FfH2 0.21 Balance Feedback

[Blakmane]

The question is: should evil civ's have a bonus from high AC and much hell terain - or not? At the moment they do not have much of a bonus. what's the reason behind this? Is this intended or is it a flaw?

I believe this to be mainly an issue of strategy VS flavour.

Evil civs (especially AV) seem to me to be designed towards increasing the AC, while good civs are geared towards decreasing it. Elohim get the harrowing, good races get sanctify- sheiam get the elegy, stigmata, Prophecy mark.

There seems to be a heavy flavour lean suggesting evil civs should want to increase the AC. However, strategically speaking, there isn't that much reason for AV civs to increase it. This leads to a lot of boring games where everyone is trying to keep the AC down/not really caring and there is no grand 'good vs evil' apocalyptic feel.

This is mainly for a multiplayer perspective BTW. It is still relevant in singleplayer but obviously evil civs will try to increase the AC regardless of its strategic worth.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Flavor wise, I don't think hell is intended to be paradise even for evil civs. But since spreading the veil religion does raise the counter and allow for hell to spread into their lands, it must strategically be overall comprable to other religions in the end to have hell.

I think allowing civs to access all the resources that are left in hell (nevermind the removed food ones) is vital, at least for veil civs and maybe evil ones in general.

Maybe the evil only civics could give war weariness reduction as well.

 

[Gamestation]

Chalice of Greed (or you can come up with a better name)
Built by great merchant, engineer, sage, artist, or commander (everyone except for prophet)
Buildable only by evil civs (since good and neutral civs get the Altar)

Level I:
Can turn 1 citizen into merchant/engineer/sage/artist
+1 gp (commander)
+50% commerce

Level II:
Requires Level I
Level I's effects and:
+50% gold
+50% science
+1 free specialist in every city
+1 unhappy in every city

Level III:
Requires Level II
Requires Ashen Veil state religion
Level II's effects and:
-25% culture in every city
+2 unhappy in every city
(here's the kicker): +2 food , +1 hammers , +1 gold from unhappy citizens

Level IV:
Requires Level III
Requires Ashen Veil state religion
Requires AC counter of 50+ (will lose effect if AC counter falls below 50)
Level III's effects and:
+2 free specialist in every city
+100% gold
+100% science

Level V:
Requires Level IV
Requires Ashen Veil state religion
Requires AC counter of 100 (will lose effect if AC counter falls below 100)
Requires sheut stone
Level IV's effects and:
Free stigmata promotion for all units built in this city
+6 unhappy in every city
+2 hammers, +2 gold, +2 science from unhappy citizens
+3 science, +3 gold from specialists (not including unhappy citizens)

Time to back up what Kael originally claimed that at a high AC counter, it would be hard for evil civs to not to win. All numbers and names are subject to change of course. Also I have not decided on which techs are needed for each level. Comment away!

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I like it.
Name/GP suggestions per level:
Narcistic Altar, req Artist
Challice of greed, req Merchant
Elixer of Binding, req Commander
Forbidden Anointing, req Sage
Idol of Domination, req Engineer
I think a tech requirement is unnecessary. The first levels obviously require a tech that enables the correct GP, and the latter require a high AC.
But I'd never give more that +1 food to an unhappy person. Seems way too powerful to only be limited by health.

 

[Kael]

I love the concept that something could increase production on unhappy citizens.

 

[Gamestation]

But I'd never give more that +1 food to an unhappy person. Seems way too powerful to only be limited by health.

Yeah good point. Since Ashen Veil civs could build this, they can also adopt sacrifice the weak and from there they could get super cities that would rival any city that Hyborem could ever get.

 

[eerr]

I love the concept that something could increase production on unhappy citizens.

+1prod, +1gold per unhappy under sacrifice the weak?
unhappy specialist? zomg

 

[Maniac]

Perhaps the higher the Armageddon counter, the more hammers Veil players get from pop rushing?
Or even better fitting with the Veil, a certain amount of science beakers?

 

[Jean Elcard]

A siege workshop is quite expensive. To be specific, it is as expensive as a national wonder of roughly the same age (for example the National Epic). On marathon I have to think always twice to start an undertaking like a siege workshop. Perhaps you should lower the hammers needed for it a little bit.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Seems like Hyborem often spawns pretty far away from the founder of the Veil. This leads to Hell only showing up in his lands until the AC gets beyond 50 or so. Any chance that Hell could spread completely independently from Hyborem? Maybe it'd spread from the AV holy city at AC 15, from all AV cities under AV leadership at 30, and from all AV cities at 45.

 

[Blakmane]

Flavor wise, I don't think hell is intended to be paradise even for evil civs. But since spreading the veil religion does raise the counter and allow for hell to spread into their lands, it must strategically be overall comprable to other religions in the end to have hell.

I meant more that flavour wise, AV Civs should be trying their hardest to spread hell. At the moment it's a disadvantage, or at best not particularly helpful, and so the flavour just isn't connecting with the strategy.

It's similar to if, say, the Elohim had a disadvantage when at peace. Of course, people would play the Elohim as warmongers, regardless of the fact their flavour says they should be pacifists.

