FfH2 0.16 Balance Recommendations

[Kael]

Not when 3 skellies land next to your capital on turn 16 =) And yes they did, I was wiped out on turn 26 & 17 respectivetly in my last two games. Playing as Lanun on a watermap having to go and secure an inland location to be able to surive to turn 30 would be riddiculous. Np for thoughtness, as long as there is a reasonably possibility to defend yourself.

Yeah, the Lanun are both the most vulnerable to the Dirge and the most able to deal with it later on.

 

[naf4ever]

Version 0.15

Aristocracy
Low upkeep
-1 Food from Farms
+2 Commerce for Farms

Hereditary Rule
Medium upkeep
Can built Royal Guards units
+1 per unit in the city

Version 0.16a

Aristoacracy
Low upkeep
-1 Food from Farms
+2 Commerce for Farms
Can built Royal Guards units
+1 per unit in the city

In other words Aristocracy is 0.16a is exactly equal to the old Aristocracy combined with the old Herditary Rule. But Hereditary Rule alone cost Medium upkeep in 0.15. Now it does the duty of a medium upkeep civic and a low upkeep civic? But the cost remains at low? That situation won't last long.

It won't take long for the posts to appear in the balance section ... "Aristocracy is too powerful. It's cost needs to go up to High ... definitely at least to Medium." And then pfft ... a nice little subtle tool is turned into a just another high-priced, super-powered jackhammer. There is, IMO, something to be said for subtlety of design, too.

Ya i was urging an improvement of Aristocracy but was surprised at this move. I figured Kael had removed the +1 happiness/unit because the goal of this mod was to encourage different strategy sets, especially via civics and religeon. Guess we'll see how it plays out but it seems odd just combining these two heriditary rule and aristocracy into one.

Also im a little sad organized religeon is gone. I dont think it was overpowered and it helped to increaes production by focusing on religeon which seemed to be this mods goal.

 

[Sureshot]

Theocracy (government civic) has the organized religion and some other stuff in it now, doesnt it?

 

[rjjb]

Before you mod yourself to death, you might want to read the bugs thread. The dirge has been modified already.

Modified, yes.. fixed? Hardly.

The dirge is now 2% less likely to cause the exact same imbalance at game start. The result of the patch? An AI civ in my first attempt at playing .16a got wiped out by the dirge before it had a chance to get started. The patch doesn't address the problem in the slightest. (My first attempt at playing .16 resulted in me being wiped out by the dirge at the start.) This mod is really impressive, but the imbalances kill any enjoyment I can get out of it.. I'm strongly considering rolling back to .15 at this point.

Yes, the world should be dangerous.. yes, the world should have strong AI.. but hell no, it should not be impossible for a civ to survive, nor should a civ have to specifically over-defend itself on the probability/possibility of being wiped out by an imbalanced unit early on. The dirge is most frustrating..

And talking about impossible to survive.. what's with the 6 strength hidden nationality giants walking around at the start of the game?

Why not spawn tanks or add a 6% chance per turn for the apocalypse to occur destroying every civ and ending the game? Would the world be sufficiently dangerous then?

 

[Sureshot]

overreaction

and its far from impossible, i survive easily on deity against the dirge. just build a city on a hill and pump out warriors, its really pretty easy

 

[Koffski]

I think the main problem might be the gamespeed. I use to play marathon and it is in fact impossible to produce a single warrior if you have bad luck and the dirge or ruins or barrows pop up right next to you.
My first 3 games were lost within 40 turns and I did not think it was fun in all games since at least 1 AI civ got killed by turn 50 so its pure luck to survive.
And luck is not a very good element of design at least not in a strategy game.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

The patch doesn't address the problem in the slightest

No, it allows you to do so. You can change the spawn rate and start date in the editor now.

 

[rjjb]

overreaction

and its far from impossible, i survive easily on deity against the dirge. just build a city on a hill and pump out warriors, its really pretty easy

Why should I have to build on a hill just to combat the possibility of being wiped out by the dirge? Why should I be forced into one game strategy in a game that allows for many?

Not all starting tiles are created equal, and you cannot always get two warriors out by the time the dirge rolls over you. There are circumstances where either player or AI cannot get out 2+ warriors to defend against the dirge and therefore circumstances in which it is impossible to defend against the dirge.

Try telling the AI to build on a hill and produce nothing but warriors..

I'm not angry.. I'm not overreacting.. I'm trying to make a point and I'm hoping enough people will agree that this will be fixed so I too can enjoy this otherwise well done and interesting mod. The dirge is ridiculously imbalanced. So are those HN Giants at the start of the game. I was serious about rolling back to .15, and it's not an overreaction; I simply don't find the imbalances introduced in .16 enjoyable.

If you don't have a problem with it, great.. play on and have fun. If it's not balanced in an upcoming patch, I'll just have to content myself with another mod/game (you won't miss me, i'm sure) or fix/remove the dirge locally. I would prefer to not have to patch every patch to fix imbalances, which is the only reason I'm posting about it.

