Fall Further 050 Balance Issues

[Gilg]

I Agree that getting every master work building in every city shouldn't happen unless a real dedication was made, but getting one or two in your main production cities should be within plausibility. I do predict that I'll have to go for construction quite early in every game and perhaps wait with "The great library" so that those great sages doesn't screw up my chances at an engineer.

I'd really like to be free to play more freely and still have access to the wonderful masterwork promos.

A single early engineer slot or such would be great.

 

[Anathema]

I do really like the guilds and master buildings, it's a brilliant way to bring all those other GPs on par with the sages - but I have to agree that engineers are a little too difficult to get. Accessing that first engineer specialist (Construction) takes twice as much research as getting a sage or priest going (Mysticism), and about half again more research than a merchant (Festivals). Engineers being the most difficult GP to get never was a problem back when.. well, they sucked.. but now that you've done such an excellent job of making them useful, trying to get one early on is frustrating.

What if Artisan's Workshop was attached to Masonry? Masonry could definitely use the boost - it's a very weak early game tech as is, even worse with the changes to improvements (unlike mines, cottages, etc you do not need to spam quarries, so 10% build rate on them isn't so bad). Of course you'd need another tech to access any of the engineer guilds or master buildings, this would just let you start building up the great engineer points sooner in the game, at the same time your rivals can get their first sage or priest.

I'll also echo that barbarians have been neutered. On Highlands with recommended number of civs and Raging Barbarians+Barbarian World (which used to be suicidal back in the day), barbarians rarely actually enter my territory. Even when exploring, I never see more than 2 or 3 barbarians together, the "raging" orcish stacks o' doom heading for my cities are no more. It's the level of barbarian activity I'd expect from a game without raging barbarians+barbarian world, and this is as strong as they can get? bleh.

Not to be all negative, the animal changes are excellent, and do partly make up for the weaker orc savages. A strength 9 combat 5 gryphon actually killed my level 20 or so Korinna the Red (she was down a couple points of strength from just killing a lizardman, and then the gryphon swoops down from a mountain whilst cackling maniacally, it was perfect). Thanks to units like that my explorers are in more danger than ever, but sadly the orcs are leaving my cities unbesieged and my improvements unpillaged. The savage orcs, that is - Jonas Endain and his merry bands of lizardman marauders are still fighting the good fight against my evil farms and roads.

 

[Valkrionn]

I've actually had much the same experience with the Barbarians... Was playing non-raging barb, and only ever had 5 attack my empire. Granted, I was playing on the MountainCoast mapscript, and was lucky enough to start at one edge of the map, only accessible from two directions, but 5 attacks is still lacking. The animals, though, absolutely RAPED my explorers. Was one particularly epic gryphon just to the south of my borders that actually required a small army to put down.... excellent work. Forced me to build Nature's Revolt as soon as it became available. Conveniently, it affected my vassals (by this point all civs in the East, with the West ruled by Kolshevan) as well, so as the East rapidly expanded and became interconnected for the first time, the West floundered and was unable to establish trade.

 

[xienwolf]

Orcs I haven't actually changed much yet. I was quite focused on getting the Demons and Animals running proper like. So it sounds like my attention should be turning to the fine Green brothers soon here. I'll see what I can do to make certain that they love to hate And I will do my best to ensure that Barbarian World and Raging Barbarians enhance them, rather than neuter them. So far about the only thing I have done is try to figure out (haven't yet, but I am close) how the game evaluates what a chokepoint is and make sure that Barbarians like to clear them of obstructing defenders

 

[Methuselah]

I feel that the Scions have too many good events. I swear in my MP game last night every second event the Scions could have benefited from.

 

[Tarquelne]

What if Artisan's Workshop was attached to Masonry? Masonry could definitely use the boost

We'll see based on more feedback, but a move to Masonry would be far from, err, anathema to me.

I feel that the Scions have too many good events. I swear in my MP game last night every second event the Scions could have benefited from.

Do you remember what the events were? Were events being repeated?

 

[Thunder_Gr]

It is totaly random for every civ. I am at turn 100 in my current game, and no beneficial event came to me. The other night, playing FFH2, I got 3 golden ages in 50 turns, because it happened that I was good, and got the Amathaon event (if I recall correctly) at the appropriate times. But this had never happened until then, it hasn't happened since.

In FF, I usually play the Scions, and they usually get those events, calling golden ages for order, OO, Ilians etc. Normal stuff....

So, you were lucky! Enjoy it!

Btw, I had to wait until turn 50+ to get my first awakened, after that I got 5 within 35 turns. The random number generator can work miracles!

 

[Methuselah]

It is totaly random for every civ. I am at turn 100 in my current game, and no beneficial event came to me. The other night, playing FFH2, I got 3 golden ages in 50 turns, because it happened that I was good, and got the Amathaon event (if I recall correctly) at the appropriate times. But this had never happened until then, it hasn't happened since.

In FF, I usually play the Scions, and they usually get those events, calling golden ages for order, OO, Ilians etc. Normal stuff....

So, you were lucky! Enjoy it!

Btw, I had to wait until turn 50+ to get my first awakened, after that I got 5 within 35 turns. The random number generator can work miracles!

I wasn't playing Scions, I was playing Bannor (although I wipe out the Scions .)

Maybe it was just a string of scion luck then, it just seemed that nearly event I had, I could get a positive outcome if I had been Scion.

