FfH2 0.15 Balance Recommendations

[Maniac]

IMO the problem with the cavalry branch is that it is a pure military branch, while all other unit branches also give lots of builder benefits on the way. The choice what to go after is quickly made then.

 

[Frozen-Vomit]

As mana nodes are now availible from the start I suggest (again ) to move the free tech from writing to knowledge from the eather.

The main argument for not doing so was that knowledge already does enough as it was, but now it lost one of it's main features.

Flavourwise I think it makes more sense to get a free tech from knowledge - and it would also be cool to grant the first player to discover it one of the four schools of magic (an obvios choice for their free tech.)

 

[Unser Giftzwerg]

had a game with the luchirup and got barnaxus while there where still some barbarians around, i used him to kill as many of the invading barbarians as possible and got him the combat 5 promotion quickly.
that made my golems extremely powerful, barnaxus wasn't of any use though, i mean actively, since he isn't strong enough and he's far to valuable to risk getting him killed.

Imho the Luchirup are too dependent on their hero Barnaxus, he makes a great difference.
Don't get me wrong, i like the idea of that hero very much, its just that if he's not around the golems are quite weak, with him they are extremely strong.

Maybe instead of giving the other golems the combat 1-5 promotions he could give them a percentage of his XP, maybe 10-20%.
and i would give Barnaxus some sort of Immortal promotion, he gets revived in the capital after dying but looses all XP.
It would still be devastating to the Luchirup, since their Golems will loose all their XP, but they have a chance to gain their strenght back.
Maybe the "reborn" Barnaxus could come back with a higher base strenght, if you have access to iron, copper or mithril.

just my thoughts about that particular hero, right now you have pretty much lost if you loose barnaxus, unless you're much stronger than everyone else, and someone might consider using barnaxus to attack with just a 99% chance, without relying on saving/loading, which kinda feels like cheating.

mfg
Mavy

I'm playing Luchuirp right now (who reads rules?) and I was wondering why my Wood Golems were still unable to spend their exp points, yet they went from 0* to 4*. So all ordinary golems are tied to Barnaxus? Hmm, I was already not-so-much-enjoying-the-Luchuirp-experience. It's just not my cup of tea. All those Warriors who leveled up defending the realm in the frantic early days get outsourced for robot worker -- too much like real life. And the robot workers don't level up; a lot of the fun aspects (in my book) are missing. Well, just idle talk; they're just not my cup of tea I guess.

But regardless, there are a couple-three issues I feel are worth mentioning for consideration:

Tech Tree organization: The Luchuirp seemed forced to get a huge number of inventions from diffent trees. Putting the Slinger unit under Archery makes a lot of logical sense, but it also means Dwarven civs have to run up a differnt tech tree early in the game in order to get unit early in the game. That can be prohibitively expensive in the opening game.

The Luchuirp are especially affected, as the Dwarven Slinger is the only upgrade path to preserve all the high-exp Warriors that leveled up against the Barbs. Some thought on the early path is probably worth the time.

The traditional Dwarf/Runes pairing in most games means Dwarves generally spend extra effort building Obelisks or extra Thanes to use as culture bombs. (Culture M80s st least.) The lack of so much as +1 from Temples of Killmorph is a significant thing, as the Dwarves are pretty scarce in the department of Cultural leaders.

The other two "early" religions give + from their temples. Veil does not, but Veil is discovered a bit later in the game. In the early game building an Obelisk is a significant investment, in the later game not so much. I expect the Team has thought on this issue already, but I'll pipe up with it anyway.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Tech Tree organization: The Luchuirp seemed forced to get a huge number of inventions from diffent trees. Putting the Slinger unit under Archery makes a lot of logical sense, but it also means Dwarven civs have to run up a differnt tech tree early in the game in order to get unit early in the game. That can be prohibitively expensive in the opening game.

Archery is one tech off of Hunting, which is as useful for Luchuirps as for anyone. But since they don't get any further archers, I'd raise their cost (maybe) and kill their archery range requirement on slingers, and move Velox workshop to something else. (It takes two techs to get to precision, and tha's all it gives them.) This would also be good to give them one more unit that doesn't require a building since otherwise their troops are over-connected to buildings.

