FfH2 0.15 Balance Recommendations

[Kael]

Kael - can we do away with Religion founding techs being able to be acquired via goody huts? Starting a 2nd era game is maddening when a religion is founded in turn 5!

Yeap, will do.

 

[hadrian11]

How about giving hawks/ravens ability to see invisible? That'd keep them valuable throughout the game, but they would have to be used to see the invisible, so the attacker would have a free turn or two.

I was also thinking that maybe giving shadows the ability to react to other shadows would be cool (so shadows still can't see other shadows). i.e. If a shadow tries to attack into a square that has another civs shadow unit on it, the two shadows will duke it out rather than have the attacking shadow target the weakest unit in the stack. And, maybe give the defending shadow some kind of bonus (especially if they're in their on city -- they'd know their own turf, the backstreets and dark alley, much better than the invader). You could also set up traps for enemy shadows by having workers out in the open where you've been plagued by shadow attacks, then put your own shadow with the worker and give that invading shadow a big suprise when he tries to assassinate your poor worker.

 

[Draconian]

Speaking of Shadows, wouldn't it be better to make them unable to capture cities? I have never tested this but I guess it would be quite devastating if someone sneaks 1-2 Shadows to your capitol or another good city deep in your territory which is only guarded by one unit and razes it. If you have no unit which can see them the only "defence" angainst this is to keep several good units in every city.
Imagine a Grigori Adventurer upgraded to a Shadow with commando, march and several combat promotions, I'd rather have Loki running through my land
A Shadow represents only one man, right? So he should be able to assassinate/poison some guards but not to occupy/destroy a whole city.
If Shadows are already unable to do this just ignore this post.

 

[Halancar]

I was wondering why the Calabim Palace gives "Law" mana, but not "Death". What rationale are you using for the mana from each palace?

Nobody starts with death or entropy (except maybe the infernals ?), because there are major diplomatic penalties involved with having them.

And besides, vampires are alive in the FFH setting, so the Calabim are not really death users...

 

[Grey Fox]

And the vampires are Lawful in their personality.

 

[Frozen-Vomit]

My girlfriend complained that she is going for the baron every game because it seems the easiest way to dominate the AI (at least on lower difficult levels)

Maybe give the player who builds the baron a negative diplomacy modifier with each other civ based on the number of werewolves he has under control:

Something along: Werewolfcount/2 = -DiplomacyModifier



a small penalty, but maybe this will help the AI to dogpile on the player who tries to exploit werewolves.

 

[TheBoatman]

My girlfriend complained that she is going for the baron every game because it seems the easiest way to dominate the AI (at least on lower difficult levels)

Maybe give the player who builds the baron a negative diplomacy modifier with each other civ based on the number of werewolves he has under control:

Something along: Werewolfcount/2 = -DiplomacyModifier

a small penalty, but maybe this will help the AI to dogpile on the player who tries to exploit werewolves.

Good point. Just give it a cap at 5 or so because of the balance and apply it only to good/neutral civs. Your ashen veil friend won't worry if you massacre order with werewolves.

 

[Kael]

My girlfriend complained that she is going for the baron every game because it seems the easiest way to dominate the AI (at least on lower difficult levels)

Maybe give the player who builds the baron a negative diplomacy modifier with each other civ based on the number of werewolves he has under control:

Something along: Werewolfcount/2 = -DiplomacyModifier

a small penalty, but maybe this will help the AI to dogpile on the player who tries to exploit werewolves.

I tend to think werewolves are a double-win mechanic (if you would already have won they allow you to win faster). Im actually a big fan of double-win conditions because they allow you to avoid some of the games tedium.

But I would consider dropping the base chance of getting a werewolf from 100% to 75%.

The other adjustment that would be kind of nice would be that enemy AI units wouldn't attack a werewolf unless they are likely to win.

 

[QES]

I tend to think werewolves are a double-win mechanic (if you would already have won they allow you to win faster). Im actually a big fan of double-win conditions because they allow you to avoid some of the games tedium.

But I would consider dropping the base chance of getting a werewolf from 100% to 75%.

The other adjustment that would be kind of nice would be that enemy AI units wouldn't attack a werewolf unless they are likely to win.

Could you have "Silverized" units? If a unit has the silverized promotion perhaps it cant turn into a wearwolf/undead/unnatural thing? It would just prevent the normal spell from working, not provide any combat bonuses.

Silverized units could be effective against multiple situations, but im not sure of what, some of the ones I can imagine is:
Undead Creation
Werewolf Creation
Flesh Golem Creation

The idea is that its not anti-magic, its anti-condition. Anti-Lycantrophy and Undead makes sense, but not anti-summon. Not sure about what potentially else it'd be good for.
-Qes

EDIT: This way there is a prevention of the "double-win" but only in specific cases.

