FfH2 0.15 Balance Recommendations

[Silverkiss]

Altough I agree rangers come too quickly, Feral Bond doesn´t fits flavourwise

 

[Sureshot]

personally id just like to see them reduced in strength and the horse tech line made much easier. the horseline doesnt compare with any other unit line either, its just more obvious when you compare it with the uber rangers.

i'll make a thread to expand on my tech post, i just noticed that macemen have it even worse than horsearchers in most ways (though not other tech dependence or strength)

 

[Silverkiss]

I think Mounted units should be the strongest, but at the same time the most vulnerable (no defense bonuses). So they could use some boosts to str/abilities and of course need boosts to the techs too...

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I always thought of rangers as tier 3 units (because of the scout/hunter/ranger line) but agree that they apear to early, I think they should be moved back one tech to feral bond if possible.

Or we could adjust the tech prices. Right now they are all set equal to the ones above and below, but it doesn't have to be so. I slight upward adjustment to ranger techs might be better than pushing them back.
It'd be a big project to balance all the tech prices, but it should be on the table.


edit: oh, sorry, that was already mentioned in the post you quoted!

 

[Silverkiss]

Recon line techs go up, mounted techs go down

Could work... But something more should be done... (dont ask me what )

 

[Sureshot]

Or we could adjust the tech prices. Right now they are all set equal to the ones above and below, but it doesn't have to be so. I slight upward adjustment to ranger techs might be better than pushing them back.
It'd be a big project to balance all the tech prices, but it should be on the table.


edit: oh, sorry, that was already mentioned in the post you quoted!

i dont think the recon line should have increased cost, because atm theyre the only line that makes sense for the costs (in their line, costs double each tech.. in others lines the costs sometimes increase 4 times, or even 8 times in cost.. which makes them prohibitive and unattractive for research).

 

[Bad Player]

Well... it would weaken charm, which is right about where it shoudl be I think (saved my behind this morning.) But loyalty is a tier one spell that does nothing for some time, and this would make it more useful. How bout double chance to resist charm if a unit has loyalty?

But charm never seems to work even against non-magic-resistant units. Could it be made more likely to occur?

 

[Chandrasekhar]

How about just making stirrups go down a tier, tech wise?

 

[Sureshot]

it would help, but i dont think its enough. bowyers also has the same problem, and even with all those tiered units being the same tech level, rangers are still greater than its counterparts (7 str + 2 movement = 9, where all the other units of that tier are 7+1=8 or 6+2=8 or 5+3=8), which strikes me as odd as their 'strengths' are supposed to come from things like vs. animals and the whole no-anti-recon promo.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

But charm never seems to work even against non-magic-resistant units. Could it be made more likely to occur?

Never is a harsh word--I charmed about six to ten units today. Including a high level Typoid Mary.
Not saying it's perfect, though, just useful as is.

 

[Bad Player]

Well I tried it quite a few times with my acrobats and nothing happened so I gave up.

What was your % success with charm?

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Worked more often then not. Say, 8 or 9 out of 15? Don't really remember.

 

[Mithrus]

Will the techs for Ashen Veil and The Order be lowered at some point in the near future? I think the costs for both the founding tech and next one after should be halved at least.

Compared to the other religions, they have at least 2 additional techs to research, and the founding tech is 4 times as costly. Granted, I think the priest units are pretty powerful, but for the same amount of research, you can get far better units a lot sooner. I know there was some mention of changing AV and TO to make them more attractive as late game religions, but IMO I don't see how that can be possible. Since the entire civ game revolves around compound interest (your overall points should increase on average each turn), waiting 100+ turns to found a religion works out to be at least an additional 100+ turns of catching up to people, which just doesn't happen in most games I've played (vs real people, the AI is still pretty weak).

I've tried founding/using another religion until I got AV or TO, but by that time I had already invested a good amount of resources into that religion, making it cost prohibitive to change (loosing a hero with 100+ exps is just not worth changing a religion, when i would taken another 50+ turns to level another hero up to be the same as the original you lost; not building a hero because you plan on changing religions seems wasteful of opportunity).

 

[Maniac]

They already can... I just was wondering if he'd reconsider the decision to make them able to do that. They're already enormously powerful with the ability to make plains/deserts/tundras/snow into grassland tiles, I'd say that uberizing floodplains might be a bit over the top. Or, if they must retain that ability, why not make them a tier-3 unit, but remove the ability to uberize floodplains until they are upgraded to a similar tier-4 unit?

/me thinks Druids should require Nature mana. My thought process in my last game went "Hmm, what mana should I build on this newly captured node? Nature mana? Naaaaaah, I can get all benefits for free by Druids anyway." In other words, because of the new mana system, druids make nature mana too unattractive.

 

[Sureshot]

i mentioned earlier itd be nice if hippus warriors could upgrade to horsemen.

i think itd be flavourful if nearly all hippus units could upgrade to some mounted unit

like:
Hippus Scouts can upgrade to Raiders (already in)
Hippus Warrior can upgrade to Raiders (standard horsemen)
Hippus Hunters can upgrade to Raiders
Hippus Archers can upgrade to Brigands (standard horsearcher)
Hippus Pikemen can upgrade to Windknights (standard knight)

it would alleviate a bit of the feeling of wasted units (like building and leveling an archer only to never research bowyers), and would allow the Hippus some freedom and uniqueness in their unit strategies.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

That might be good if the cost of upgrading to the mounted units was increased from what it would normally be.

 

[Sureshot]

oh definately, raise the cost to high heaven, but just give the option for flavour heh

 

[Kael]

Or we could adjust the tech prices. Right now they are all set equal to the ones above and below, but it doesn't have to be so. I slight upward adjustment to ranger techs might be better than pushing them back.
It'd be a big project to balance all the tech prices, but it should be on the table.


edit: oh, sorry, that was already mentioned in the post you quoted!

I think this is the best approach as well. Nikis-Knight can you make a first pass at seeing what tech costs you would like to adjust?

 

[Bad Player]

Visible mana from the start is part of weakening of the Ashen Veil. Bee-linging the AV showed you where mana was and made it more worthwhile. Not huge, but still a bonus for attempting AV.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I think this is the best approach as well. Nikis-Knight can you make a first pass at seeing what tech costs you would like to adjust?

Sure.

I had this idea about deception and honor in the meantime: how about making them mutually exclusive and have impacts on diplomacy? If this is possible, I'd consider the following:
Deception gives +3 to relationships with all civs ONLY when considering trades in which each side offers something (not tributes) and lowers the relationship threshold at which other civs will offer open borders by 3 as well.
Honor gives +5 to relationships with all civs ONLY when going to war with a third party is one the table, and raises both the threshold and bonus for open borders by 1 or 2.
So if you are decietful, you can get trades cheaper, but if you are honorable your friends are more likely to come to your aid when you need it.