Fall Further 050 Balance Issues

[lordrune]

Maybe with the worker actions, we should revert to the way they're done in FFH2 - especially now they've been moved to early techs across the board?
I do like the new system which allows to build an improvement early for a 90%penalty on build speed, but if its indeed hurting the AI, it may be best to move away from it.

 

[Breez]

Well, I tend to work on a couple of things at a time so that I don't get blocked up by a single brainfreeze. I've been adding a lot of extra debugging tools to the game and uncovering the ones which are already there. So as I see things that are odd I am more able to figure out WHY they are happening, and then I can change that. For example: Scouts being used as defenders was strange, especially since the AI didn't value them very highly as a city defender type. But then I looked in their UnitInfos and found that someone had stated City Defender was an ALLOWED AI type for the unit. I moved that one over to NOT ALLOWED Ai type. Now some of them sit in cities, but as City Counter (read: Roaming Defender) instead of City Defender (read: AI will always try to have a few of them in each city).

So far it seems to help a fair deal. And with how much success the groups of Orcs are proving to be, I am wondering if I can teach the AI to understand the concept of a mini-stack on their own. It would certainly make them have a higher survival rate, especially if they happen to regroup after a few of them are wiped out.

But overall, I am reasonably certain that the area the AI needs the most assistance (with the least adverse side-effects) are in choosing the first items to build in any city, and in choosing improvements. After that we'll see where they are hurting. Probably Tech Selection (I'd love to get rid of the damnable hardcoding, and make AI consider Religions as unique from each other)

Two points that were new to me, both playing Patch D

I got ahead in a game so I got an offer to leave my old civ and take over a new one pretty early in the game (500ish score, 2nd place was 250ish score). I decided to do so since there was no challenge in winning that game other wise.

I took over the Hippus. They had 4 cities, each city had 3 or 4 warrior defenders AND 4-8 scout defenders. At 0% research I was -10g/turn and had under 100 gold banked.

Slaughtering errr I mean decommissioning my scouts in mass... got me down to positive cash flow. I assume this is what people mean about scout defenders, it is the only time I have seen it.

Secondly,

I recently had the Dural declare war on me. I had experienced but low numbers of defenders. I know they don't factor in experince when declaring war, and I DID have a significantly smaller army. When they declared I had jsut 2 turns before gotten Axemen but only upgraded 2 of them (on the other side if my country)

During the war I got Archery and pretty soon my boarder towns each have 2 axemen and 2 archers hiding behind Palisades with bronze weapons wiping out tons of warriors and hunters with out bronze weapons. On turn 231, I have killed over 250 Dural Warriors, over 60 Dural Hunters, and over 40 of their Fawns. I have not lost a single (non-worker) unit I have a SWATH of enemy like they are following a path to to my city.

What I found interesting about it was they were doing exactly what you mentioned above. The would have a stack of 10-15 warriors/hunters and they would sometimes throw the entire stack at a city, but other times after 1/2 would die the other 1/2 would fall back and join the next inn coming wave.

 

[Brokenbone]

Honestly, Xien, the having to reload to desktop is simple once you understand you have to do it - you can do it without even leaving the game by going to advanced->load mod and just reloading FF .50 - not being able to get a solid game against the AIs is for me a larger problem.

To me, it's one thing to have to do maximum 5 minutes of inconvenience reloading the game (some of my player-mates have really, really slow PCs that shouldn't really be playing Civ IV at all! And that's as slow as it gets for us) when we swap from one game to another, than having ALL of the AIs be pushovers. At this moment, they're pretty much just building cities for the players and keeping them warm for us.

But Your Millage May Vary and I'll support Fall Further no matter what order stuff's fixed in.

This "reload" tip, while having nothing to do with the topic of Balance, may be the most useful single thought expressed in the thread, at least for my present purposes. Much like the MAF workaround thread, if there's tips etc. on avoidance of CTDs, may deserve its own thread. Again, no worse than other workaround threads like when we'd have to be careful about how to load Scenarios on duel maps for base FFH2.

...

