImprovementOnTerrainYieldChanges...

 

[WarKirby]

This would be nice, but we have CivSpecific ImprovementYieldChanges and CivSpecific TerrainYieldChanges - but not CivSpecific ImprovementOnTerrainYieldChanges...

I didn't say anything about civ specific, did I?
Can it be done generally? Not malakim specific?


Also, if you're still set on removing the villages, then I have a request.

There will be 3 levels of bedouin improvements, then. I'd like to suggest using names and art as follows

lv1 keep the name Bedouin Sit, but change the art, to the model that is currently used for the camp. Throw away the current Sit model

lv2 keep the name Bedouin Camp, but change the art to what is currently used for the bedouin gathering.

lv3, rename to bedouin village, and use the village art. Toss away the Bedouin Gathering concept.

I find that visually, the bedouin villages are quite striking, and they fit well with the desert environment. Even if their yields can't be kept, I'd still like to have little walled villages around my desert.

 

[Sephi]

Which do you think is the most useful? I'd say Philosophical makes more Lore-sense than Charismatic, so if I were to replace Creative/Adaptive, it would probably be Spiritual/Philosophical in that case...

After reading his civpedia entry I agree that charismatic doesn't fit much with the Lore. Philo sounds good but adaptive is of course better . Lets hope Plan B works

 

[Vehem]

I didn't say anything about civ specific, did I?
Can it be done generally? Not malakim specific?

Ah, well in that case - still no

 

[Valkrionn]

I've actually gone a slightly different way with the hammers. Floodplains will no longer grant a bonus hammer for the Malakim, and I've removed the Bedouin village level from the improvement progression.

Including desert bonuses (+1 and +1 )

Bedouin Sit- 2 1
Bedouin Camp- 2 1 1
Bedouin Gathering- 3 1 2
​

The village was removed as

Bedouin Village- 4 1 and 3 at Sanitation​

allows a little too much growth in a pure desert (you can put the city in the middle of nothing but desert, and have every tile worked with enough growth for several specialists). Leaving the food bonus at +2 max means the tile will eventually become self-sufficient, but won't contribute to further growth.

====

My next concern is "Adaptive". Combining Financial and Merchant can be fairly potent, but Financial and the extra availability of +2 commerce improvements is the real problem. Creative and Spiritual both suit Varn fairly well, the Malakim merchant tendencies are covered by a Civ-Trait (as it's the Malakim, not Varn that are merchants).

Would it be a terrible move to remove Adaptive from Varn? I can't really see any lore reason for it - other than the fact the Malakim are adapted to life in the desert (and the trait allows you to make the best of whatever surroundings you have). The desert-adaption is now pretty well covered in many other ways - does it still need Adaptive as well? Are there better (balanced) traits than Creative/Spiritual for Varn?

Personally, I like the lack of hammers.... But I also added the Camel resource, which is at least a small source of hammers. Removing adaptive is actually something I considered for a while as well.. In the end I decided not to, mostly for the synergies with Lightbringers.

Which do you think is the most useful? I'd say Philosophical makes more Lore-sense than Charismatic, so if I were to replace Creative/Adaptive, it would probably be Spiritual/Philosophical in that case...

I completely agree with that. If anything, he should be Spiritual/Philosophical. He founded a religion, after all... any other trait combo just doesn't seem right to me.

But the villages do look pretty.

And playing as malakim, I find rather a lot that I'm forced to put cities in pure desert. Rivers aren't everywhere, and even the sea is only self sufficient, unless there's food resources.

I'd personally rather see the hammer bonus removed, than reducing the food. Possibly even less commerce, too.



I really like the adaptive, personally. one of the primary draws of Varn is the (as far as I remember) unique combination of Spiritual and Financial that can be achieved.

Why not remove the merchant thing instead. I'm not sure why that was added to begin with. What does it accomplish?

I agree about the hammer bonus, and actually always meant to go back and reduce the commerce by one... Forgot to take the desert commerce bonus into account when I balanced them.

Merchant was originally designed by Deon to combine Expansive, which Varn had just lost, with Financial, which he had just gained... As it is, it grants 1 per city, +15% , and 50 starting gold. The gold is mostly so you can get a few Bedouin Sits up and running early on... If anything, I think the could probably be toned down.

You still can have cities in pure desert - they'll just grow suitably slowly, but can still work every tile eventually. The problem I had was that you could work every tile as pure desert, and run ~10 specialists (extreme case, but the growth rate getting there was still very high once the villages were built).

The hammer bonus is a solution to the "Man cannot live on desert alone" problem. There are few sources of hammers in the desert - desert mines/hills are relatively poor, there aren't really any hammer-resources that spawn in desert and Workshops require a yield of 1 food on the tile. I found myself drifting over to "desert-bordering plains" to grab a few plains hills, which is against the Malakim+ doctrine of "scorch is good".

Having all of the desert tiles produce a small amount of hammers means that the production capability is well scaled to the size of the city. There is typically no "uber-tile" for production, but they can still produce well enough.

1 per tile actually allows them a higher production that a grassland city with a metal resource. Yes, it's only 1 per citizen, but with 10-15 citizens in a floodplains city, that's quite a bit.

It means that their mines produce as much as plains mines, as well as +1 commerce.
It also means that bedouin villages, capable of producing reasonable commerce and still 2 food, are also giving a hammer

The Bedouin villages are really the least of the problems. +1hammer on deserts gives a massive advantage.

If the production really is an issue, a less overpowered solution would be to give mines +1 and -1 in deserts. So that they can for all intents, treat them as plains mines. But without getting silly extra production from farms, cottages, and bedouin villages too.

