FfH2 0.21 Balance Feedback

[Saien]

Right now there is no reason not to Mutation your workers if you can cure withered/disease. Like say the Aquae Sucellus.

-1 str does nothing, vulnerable to fire means nothing to an insta-die unit, and crazed actually helps because they will occasionally gain +1 move on half the turns.

But, if you get +1 or +2 str, then workers can actually defend.

On the other hand, actual combat units gain little benefit. The strength roll comes out slightly ahead (40% of the time you gain, 15% of the time you lose) but there's little to no benefits to the promotions. Only the Magic Resistance (5% chance) is a permanent effect and you lose the strength bonus when you upgrade. The only time I've bothered to use it is with Werewolves after they hit Greater. Get -1str and I can throw away the unit and get another to spawn.

I suggest having a chance at -1 move or +1 move. Also, perhaps replace the Regeneration bonus which fades on next combat with a lesser power one that does not. Any mage can cast Regen.

 

[katika]

Unless something changed from .16, mutated units retain their mutation (including strength bonus) after being promoted. I know that in .16 I would mutate my beastmen, give them iron weapons, drown them, and promote them to stygian guards frequently. Unlimited str 11 units. Grab mithril for another 2 points, and promote the best to Eidolons.

 

[Saien]

Well then in that case nevermind!

Still no reason not to mutate every single worker.

 

[Ankhman]

Three 33% do add to nearly 100% so it sounds like the spell is based upon the original strength and not the strength at the time the spell is cast. If you made it 33% of the damaged strength then 3 crushes would knock a unit's strength to about 30% (.67x.67x.67) the strength it had at the beginning of the turn. This would be more appropriate IMHO.

 

[Aroldo]

The spell Crush looks a little too effective to me. It basically destroys a huge stack in one go. Unless there already is a simple counter I'm not aware of (I've had so far only 3 games with FFH, so I'm still in the process of figuring out how things work), I'd say it needs some tweaking.

 

[Lord Buck]

I think the powerfull stack killing spells could scale back as the units get more damaged. So weakening a stack is easy, but to kill it outright would take numerous castings. (but should still be possible)

Thats what I thought Crush would do when I first tried it, then I looked at the city stack and everything was dead...I was happy and sad at the same time...kinda wierd. I don't want to use it, but I can't help myself.

 

[EvilBohdran]

Perhaps add a counter to the spells.

Any mage with the Water I promotion would reduce the damage of any Pillar of Fire cast at the stack it is in by 1-30% (random), Water II reduces it by 30%-60%, and Water III reduces it by 60%-90%.

Likewise a mage with Air magic could reduce the Crush.

The reason I think it would need to be an automatic passive effect is so that the AI has a reasonable chance of accidently using it. If it were some sort of protection spell that needed to be cast the AI would never cast it. And I like the idea of duelling wizards.

Regarding two druids seeming too powerful, flavourly, what could you do if you had two Merlins? (by legend he was created by druids right, or am I misremembering it).

 

[Lord Buck]

Perhaps add a counter to the spells.

Any mage with the Water I promotion would reduce the damage of any Pillar of Fire cast at the stack it is in by 1-30% (random), Water II reduces it by 30%-60%, and Water III reduces it by 60%-90%.

Likewise a mage with Air magic could reduce the Crush.

The reason I think it would need to be an automatic passive effect is so that the AI has a reasonable chance of accidently using it. If it were some sort of protection spell that needed to be cast the AI would never cast it. And I like the idea of duelling wizards.

Regarding two druids seeming too powerful, flavourly, what could you do if you had two Merlins? (by legend he was created by druids right, or am I misremembering it).

I read a book that had two Merlins, pretty cool, but things didn't work out so well...

All the other spells are cool, but with Crush as is, having more than or one druid is too great an advantage and negates other aspects of game, IMO.

 

[Go Boks]

Merlins? (by legend he was created by druids right, or am I misremembering it).

He was a druid.

Anyway, I think both crush and pillar of fire are a little two powerful. They should have a cap on the number of units they can damage in one cast. I think that is the first step to take in balancing those spells.

Otherwise, it would be nice if it was clearer that disciple track units available upgrades aren't effected by mana nodes.

 

[Master_Hugian]

Just had a game where I was massacred by 5 confessors, its kinda kills the game when you look on a stack and feel like there is nothing you can do about, they can just walk up to you city and boom, its gone.

I think it should just do collateral damage and should not kill units outright, and I think this should go for all such spells.