Back on point of balance, I found the barbarian stacks a riot... lotsa love for that, though I guess I'll have to progress in a non-crashy way for awhile to appreciate whether the AI ends up slaughtered by barbarian doom stacks. Net, looks cool so far, just wonder about the AI getting thrashed (but which having minimum numbers of defenders etc. may address).

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

well, after playing with FF 0.50 for a while, I have to say that I'd like the new worker 10% buildrate thingy axed. it doesn't really improve the game and causes issues. Kael said it best: "n00btrap" . I'm sorry for the time you've spent on it, but hey, not EVERYTHING can turn out right, right? so yeah, I'd axe that and put forest/jungle chop at mining/bronze working, and tweak the mills+workshops similar to what FFH has done lately ( don't axe the watermills though! ) . late-game improvements should be superior to earlygame ones even WITHOUT the industry civic imho ( which is still good as an added buff if you want to choose it over consumption and others of course ) . oh, and a new improvement buildable in ancient forests for non-elves would be nice, making FoL more attractive to non-elven civs ( the forester from Orbis perhaps? ). having lumbermills in ancient forests would be odd

 

[Thunder_Gr]

Hey! I like that system. So you are not forced to research mining to build a couple of mines, and that you can concentrate on your other research.

FF is a modmod, so usually the people coming to it have enough FFH 2 experience. The are not n00bs, they(we) are asking for more than FFH 2.

There are always issues and issues are to be solved, or else nothing should be done, because it could cause issues...

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

Hey! I like that system. So you are not forced to research mining to build a couple of mines, and that you can concentrate on your other research.

FF is a modmod, so usually the people coming to it have enough FFH 2 experience. The are not n00bs, they(we) are asking for more than FFH 2.

There are always issues and issues are to be solved, or else nothing should be done, because it could cause issues...

sure, you're not forced to research mining. but mining is a very useful, cheap tech, so you should get it anyway when it takes more than 30 turns to build a single mine, is it worth it? IMHO it is not. now if it was 20% rate instead of 10% rate this might be better, I don't know... anyway, the n00b I was referring to is mainly the AI

 

[Thunder_Gr]

I put 5 workers and they get it done in 4 turns. The AI will be taught many things in FF. I have confidence on Xienwolf. He will make it work fine.

And I will get mining to get to bronze working etc, but not before I research, lets say, elementalism. Why should I be left without mines when it can be done like this. Besides, it is more realistic this way, since the mining technology does not implement the knowledge of how to mine but the most efficient way to do it. And this is true for all techs that allow an improvement to be build, whether it is a farm or a lumbermill.

If you add the worker promotions it adds up nicely to 15% or more.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

sure, but you have to use 10 workers to achieve what 1 worker would have achieved with the tech. and building 10 workers when 1 would do means that you're NOT building a lot of stuff that could have been a lot more useful

 

[Thunder_Gr]

sure, but you have to use 10 workers to achieve what 1 worker would have achieved with the tech. and building 10 workers when 1 would do means that you're NOT building a lot of stuff that could have been a lot more useful

Farms, mines, plantations and roads are useful that early. On the other hand, if I didn't have the option, I wouldn't be able to build anything while I was doing my main line research. As is the case with FFH 2 of course

 

[Breez]

I like it. For some reason I always miss getting a Square developing tech or 2 early on trying to beeline for a tech. AFTER I get the easier squares all done I like being able to set my, now other wise idle workers, on doing those other squares I missed.

 

[RogueThunder]

So far it seems to help a fair deal. And with how much success the groups of Orcs are proving to be, I am wondering if I can teach the AI to understand the concept of a mini-stack on their own. It would certainly make them have a higher survival rate, especially if they happen to regroup after a few of them are wiped out.

I actually had the doviello do that to me last game of FF I played...

Stack charged me, got some of their units picked off by me. They ran the hell back home and returned with re-enforcements. This may have been because Lucian was in the stack though. And I was grossly overpowering their stack.

... He did not live to run again however, as the group who chased the first retreat and got lost, flanked him on his second attempt to run ^.^ Which was comical.