 

[Eddiit]

I dont think the werewolf mechanic really needs any revisiting. It works well as is. Removing choices from the player is almost always a bad idea. Though dropping the WW % to 75 isnt all that bad since it does add some random chance.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Having a diplo penalty similar to using death/entropy magic might not be too bad. After all, the Baron is hardy a "good guy." Not sure where I stand on the % chance issue.

 

[Halancar]

The real problem with the Baron is that he is easily the strongest thing around when he is built, so he can go on a rampage, get a lot of xp, and stay the strongest thing around for a long time. The other werewolves are not the problem, they are weak and difficult to level, but it is a fact that the Baron alone can easily conquer whole civilizations when he is built, and leave his own garrisons behind.

By the way, playing Calabim, you can gift vampirism to the Baron, and then he can feed on the ravenous werewolves he creates to heal himself. Now THAT is overpowered.

The only thing I would do to the Baron is take away the city raider line of promotions (to put a cap on his civilization destroying potential). Since that would leave him with very few promotions, why not create a whole new "werewolf only" promotion line that affect the probability of getting new werewolves and the health they start with ?

 

[TheBoatman]

Since recent patches, the werewolves get promotions from the units they killed. My blooded werewolf killed a combat5 priest, who had been softened with fireballs. I got c5 casting ravenous werewolf. After some time I had c5 cr2 casting greater werewolf (de facto tier 4 unit) for free
This is overpowered!

 

[Chandrasekhar]

The only thing I would do to the Baron is take away the city raider line of promotions (to put a cap on his civilization destroying potential). Since that would leave him with very few promotions, why not create a whole new "werewolf only" promotion line that affect the probability of getting new werewolves and the health they start with ?

Sounds good to me!

 

[Kael]

Since recent patches, the werewolves get promotions from the units they killed. My blooded werewolf killed a combat5 priest, who had been softened with fireballs. I got c5 casting ravenous werewolf. After some time I had c5 cr2 casting greater werewolf (de facto tier 4 unit) for free
This is overpowered!

That will be fixed in the next patch.

 

[Quetz]

Am I the only one that thinks Twincast is horrendously unbalanced..? I used one group of 4 Fireball wizards who all had it, and one group of 4 Conjurers with one wiz for haste and scorch, in my last game. I just declared war on everyone at once for fun, and used those two stacks to literally raze every city that didnt belong to me off the map... Nothing could stand up to the Twincasted Sand Lions (those Earth things if I couldn't get a nearby plain) and at most it took 3 turns for the Fireballers to bring down a city (that was the barbarian dragon city, all others were one or two turns.) I get the feeling this ought to be something like +1 strength to spells or something.. Making it like you have two mages in one is pretty over the top IMHO, especially since I could level them straight from Adepts to Twincasting Fireballers with Combat 5 as soon as they were built, thanks to the Form of the Titan and Cave of Wonders (Also had Eternal Flame to boost CoW. Yeah, I skipped all domestic techs for magery just for fun, except elf cottages... was using their Arcane/Summoner leader, forget her name.)

Not only all that, but since all my mages had combat 5 as soon as they were built, they didnt even need a guardian escort.. since none of the AI civs (except one) had better than Axemen at that time, they won every single fight, and one of them even ended up with Orthus's Axe :O The one that had Assassins went down real quick once I learned to bring a Hunter along, and nuke them as soon as they appeared.. All attacks against my forests met with a very quick, fiery (or earthy, in the case of the Conjurers) death.

Anyways, my point is that (again, IMHO, and I'm no pro developer or anything) that Twincast should be changed to something that doesn't literally double your power, especially when it is so easily obtained and spammed with Arcane and the right buildings. Its not the problem that the AI doesnt use spells nearly as much, as I could see this being a big issue in an MP game.

Do Summoning Circles work against fireballs and such..?

Edit: I'm also of the opinion that casting any spell above level 1 should require a full turn action, and that there should be some form of "mana" (or something like that) so that 4 Twincasting Conjurers cant summon a stack of 8 Strength 8 units every single turn, that last for 3 turns each, and run circles around anything chasing them to boot thanks to Haste.. But meh. Judging from the posts on here, it doesn't really seem like people play with spells that much..