 

[Unser Giftzwerg]

While I apprecaite specialties, Must i really follow a regimine? Must i play a certain way or suffer unduely? Perhaps I should suffer some, or struggle in other ways. But to be forced into warfare because of Barny seems odd, thematically and game play wise. I'm not partial to having been told "Play like this or dont play them." THe idea of an additive bonus is great, Barny is a great idea, but should the Luchurip strategy REQUIRE him? Should there not be "other" perhaps less effecient options?
-Qes

The "sameness" thing is a valid concern, IMO. All the eggs in one basket, sort of thing. I'm just interoducing myself to them now, so what do I know? Just to chime in.

 

[Unser Giftzwerg]

Erp, I forgot to mention in my above list...

Fresh off my infamous study I could not help but notice cities grow while Mud Golems are built. This allowed me to get my first Cottage operating aroung turn 70. (That's really early.) Mud Golems' 150% building efficiency really throws up the improvments fast. (A Hut game me Mining for free at this early stage-whoo!)

So anyway, early workers+fast building speed ... I see the potential for another realm that jackrabbits out of the gate. Po Ten Shall, Gentle Lurker; I make no claims. The mechanics are vastly different, but with some experience I am afraid it will be possible to think up another sort of economic exploit.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

So anyway, early workers+fast building speed ... I see the potential for another realm that jackrabbits out of the gate. Po Ten Shall, Gentle Lurker; I make no claims. The mechanics are vastly different, but with some experience I am afraid it will be possible to think up another sort of economic exploit.

Early workers? They are pretty expensive.

 

[Unser Giftzwerg]

IMO the problem with the cavalry branch is that it is a pure military branch, while all other unit branches also give lots of builder benefits on the way. The choice what to go after is quickly made then.

Considering the imporance of animal power in the pre-coal (non-magic! ) days it makes a certain sense to add hammer production to cavalry-line techs. Perhaps a Grain Mill building that requires Horses. Or putting a Machinery pre-req in the cavalry line. Just first thoughts there.

I have spent about 6 seconds thinking superficially about this subject, so no predictions here, but this notion has some potential it seems. Not just for the "feel", but to improve the actual game-play experience.

 

[Unser Giftzwerg]

Archery is one tech off of Hunting, which is as useful for Luchuirps as for anyone. But since they don't get any further archers, I'd raise their cost and kill their archery range requirement on slingers, and move Velox workshop to something else. (It takes two techs to get or precision, and tha's all it gives them.) This would also be good to give them one more unit that doesn't require a building since otherwise their troops are over-connected to buildings.

Sure Hunting is useful ... but useful takes a back seat to essential, life-saving, and realm-defining. In my extensive experience (1 game played oddly) I did take Archery ... but by the time I GOT it and built an Archery Range, most of my starting Warriors had sacrificed their lives holding off the attackers coming after me. (Clan of Embers declared on me from the NW about 3 turns before Orthus led a new surge of Barbarians out of Aecheron's city tothe SW.) That 100+exp Warrior, dead, all the 50+ ones, dead, just one 20+ Warrior left alive, and a bunch of hastilly-built militia. But their deaths were purchased dearly; Orthus died on his second attempt to take my city! Turns out I never did build that Archery Range.

Later start to the invention + significant invention time + significant building construction time = not particularly useful

(So your idea to not need the Archery Range sounds pretty good! The other aspects are outta my knowledge range so far. )

I'm just throwing the thought out there, get it rattling in some brains. I'm not saying anything specific needs be done.

 

[Unser Giftzwerg]

Early workers? They are pretty expensive.

They are expensive, but only 133% the cost of a normal worker. And since a 'normal' worker puts the shutdown on city population growth, it's cost must be measured in something besides pure hammers. That is, for cities that are not yet happycapped. That's how they can get an early worker. They can start construction of one while the city is still size 1 or 2 and that will not stymie population growth. In this way of looking at things, the Mud Golem does not "cost" any more than the normal Worker, but it does work 50% faster. Personally, I think the Mud Golem is a bargain at the current price.

Like I said, I am not convinced this approach does not come with significant tradeoffs ... just like a good strategy game should offer ... but I see potential for an exploit.

 

[slithy]

Yeah, I think I will eventually have to fix this by making 5 mini-combat promotions for the golems when Barnaxus gets the combat promotions. So instead of getting +20% from each Barnaxus's promotions they will only get +10%. But Im not ready to do it yet.

