FfH2 0.30 Balance Issues

[Sureshot]

"Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing" - are you saying it doesnt? hahah

Anyways, I have to agree the Amurite spell is not only weak, but.. well.. unoriginal. They already get xp from nodes, another chance to is pretty redundant. I'd definately rather see somethign else for this one along with Basium.

More nodes would definately be nice, also

thats offtopic, but the point of that line is in comparison to the other lines, they contradict, how can it cause pacifism and violence? i can see it causing pacifism, i know ive never seen a violent pothead (except viciously attacking a bag of dorittos) heh

id like to see amurites spell add a few nodes around too

 

[Cuteunit]

That both be too good and at the same time not as good as the current spell.

It's situational, but it also serves the purpose of not pooching the Amurites if their map area doesn't have much in the way of nodes.

 

[onedreamer]

Well, these were my observations I made during those 20 games. So of course those are quite subjectively and may vary with your experience.


@Maelstrom: I agree; Maelstrom is quite powerful but it still pales compared to Meteors.
Melstrom's limited to a certain % of damage (max. Meteordmg is higher) and especially Maelstrom's range is alot lower. When standing 2 tiles away you are in range of hostile Assassins/Marksmenm, thus a natural counter exists within the game.
Meteor works up to 5 tiles away.
On top of that it's you targeting the vivtims of the meteors, not the computer.


@Moneychanger/Library:
Sure, its the same bonus, but Library gives access to a World wonder while the Bazaar is "just" a national wonder - and the bazaar won't give you any great merchants for free.
On top of that +25% is alot better as I (and I guess the majority of civ players) try to stick the science slider as high as possible.
25% more coins, when it's just 10-20% of my commerce isn't that much, but 25% more science, when it's 80-90% of the commerce, is.


@Forge:
It's the same value as in vanilla Civ, but FFH's credo is: "Choose your buildings to build carefully; you have to specialize your cities" - In Vanilla civ you can just build everything in every city (well, thats abit exaggerated, but I hope you get the point )
On top of that in vanilla there are more buildings like the Forge, improving your hammers - unless you play dwarves you won't get any +xx% in FFH, thus the value of the Forge drastically improves, making it a no-brainer-building to build. (at least for me)

I don't see how The Great Library and Bazaar of Mammon are relevant to this discussion, especially since Money Changer is not a prereq for the Bazaar. About the forge, ALSO in FFH2 there are more buildings increasing % production, unlike what you said. Namely the machinists shop. Same for gold with Tax Collector. There aren't any buildings like the Library increasing science % output, so if anything, it is the Library which is a must, and this is exactly why the fact that CoE and Doviello can't build Libraries is a balance problem, as I reported several times already.

About Malestrom and Meteor, again imprecise considerations. Are you sure that Maelstrom range isn't affected by Spell Extention promotions ? Also, it is more powerful on stronger units. Meteor is just 3 fireballs, which are quite useless vs. high strength units.

 

[onedreamer]

This reads as inanity.

Why not build a new node over an old, or self pillage if you want to change mana types .

Because you can not.

Frequently. Some people actually play on Terra maptype and the like.

Think about it, how long does it take for everyone else to get units that won't die to an 11 str tree much less twenty of them? Any invasion can be defeated all the way up to late game.

Too powerful.

Think about it. You can not use the Treants obtained in this way as an invasion force, again. Get facts straight before comlpaining. First off, map settings for FFH2 are modified, and players won't be near enough to take advantage of the spell in the early game. In the middle late game, it doesn't really matter what units the defending civs will have, since the Treants won't last long enough to take ALL cities a civ will have at that point. I doubt they would even be able to take one, anyways.

Of course, if you play a standard map with 12 players instead of 6, you are creating an inblanace problem, that's your own problem, though.

 

[bc1]

It seems Cuteunit is talking about the excessive ability of treants as a defensive force, able to crush any enemy's incoming invasion, rather than as an offensive one.
But there are scenarii where the treant spell might be useful in an offensive way, and regardless of city distances: (1) prepare invasion force, (2) enter war with someone, (3) wait for main enemy invasion force, (4) use treant world spell, (5) eliminate enemy invasion force with treants, (5) send own invasion force to crush depleted enemy forces.

I am perfectly fine with this possibility, because it's a limited one-time strategy and which still leaves a chance for a couter tactic.

 

[onedreamer]

It seems Cuteunit is talking about the excessive ability of treants as a defensive force, able to crush any enemy's incoming invasion, rather than as an offensive one.

Not really, no:

I really think that the Ljosalfar world spell ( march of the trees) needs a technology requirement... being able to create a tremendous number of 11 str units at turn 1 on smaller maps is a game winner..

