FfH2 0.20 Balance Feedback

[Arwon]

Why not? Real world conflagrations cross rivers just fine...

It does seem a bit much that fire just keeps spreading until everything's gone, though. Even if it looks spectacular. I like the ideas I've been reading with suggestions that there be a chance for a new forest to appear after the flames die down.

 

[marioflag]

I also think that actually Agriculture is a bit unbalanced considered also it can be one of the first civics you can choose.
The reasons why it is unbalanced IMO are due also to the fact that other civics in its category are not so good, merchantilism, foreign trade are not a real alternative except in some specific cases.
BTW i think that decreasing the bonus from +2 to +1 for farm would make agriculture a bit worthless, so it would be better if agriculture get some penalties to production or happiness penalties for example:

Agriculture= +2 food per farm, -20% city production
or
Agriculture=+2 food -1 hammer per farm, +2 per forge,+1 per Mechanists Shops, +1 per Workshops, +3 per Mines of Gal Dur
or a mix of penalties to production and happiness
Agriculture=+2 food, -10% city production, +3 per Forge

 

[Arwon]

Agriculture is wonderful in its intended purpose of aiding early game growth but I think the problem isn't so much that it's overpowered but the other civis (aside from Guardian of Nature) are underpowered.

 

[driekan]

Agriculture is wonderful in its intended purpose of aiding early game growth but I think the problem isn't so much that it's overpowered but the other civis (aside from Guardian of Nature) are underpowered.

I agree. Havent seen a good reason to switch from agriculture except in very uncommon conditions. Bear in mind that once you have druids you can just turn your plains into grasslands and farm them, thusly removing the "-1prod" penalty entirely. The +2 food means you can set an extra Specialist for every farmed tile in the city, which is worth a lot more than any other trade civic.

 

[driekan]

Oh, this just happened last night. Dont know if it is meant to be or not, but...
I was playing as Calabim and rushed to Duin Halfmorn. I got him preety fast, trained him on barbs.
Preety soon he was level 6. Vampirized him, had him feed on an enemy city I captured and soon he had preety much every promotion he could want. With slavery and his Lycanthropy it means that most times he attacks I get either a slave or a werewolf in this tile - which he immediatelly eats to recover health and be able to attack again. He preety much killed an entire civilization himself, and I mean a civ which had more tech and a higher power rating than I do.

 

[Willburn]

the size 198 city has nothing to do with agriculture or farms heh, and does not benefit from or use either.

why don't you know this? because there's plenty of depth and breadth to this mod, one person utilizing a useful strategy while you mill away not knowing the nuances are hardly a reason to give up and claim many silent others will do the same unless changed, and is a kinda funny position tbh

very different mod, yes, but each civ/religion/alignment has many strategies and synergies, makes it a lot of fun.

personally i find the slavery methods weak compared to other strategies. if you don't want to be evil, yet want to sacrifice innocents to achieve greater production speeds, then you're stuck in a contradiction that should not be solved via this mod heh

This is just silly. A size 198 city (witch will take forever) can still only produce 1 unit a turn. Slaving with just two/three cities will outproduce you.

Ask anyone in the mp community (try logging on gamespy) : A) agriculture is too powerfull and b) this causes slaving to be too good.

 

[Mesix]

making Aggressive trait give Combat 1 to mounted units is definitely a good balance, but the Commando promotion from Raiders is a bit excessive, without it mounted units are nearly impossible to protect improvements against, but with Commando they are the biggest nuisance in the world (you have to worry about what might come from 18 tiles away all the time).

A mounted commando unit seems rather rediculous imo anyway. Commando should be limited to melee units...but then that will make mounted units even less attractive.

I would recommend disallowing the commando trait for mounted units, but give them a (large) bonus when attacking melee units. That way a player has to balance his forces and mounted untis can be used as a counteroffensive to an aggressive attacker with stacks of melee units.

 

[Mesix]

I'm thinking that Agriculture may be a balanced enough civic, but not at its current upkeep and tech placement. If it's to be kept where it is, I think I'd prefer to see it just give +1 food to farms. After all, it's a low upkeep civic on a first tier tech.

I think that a good way to balance the farms and agriculture issue is to introduce a new specialist type (in city like engineer and bard). The agriculture could allow the player to assign one population to the farm specialist per farm that is being worked. The farm specialist could give the bonus food. This would require the overpowerd farms to be esentially worked by two population. Think of it as the labor being on the map and the specialist being the farmer that directs the labor to run it more efficiently.

 

[onedreamer]

Why are mounted commando ridiculous ? Just because the name of the promotion is commando ? I'd rather think of it as a "raider" promotion.

 

[Sureshot]

This is just silly. A size 198 city (witch will take forever) can still only produce 1 unit a turn. Slaving with just two/three cities will outproduce you.

Ask anyone in the mp community (try logging on gamespy) : A) agriculture is too powerfull and b) this causes slaving to be too good.

hmm apparently i don't play mp, no one has heard of drafting, summoning, infernal, sorcery, research rates, and varied styles of play

 

[Willburn]

hmm apparently i don't play mp, no one has heard of drafting, summoning, infernal, sorcery, research rates, and varied styles of play

Hmm apprently you dont know summoning is limited by number of mages who ofcourse is limited by number of cities. Slavery wins. (1 city can still only produce 1 adept a turn while you can slave 10-20 adepts a turn if you want.)

