Fall Further 050 Balance Issues

[Iceciro]

I'll pull them up next game and see, but in my past tests I've just passed over the shiny blue promos because they're pretty unimpressive in looks. I guess I'll see how much I can abuse them though.

 

[Tarquelne]

Decietful is a 5% withdrawl chance. It allows Misdirection with Tactics II.

Deceitful will get a bit more next patch.

I think many of the Esus promotions might need "a bit" more. The opportunity cost - lost combat strength - seems so high. (OTOH, maybe I should just be patient and get combat III or more first.)

OTOH, Ambush can be quite nice. And mass use of Racketeering II, if you're willing to blow a couple of levels on non-strength promotions, can be a big boon to your economy.

As I see it one of the problems with Esus is Sneak Attack. So powerful I won't use it against the AI, and useless against humans who just refuse to open borders. (OTOH, with the new "Sneak" promotion open borders aren't necessary.) But it's something that needs to be considered when measuring Esus' power.

With that exception I think the Esus' difficulty isn't so much power as flavor. The coolest Esus item IMO is the Shadow unit, and everybody can get that.

 

[25Hour]

Deceitful will get a bit more next patch.

I think many of the Esus promotions might need "a bit" more. The opportunity cost - lost combat strength - seems so high. (OTOH, maybe I should just be patient and get combat III or more first.)

OTOH, Ambush can be quite nice. And mass use of Racketeering II, if you're willing to blow a couple of levels on non-strength promotions, can be a big boon to your economy.

As I see it one of the problems with Esus is Sneak Attack. So powerful I won't use it against the AI, and useless against humans who just refuse to open borders. (OTOH, with the new "Sneak" promotion open borders aren't necessary.) But it's something that needs to be considered when measuring Esus' power.

Hmm, yeah. I definitely agree with the Sneak Attack sentiment-- when used against a human, if it works it really feels like a stolen win (and it won't work against good players). Kinda the multiplayer version of a Newbie Trap. The promotions are really cool and interesting-looking, but aside from Freelancer (AWESOME in the late game) and possibly Racketeering, none of them look particularly enticing, given their opportunity cost. I'm gonna throw in my lot with those people who want Esus to be given some form of BTS espionage.

As is, yeah, the Civ 4 espionage system would require a bit of tinkering. As for the cost, it seems to me that it would work well to take away the passive-espionage abilities (simply too powerful since they, if I recall, depend on the other civ spending points to match yours). Then, we could set the cost of performing spy actions at a constant, but dramatically ramp up the cost of espionage vs. people running the Empyrean (not sure how complex that would be). Maybe remove tech-theft from Spy Actions, if necessary.

I like this idea because it means that players who like espionage have a chance to use it; whereas those who don't won't feel pressured to bother. It wouldn't be overpowered, I think, because it'd have the opportunity cost of 1) running another religion and 2) the gold you would've been spending on research going to screw over your rivals (although to make Esus truly worthwhile we might want to give some base EPs to work with).

Re: Tim's point: I admit, I don't like to count the Hero unit as being the primary "plus" of any religion. If it is, it pretty much guarantees that only the founder of the religion (who, aside from probably getting the hero, also gets its holy city) will find any value in adopting it, and even then only while the hero lives. The promotions are definitely a step in the right direction, I think... but BTS espionage would be so thematic and interesting!

 

[DavidB1111]

Hmm, I think though, that despite giving the AI control of a unit with freelancers, feral to Barb, which isn't countered by Loyalty, making Loyalty even more useless, enraged, etc, it's not useful at all.

Call me crazy, but not being able to control your own units, ever, is not a smart idea. I hate it, and I hate the way Enraged works now. What was wrong with random barbarians again?
Seriously, call me crazy, but the AI in Civ 4 isn't exactly Turing Capable, even on Diety. So, I don't see how anything but a insane boost to the AI will make AI controlled units useful at all.
Maybe make a promotion that removes unit cost, without making it impossible to select them.

 

[Iceciro]

I'd think if you could change the espionage point costs to gold, and then scale that by people running Overcouncil (I wouldn't use Empy, AIs/non-founders don't run it much once Chalid is taken, but Overcouncil is easier to adpot for most races) that might help.

 

[25Hour]

I'd think if you could change the espionage point costs to gold, and then scale that by people running Overcouncil (I wouldn't use Empy, AIs/non-founders don't run it much once Chalid is taken, but Overcouncil is easier to adpot for most races) that might help.