Guess it was dumb luck that the AI did this then tho... Or it was their only stack. Or something.

 

[Randomness]

Having an awsome game as Risen Emperor, but the Amurites still haven't gotten Knowledge of Ether by turn 300. Instead, they have gone up the metal line, almost all the way. I thought it was just them... untill I checked around. It wasn't just the Amurites, the Sheim, Balsheraph, Elohim, Illians,and Bannor hadn't either... (Only other computer was Ljolsfar (I know I totally butchard the spellings...sorry). As magic is a HUGE part of this game, I find this terrible.

 

[Sarisin]

Secondly,

I recently had the Dural declare war on me. I had experienced but low numbers of defenders. I know they don't factor in experince when declaring war, and I DID have a significantly smaller army. When they declared I had jsut 2 turns before gotten Axemen but only upgraded 2 of them (on the other side if my country)

During the war I got Archery and pretty soon my boarder towns each have 2 axemen and 2 archers hiding behind Palisades with bronze weapons wiping out tons of warriors and hunters with out bronze weapons. On turn 231, I have killed over 250 Dural Warriors, over 60 Dural Hunters, and over 40 of their Fawns. I have not lost a single (non-worker) unit I have a SWATH of enemy like they are following a path to to my city.

What I found interesting about it was they were doing exactly what you mentioned above. The would have a stack of 10-15 warriors/hunters and they would sometimes throw the entire stack at a city, but other times after 1/2 would die the other 1/2 would fall back and join the next inn coming wave.

That's funny because I saw pretty much the exact same thing in my game with the Dural as well. However, in my case they had declared war on the Scion and, as we had an open borders agreement and I was between the Scion and the Dural civs, I got to watch a constant parade of Dural units through my territory.

They did have mostly small stacks of Archers with an occasional Ranger thrown in. I took delight in having an HN Nightwatch pick them off as they did their routine (I had Nox Noctis).

One other things, I keep hearing explosion sounds and would see Dural units do a dramatic pratfall just about every turn as they made their way to the Scion frontlines. Not enough Gold to support the troops, yet they kept churning them out!

 

[iffi]

1) If automated workers (both mine and AIs) can be coded to ignore the newly introduced thingy, then by all means keep the thingy.

2) I'd like to see the recent changes to the tech tree in FFH introduced here too. Mainly, the Classical start should not give so many free techs. The way it is in FFH is just perfect, you can avoid the early game tile-improvement tech waiting. Ancient start is nice occasionally but not always.

3) The way an AI stack retreats after a few losses, regroups, advances, retreats and so on is present in FFH too (this in reply to a couple of earlier posts).

4) It seems I could safely crank up the difficulty to Deity, and perhaps still be the 1st in power from early on. The AI civs seem to have trouble getting their empires up and running. Haven't reached mid-game yet with any of the tries so dont take this too seriously.

5) The new pillaging Wolf Rider stacks are just annoying None of the barbarian nor demon units attacked my cities, they just wandered around and pillaged. I can adjust my play style to that, but in the long run I don't know if I will like the micromanagement it brings. Obviously, this is more logical behaviour to the savages. Even they should know what very low combat odds mean in practice: instadeath.

 

[xienwolf]

We contemplated making some of the Barbarian factions go to war at higher ACs (most likely just demon vs both of the other 2), but haven't implemented it yet.

Look on the bright side about the 90/10 system breaking the AI... it makes me focus on fixing how the AI improves their land, which has been a weak point for them for quite a long time anyway, just now it is apparently debilitating I am hoping that when I am done they'll be terraforming AND building intelligently.

 

[xienwolf]

Ah, a second page, I have to remember to watch for those when replying...