If in-game strategy and their flavour don't match people will play it how it is, not how it is supposed to play. The AV works better without hell and so, when given the choice to create hell or not, the choice is obvious.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I meant more that flavour wise, AV Civs should be trying their hardest to spread hell. At the moment it's a disadvantage, or at best not particularly helpful, and so the flavour just isn't connecting with the strategy.

Yeah, I was pretty much just restating your opinion and agreeing.

 

[Kael]

I meant more that flavour wise, AV Civs should be trying their hardest to spread hell. At the moment it's a disadvantage, or at best not particularly helpful, and so the flavour just isn't connecting with the strategy.

It's similar to if, say, the Elohim had a disadvantage when at peace. Of course, people would play the Elohim as warmongers, regardless of the fact their flavour says they should be pacifists.

If in-game strategy and their flavour don't match people will play it how it is, not how it is supposed to play. The AV works better without hell and so, when given the choice to create hell or not, the choice is obvious.

I like what hell is, infrastructure costs for power. Generally lower population (which is the heart of your empire) in exchange for short term benifits. The piece I think we need to work on is providing those short term benifits.

I want good civs to be able to compete with their large populous healthy lands, and I want hell covered areas to be able to produce more powerful (if somewhat erratic) effects. But I think we need ned more of those effects. The Nightmares that are coming in the next patch are a good example of one of the advantages of living on hell terrain, but we need more.

 

[Gelvan]

ideas:
1. AV players can build villages that provide science instead of commerce. Or more production. Flavour: the villagers are consumed by the mage of the village, for dark experiments. this boost science / production.
2. If a summon spell from Death sphere is cast on a hell terrain it would last 3 turns - 6 turns for the Shaëm. Flavour: the dark energy of hell is a pleasure for the creatures of the Death sphere - they feel like home really.
3. A paladin/knight unit which is on hell terrain for more than 5 turns get's a chance of 3% of switching side to the owning player (or being killed with loaylity). Flavour: Rosier The Fallen mainly - but: Because they live their live to protect all the good in the world, a place so dark and evil as hell is to much for them to stand. A normal soldier wouldn't mind the place where he will fight, but for a Paladin/Knight everything he learned seems false in front of the dark skies of hell. (something like Arthur-saga maybe?)
4. make *another* barbarian civ which is named demon, has peace with AV players and spawns only in hell terrain. make it another color than normal barbarian so they can fight each other (another strategy for building barrows). [If they conquer a city and hyborem is alife - the city will switch to hyborem.] as long as theese units are not in hell terrain they suffe a penalty which is decreased by a high armageddon clock. Flavour: while hyborem seems to be the lord of hell, he's not the only ruler, counts and dukes of despair roam the lands, searchig for a place to establish a rule of their own. [a lair for their master].
4. increase the science output of Ashen Veil altar to 3 - decrease alchemist labor to 2.

 

[vorshlumpf]

1) Grigori Medics are currently STR 3. Given the last sentence of their description, it might be more appropriate to make them STR 0/3 or 1/3. Keep in mind that they get weapon promotions so even an attack STR of 0 wouldn't likely remain zero by the time they appear.

2) I'm wondering why sea serpents and sea turtles cannot submerge. I'm also thinking how much more dangerous the sea would be if they behaved as submarines do in vanilla Civ. Right now I just keep an eye out for them and avoid them (except with my arcane barges which fry them until they are an easy kill).

- Niilo

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I agree on both counts, but believe that Gregori medics cannot attack. Therefore, its attack strength is irrelevant.

It would also make sense if submerged units would be fire resistant.

 

[CuteKills]

Have to say I agree with the general feeling there seems to be that AV/Evil doesn't work too well, balance wise right now.

A few notions:

- Let Hell terrain extend to Good civs too. Maybe a mechanic like setting a "demand" proportional to the AC (this being the number of tiles that "should" be covered with Hell), then altering the chance of spread with the Good/Neutral/Evil alignment. This would make the spread slower into Good civs, but once the "easy" tiles have gone, then good is next, assuming the AC is high enough. (If the AC is getting very high, it's fair to assume that good just isn't doing it's job properly... )


- Make Hellfire harder to destroy. Maybe need a spell, rather than just wandering over it.

- Make Hellfire emergent demons belong to AV and/or Evil civs, rather than the Infernals.

- Make the Desecrate spell produce Hell Terrain rather than pollution (makes it symmetrical with Consecrate)

Just as a flavour note, it feels to me like the Consecrate spell should be divine, rather than Adept; it seems like a more "priestly" sort of activity...

 

[Blakmane]

- Make the Desecrate spell produce Hell Terrain rather than pollution (makes it symmetrical with Consecrate)

This would be awesome

 

[Frozen-Vomit]

The spell crush deals damage to archeron even though he should be immune to magic.

 

[eerr]

The spell crush deals damage to archeron even though he should be immune to magic.

it deals physical type damage



ships also seem a little weak to fireballs/meteors, could they get like, +50%?, or have fireballs not able to pass water tiles...(it seems wrong for fire magic to be the end all-be all in the water)

also, tsunami is 80% of the time less powerful than meteor shower, while even being restricted to adjacent range-could this be buffed to +1 away(assuming you can see the target from a ship, but not usually overland)