Fall Further 050 Balance Issues

it would be nice to have quick/lightning versions of all victories.

quick/lightning conquest: destroy X rivals ( X depending on the starting amount of players )

quick/lightning time: self-explanatory :D

quick/lightning altar: build a certain level of the altar

quick/lightning tower of mastery: build a certain number of towers



aside from that: I think the avoid unhappy/unhealthy citizens buttons should start avoiding growth as soon as they reach happy/health cap instead of growing until they are just about to become unhappy/unhealthy. right now it can result in the city growing into unhappiness/unhealthiness under certain circumstances. for example, if the city is working an unimproved pig and you complete a pasture on the turn the city would stop growing, the sudden improvement in food will make the city grow over the unhealthy/unhappy cap.
 
I had tried to enable Score Victories, but you quickly run into complications with how heavily you can actually modify the custom game screen. Time/conquest could possibly be worked out to function properly, just have to ensure that the help text fully explains how different they really are from the base one. The buildings would be tricky to sort out though.
 
If this has already been discussed enough I apologize, I couldn't find anything searching.

I really don't like how Daracaat is Agg/Def/Bar now. I thought Charadon and Daracaat being Agg/Bar worked well enough because their units were very strong with that Combat I promotion. I don't see any reason the Archos units are weak enough to warrant two rather powerful promotions slapped on them, along with Barbarian- even though I know many consider this to not be a 'real' trait, it still gives decisive advantages in the early game, even more in FF since barbarian civs can explore dungeons.

An Agg/Def leader could work but with another trait and already powerful units it just seems really over the top and I don't think fits in with balance. It just feels sloppy.
 
Tried the Archos for the first time just now, and I have to say, they strike me as a little OP. Why does their palace allow two priest specialists? I started popping them early on, and settled them in my capital. Generated enough commerce to hire goblins very early on, conquering the Ljosofar on turn 41 and the Chislev soon after. Actually kept the slider at 100% while running God King AND supporting a far flung empire... Had the Barbs declare on me by turn 140. :eek: Without the priest specialists, I doubt any of this would have been possible.
 
The only place one could logically move them to is the Pagan Temple, which is also not far off. Unless you gave them to a Mother-only temple UB for the Archos, on Priesthood...
 
It's more an issue of having them from the start. The priests from the pagan temple aren't hard to get, no, but that would generally be a detour for the Archos unless you are going for God King, and they are available to anyone. Having the option to assign population to it from the instant you settle is a bit much, especially as the pedia says the Spider cult is a minority.
 
Move from the bug thread since its intentional, just unballanced.

Problem is the Clan world spell, they either explore all the goblin forts or leave them unguarded.

They will all wind up unguarded in future versions, but not massively explored. AI will not want to explore lairs which can spawn allies for them.

Whats the point in having all those archers on them then? Even if the AI doesnt take full advantage of the units, just giving them a stack of 3-4 Scorp Clan Archers can take out any other civ at that time. Just to test, I started a game and used it on the first turn. By turn 5 I had over 2000g, one tech, a treasure chest, several 'items of power' and had taken out the Elohim and Mazatl.

A couple things I can think of would work to balance it out, to start, just dont let them explore forts/ruins/etc or goody huts until they have been recruited (they look like barb to eveyone else, treat them like one). This, however, wouldnt prevent them from being able to take out pretty much any civ that started near a goblin fort, most civs dont have enough defense in the first 5 turns to stop that.

Another option is to give it a tech prereq, not sure what one one, possibly link it with Rantine, that would fit thematically and would also boost his ability (via taking temp control of any stronger unit and moving them out of town so he can take over).
 
I'll second Valkrionn, it would seem only fair to have smokehouses gain the bonus too.

btw, if you ever get around to adding espionage back in for CoE ( or any other CoE-only goody ), I think the Freelancer promo could be taken away from the religion and given to the Grigori, it fits them SO well! maybe with a limit of max 4 freelancer units to keep it from being uber.
 
I really am enjoying the Esus promotions introduced to the game.

I think a "pure" Esus game for a civ can be pretty interesting, but a real tough issue is the lack of healing (read as "Cure Disease"). Much like the Grigori, as a priest-free civ have medics, I wonder if some kind of "heal-for-pay" mechanic might thematically fit the Esus worshippers.

I'd at first thought of something like a "Charlatan" unit who might have an Esus themed spell like "Snakeoil Cure", maybe costs a couple of gold and has a 50% chance of a Cure Disease effect, but that might give away secretive Esus players. Like "hey I saw Charlatans running all over the Svart territory, they must be running CoE."