 

[Kael]

Am I the only one that thinks Twincast is horrendously unbalanced..? I used one group of 4 Fireball wizards who all had it, and one group of 4 Conjurers with one wiz for haste and scorch, in my last game. I just declared war on everyone at once for fun, and used those two stacks to literally raze every city that didnt belong to me off the map... Nothing could stand up to the Twincasted Sand Lions (those Earth things if I couldn't get a nearby plain) and at most it took 3 turns for the Fireballers to bring down a city (that was the barbarian dragon city, all others were one or two turns.) I get the feeling this ought to be something like +1 strength to spells or something.. Making it like you have two mages in one is pretty over the top IMHO, especially since I could level them straight from Adepts to Twincasting Fireballers with Combat 5 as soon as they were built, thanks to the Form of the Titan and Cave of Wonders (Also had Eternal Flame to boost CoW. Yeah, I skipped all domestic techs for magery just for fun, except elf cottages... was using their Arcane/Summoner leader, forget her name.)

Not only all that, but since all my mages had combat 5, they didnt even need a guardian escort.. since none of the AI civs (except one) had better than Axemen at that time, they won every single fight, and one of them even ended up with Orthus's Axe :O The one that had Assassins went down real quick once I learned to bring a Hunter along, and nuke them as soon as they appeared..

Anyways, my point is that (again, IMHO, and I'm no pro developer or anything) that Twincast should be changed to something that doesn't literally double your power, especially when it is so easily obtained and spammed with Arcane and the right buildings.

Yeah, I think you are right. I think I am am only going to allow casting heroes to learn it.

 

[QES]

Am I the only one that thinks Twincast is horrendously unbalanced..? I used one group of 4 Fireball wizards who all had it, and one group of 4 Conjurers with one wiz for haste and scorch, in my last game. I just declared war on everyone at once for fun, and used those two stacks to literally raze every city that didnt belong to me off the map... Nothing could stand up to the Twincasted Sand Lions (those Earth things if I couldn't get a nearby plain) and at most it took 3 turns for the Fireballers to bring down a city (that was the barbarian dragon city, all others were one or two turns.) I get the feeling this ought to be something like +1 strength to spells or something.. Making it like you have two mages in one is pretty over the top IMHO, especially since I could level them straight from Adepts to Twincasting Fireballers with Combat 5 as soon as they were built, thanks to the Form of the Titan and Cave of Wonders (Also had Eternal Flame to boost CoW. Yeah, I skipped all domestic techs for magery just for fun, except elf cottages... was using their Arcane/Summoner leader, forget her name.)

Not only all that, but since all my mages had combat 5, they didnt even need a guardian escort.. since none of the AI civs (except one) had better than Axemen at that time, they won every single fight, and one of them even ended up with Orthus's Axe :O The one that had Assassins went down real quick once I learned to bring a Hunter along, and nuke them as soon as they appeared..

Anyways, my point is that (again, IMHO, and I'm no pro developer or anything) that Twincast should be changed to something that doesn't literally double your power, especially when it is so easily obtained and spammed with Arcane and the right buildings.

What difficulty are you playing on? Because honestly by the time i get twin cast i have armies knocking on my door, and assassins killing my mages.

Shadows and Assassins are the casters bane, as they cannot hide in an army stack to protect themselves. Many times ive attempted exactly what you said, and while i may have inital success, my army of casters STOP when I hit a brick wall of assassins and cavalry. Plus it takes a long time to develop twin cast. You think fireball twin cast is uber, have you tried meteor swarm twincasted with 3 archmages? 6 a turn, is a good effective way to end a city. But archmages are vulnerable, and if your not careful, your stack will get attacked and killed. What did you bring with your army?

I play on Prince, and if your playing on this or higher, i commend you, I never get magic fast enough.
-Qes

 

[Quetz]

See my edit above. Assassins didn't have a chance vs those Conjurers with one of my own assassins along (by the time I was fighting them, I had researched them myself.. said Hunters in previous post accidentaly) Assassins can see any invisible unit, and anything that got in visible range was set upon by the band of summoned creatures I kept with my conjurers at all times, since they last for 3 turns.. I was rotating them out. 2 stacks of 8 always attacking, and one defending. Haste is one incredible spell, let me say..

The wizards had a few axemen along, but I dont think they ever actually had to fight anything. The wizards had them beat in melee with Combat 5, and like I said, one got Orthus's axe to boot.

Prince difficulty, and like I said I skipped almost all techs to get casting quick. Early game elf economics helped a lot.

I hate to harp, but maybe haste should also be self-only. Then trainers would have a bit more value

 

[Quetz]

Not sure how they stop you. Have all wizards but one spew their twinned fireballs, one casts haste, run 2 spaces away, then move hasted fireballs to hit them, repeat next turn as they follow you since you dont have to stop to cast.. How can they even catch you?

I dont think it would have been so overwhelming if I hadn't been getting two balls out of every cast. What Kael said sounds like it would solve the problem nicely, although I am sure it will still be pretty nasty

edit.. again: Forgot to say that I love this mod. Great work! Cant believe what you guys have managed to do with civ 4. Sorry for the spam ^^