FfH2 0.15 Balance Recommendations

[Kael]

Please use this thread to report balance recommendations.

 

[BeefontheBone]

Methinks mud golems are still too expensive - it's near impossible to get anywhere in the begining with the Luchiurp because you can't improve any tiles readily.

As mentioned in the bug thread, dwarven and kilmorph units which can build mines can't build Dwarven Mines - easy enough to fix for the Khazad ones but might be tricky for the Kilmorph ones, since non-Dwarves shouldn't get access to dwarven mines.

 

[Piemax^2]

Kael, I suspect that the balance between the civs may depend in part on game settings. It would be great to have things reasonably well balanced for a range of settings but that may be difficult and take a while; it would help me (and maybe some others?) to have a particular setup or two in mind. What map size and type- one land mass maps like Panagea, or continents? What difficulty and barb setting? I guess the defaults are the natural values for other settings, right?

 

[QES]

A thought on OO.

They seem to me perfectly balanced. The only issue is that they come VERY early. Once you can build drown, if you focus even small efforts into producing drown (or converting into drown) you can EASILY conquer any other nation, in its entirety with out much difficulty. Terrain is not an issue, since bypassing along the coast is simple enough. And 4 str (especially with apprenticeship and previous barbarian hunting experiance) becomes nigh unstoppable. I killed an entire civilization in only 20-30 turns. He'd just developed archery. He hadnt a prayer.
This is my thought. Runes and Leaves are supposed to be "early game" religions. Then Message, then Order and Veil right? WHy not move Message back a bit. Make it take a bit longer to get to. OR conversely, make it COST a hell of a lot (maybe allow access to it, but make it cost as much as a couple tiers up). I only say this, to allow other civs to get units that MIGHt be able to combat the drown. I went from 2nd to last, to WAY first in about 30-40 turns. I dont think its "unbalanced" it just comes too early to stop. Archery or SOME kind of unit above warriors should be COMMON before drown start appearing. IMHO.

A couple other minor issues:
AI still doesnt really build farms (was playing the Calabim) and I wish they did, only farms I had are the ones i micromanaged and the resource dependant tiles.

AI doesnt build adepts. I had mage guilds.....but as I like to "play with what i get" i dont micro often. Never once had an adept. Only adepts ive ever had (in any version) are the ones i made myself. AI still have problems differentiating between workers and adepts? Just a few produced would be nice.

-Qes

 

[Eddiit]

Loki needs a serious boost. As is he isnt even worth the shields he costs.

1)He cant attack
2)He doesnt have hero trait
3)He has a power of 1 so he stinks at defending

Instead of the immortal trait (or whatever its called) you can just give him something like a 75% withdrawal chance to reflect how easily he can evade most people (the trickster). But as it stands hes just downright useless.

 

[QES]

Loki needs a serious boost. As is he isnt even worth the shields he costs.

1)He cant attack
2)He doesnt have hero trait
3)He has a power of 1 so he stinks at defending

Instead of the immortal trait (or whatever its called) you can just give him something like a 75% withdrawal chance to reflect how easily he can evade most people (the trickster). But as it stands hes just downright useless.

Not utterly useless. Since he's immortal, he'll keep respawning in the capital. If he happens to BE IN THE CAPITAL when someones attacking, they'll have to repeatedly kill him off. Not too hard if they've more than one unit. But if Loki was programed to be the "First defender" no matter what, that would essentially put one of the attacking units on hold. ... The more I think about it, i think you are right, he needs ANOTHER sort of boost. .
-Qes

 

[Kael]

Loki needs a serious boost. As is he isnt even worth the shields he costs.

1)He cant attack
2)He doesnt have hero trait
3)He has a power of 1 so he stinks at defending

Instead of the immortal trait (or whatever its called) you can just give him something like a 75% withdrawal chance to reflect how easily he can evade most people (the trickster). But as it stands hes just downright useless.

Yes, he is supposed to be able to use the new culture mechanics that were pulled out of 0.15. Once we get them working he will be more useful.

 

[Maniac]

May I suggest reducing the commerce bonus from a lumbermill next to a river from 2 to 1?

