FfH2 0.16 Balance Recommendations

[Sureshot]

The point is fair but I don't know if beelining for those techs are preferable at higher difficulties. I'd wager you'd have a bit of a problem getting Sanitation, Priesthood and a chosen religion without hitting a couple of military techs in between. In general though, we are in agreement.

ive seen chand get order just slightly after i was getting runes, and im fairly quick at that... and yes, he manages to only have warriors til he gets valin sometimes lol

 

[feydras]

In regards to the Wonder that allows building any unit as Hidden Nationality (E??? Council)...

Is there anyway to hide who built it? Change the notification message (or remove it) so that it just says built by an unknown civilization all the time. And remove it (or hide the city name) from the Wonders list on the Top Cities of the World F9 tab.

This would have the effect of making it very frustrating (in a good way) trying to figure out who is harrassing you and be loads of fun in multiplayer. It would also balance it out against the AI - my current game as Calabim i am ripping through the Clan of Embers with my Hidden Nationality Marduk and Loshi and the Clan is so happy with me their leader offered me a Permanent Alliance. A human player would easily know it was me and be very angry. Hmmm, come to think of it the human player might try to ally as well to get me to call off my dogs... But the point stands.

- feydras

 

[feydras]

Two thoughts on Hidden Nationality (which i have to say is by far my favorite of the many cool new additions to this version).

Your hidden nationality units can take advantage of other civs roads if you have open borders with that civ. This may seem like it makes sense but doesn't. Hidden nationality units are basically considered hostile units to everyone except their 'secret' owner. They should have to slough through foreign civ lands the slow way like the invaders they are. As it is now it encourages you to raid friendly nations (ie one with open borders).

Mercenaries are a great idea but IMO are pretty awful in implementation...
I send a Hidden Nat merc into a friendly border civ.
He attacks it and takes control of a weakened (Str 1.xx unit)
Angry that he grabbed my merc so easily i enter his borders and easily recapture the weakened merc.
'Oh yeah?' he says and takes it from me next turn.
This continues back and forth us chasing the merc as it slides all over his territory until the unit ends up (by chance?) in one of his cities where i can't attack it.
The merc is never able to move as it cannot move after being captured and gets easily captured every turn.

Possible fix - give the merc 1 move right after it is captured.

- feydras

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Would it be possible to give Hidden Nationality units a 0% heal rate in all cultural borders besides their owners'?

 

[feydras]

Would it be possible to give Hidden Nationality units a 0% heal rate in all cultural borders besides their owners'?

I'm not following you... why would you want to do this? Then it would be more obvious who owned them as they would have to return to their owner's lands to heal.

- feydras

 

[DieselBiscuit]

I suppose my point was that there's no imbalance if all the imbalances are in balance. Basically, bringing a gun to a swordfight gives you no advantage if the opponent has a gun, too (even if they're different guns).

You will take your swordgun fight to the Final Fantasy forums at once, young sir, where we shall meet at dawn for a duel of honor and poop. In other words: Sure, if that's what you're aiming for.

Maybe.

To summarize my point, I find your solution to be way too powerful for a civic. If you're heaping specialist boni on temples, no one is ever going to choose another option, especially when you can potentially have 4 temples in one city.

They might try a hunter rush. Other than that, warriors and archers until they run out of economic techs. In any case, priesthood gives you (surprise!) priests, which come rather early for a tier-3 unit and can be pretty devastating.

Very good point. The AI has a couple of serious flaws when it comes to prioritizing techs and the different civs go for much of the same economic and magic techs, making it a bit predictable. Priests rock.

Well, I've popped Valin before Orthus struck once... still, I see your point.

Please tell me how. I NEED to know.

Ah, that would explain it.

ive seen chand get order just slightly after i was getting runes, and im fairly quick at that... and yes, he manages to only have warriors til he gets valin sometimes lol

Please don't tell me that this was at Emperor difficulty or above... I need what little FFH-dignity I have left

 

[Frozen-Vomit]

9. Lairs, Orthus and the Sailors Dirge dont spawn if barbarians are disabled.[\Quote]

Is there a way to take away the barbarian trait from all players when no barbarians are selected.