 

[rjjb]

You can change the spawn rate and start date in the editor now.

I saw that.. the default is imbalanced. Your point?

Mine is that you have it backwards.. it should be, by default, balanced and if you want defenseless civs rolled over, you can change it in the editor.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

I think it wouldn't be such a bad idea to have the dirge spawn ten or so turns in, modified by game speed. It certainly wouldn't break the game to do so, and it is hurting the game the way things are now.

As for the giants, though, I don't see what the problem with them is. Having guerilla 2 certainly makes them dangerous, but hunters can take them out easily. Spiders are more dangerous, in my opinion.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I saw that.. the default is imbalanced. Your point?

My point is that it's easier to have the dirge start spwaning skellies in turn 300 than go back to version k. Not that balancing is done, or that your point is invalid, just that if it's a game breaking issue, you can deal with it and still benefit from the new art and hidden nationality units.

The balancing phase starts with the public release. A few bugs can be picked out and some glaring flaws possibly seen, but with only a few people testing numerous changes over 2-3 weeks time, it cannot be released perfectly balanced. Personally in the 4-5 games I've had since the Dirge was added, I've never seen it unload it's skeletons near a players city. I'm glad it can, and think it probably should be moved back a dozen or two turns.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

(Responding to a discussion here)

I think one of the important differences (flavor-wise) between vanilla (real) religions and FfH religions is that the FfH religions worship a being who is agreed by all to be real and is actively trying to recruit followers. Therefore, it would make sense that everyone who researches a founding tech would be able to make some contact with that deity and be able to adopt that religion, even if they don't have the holy city. I know it's a massive change, balance-wise, but it seems logical, flavorful, and it will cut down the exclusivity of early religion.

 

[Silverkiss]

Yea, people that have religions wont be so much more powerfull now... As everyone will have a chance

 

[Sureshot]

I think the main problem might be the gamespeed. I use to play marathon and it is in fact impossible to produce a single warrior if you have bad luck and the dirge or ruins or barrows pop up right next to you.
My first 3 games were lost within 40 turns and I did not think it was fun in all games since at least 1 AI civ got killed by turn 50 so its pure luck to survive.
And luck is not a very good element of design at least not in a strategy game.

my deity game where dirge started 2 tiles away was a marathon game, but i build on hills and focus on production when i have threats (which pretty muchs gives me 3 or 4 times the production compared to a grassland/food yield start; and as such warriors before any barbs or skelettes can get to me)

about this "i dont want to build on hills" or "i dont want to be prepared for enemies until its so late i can claim its impossible to defend against now", those are simple lack of preparation which equals horrible strategy, you're welcome to do it i guess, but i hardly see a reason to come claiming its impossible to survive, you gambled, you lost, a shame.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

It's too bad the starting settler got nerfed a bit. Being able to ignore movement costs allowed you to pretty much select a city spot within three tiles at no penalty. Getting a hills start every time you start near the coast is much tougher now.

And of course the AI won't account for the Dirge being there anyway. I want to see AI's get taken out as the game goes on, too, but something that amounts to a roll of the dice deciding whether I face 9 AI's or 10 wasn't exactly what I was hoping for.

 

[retro V]

Geez-Louise! You people moaning about the Dirge sound like you've never lost a game. Just accept it and start another. Add an extra AI player with the custom start options to compensate for the one that draws a short straw. If it was any easier than it is now, I reckon, then the Dirge would have no impact past a very early stage into the game. And then what's the point of it?

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Orthus manages to be a very important influence without inevitably dooming an unlucky Civ. I don't think a 15 turn delay would break the mechanic.

 

[Kael]

Geez-Louise! You people moaning about the Dirge sound like you've never lost a game. Just accept it and start another. Add an extra AI player with the custom start options to compensate for the one that draws a short straw. If it was any easier than it is now, I reckon, then the Dirge would have no impact past a very early stage into the game. And then what's the point of it?

They aren't moaning, they are proving feedback, which is what we asked for. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I want it to be a reasonable threat without being without teeth

I have played dozens of games on 0.16 and I have never died to the dirge, though I did see AI players killed by it. In many of those games the dirge was much more dangerous than it is now (it was nerfed in playtest down to its current form).

I like the idea of making the Dirge's lethality modified by the game difficulty as it is in 0.16a, maybe I will expand on that idea and make it more granular. Different players like different level of risk, the difficulty slider seems to be a good way to set for the game you like.

 

[retro V]

Orthus is a hero, so he gets stronger over time as do civs.

 

[Gamestation]

Then we should make the sailor's dirge a hero also! Have it summon skeletons instead of spawn so that they recieve empowered. It will be the terror of the seas unless you are lucky enough to have the Lanun on the map, then you need to worry about the Lanun.