Reason: consider the following situation:

Lumbermill on forest near river:
+2 hammers
+2 commerce
+0.5 health
<=>
Mine near river while running Runes:
+2 hammers
+2 commerce

So a lumbermill is always better. This makes sense in vanilla Civ since there's no way to replant forests, so you have to leave tiles less than optimally productive for half of the game. However in FfH, when you get your druids, you can simply replace all your mines by forests. Personally I think it doesn't feel right when playing the Runes that mines aren't the best improvement. If the lumbermill produced one les gold, there would at least be a trade-off between more gold or more health.

 

[tyrantpimp]

Noticed that the vampire lord unit requires iron or mihtril i know it replaces the immortal for that civ, but seems like a bizarre requirement for a vampire unit.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

About the adepts not being built by the AI... could you fool it into thinking that the adept was better by giving it a higher strength, but also having it start with a "-X% strength" promotion or something?

 

[Sureshot]

May I suggest reducing the commerce bonus from a lumbermill next to a river from 2 to 1?

Reason: consider the following situation:

Lumbermill on forest near river:
+2 hammers
+2 commerce
+0.5 health
<=>
Mine near river while running Runes:
+2 hammers
+2 commerce

So a lumbermill is always better. This makes sense in vanilla Civ since there's no way to replant forests, so you have to leave tiles less than optimally productive for half of the game. However in FfH, when you get your druids, you can simply replace all your mines by forests. Personally I think it doesn't feel right when playing the Runes that mines aren't the best improvement. If the lumbermill produced one les gold, there would at least be a trade-off between more gold or more health.

mining comes much much sooner than lumbermills doesnt it? though it would be nice if there was a tech bonus of +1 production for mines at some point later in the tech tree.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Yeah, the railraod bonus in vanilla Civ helped mines keep up with other improvements, but we don't have anything like it, here.

 

[Maniac]

mining comes much much sooner than lumbermills doesnt it?

Indeed. That is why there is only one good strategy re forest versus mines (presuming you're not Fellowship):
1. Build mines first, and get free hammers for any forest you chop in the process
2. After having Druids and lumbermills, reverse the process. Plant forests wherever there were mines first, and then place lumbermills on them.

Now of course someone will point out that it takes worker turns to do all that. However I haven't played a single Civ4 where I hadn't all my workers idling and doing nothing in the mid game. Improvement build time is practically irrelevant in Civ4.

though it would be nice if there was a tech bonus of +1 production for mines at some point later in the tech tree.

I agree. I have suggested in the past to let mines produce +1 hammer with Mithril Working. Unfortunately no one reacted then, so I tried another suggestion.
This solution would be better because it would also balance mines versus windmills. Now windmills are practically always better than mines, with only a few rare exceptions. Consider the following situation:

Two windmills = 2 food, 2 hammers, 2 commerce
A farm and a mine = 2 food and 2 hammers

Again a no-brainer. Two food and three hammers would make it a trade-off between more hammers or gold.

Again, the worker turns to convert mines to windmills once you can build them is irrelevant. Just a matter of time, not a matter of choice what improvements you should have.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Actually, I was considering suggesting that mines be made better with mithril working myself. I don't see what would be wrong with it. If not there, then maybe even as soon as smelting.

 

[z00t]

the malakim starting scout + lightbringer should have nomad promotion

 

[eerr]

Orthus doesn't spawn like a normal barbarian, he can appear anywhere there are other barbarians. Im thinking your troops are in for a bad day.

there should be a warning on that...

 

[Sareln]

there should be a warning on that...

Something along the lines of "terminate all barbarians with extreme prejudice lest Orthus spawn or your sorry behind?" ... naw, too confrontational.

In all seriousness, where would we put the warning?

 

[Maniac]

Actually, I was considering suggesting that mines be made better with mithril working myself. I don't see what would be wrong with it. If not there, then maybe even as soon as smelting.

Smelting comes way too early in the tech tree, even before Iron working. To be balanced, it should take about as long to b-line to more productive mines than it should to b-line towards infinite forests (Iron Working + Commune with Nature) or good windmills (Machinery).

 

[Chandrasekhar]

You're probably right. Mithril working still seems a bit late, though. I guess it's better to make the bonus come late than to add another tech which does one thing and one thing only.

 

[Sureshot]

ideally it should go with a tech that has natural dwarf synergy, runes would be way too early, arete already has the extra commerce, and mithril seems the best suited that i can think of, though machinery makes a sort of sense (machinery has good reason to increase the productivity of mining equipment).