You win the game by destroying your enemies, not by repelling invasions. And if this would be the case, they would still not be a game winner, certainly not on turn 1, and certainly much less than Elhoim's spell which prevents any movement inside their territory for 30 TURNS (that's a whole lot) during which your units might be stuck, and you even pay maintenance+supply for them, unless you make peace or disband them. Plus, while still being fully defended (we aren't talking of a miserable group of units that last a bunch of turns and can be very well taken out, here) they can still attack you, while Treants can't do both things at the same time.

 

[jenks]

@Moneychanger/Library:
Sure, its the same bonus, but Library gives access to a World wonder while the Bazaar is "just" a national wonder - and the bazaar won't give you any great merchants for free.
On top of that +25% is alot better as I (and I guess the majority of civ players) try to stick the science slider as high as possible.
25% more coins, when it's just 10-20% of my commerce isn't that much, but 25% more science, when it's 80-90% of the commerce, is.

I certainly try to keep science at 80-100%, its a building I rarely use. I would suggest that the it be made more useful and flavorsome with a direct link to increasing coins accompanied by a greater role in trade routes, such as

Moneychanger
+2 gold
+1 trade route
+25% value from trade routes
Allows one merchant

@Forge:
It's the same value as in vanilla Civ, but FFH's credo is: "Choose your buildings to build carefully; you have to specialize your cities" - In Vanilla civ you can just build everything in every city (well, thats abit exaggerated, but I hope you get the point )
On top of that in vanilla there are more buildings like the Forge, improving your hammers - unless you play dwarves you won't get any +xx% in FFH, thus the value of the Forge drastically improves, making it a no-brainer-building to build. (at least for me)

I would agree that +25% hammers is a 'must build' in every city (anywhere I expect to get 5+ population anyway). I also think that the dwarven smithy is currently undervalued when it should be a dwarven specality.
The percentage modifiers where hammers are concerned are a lot more useful to all cities, when compared than percentage modifiers to commerce (the hammers assist you in specialising to whatever you want from the city!).
I would suggest that a Forge/Smithy should have no happiness modifier and the below stats:

Forge
+20% production
-1 health
allows 1 engineer

Dwarven Smithy
+10% production
+10% production with copper
+10% production with iron
-1 health
allows 1 engineer

 

[Shakiko]

I don't see how The Great Library and Bazaar of Mammon are relevant to this discussion,

dunno either - you brought it up in response to my observations when playing this Mod.

ALSO in FFH2 there are more buildings increasing % production, unlike what you said. Namely the machinists shop.

Machinists Shop ?
It's available that late in the game AND unlike forge you need to research two techs (bowyers , eh ? see my comments to the archer line) which you can easily dismiss.

Sure, it's available, but compared to forge,whose prereq you'll almost automatically research in _every_ game (and normally you'll research it really early) and the huge bonus it grants (it's even bigger than the machinists shop while costing less ) the forge is still a no-brainer to build in every city. That was my point.

If you want to be even more nitpicky, please go on, but I think the reason for this thread was to point out Props and Flops when playing this game - not criticizing every detail other players observed just b/c you don't agree with their assessments. Thanks.

About Malestrom and Meteor, again imprecise considerations. Are you sure that Maelstrom range isn't affected by Spell Extention promotions ?

You indicate my considerations are imprecise but did not even test the range of the spells ??? Holy cow ....
.
.
.
Maelstrom's range with Spell extension 2 is still 2 tiles.
Meteors got 4 movement range with Spell extension 2.

Also, it is more powerful on stronger units. Meteor is just 3 fireballs, which are quite useless vs. high strength units.

I agree on single unit stacks.
But most high str units are national units (thus you have just a limited supply) and in FFH the stacks are quite big, thus Maelstrom still pales in comparison.

Assume a city with 20 Defenders. 3 national units with high strength.
Your 6-9 Meteors won't kill the 3 national units, but will kill the other 17 units over (a short) time. You won't even need that much of a huge Stack to do this. Unlike Maelstrom which still needs alot of attackers to pick off the weakened units your Meteors can kill everything by themselves.

But we are disgressing now: my point wasn't Maelstrom vs. Meteors but "Meteors are too cheesy, so you can mindlessly tech to Archmages with Fire3 in those games where you use magic anyways"



Combine those advantages of the Meteors with the higher range and the fact that Meteors absolutely obsoletes Siege weapons (more movement, no upkeepcost, unlimited supply, no buildtime) and you get an idea why I chose to put them into "my too strong/mindless-category".

 

[onedreamer]

Machinists Shop ?
It's available that late in the game AND unlike forge you need to research two techs (bowyers , eh ? see my comments to the archer line) which you can easily dismiss.