Alternate implementation might just be a building that gives access to one or more Esus powers, like an expensive / unreliable Cure Disease, or maybe several other thematically appropriate spells, like a version of "Inspiration" that instead of doing +2 beakers, does +2 gold (and +2 crime?), again, there's probably a few things that say, an "Underworld" building of some fashion might be capable of achieving.

Anyhow, while my initial thought is really just "how do you Cure poor Esus guys who tangle with AV Corpses etc.", maybe some larger project of sneaky magic would help make up for some of the lacks these guys have vs. all other traditional, temple-having religions.
 
Pyre Zombies need to have their damage restricted to a single unit and/or have their damaged based upon the maximum strength value of the unit they are exploding on.

Currently a stack of pyre zombies is nigh unstopable (and explains why the computer never bothers researching anything past them, as there isn't a better unit available anywhere on the tree). Putting it in perspective though... each of these zombies can inflict damage to an entire stack (no unit limitation) up to 100% (kills ok!). Most importantly though, the damage is magic based (random 5-20%) and strength appears to be irrelevant. In other words attacking any other stack (or defending for that matter) with at least 10 pyre zombies will always result in a win, regardless of how powerful the defenders are.

Serious issue!!
 
Pyre Zombies need to have their damage restricted to a single unit and/or have their damaged based upon the maximum strength value of the unit they are exploding on.

Currently a stack of pyre zombies is nigh unstopable (and explains why the computer never bothers researching anything past them, as there isn't a better unit available anywhere on the tree). Putting it in perspective though... each of these zombies can inflict damage to an entire stack (no unit limitation) up to 100% (kills ok!). Most importantly though, the damage is magic based (random 5-20%) and strength appears to be irrelevant. In other words attacking any other stack (or defending for that matter) with at least 10 pyre zombies will always result in a win, regardless of how powerful the defenders are.

Serious issue!!
Been brought up many times. There are ways to win, you just can't brute force your way through it. Use hit and run tactics, attack with a fast units. In your own area roads are a huge help. Same thing goes for stacks of assasins. If you simply sit your city and wait to be attacked against every enemy you deserve to lose. Adjust your tactics and you can win like many many other people do.
 
Just because there are ways to combat something doesn't by any means indicate it is balanced. The tech that these units appear at given their strength is much too low, even assuming their functionality is not overpowered. It is silly that a player would -need- to outfit all his units with commando (and probably impossible given how high in the promotion tree it is) in order to combat a unit that can be mass produced after researching two technologies.

I should also note that the only reason this type of hit and run strategy is effective, is because the computer tries to heal itself instead of suicide bombing the city or the stack of attackers. What makes it worse is that these units are just as effective in regular combat as any of the other units appearing in this tier, and unlike catapults have no limitation to the number of units they can effect, nor become outdated due to their damage being magic and not strength based.

The fact that they explode upon death is certainly a cool mechanic, but the damage should really be restricted to the unit that it attacked, or was attacked by, or these units should be moved to the construction line as catapult type units and have their build costs more reflective of their mass damaging capabilities.

That this was mentioned 'many times before' is probably a good indicator that this unit may be imbalanced in it's current state.
 
PZ's are also the last unit in the entire Sheiam military tree. I find it hard to believe PZs are more overpowering then Lanun on the coasts or Vampires anywhere.
 
In other words attacking any other stack (or defending for that matter) with at least 10 pyre zombies will always result in a win, regardless of how powerful the defenders are.

My point is the above statement is hyperbole. You can not argue a point when you are talking about things that are simply not true.

Yes they are a power (in some ways) early unit, but they are weak late game.

You don't need to give commando to every unit, btw mobility comes pretty quick but also not needed. That would only matter in THEIR territory, in your own territory they are easy pickings because YOU own the roads already. Also, the horse line is a very weak line really. This gives you a reason to sometimes make horses/chariots.

The reason it has been brought up many times before is because often people jump to "OMG WTH" instead of thinking it through and coming up with a different solution.

I admit the 1st few times I had a zombie horde attacking me was also baffled by what to do. I was only dealing with 4-5/stack not 10, but my solution was to engage them far away from my cities. I put up a Kaufman Retrograde Defense (nothing like a SFB reference).

Improvise, Adapt and Overcome (or reload a saved game)
 
Please my friends! The Pyre Zombies theme has been discused hundreds of times in the FFH 2 forum, it would be nice if this entire thread is not turned into(another) Pyre Zombies are overpowered or not...
I would suggest to start another(added to the multitude) thread if you are serious about discussing it once more :cool:
 
a nice solution would be to increase PZ's strength as you gain more techs, so that they stay good for all the game but are not uber when you first get bronzeworking. possibly have the number of units the explosion can damage start at a lower number and increase later.
 
*bump*

Just digging this up as it had dropped off the first page so people were forgetting it existed.
 
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