 

[Kael]

Just had a game where I was massacred by 5 confessors, its kinda kills the game when you look on a stack and feel like there is nothing you can do about, they can just walk up to you city and boom, its gone.

I think it should just do collateral damage and should not kill units outright, and I think this should go for all such spells.

Sounds good, I'll have to rewrite it to do that (its not a simple thing) but I agree that we need the option to meter out the damage like Firaxis's collateral damage function does.

 

[A+ombomb]

Here's a few quick balance notes :

1. Amurite firebows are too powerful for their relative time to tech up to. It should probably require sorcery to have fireball, and I don't think it's quite right for warriors to upgrade to firebows either, as you can upgrade a 5 star warrior and have mega fireballs that dominate easily. I was really pretty shocked that my warrior even had the option to upgrade.

2. Buildings seem quite a bit overcosted. They are so expensive that It's almost always more practical just to mass warriors forever and maybe build 1 forge and 1 training ground just to upgrade your warriors. Take a siege workshop, for example. As much as I would love to build many of the units that come from it, the 201? hammers it costs to build it is = 10 warriors. How can you possibly justify building siege workshops? If you ever did, it would be one at most, just simply so you could bombard and/or collateral, but it's very likely that if your attack is successful it would have been without the siege as well. Siege workshops and really all other buildings shouldn't be any more than 20-40 hammers max, increasing with the era - reducing building cost was one major change into warlords that was certainly a good one. Reducing building costs will also make computers much more competive, as they are not intelligent enough to realize how wasteful it is to make piles of buildings in every city.

 

[Bringa]

Ring of Flames is WAY too powerful. Compared to any other Divine II spell and also compared to anything else your enemy would have at this level. I just played a game vs PC with a friend who went for Elohim/Order. He had his heroes (Vaniel and Sphener), a couple of paladins, and a shitload of confessors. Because of the high power bodyguard units the confessors were safe, and as for their damage output... insane. I've seen him clear out entire city garrisons (way more and higher level units than he had confessors) in a single round. Actually, at one moment toward the end of the game he accidentally used the spell when my army was next to his confessors. I had a really big army, lots of Arquebus, three heroes, lots of cannons, all my heavy crossbowmen... his accidental triggering of ring of flames on the seven confessors he had with him wiped out my entire army.

The way I understand it (and the civopedia isn't much help here), each ring of fire does an absolute amount of damage on all units one tile from the caster, with no upper limit on number of units affected. Is that right? If so, this might be the single most abusive feature of the mod.

[edit] Just saw Master Hugian's post. We agree: RoF must be changed somehow.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

For one thing, casters should be like catapults and be unable to use their spells if they have no movement points left. That shouldn't be too hard to code and would put a damper on the confessors.

 

[Master_Hugian]

the would work in most cases and means that confessors near your city does not always mean game over,

 

[Go Boks]

For one thing, casters should be like catapults and be unable to use their spells if they have no movement points left. That shouldn't be too hard to code and would put a damper on the confessors.

I don't really like that solution. It will make putting out fires that much more annoying.

 

[kumquatelvis]

I agree that Ring of Flames is overpowered. My stack of ritualists could clear out any enemy city in one click, no matter many units the computer had, or how powerful they were (occasionally a unit with fire/magic resistance would survive, but it would be too damaged to be an effective defender).

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I don't really like that solution. It will make putting out fires that much more annoying.

Perhaps, delaying your casting by one turn, but you'd have an equally better chance of killing the firestarters before they cast.
And this isn't such an issue anymore, with the forest cycle implemented. Making a fire break with workers is as good a solution now.

On another note, masonry is pretty empty. Maybe we could move bridge building there?

 

[Blakmane]

I'm finding the huge diplomacy modifier on neutral civs to good/evil civs really crippling. It makes no sense to me that, if i'm a good civ, falamar would hate me just as much as Alexis hates me (and yes I mean hates me- neutral civs start off as annoyed). From a balance perspective it also means 2/3s of the map will refuse even open borders. Makes diplomacy a bit redundant.

 

[Jean Elcard]

I'm finding the huge diplomacy modifier on neutral civs to good/evil civs really crippling. It makes no sense to me that, if i'm a good civ, falamar would hate me just as much as Alexis hates me (and yes I mean hates me- neutral civs start off as annoyed). From a balance perspective it also means 2/3s of the map will refuse even open borders. Makes diplomacy a bit redundant.

To some degree I have to agree with you, but there are always ways for diplomacy. I make my friends usually through presents like many years of delivered ressources and stuff likes. Gives you an good overall reputation in quite a short time.