Maybe a small programm like map-checker(tm) can do this.

 

[Kael]

9. Lairs, Orthus and the Sailors Dirge dont spawn if barbarians are disabled.[\Quote]

Is there a way to take away the barbarian trait from all players when no barbarians are selected.

Maybe a small programm like map-checker(tm) can do this.

It could definitly be done, but I dont know that I want to do it. Although you are right in pointing out that they will be at a disadvantage in that scenario, it really isnt much different than the Lanun on a map without water, or the Ljosalfar on a map without many forests.

And I do like having the Clan and Charadon with a -10% research cost (which would be lost if we removed the trait). Players that play them will just have to contend with the fact that the map doesn't match their strengths.

 

[Unser Giftzwerg]

Well, in my ongoing first game of 0.16 I adopted Aristocracy around turn 75 and I ran it non-stop until about turn 375 when I switched to Republic. Other Republics were causing happyface problems, and it was time to adopt culture-boosting civics anyway.

A few turns afterwards, I obtained my very first luxury resource (Dye) via trade. It was turn 379.

That's right, one civic, zero luxury resources, no happycap concern for 300 turns under Aristocracy. All thanks to one low-upkeep civic. I didn't even have a religion for about half those 150 turns.

I don't want another high-priced uber civic. "Click it and forget it" is not a laudable design goal. But that's what you get with limitless garrison happyfaces. Decision-making conundrums, tradeoffs, those things are missing under Aristocracy 0.16a.

Well, I started off objecting on theoretical grounds. Now that I've seen it in play, my opinion is now locked-in. Aristocracy is broken in 0.16a. Please remove the garrison effect. If something else must be added to Aristocracy, please make it something clever and situationally useful, like the Royal Guards. Because for as long as 2.5 remains greater than 2, Aristocracy works just fine in its 0.15k form.

 

[Sureshot]

the 0.15k form was useless except by a limited playstyle some of the time.. thats not good.

now its viable, that is good.

a bit higher cost would be more than enough. about the garrison, its not broken in vanilla, its a necessity for some playstyles, and its not the end all of everything, since then health actually becomes an issue (health is regularly never an issue since unhappiness is more detrimental than sickness, and health is easier to get).

 

[Grey Fox]

Garrisoned troops cost money too. Especially on the harder diffs. And especially if you are running pacifism.

 

[Kael]

Garrisoned troops cost money too. Especially on the harder diffs. And especially if you are running pacifism.

What about adding additional +1 gold per military unit and +1 happy per garrsioned unit? And keeping the civic cost to low. It has an interesting symetry.

 

[Grey Fox]

Could work, Aristocracies usually have Lord run local garrisons and military divisions. Gold would keep the soldiers loyal to him.

EDIT: I'm not sure about both of those +gold costs though.

 

[Unser Giftzwerg]

the 0.15k form was useless except by a limited playstyle some of the time.. thats not good.

now its viable, that is good.

a bit higher cost would be more than enough. about the garrison, its not broken in vanilla, its a necessity for some playstyles, and its not the end all of everything, since then health actually becomes an issue (health is regularly never an issue since unhappiness is more detrimental than sickness, and health is easier to get).

No, it was never useless. Many players were unable to recognize its value, but it was not useless. 2.5 is more than 2. 25% more, to be precise. Most people see value in building things like Forges(0.15), Money Changers, Libraries all of which increase yeild by 25%. But some people stubbornly insist that a 25% boost is "useless" when it is derived from the Aristocracy civic. I find that mindset difficult to understand.

Sure, Argiculture is more attractive for Finacial leaders (who get +3 commerce) and Spiritial (painless revolutions = easy adaptation). That is inherent in a game in which one of the top design goals is variety.

Now that Agriculture gives +2 Food to farms, it in combination with Aristocracy is even more useful, in a wider variety of circumstances. In fact I ran both Food-reducing civics (Aristocracy, Serfdom) together with Agriculture, and my cities still grew. Now that mines give +1 with Blasting Powder, the relative value of Specialists lowered even more.

The only reason health becoes a factor, is because there are no happycap concerns, at all. This observation actually proves my point. Happycaps are doing nothing to hinder player development under Aristocray. The happycap mechanism exists in the game for a reason. Aristocracy 0.16a obviates this function.