 

[lordrune]

The gargoyles from Pristin Pass will now come for your cities once you've woken them. Don't know if its a balance issue, but it is a fairly significant change from what it was before.

 

[xienwolf]

They cannot spawn for the first 20 turns, and will on average have a reduced strength. But yes, only Animal Civilization is locked out of borders, so being Demons they are now quite capable of aiming for your cities (Hill Giants are the same, no longer animals so they can now attack your cities. I'm just not sure if the Orcs are bothering to spawn them just yet as I haven't refined their setup for spawning and hostility. But the Hill Giants now have -50% city attack to compensate)

 

[MaxAstro]

They cannot spawn for the first 20 turns, and will on average have a reduced strength. But yes, only Animal Civilization is locked out of borders, so being Demons they are now quite capable of aiming for your cities (Hill Giants are the same, no longer animals so they can now attack your cities. I'm just not sure if the Orcs are bothering to spawn them just yet as I haven't refined their setup for spawning and hostility. But the Hill Giants now have -50% city attack to compensate)

Ick. -50% city attack for hill giants will rather neuter the three stooges, don't you think? They are a hard enough wonder to justify rushing as-is...

 

[Sarisin]

Ick. -50% city attack for hill giants will rather neuter the three stooges, don't you think? They are a hard enough wonder to justify rushing as-is...

That is bad news. They become little more than a glorified Catapult used mostly for bombarding cities rather than attacking.

Ah, I still like to get them early as they are pretty much untouchable by early barbs. You need to get them leveled-up though for the Lizardmen.

 

[FireBlaze]

Having units spawn out of hell terrain then attack me as hyborem is really annoying.

 

[MaxAstro]

Okay, would be really nice to get some info on if this thing with Carnivals is WAD or not; I've seen a could people report it, and now I'm seeing it myself - Carnivals cannot be built, despite apparently having no requirements except Festivals.

If this is intended, what is required for them, and why make animals so much harder to cage? That takes out one of the major uses of capturing animals.

 

[far_wanderer]

Is Glory Everlasting intended to kill all undead as well? I ask because, not knowing this, I just built it as the Scions to help me in my war against the Infernals. Since that seems like an odd thing to have happen as a bug, I'm assuming it's intentional and bringing it up here.

Having a ritual designed to kill demons completely wipe me out as a side effect seems horribly wrong. On top of that, the Scions do not have Manes and barbarian demons popping into existence all the time to help them recover from such a devastation. The Scions have to manually rebuild from scratch after something like that.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

I wasn't playing Scions, I was playing Bannor (although I wipe out the Scions .)

Maybe it was just a string of scion luck then, it just seemed that nearly event I had, I could get a positive outcome if I had been Scion.

The AI does not get the same events as you do. It happens to me many times to get a series of great events for Good or Evil or Illians or Calabim thinking, OMG, if I was playing as them, it would have been cool! But I never get them when I actually play as them

 

[Sarisin]

Okay, would be really nice to get some info on if this thing with Carnivals is WAD or not; I've seen a could people report it, and now I'm seeing it myself - Carnivals cannot be built, despite apparently having no requirements except Festivals.

If this is intended, what is required for them, and why make animals so much harder to cage? That takes out one of the major uses of capturing animals.

Yeah, MA, I went about capturing all the animals and was lucky to get one of each necessary to build the Grand Menagerie very early in my game. I researched Festivals, but no option to build a Carnival - with all those animals on-hand and costing maintenance.

Someone mentioned you had to get the Masquerade Guild in your city to build a Carnival and then the GM. Unless you are the Balseraphs (I wasn't), apparently the only way to do this is to get a Great Bard and use him to get that Guild in your city.

I researched something, Drama, I would not normally have researched as it was many turns and not what I was interested in. I got the free Great Bard, used him to bring the Masquerade Guild to my city, built a Carnival and then the Grand Menagerie so I could use the gathered animals.

It is a somewhat more tedious process that makes the building of the Grand Menagerie tougher (unless you are the Balseraphs), but, honestly, with animals spawning all the time and somewhat plentiful (more so than in FFH definitely), I found that the GM was too easy to build in each FF game previously. The AI never built it and capturing the animals was very doable as even Gorillas and Tigers spawned often.

 

[Grand Seeker]

I tested my first game of fall further yesterday and it seemed like good fun.
Played on a dual map.

However, out of the blue, just after I build my first adept, somebody won a lesser cultural victory. Allthough I can see the reason for these new vicotry conditions, this one felt very stupid and irritating.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

Ops, wrong thread! Sorry. Anyway, I cannot upload it to the bug Report thread, so it'll stay here it seems...

 

[War Chicken]

Okay, would be really nice to get some info on if this thing with Carnivals is WAD or not; I've seen a could people report it, and now I'm seeing it myself - Carnivals cannot be built, despite apparently having no requirements except Festivals.

If this is intended, what is required for them, and why make animals so much harder to cage? That takes out one of the major uses of capturing animals.

It seems to be intended. You can build carnivals as soon as you get a Great artist, that incorporates "The Masquerade" in your cities. After that you can put animals to the carnivals as before. Exeption seem to be the Balseraph - they are suppsed to be able to build carnivals directly.

I Don't know (yet) if only one player can incorporate the masquerade or if everyone can do that as soon as a great Artist is obtained.

IMO this is the only "not so nice" new feature since I loved to hunt for animals, too.