That would help indeed. Although it might be easier just to make them "Arcane" and "Divine" (powered by the gods?) so you could easily make golem-killing units, if the AI is smart enough to know to do this.

Yeah, Im thinking abotu reducing the research cost on way of the wise and way of the wicked to make the ashen veil and order show up earlier.

That would help, but the heroes still wouldn't match up to Bambur. I actually think the Leaves is the best religion, just for Guardian of Nature which essentially lets you ignore happiness and health for a good long while, but Bambur is such a military advantage that I go Runes 2 out of 3 games just because I know I can mop up 1 or 2 civs by relying on him. I love that little guy!

I will be curious to see what your take is on this after your hippus game. In my experience mounted units are useless when you have already outproduced your opponent. When you are fighting a defensive war, or harrasing a more powerful neighbor mounted units become incrediably useful.

And the game isnt build around requiring any type, if you skip archers you will do okay, that doesnt mean archers dont have their use. Just that you were able to win through skill in other areas.

Actually I generally do skip archers as well unless I play Leaves, and then they are just a stop-gap until I can build Axemen. The melee units are good at defense AND offense, so why build defensive specialists that can't switch roles effectively?

That could be a play-style preference on my part, but the problem I've always seen with city-defender promotions is that you actually have to be attacked to level up these units enough to make them really useful - dual-role units you can use to pick off raiders and get promos, or you can send them back to your cities as defenders after seasoning while rotating out your garrisons to get some combat experience in their turn. Relying on my enemies to siege my cities doesn't seem an optimal strategy to me.

Essentially the same problem comes with the mounted units - because they are weaker than melee units, you try to avoid battle with them, but if you avoid battle, you stay weak. If you are fighting defensively, heroes allied with Priests are far better than horsemen (with Mobility and a couple combat promotions any Priest is a more than a match even for the Tier 3 horse units - and the Priests don't have to fight to get these promotions, so it is trivial to have some in reserve), and as far as pillaging goes a stack of four melee units that mostly stick to rugged terrain will outperform any dozen cavalrymen.

In vanilla Civ the cavalry units rule because they are powerful enough to make their speed useful in that you can overwhelm a city before it can be reinforced by bringing enough of them - it doesn't make sense here, because being weaker than melee units you would need so many that it would be horribly wasteful and a sure path to defeat.
However, in reality cavalry weren't all that useful in taking cities so it does make logical sense, however in reality cavalry also had other roles that can't really be modelled that well on a strategic level - you can't cut off your enemy's supply routes, you can't break his morale by charging in from the flank, you don't need to force him to stand and give battle, there aren't any poorly trained and equipped levies that you can overrun and panic, etc.

The one thing you CAN do is pillage with them, but since they don't have the ability to run away if attacked (as they could historically unless you brought cavalry of your own or managed to get them trapped against rough terrain) they are just not worth the effort - if you are going to have to stand and fight, it makes sense to bring your best fighters, 'cause all your mobility does is move you into killing range of your opponent more quickly.

One further idea I had was to give cavalry +100% plains defensive/offensive bonuses, but since they don't get defensive bonuses at all I don't know if that's even possible. That way, they would rule the open spaces, as is proper, but once in rough terrain they would be vulnerable, as is also proper. Then it would be hard to dislodge raiders without cavalry of your own, thereby giving them an essential role you'd ignore at peril.

I dont really want the power curve to be the same for all civs. The city number does change based on the map, but outside of that its a weakness they need to deal with.

I just don't think their advantage lasts long enough or is strong enough to make them competitive. I've noticed that when they are run by the AI, they are almost always despised by the other AI civs, presumably because they are militarily the weakest, and they always end up getting conquered unless I intervene and prop them up (which I often do, just because I love the underdog). This, to me, shows that they just don't have enough pluses to overcome their crippling deficiency.

The problem is that you can't really USE your period of dominance for anything - what is the point of conquering a couple neighbors when it doesn't really add anything to your power? Why build settlements everywhere when all they do is dilute your military and impose huge costs for a few resources that you don't really need if you just embrace Leaves and use that to keep your people happy? Generally an early power boost should set you up to overcome your later game weakness, but it doesn't matter what you do with the Kuriotates, you are going to get owned later regardless.