Hmm... actually, that might be kinda neat. This might give a good in-game reason to run the otherwise quite intrusive Overcouncil. But on the other hand, forcing the really powerful civs (who will generally be the ones getting their wells poisoned and dissenters funded) to run the Empyrean to put a stop to the pain seems like a really fitting opportunity cost for increased protection from espionage, since (as you say) it's not normally good for much else once Chalid is taken.

I also like the idea of just using gold instead of espionage points. I wonder, would it be possible to give the Svartalfar some kind of discount on poisoning wells and other such shenanigans? That'd definitely fit their theme, although, uh, they're already quite powerful as is (maybe Alazkan could be moved up a notch on the tech tree to compensate, whatever). The nice thing about EPs, though, is that you can have buildings and such grant bonuses (flat and percentage-based) towards espionage specifically, which might be nice for Esus civs to have (Nox Noctis-- instead of/in addition to current benefit, +100% or so espionage. MASTER OF SPIES!) It may be hard to replicate this with a gold-based system, although I like the simplicity.

 

[Iceciro]

Yeah, but if you add in the EPs there's a chance that you may need to add in EPs for everyone... bleh.

The Council of Esus are supposed to have a "pay for "miracles" " motif going and the gold-espionage way seemed like the best way to do it for me.

 

[25Hour]

Yeah, but if you add in the EPs there's a chance that you may need to add in EPs for everyone... bleh.

That's a fair point. But we know that we can add TECH prerequisites to sliders (like the Culture slider in BtS.) So it seems plausible that one could add in a religious requirement for the Espionage slider, although I'm definitely no expert on modding.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Shortly before Shadow was first released I suggested making it so that Active Espionage missions cost gold instead of espionage points but having the balance of "Divination Points" (as I'd rename Espionage points) still effect the costs of espionage and could still be used for Passive missions (like having territory visible. The Empyrean (probably though its temple) would be the best way to gain divination points, but they could also be gained though OO, the arcane route, and Overcouncil resolutions. The Undercouncil could also have resolutions that reduce the divination points of non-members.

This would of course require someone good at SDK work. I've looked into implementing it myself, but I hadn't really made much progress when I abandoned it nearly a year ago.


I don't know about adding a religion prereq for sliders per se (it is probably possible with SDK changes), but it wouldn't be hard to have tech prereqs where the tech is one that cannot be researched unless you have the right religion, civic, etc. Removing the tech when you convert is more complicated, but I'm pretty sure python can handle it fairly easily too. An SDK route is probably better, but it would pretty much require convincing Xienwolf to tackle the issue.

 

[xienwolf]

Hmm, I think though, that despite giving the AI control of a unit with freelancers, feral to Barb, which isn't countered by Loyalty, making Loyalty even more useless, enraged, etc, it's not useful at all.

Call me crazy, but not being able to control your own units, ever, is not a smart idea. I hate it, and I hate the way Enraged works now. What was wrong with random barbarians again?
Seriously, call me crazy, but the AI in Civ 4 isn't exactly Turing Capable, even on Diety. So, I don't see how anything but a insane boost to the AI will make AI controlled units useful at all.
Maybe make a promotion that removes unit cost, without making it impossible to select them.

You have an apt signature. I must call on it at this point

Not sure what on earth you are saying here. I vaguely recall that we have a promotion called Feral, which can cause a chance to go Barbarian, as with Burning Blood (I think). Loyalty ought to work on these guys still the same as it had before. Loyalty also stops Enraged in FF, and keeps you in personal control of any Freelancers (but they still don't count against your national limits). Our Enraged units cost no maintenance, and in general do a decent job of finding and winning a battle so they can return to your ranks. If they are a Freelancer, you pretty much have to CHOOSE to let them be AI controlled, but they are immortal during that time.

So anyway, Loyalty IS useful in FF. And the reason that AI control on Freelancers is useful is for the Immortality which accompanies it.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I'm thinking that the AI no building requirements option makes gives the doviello an unfair disadvantage since they don't get anything out of it. maybe some free xp would balance things out.

 

[Randomness]

I am personnaly in favor of giving espionage to every one again, but give CE HUGE epionage bonus's.

 

[TimSLS]

I' haven't really played much of BtS, so I can't speak much to its specific espionage system, though in general I haven't liked espionage systems in 4x games. For one thing, it tends to be the AI dumping large recources into efforts that don't really improve their position as much as annoy you - this tends to be sabatoging your improvements, and so you're constantly forced to go back, micromanage, and rebuild (Birth of the Federation had alot of this)...and often your allies feel the need to mess with you (I seem to remember this with diplomats bribing units in civ 2). I imagine some people enjoy this sort of game effect, and honestly its just a personal preference that I don't enjoy it, but I prefer espionage to be more 'quiet' in these sort of games. But that doesn't work well with the AI, as I'm not sure if their decisions would be any better whether they knew the exact build orders of your cities or not...