This objection is senseless if you consider the fact you said Forge is the ONLY improvement for hammers and therefore is a must. Anything working on % is a must have anyways, be it the only improvement of that kind or not.

Sure, it's available, but compared to forge,whose prereq you'll almost automatically research in _every_ game

Are you kidding me ?

(and normally you'll research it really early)

Nope, I don't.

and the huge bonus it grants (it's even bigger than the machinists shop while costing less ) the forge is still a no-brainer to build in every city. That was my point.

Wow, so let's see. Is there any city where you don't build an Obelisk (except the capital) or a Library ? I mean my point is that I would agree with you if Forge was the ONLY building you would always ever build in a city. But it isn't so, hence...

If you want to be even more nitpicky, please go on, but I think the reason for this thread was to point out Props and Flops when playing this game - not criticizing every detail other players observed just b/c you don't agree with their assessments. Thanks.

You criticized a detail (Forge), and I'm answering to this critique. If you want your thoughts to be Absolute Truths then just keep them for yourselves, so you don't have to confront them with others' ideas.

Maelstrom's range with Spell extension 2 is still 2 tiles.
Meteors got 4 movement range with Spell extension 2.

Fine... still Malestrom is way more powerful.

I agree on single unit stacks.

What is a single unit stack ?

But most high str units are national units (thus you have just a limited supply) and in FFH the stacks are quite big, thus Maelstrom still pales in comparison.

Geez, it's exactly the contrary, Maelstrom is stronger on bigger stacks because it will hit and hit hard all units in the stack.

Assume a city with 20 Defenders. 3 national units with high strength.
Your 6-9 Meteors won't kill the 3 national units, but will kill the other 17 units over (a short) time. You won't even need that much of a huge Stack to do this.

A fireball is a strength 3-4 unit. You don't need a national unit to have a "high strength unit". A Longbowman is strong enough, and you can have as many as you can support.

Unlike Maelstrom which still needs alot of attackers to pick off the weakened units your Meteors can kill everything by themselves.

Care to back this up with a practical demonstration ?

But we are disgressing now: my point wasn't Maelstrom vs. Meteors but "Meteors are too cheesy, so you can mindlessly tech to Archmages with Fire3 in those games where you use magic anyways"

And my point was that this is true to you but not to me. And it still stands.

Combine those advantages of the Meteors with the higher range and the fact that Meteors absolutely obsoletes Siege weapons (more movement, no upkeepcost, unlimited supply, no buildtime) and you get an idea why I chose to put them into "my too strong/mindless-category".

They do not obsolete siege weapons in any way. Are you comparing cannons to fireballs, or even meteors ? Let me also remind you that the Archmage himself is a national unit.

 

[Blakmane]

To those complaining about the power of the ljosalfar world spell: have you ever actually used it? IF you attacked (somehow) in the pitiful number of turns you are given, there's no way you'd get the treants back to your lands. What does this mean? no more forests! It's just not an offensive spell.

 

[Tobbe_1]

Well, i only used the worldspell twice: once in a regular game, and the second time to test an ultra-fast win (conquest victory in turn 27, but very focussed/brocken settings (duelmap, arboria). My obeservations:

1) Creating the Treeants reduces forests to new Forests. So it really doesnt matter where the treeants die, your existing forests are still there and need some time to regrow.

2) The smaller the map, the more dangerous the treeant army becomes. Sure on map sizes large and even bigger, there is quite some distance between the starting locations. But on small maps (or even smaller than this) the distance is not that big and you might be able to conquer some brodercities. Especially in the beginning this might be the second or third city the AI founded.

To become an invasion force, you definitely need some forests at the border and within enemy teritory. Without these the treeants are just to slow to arrive (having double movement in forests).

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Good point. The length could be adjusted by map size. Small & duel maps, -1 turn, large & huge maps +1 turn ?

 

[kumquatelvis]

When you kill someone who has the Axe (or staff, or whatever), it remains in the square of the original wielder. That means that if you have a stack of units, and the opposing player finally succeeds in killing the guy wielding it, you can just pick it up again with someone else next turn (unless they somehow manage to kill off the whole stack in one go). It also makes it easy to poach (computer killed Orthus, my nearby unit ran over and picked up the axe. Computer, being stupid, wasn't even upset).