One thing I thought of that might help was to make their Dragon grow during the game - maybe you could get him early (like with Ancient Chants) as a strength 4 unit, have him upgrade to strength 7 with Cult of the Dragon, push him to 12 when you get Righteousness, and bring him to 22 when you get to the current enabling tech. Then he'd be a difference maker that could make them competitive.

Yeah, Loki is actually heading design on a naval overhaul and it has some great stuff in it. So expect to see new stuff here.

Awesome.

 

[slithy]

I like some of these ideas alot, especially the naval units for the religions.

Oh, and after reading your post fully, I think you might need to up the difficulty.

Actually I normally play on Monarch, but I wanted to be sure I played each civ to victory so I could give a fair comparison of how they played thru the whole game. Even so, I managed to lose as the Kuriotates the first time I tried them, because there wasn't room to build 3 decent cities where I started. I ended up putting one on the other side of the Bannor, who then (despite our Pleased relations) decided to attack me for no reason and took that third city despite my 40 XP bear with the Orthus Axe who was defending it along with a couple lions and a warrior. After that it was all over but the crying... which, however, reminds me that even with Aggressive AI checked off, there aren't nearly enough wars going on, this attack to the contrary. I'd have a lot harder time winning if the AIs absorbed the weak sisters into their empires so that I wasn't always at or near the top thru the whole game.

 

[Eddiit]

I'm trying to play thru all the civs 1 at a time to see how the balance is - so far I have played (on the current version 0.15) all the Good civs, so here is my take on how they played (all games on Prince, Aggressive AI, Permanent Alliances enabled, Standard world, High Sea Level, all victory conditions enabled, Continents):

Bannor: Won around 450 by domination, using Sabithiel. I built 5 cities quickly, built up my military and beat the Calabim down (they only had 2 cities, cut off by me from the rest of the continent). The Elohim decided to attack me while I was consolidating and building up my infrastructure and took one of my cities before I made peace. I researched so that I founded the Order, went on a Crusade and spent around 120 years just fighting until I conquered the whole continent (allying with the Sheiam, who went Order and were then Good like me). I used Flagbearers (one in each stack), but the Demagogs I didn't even try because I didn't like the idea of losing them when I changed from Crusade. (Maybe they could be changed so they are always Enraged and die after they attack instead, to make them something like medieval cruise missiles? Give them some collateral damage as well, tone down their strength and then there'd be a case for using them in bulk to overwhelm the defense like a horde of, well, fanatics.)

Anyway once I crushed my continent I loaded up some Queen o' the Lines with a hero stack and a bunch of national units, and invaded the primitive Khazad, thereby triggering domination. All in all, pretty easy except for the backstabbing Elohim at the beginning.

PROS: Donal Lugh is an all-around good hero to have, especially with the recruiting that let me roll on with my offensives a couple times when usually I'd have to pause to wait for reinforcements to come up and secure my conquests. The strong defense came in handy when I was at war with three different civs at once, as I could hold on two fronts while demolishing my third enemy, ending up defeating my opponents in detail. Of course the only reason I was fighting three civs in the first place was because I was on Crusade and couldn't make peace...

CONS: None really, I enjoyed playing them and think they are an ideal war-mongering choice.


MALAKIM:

Another domination victory, this one near 500. I just slowly oozed my way to first place by chipping away at my neighbors, then overwhelmed them one at a time in set-piece invasions. I went for Runes, got it, and everyone on my continent converted to it, while across the sea the Ljolsfar started Leaves, and the Hippus went Octopus Overlords. So I had time to build up a big tech lead over everyone except my designated alliance partner, and once I had Bambur jacked up I just used him along with the Nilhorn giants (instead of catapults) and the Baron to beat everyone else into jelly. The continent was big enough that as soon as the Kuriotates accepted my perma-alliance, we won domination without ever crossing the sea except on exploration missions. I was helped quite a bit by Orcus ravaging my neighbours, and I killed him with Bambur when he made the mistake of coming to try the same on me, which made Bambur pretty well unstoppable.

PROS: Not much other than being Financial, which along with Runes makes you plenty rich.

CONS: Not fleshed out really yet, so no Cons as yet.