Also, you didn't mention the free maintenance part. It seems a buit unfair that dunespeak allows the entire malakim army free maintenance while in your borders, essentially. Valkrionn removed that, and I think you should for FF too. It's a bit much. Dunespeak already gives a crazy list of advantages.

If nothing else, a unique version of the mine could do it.

Going Plan B. One thing I've been spending a lot of time trying to get around here is too much commerce on tiles that shouldn't have it. Simplest solution, no more commerce from desert... Can tweak the relevant improvements as needed instead...

Oasis for Malakim is now +1, +1, +1 better than other civs
Mines work as Plains mines
Floodplains Farms are as normal for any other civ
Oasis-sourced farms are slightly better than for other civs, with 1 hammer
Bedouin improvement tiles provide a combination of commerce production and food - but nothing too overpowered.



This would be nice, but we have CivSpecific ImprovementYieldChanges and CivSpecific TerrainYieldChanges - but not CivSpecific ImprovementOnTerrainYieldChanges...

Sounds good, although I'd like to know the exact yields... Are you keeping the 1 on desert? And are you still removing the Bedouin Village?

 

[Valkrionn]

Should the Archos be able to construct the Catacomb Libralus? Seems kind of pointless, and the AI may try and build it...

 

[Sarisin]

I am at war with Deidre and that civ is spamming Assassins. I had a stack of over 50 JUST Assassins show up on more border.

They are not so tough to deal with (although the buggers flee like crazy ), but I don't understand how they are pillaging my improvements? Maybe because they have the Raiders trait?

Logically it doesn't make sense to have Assassins pillaging farms, pastures and mines, does it? The Shadows used to Sabotage, but I don't ever remember seeing Assassins pillage improvements before.

 

[scutarii]

I am at war with Deidre and that civ is spamming Assassins. I had a stack of over 50 JUST Assassins show up on more border.

They are not so tough to deal with (although the buggers flee like crazy ), but I don't understand how they are pillaging my improvements? Maybe because they have the Raiders trait?

Logically it doesn't make sense to have Assassins pillaging farms, pastures and mines, does it? The Shadows used to Sabotage, but I don't ever remember seeing Assassins pillage improvements before.

AI LOVES 1. Cottages 2. assassins. No exceptions.

 

[WarKirby]

AI LOVES 1. Forts 2. assassins. No exceptions.

I have corrected your mistake

 

[ICanHasName?]

Dont forget Inns. Unless that was recently corrected.

 

[Mylon]

What's with the 7-8 trade route limit? I see tons of buildings/ways to add trade routes (lighthouse, 2 techs, inn, tavern, +1 from a civic (with additional +1 if it's coastal) etc), but the game limits the total number of trade routes.

If anything this limit either needs to be removed, or the mechanic changed around towards making trade routes more valuable. Plus, there's something that bugs me about seeing a medium-size city with 7 trades at a value of 1 (actually more like 1.75 rounded down to 1) and a small city with trades at a value of 1, also. It shouldn't be too hard to add these trades up and use the fractions, or otherwise change the formula so it's easier to increase the base trade values (and reduce all of the +trade bonuses).

 

[apotheoser]

What's with the 7-8 trade route limit? I see tons of buildings/ways to add trade routes (lighthouse, 2 techs, inn, tavern, +1 from a civic (with additional +1 if it's coastal) etc), but the game limits the total number of trade routes.

If anything this limit either needs to be removed, or the mechanic changed around towards making trade routes more valuable. Plus, there's something that bugs me about seeing a medium-size city with 7 trades at a value of 1 (actually more like 1.75 rounded down to 1) and a small city with trades at a value of 1, also. It shouldn't be too hard to add these trades up and use the fractions, or otherwise change the formula so it's easier to increase the base trade values (and reduce all of the +trade bonuses).

Yeah if you go in to GlobalDefinesAlt.xml in the /XML folder and add

	<Define>
		<DefineName>MAX_TRADE_ROUTES</DefineName>
		<iDefineIntVal>20</iDefineIntVal>
	</Define>

the cap will be high enough to use all trade routes. In vanilla BtS, the cap is 8, and without changing it in the mod, the limit of 8 is inherited from the vanilla game.

 

[Milaga]

They are not so tough to deal with (although the buggers flee like crazy ), but I don't understand how they are pillaging my improvements? Maybe because they have the Raiders trait?

Every time I see Dierdre in a game, she's got the Raiders trait. Beats me. And yeah, I really don't like the auto-pillage effect of the raiders trait either. I'm sure there's a thread about it somewhere.

Mines work as Plains mines

...

This would be nice, but we have CivSpecific ImprovementYieldChanges and CivSpecific TerrainYieldChanges - but not CivSpecific ImprovementOnTerrainYieldChanges...

I was playing around with Malakim+ because that was something that always bugged me about the Malakim. I always wanted to keep some plains hills around for my production centers. I never cared about commerce. And, of course, they were never lacking it either. But I could never figure out a way to give them more hammers for their production tiles without having more widespread effects than I was comfortable with. How do you make a civ specific improvement change?

 

[Valkrionn]

In each civ's section in CivilizationInfos. Search for Yield, and it should take you through them.

 

[Milaga]

In each civ's section in CivilizationInfos. Search for Yield, and it should take you through them.

I only saw it for improvements and tiles but not for an improvement for a specific tile. Clearly adding +1 to all mines wouldn't accomplish anything since I'd still want plains, as they'd be 5 plots now. I don't have the XML in front of me so I can't quote exactly what I was looking at, but hopefully you catch my drift.