And at least as the gold costs stand in BTS espionage, I never found stealing technology of much use (the few times I turned from FfH to play Ryhe's)- seemed to be easier to trade, and even with significant espionage not much of a cost discount over researching it yourself, leaving out all the cost to build up the espionage system to get it in the first place. Make it much cheaper though and then you push Esus civs down the path of geering their economy away from research to money to steal techs - and while that has an interesting sound, I rather like the way the game balances economics and research right now. Not to mention I'd expect the AI to not be very good at it.

Further, I'm not sure its a good value for the team's efforts - it would require significant work to implement in a fun way, and probably create a host of balancing issues. Which would be fine if there were a great need for it, but I never miss it in my games, even as Esus.

 

[Randomness]

Acually, the AI is decent with current BTS espionage (Firaxes is profesional, and thus, much better at, not to mention has much more time to devote to, AI tweeking). Reinstating espionage would be less work then doing it otherwise. As for how it is used, I find the AI does use spys to pillage and so forth, as you mentoined, however, they poisen water and ferment unhappieness alot when able to. For example, I was playing as Khmer, top of the points, ten turns later I have 10% science, no growth, no production. Cause, the AI fermented unhappiness in all my cities untill I had about 24 unhappiness each. Since then, I have paid much more attention to espionage. (Of course, this happend before I had FfH.)

 

[TimSLS]

Interesting, then maybe my experiences are obsolete (not surprising considering how old the games are...).

An intermediate step, easier to balance and implement within the present system, might be to give Esus civs a couple of national units with abilities somewhat similar to the scion 'hero' "Pelemoc Goldtongue". Not the same of course, but his abilities and costs could be taken as a guide. Though personally I uncreativly park him in an unhealthy city and he just functions to generate a reborn every 10 turns, there does seem to be alot of potential in using a similar mechanic.

Edit - by the way, on your comments on firaxis and AI - Don't ever play their remake of Colonization. It'd be like finding out Santa Clause isn't real.

Edit 2 - corected spellin off nam, Thankx Warkibby

 

[WarKirby]

similar to the scion 'hero' "Polomic Godtongue".

Pelemoc Goldtongue

 

[Grimz101]

Edit - by the way, on your comments on firaxis and AI - Don't ever play their remake of Colonization. It'd be like finding out Santa Clause isn't real.

Thank goodness for Dale

 

[Valkrionn]

Thank goodness for Dale

Agreed. His mod makes Colonization playable, if only just.

 

[25Hour]

I' haven't really played much of BtS, so I can't speak much to its specific espionage system, though in general I haven't liked espionage systems in 4x games. For one thing, it tends to be the AI dumping large recources into efforts that don't really improve their position as much as annoy you - this tends to be sabatoging your improvements, and so you're constantly forced to go back, micromanage, and rebuild (Birth of the Federation had alot of this)...and often your allies feel the need to mess with you (I seem to remember this with diplomats bribing units in civ 2). I imagine some people enjoy this sort of game effect, and honestly its just a personal preference that I don't enjoy it, but I prefer espionage to be more 'quiet' in these sort of games. But that doesn't work well with the AI, as I'm not sure if their decisions would be any better whether they knew the exact build orders of your cities or not...

I'm a fan of active espionage-- the nice thing about it (aside from pillaging improvements, which is just annoying) is that it gives you a nice, cost-effective way of hindering a very strong player. Since FFH has removed the teeth from a lot of the Civ 4 rubber-band mechanisms (I'm looking at you, maintenance costs and war wariness) the strongest civs only get stronger over time, and we can get really horrible slippery-slope issues (because nobody wants to declare war on the strong players.) I feel like espionage would serve to act like that sort of rubber-band effect, to allow weaker players a way to be effectual without actually declaring war. We don't even necessarily have to allow tech-stealing (which I feel is too all-or-nothing, regardless-- if it IS reimplemented, I'd support giving it a much higher chance to steal PART of a tech, rather than a low chance of stealing the whole thing.) Covertly attacking large players is the main point, in any case.

I recall a previous poster's story about how he was winning until the AI crippled production in a bunch of his cities. I feel like we could use some more of that! HN units can only get you so far, especially considering the Civ-specific unit appearance (for MP, natch). And it'd be so thematic...

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I think archers should not be able to upgrade to horse archers. that would solve the issue with the AI using horse archers to garrison cities ( ouch! )