ELOHIM:

Domination around 500 again, using Varn. I went Runes again, built a bunch of Soldiers of Kilmorph and declared war on the Calabim who had just founded Octopus. Somehow they had stacks of Drown already, but luckily I was holding a forested hill on the border while waiting for my giants to come up before invading, so I quickly reoriented and fought defensively until they were exhausted, then counter-attacked and took one city before making peace. I then built craploads of Axes and a Bambur again (Bambur is the shiznit indeed), and cleaned out the Calabim's other three cities. I then went into builder mode until I got Corlindale, allied with the Amurites and proceeded to crush both the Grigori and the Doviello in short order. I wanted to try to get a Tower of Mastery victory because I had plenty of mana nodes and was only missing 4 types after building the Soul Forge, but after I saw how long it would take to build the Rites of Oghma I forgot that notion, built up a huge army and invaded the Clan's lands over the ocean and took a couple cities from the Khazad as well to dominate.

PROS: The Defensive trait more or less saved me, as otherwise the Calabim Drown would've probably taken one or two cities and I would have been out of the game before it really began. Corlindale is not bad, although I certainly would never sacrifice him just to make peace - if you are that badly off you need to resort to this, you are undoubtedly going to lose anyway, so you might as well go down fighting... The spell is a good idea, it's just I doubt anyone would ever use it because losing a hero is such a psychological crusher. Maybe if he just lost all his XP instead?

CONS: Not really fleshed out, so no Cons apply as yet, except that I didn't use the Monks because by the time they were available, I already had plenty of Paramanders - I guess they'd be ok if you were using a religion that didn't have holy warrior types, but then I'd be beelining for iron and making cheap Macemen instead. Maybe if they started with Mobility 1 there'd be a role for them...


LUCHUIRP:

Another domination victory around the early 600's, although I could have finished it much faster - I just wanted to see what the late game Golems were like, because I had never played these guys before, ever. I played as Garrim, and this was by far the easiest game to win. I went Runes yet again, was by the Calabim yet again, and this time I waited until I had Wood Golems, and I just buried them with numbers. Once they were down, I sent Barnaxus up North where the dragon was and had him level up against barbs coming out to raid. After he got to Combat 4, I churned out Iron Golems from my capital and sent good ol' Bambur out in one stack with the Baron, and Typhoid Mary with another stack, and we took out the Bannor with the help of Kuriotates in short order, although Sabby had the Wood Elf and some Druids that were running around taking settlements from the K's until I sent a stack of Iron Golems to end that foolishness - by this time Barny had Combat 5, so my Iron Golems were effectively 18 strength and I didn't even have to bother with sieging, mostly the golems would attack at around 55-60 percent even against dug-in crossbowmen in cities, so I could use the heros just to pick off anyone dumb enough to run around in the open.

As the K-man and I were at around 2200 points when our perma-alliance came thru, and the Grigori were in third with around 1300, the game was more or less already over. I just dawdled around until I got as far as the Bone and Arcane Golems, then filled up some Queens and busted up the Illians for kicks, thereby putting us over the top.

PROS: As long as it levelled up Barny before going to war, even the AI could manage to win wars quickly without much in the way of strategy. These guys get good units, and they get them from start to finish, so this is another fine war-mongering civ. I never made one mage 'cause I figured I wouldn't need them due to my melee units being so overpowering, and I was right.

CONS: Barnaxus is pretty weak so you have to be careful and it takes time to level him up. If you aren't lucky enough to have a barb city near you might lose him to an astute or lucky enemy (I know I'd happily lose a whole stack to kill him if I was on the other side). The Clay Golems (workers) take a long time to build, so you do lag a bit in the very early game if you try to spam cottages. I don't think they would synergize well with Octopus Overlords, although Leaves or the Order might be ok. (Ashen Veil is not an option for anyone that I've found as yet).


KURIOTATES

A cultural win in the early 600's - I dunno if you could pull off a domination win, even with perma-alliances unless you gave all your conquests to your partner, which rather takes all the fun out of it.