As for the AI using stack-regrouping already, that's great to hear. I think I can recall the function leading to that, so I just have to work on teaching them that it is preferable to send out 2 or 3 units instead of singles when doing non-war activities (they already understand Stacks of Doom from Firaxis code, but only use them in war really)

sure, you're not forced to research mining. but mining is a very useful, cheap tech, so you should get it anyway when it takes more than 30 turns to build a single mine, is it worth it? IMHO it is not. now if it was 20% rate instead of 10% rate this might be better, I don't know... anyway, the n00b I was referring to is mainly the AI

Actually the 10% rate was just what I slapped into the XML when I first wrote the tags. Ideally, the rate should start out somewhat more reasonable on the "early" improvements, and the "late" improvements should have a "Trickle-down" effect where many techs along the route to the original "unlocker" decrease the cost slowly. So something like 4x cost for Farms/Mines/Roads initially, then roads cost 50% of basic FfH cost after construction. Meanwhile Windmills cost 8x base from gamestart, but BronzeWorking and Archery (ie - Woodcraft) reduce that down by 2x each, and the original tech brings it back down to base.

But... I'd rather slap the AI and hunt BUGs than bother with XML/Python balance. That's why I encourage all of you to mod-mod-mod so I can steal your balance ideas later

Having an awsome game as Risen Emperor, but the Amurites still haven't gotten Knowledge of Ether by turn 300. Instead, they have gone up the metal line, almost all the way. I thought it was just them... untill I checked around. It wasn't just the Amurites, the Sheim, Balsheraph, Elohim, Illians,and Bannor hadn't either... (Only other computer was Ljolsfar (I know I totally butchard the spellings...sorry). As magic is a HUGE part of this game, I find this terrible.

Actually the AI in general is encouraged to avoid Magic techs like the plague for the time being since they kinda suck at using it. As we get them to be better at using magic, we'll be working on getting them to seek magic granting techs.

 

[Vehem]

Actually the 10% rate was just what I slapped into the XML when I first wrote the tags. Ideally, the rate should start out somewhat more reasonable on the "early" improvements, and the "late" improvements should have a "Trickle-down" effect where many techs along the route to the original "unlocker" decrease the cost slowly. So something like 4x cost for Farms/Mines/Roads initially, then roads cost 50% of basic FfH cost after construction. Meanwhile Windmills cost 8x base from gamestart, but BronzeWorking and Archery (ie - Woodcraft) reduce that down by 2x each, and the original tech brings it back down to base.

But... I'd rather slap the AI and hunt BUGs than bother with XML/Python balance. That's why I encourage all of you to mod-mod-mod so I can steal your balance ideas later

I've been toying with these rates anyway - should have a slightly modified set for the next patch to test with...

 

[Sarisin]

Whoa, what a difference a patch makes!

I started a .50e game as Keelyn and was doing pretty good, then the barb groups started coming.

A couple of comments:

1. I did quite a bit of lair exploring and I would say at least 90% of the results were either Gold (for the first time, during an exploration phase of a game, I've exceed 2,000 Gold!) or Orcs. The toughest units I saw come out of lairs were some Fawns and an Axeman.

However,

2. When the groups came, leading THREE groups of six barbs each was a Wraith and I later saw a Gargoyle in the mix of another group.

3. Early game you are just screwed with your improvements. There is no way you are going to kill a group of six Frostling Wolf Riders. Had I known I was getting this, I would not have bothered even building improvements. Mine were wiped out in short order, but I have decent defenders, so my cities will stand.

4. In this game I managed to capture three Griffons. Two had strength 4, but the third had a nifty name and a Hills Defense promotion. I was wondering will their strength continue to grow when they are captured like it would if they are in the wild? It doesn't seem so at this point.

All I can say, is this is the what raging barbs used to be like in FFH quite a few versions ago! Sadly, the AI civs are getting mowed down, so it is looking like an early Conquest Victory by just sitting back and defending.

 

[xienwolf]

Animal strength only escalates while they are in the wild. So there is a payoff to be considered there: Do I leave the animal alone and capture later so I have a strong unit (at the risk of someone else capturing/killing him first), or do I snag him now before he gets out of reach and/or TOO strong?

 

[Thunder_Gr]

In my current game, I have seen a lion with age 390. It is glowing. It has all combat promotions + magic resistance. I figuered that these were all the available promotions for its type, and so it couldn't promote any more. Wouldn't it be better if such a unit cannot gain more XP than the maximum number of promotions it can get?