Apparently you dont know that in teamers allways war is on so summing infernals will attack yourself. (And any ai fighting is laughable at best if you have played a while if its not allways war.)

Apparetently you dont know it takes a long while to get archmages or hero magic users (best bet is fanaticism hero) And yes it will own stacks but you just split up and voila problem solved.

Apparently you dont know a 198 size city will loose to 20 size 15 cities most of the time. (especially with +2 gold per farm civic) and its easy as hell to get a lot of cities fast with slavery. (But it would theoretically take at least 197 turns to get a size 198 city unless there is some game mechanism to add population to your city other than from food growth)

Im all for varied styles of play but slavery is unbalanced and its due to the agriculture civic. Now please prove me wrong (im not saying this in a sarcastic tone if you can im all for it but I think slavery + 2farm bonus is too powerfull.)

lets not start a flamewar on this. Please induldge me on how a size 198 city can be better and more important how you can get that in the first 150 turns. (the time it takes for a big slavery empire to have a lot of millitary units comming knocking on your door.)

Again im a ffh2 newb but I this slavery + agrictulture smells unbalanced from miles away. Please learn me different playstyles that will be more powerfull.

 

[Silverkiss]

Give me the perfect conditions that I request and you get the perfect conditions you request and I assure you you won't win against me. And I will use only 1 city ;D

Edit: And I assure you Sureshot is a much better player than I am.

 

[Sureshot]

wow, anyways, upkeep limits the number of units that slavery can produce (note that producing units is never the hard part, supporting them is) and rushing with gold is a better replacement.

its great that you play mp, ive played numbers of multiplayer games beyond count, and have delved into this game enough to mod it for many purposes, and i know enough to know that slavery is far from a game breaker or even an efficient strategy against other strategies.

if you've gotten beaten by someone who managed to utilize a strategy better than you, thats not bad, learn from it, but thats hardly a reason to demand it be changed or you'll leave and then ask for ways to beat others in a balance thread.

start a new thread, discuss, ask for help, there are actually many threads about such (Synergy thread for one).

 

[Willburn]

A) I didnt get beaten I won using the strategy. It wasnt me who was complaining about it mostly. I only go here to tell that its a problem.
B) Look at my game stats on www.myleague.com/civ4players I have over 1000 games played. (If you want to throw around experience) Ive played since the start of the game.

And yes discussion is exactly what i want. Im not new to civ4 but im definitivly new to ffh2 (only played 10 games so far) I played a cton with oldtimers who had played for a while and was outproducing them 6to1 (they where 6 civs i had allready conquered 2) and they where still in troubles. Now if i can do that with very little experience of ffh2 what does that say of slavery?

What I ask for you is not to say to me "there are other mechanisms more powerfull than slavery" but to say "mechanism x is more powerfull than slavery because of reasons y z etc"

A good start with the upkeep problem witch i agree is a valid problem, but if i have a big upkeep that means my army is bigger than yours- what is to stop me from comming over to you and crush you? And there are plenty of ways to get a lot of gold in ffh2 as far as i can see.

Edit: And please not that the major reason slavery is too good is because of agriculture giving +2 food per farms. So im not arguing that slavery must be overpowered in itself but that with the added food bonus its just too strong. Several others have said Agricultural is too strong. Something has to be done about it.

 

[Maniac]

Giving agriculture +10% food production instead of some farm effects works just fine in RoM.

 

[Sureshot]

oblivion is a fun game

 

[Sureshot]

Giving agriculture +10% food production instead of some farm effects works just fine in RoM.

personally im a fan of +1 health per farm instead, but the current situation did a lot to balance out against the other civics in the category.

 

[marioflag]

Playing as Kuriotates noticed that culturally captured cities don't become Settlements as Kuriotates dawn of man text says, they become full cities.
Considering that Kuriotates have only 5 cities on a Huge map it can become crippling, culturally capturing a city and find it as a full city!It would be better in next patch IMO if we have the option to choose if the culturally captured city should become a City or a Settlement.

 

[Maniac]

personally im a fan of +1 health per farm instead, but the current situation did a lot to balance out against the other civics in the category.

While that could probably work as well: some concerns:
1) It completes removes all strategy around getting health, making eg the Expansive trait and health increasing mana less useful with Agriculture. When you give a food percentage bonus, it actually creates synergy with health increasing boni.
2) There already is a civic that solves practically all of your health problems: Guardians of Nature. Giving Agriculture that effect as well would reduce the uniqueness of Guardians of Nature.
3) It's currently not possible to assign health effects to terrain improvements, only features. While that could be probably be easily adjusted, I guess it's still a minor point to consider.

 

[arcaner]

Forgive me if this has already been brought up, but I lack the energy to read through all of this tread and the full war script thread.

I feel that for consistency sake the higher levels of The Altar should trigger the war script in the same way that building the Tower of Mastery does.

Loving fire. Patiently waiting for the glory that will be version .21