I built only my three main cities and no settlements, putting one city due east of my start and another SW of the capital on the ocean. I spent a long time thinking about city placement so that I would get full advantage of the 3 space radius and be able to build really big cities. I was near a river with floodplains on the start, so I moved south two spaces so that I would have SEVEN such floodplains in my hinterlands for the capital, with practically everything else being forest or forested hills. I built my second city between two gold-bearing hills, with lots of forest and hills to the west and south, and plains and desert (to be terraformed and forested later) to the east and north. The last city, on the ocean, was backed with plains and couple hills, with jungle to the south that had dye, rice and reagents.

I figured Leaves was the way to go as I wanted to pump my cities so that they would be utter monsters, and with all those floods nearby my capital I had enough cottages to make founding Leaves first quite easy. My first Scout got lucky, found Animal Husbandry, and got enough XP to get Subdue Animals, and I captured lions, tigers, and even a Bear (once my Scout was upgraded to a Hunter on that last one). So I was able to skip some early defense buildup and put animals as defenders instead, which further accelerated my growth.

I beelined for the Nature techs and changed to Guardian of Nature, after which I had enough forests for happiness that I could just make those cities grow, grow, grow. Just after I made a defensive pact with the Elohim, the Sidar AND the Lanun got into a war with us, but I already had the Baron and Kyra along with the giants, so I held off the Lanun to the North with axemen in the forests while my heroes, and some archers of leaves barely managed to keep out a huge stack of around 15 rangers and Soldiers of Kilmorph that Morgoth had apparently been itching to use on me. He did ravage my whole western kingdom, and he actually was down to fighting my Adepts as defenders when he threw his stack at my city (Kyra and the Baron were both worn down and I had retreated them out of the city to heal, and I had had to use Ravenous Werewolves as stop-gap city defenders along with my archers and a couple hastily redirected axemen and the adepts).

However, he did fail in his effort, and one of my werewolves now had the Orthus Axe he had been using. I killed the remaining Rangers with Kyra and a freshly minted Yvain, and then slaughtered every last one of his invaders with the pumped-up wolves. It was then time for the offensive, and I burnt down his nearest city, after which he sued for peace. I then turned my wolves against the Lanun, took one of their cities as well, made them pay me well to stop attacking, and gave the captured city to the Elohim.

Both the Lanun and the Sidar only had 4 cities each to start, so this put them each at three with nowhere to expand, and they were essentially toothless thereafter. The Infernal were down near the south pole, with the Elohim completely blocking them from me, and the Illians were off on a small continent with the dragon in their jungle. I perma-allied with the Elohim and while the other 4 civs fought amongst each other I grew the cities and pumped out the Great People. I wanted to hold off winning until I made the Gold Dragon, so I didn't touch the culture slider until the end-game and deliberately left the sea-side city languishing in the culture race to do so.

I built Genesis and used my druids to make lots of forests (and eventually Ancient Forests) on grasslands, and my capital at the end of the game had a size of 47, my military city (to the east) was 33, and the seaside city was 32. The capital had enough great people that with the proper civics it was putting out 943 culture points and 174 great people points per turn, every turn, and that was when IT WAS GENERATING SCIENCE, NOT CULTURE!!!!

Anyway, I built the dragon, used him against the barb dragon to level him up a bit, then sent him to run around the Illian continent and raze all their improvements. I was hoping to level him up really high, however, since none of the Illian units were divine (he had no religion at all - I had founded Leaves and the Cult, the Elohim founded the Order, Morgoth founded Runes and eventually Octopus Overlords, and the Infernal founded the Veil - NONE of which ever spread to any of his cities), none of them could resist fear and the Dragon barely ever was successfully attacked. So I eventually got bored, cranked up the culture and put an end to it.

PROS: Early game you can dominate the tech race no problem. The dragon is utterly cool and a great pillager. You can make really big cities. You can get lots and lots of Great People, and build lots of wonders. The best builder civ by far.

CONS: You will lose the tech race starting in the middle of the game and it is hopeless by the end. The dragon is way down the tech tree, so if you go for cultural victory you will never see him unless you deliberately delay your win, and if you are going for a non-cultural win you would be better off with pretty well any other civilization. If you start in a crappy spot, you are pretty well gimped because you need to get your three main cities going quickly to take advantage of your strengths and push out your borders.


OVERALL:

The Luchuirp and the Bannor are both very well thought out and fun to play, although the Luchuirp have a decided edge in power. The Malakim and Elohim are pretty vanilla, and it shows in their gameplay. The Kuriotates are an interesting change and challenge, but you essentially are limited in your victory options with them.