0.16 is a different game. 0.15 mindsets are obsolete. Nicht wahr?

I will shut up now.

 

[Sureshot]

i dont know about you, but unit costs become a problem, and those units have to stay in the city or it will starve, so thats a purely defensive army that you're paying for, builder happy bonuses (like religions, buildings, resources) cost nothing after being built, resources even affect all your connected cities.

 

[Kael]

You guys are going round and round. I need recommendations.

Right now I modified the guardsman promotion so that it gives +10% city defense to all units in the city (as a building so its bombardable and units that ignore building defenses ignore it). And I gave the guardsman promotion to the Royal Guard.

So even if the royal guard isnt the toughest unit in the city it helps to have one there. They also get the typical guardsman ability of reducing the maintenance costs of cities they are in by 10%.

Military units happiness has been removed and I am playing a game to test.

Any other ideas for new abilities to put onto aristocracy to replace the happy per military unit function?

 

[BCalchet]

Hmm...
Perhaps +2 commerce (not gold) from regular 'worker' specialists and vampire governors?

 

[Xanikk999]

I think twisted spire should give 2 commerce per religious building as its counterpart does in warlords.

in warlords they beefed up the spiral minaret.

 

[Xuenay]

Hmm. The +1 happy per military unit has been in the game for ages now, it was just under the Hereditary Rule civic before. Why didn't anybody attack that civic as overpowered?

 

[Unser Giftzwerg]

What about adding additional +1 gold per military unit and +1 happy per garrsioned unit? And keeping the civic cost to low. It has an interesting symetry.

It might work, but before you did tht I would like to hear someone actually make a case as to why Aristocracy must include this garrison happycap thing. As far as I can tell, this idea was implemented just because it was the first suggestion in the "Aristocracy is weak it needs something" debate.

I've made a case as to why Aristocracy should not include this mechanism. Refutations so far have focused on the argument "Aristocracy is weak so it needs something added." OK, fine. Why does that 'something' have to be extra happyfaces from garrison units? What specific shortcomeing does this change correct?

Is it too hard to raise city happycaps? I've read a lot of pre-0.16 posts that brainstormed hard on ways to get rid of happyface. But suddenly this problem has cropped up again? I do not read all the posts here, not by a long shot. But I've not heard even a whisper of a complaint about rare happiness boosts. Not during all of 0.15 nor into 0.16. So I am curious as to what problem the 0.16a Aristocracy change is intended to correct.

As for the opposite side of the coin, here is the reason why the change should not continue. City Happiness management is removed from the game. It's simply not there. I missed on Leaves and Order was a ways off. I started to pursue a Fesivals/Cages route to growth, when I remembered Argiculture. I ran my game unit year 375 under Aristocracy. If a city grew a redface, I simply moved a Warrior or an Adept over. This was a peculiar game with little trading, war, The resources on my continent were Rice, Reagents, and offshore seafood. Yet what trades I made, I sold a resource for cash. I had no need to trade for luxury items, except Incense when I was offered it. But that was to build Priests, not for happiness.

It sounds to me like the garrison change was a pretty arbitrary change in the first place. If no one can point to a specific need for it, isn't it time to just junk the idea and try a new tweak for Aristocracy?

Now I am only into one game of 0.16a. And this game is definitely weird. My main opponent has been the jungle which covered 65% of my continent. But everything I've seen so far looks like 0.16 is a raging success. And that is saying a lot, with the 200+ changes. Tile management has improved by orders of magnitude. I started off building a lot of Cottages. But since then I have built more Workshops and Waterwheels in this one game, than I have in every other game of FfH combined. (I believe that to be literally true.) The different tile improvements are now clearly distinctive in their effects If that is not an early sign of success, I don't know what is.

So junk the garrison thing and let the same variety thrive in the happycap management side of the game too. Rushing to Consumption suddenly has new value. Luxury goods become vital be they obtained through trade or war. Herbalists become attractive for happiness under the compassionate civics. There are all sorts of incentives in the tech tree, when players have to work to raise them happycaps. Don't provide a crutch. Let 0.16 shine!