BALANCE SUGGESTIONS:

The Luchuirp need some kind of counter to their golems - maybe an anti-golem promotion available their enemies to give them some kind of chance, kind of like how the vampires can be countered with the Undead-slaying promotion?

Bambur is by far the most useful religious hero - he comes early enough and is strong enough to dominate the middle game, after which the end game becomes moot. Both the OO and the Leaves need to have their early heroes be as good as Bambur and as easily available - maybe Kyra could still be on a horse, but have spells as well as or instead of her withdrawal promotions, because right now she is pretty well useless except as a mobile reserve inside your borders. Saverous, while good, comes long after Bambur has already promoted himself well past Saverous' level, and the AI seems to have some reluctance to build him as well - I didn't see him even once in the five games I played. As far as the early heroes of the Veil and the Order go, again the horsemen are pretty marginally useful, and you have to wait so long to get them that "early" is only that way compared to the extremely late "late" heroes... I'd rather have the cavalry heros all slinging spells, so at least you feel the wait was worth it.

Cavalry overall are relegated to near uselessness - I never build any (except for heroes), and never miss them. The AI likes to use them ineptly to pillage, so that my units can get some easy experience, so I guess it isn't all bad. They'd be far more useful if they got automatic bonuses of one type or another - I was thinking maybe Cover promotions so they could be used against archers, or if they ignored terrain costs they might actually manage to do more than laughable damage to infrastructure.

Rather than a hard limit on the Kuriotates main cities, how about forcing a 1 city - 2 settlement ratio on them? Or make it so that certain techs increase the limit, so maybe they start with 2 cities but have a possible 5 or 6? As it is, they are powerful in the early game but weak after that - while the Bannor and the Luchuirp are powerful all the way thru, which doesn't quite seem right.

The naval component seems kind of neglected - other than Krakens, which are awesome but are rarely seen. Maybe make Queens of the Lines straight warships at a 9 strength and give them Bombard, add Frigates at 7 strength but a couple more speed, and automatic Sentry promotions as scouts and escorts, and bump up the carrying capacity of Galleons to six units like the Queens were. Then add Turtles which can be summoned by Leaves civs and act like strength 6 submarines; make it so you can promote level 5 Drown into Sea Zombies which can walk on the ocean and have 7 strength, or build them by sacrificing any level 5 unit to the sea; Runes civs get Dwarven Submersibles which are essentially faster and weaker subs than Turtles but can carry 1 unit; the Order gets Castles of the Sea which are very slow but fire off Meteors with a 2 range, and the Veil get Dread Noughts which are essentially vortexes which have a 12 strength but are destroyed after they attack.

I think your right about the kuriotates they do need a late game boost of some kind. I also think they need more flavor units. I find them kind of boring to play because of their lack of civ specific choices.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I had noticed the hatred AIs tend to hold towards Cardith too, I think it may have to do with larger culture equals more close borders penalties, but the weaker military could have to do with it more.

 

[Grey Fox]

I just played a MP game, and got totally wrecked by a Nightmare rush by the Sheiam. I was 1 turn from vampires when my capital was destroyed, but beside the point. Whats their weakness anyhow? They can be spawned 8 tiles from your city basically. o.O

I Know I am a FfH newb, but what is the best defense against them? If I would have had better defense (I was Calabim with leaves as religion, and was in a builder mode, should have concentrated more on protection I know...).

 

[BCalchet]

If you manage to tech to Summoning yourself, you can build rings of warding, destroying 40% of summoned units that attack cities with them. Otherwise, stacks of highly promoted units with bonuses against demons is likely the best counter to nightmares.

 

[Grey Fox]

Ah ring of warding, didnt know about that...
How do you get demon slayer? That isnt available from the start is it?


And on another point, what was the reasoning with nerfing Morois? Now they are booring and bland.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

demon slaying comes from way of the wise, iirc.

 

[BeefontheBone]

Gah! Please please please don't quote an entire 2-screen post to write 2 lines underneath! It angries up my blood!

 

[Grillick]

Burning Blood was removed from the Moroi because giving it to them required the Divine promotion, which gave access to a whole heap of spells for vampires and vampire lords that shouldn't be available.