 

[NeoParn]

Regarding Meteors and Maelstroms; and I'm not talking about fireballs, comparing a T2 spell to a T3 spell seems silly. A little playtesting with world builder and the results seem pretty clear.
Maelstroms pros
-Will hit all units with two plots
-Heavy hit to strength
-Combat promotions seem to increase the percent damage (I could be wrong, but it seems to help a lot)

Maelstroms cons
-Can not kill units
-Can not have the range extended

Meteor pros
-Collateral damage (always awesome)
-Can choose to bombard
-Range is extendable
-Combat promotions definitely increase damage (Empowered promotions)
-Hits three times per cast
-Kills units

Meteor cons
-Can only damage one stack at a time
-Collateral damage does not hit all units in a large stack

On average I would have caused maximum damage to a large stack with three Maelstorms, but all units remain alive. Nine meteors will instead kill most of the same stack, and cause a fair amount of damage to the survivors. Combine this with the fact that the arch-mages could be at a much greater distance.

Now in most cases killing some of your opponents is far better that wounding all of them. In a situation with several stacks that are spread out Maelstroms performs better (in bulk damage). Even so, hitting three stacks with a meteor will cause similar damage (probably a bit less, but still collateral damage to the stack) and possibly kill any of them, as opposed to none.

I would expect fire to be more deadly, I've been electrocuted quite a few times, and I'd still prefer that to being lit on fire. I'd prefer to see meteors (and fireball) knocked down a little bit (maybe just loosing bombard), as if you can build mages, they tend to obviate the need for siege engines, as they can attack every turn without needing to stop and heal (or be repaired). Plus an arch-mage = three siege attacks a turn from far enough away to make counter attack really hard, while the catapult/cannon usually ends up sitting right outside the walls.

 

[DREWid]

(maybe just loosing bombard).

several people have suggested this from a balance point of view and i concur that from this stand its probably valid ... however from a background point of view this would be very un-inkeeping with the amurites as they are ment to have a fire affinity (not the mechnic) and very definatly are ment to use mages as siege weapons, the leader dain severed as a siege mage, which implies ant defence.

now 2 ways round this

1) make ire have 2 spells at lv 2 one being fireball and a second being a bombard spell with a smaller range, this stops you sitting 4 squares away and bombarding for a turn to increase the effect of your fireballs.
2) move the anti defence (bombard) part of the spell to another sphere that the amurites start with

 

[Deon]

Don't you think about teaching AI to cheat with new units? As to replace/upgrade warriors for free to new tier units avaliable? I explained my game (and others are likt that one) here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6369675&postcount=4

Also there's a real problem with archery units - u need to develop metal-miming thread which ALREADY gives you melee units. Maybe we should separate bronze/iron/mithril mining from getting mele units in different thread?

Also try to implement rock-paper-scissors for melee/archers/cavalry, I think it could be done... Thanks for your attention.

 

[Humakty]

I already asked it in another thread, but, please, do something for the Clan.
They are so utterly weakish, it is as if Bhaal had turned away from her people.

 

[bc1]

Flavor-wise they should remain uncivilized, low tech brutes but should be given some ability at swarming (eg cheaper units & support costs)

 

[Deon]

Ok here are my thoughts.
AI Problem.
"M'lord, the terrible sheaim are sieging our towns, their warriors pillage our countryside!!! - Warrioirs? Do you mean clubsmen from stone age? Meh... Send my immortals to pwn them."
There's the problem. In the beginning AI builds warriors good, it fights animals and barbarians with them, but in the "middle" of the game there are warrioirs still and maybe a few religion-specific units. I think AI just can't find a way to upgrade (no gold) or dispose of them (they don't use "destroy" button i guess) so they occupy the combat units limit and AI can't build too many new good units.
* Unit tiers. I think the easiest desicion (not to tweak the AI and all) is to auto-upgrade some AI units if they're in their own towns and are in game for a long time (let's say, the 1st warrior if survived and if the needed tech is researched and he is in city will be auto-promoted to archer or swordsman. Also it'd be great if elven units will prefer the archery upgrade-tree, not melee (I'm sick of elven clubsmen everywhere every game).
* Unit XP. Also AI capital may give to units stationed in it some slow XP bonus, because this way we can engage something more difficult than just lvl 2-3 warrior in the capital when we attack it. At least I try to defend my cities with high-level units, what is not true for the AI.
* Heroes. AI heroes are too easy to die. THey are often easily killed by barbarians and even animals due to bad usage... I'd suggest to "teach" AI (if you can wary it's actions and it's not too hard) to preserve heroes, at least until they get level 5-7. Also they should be taught to level them right (as to get MARCH promotion for warrior heroes and skip some weird things like scourge, which isn't good at all due the warrior population now).
2) Unit type usefullness. I mean archers. Now the horseman are good to be quick and rule everything, and the melee units are not so quick but easier to obtain and still good. The problem in with archery units - they are not desired to be even n elven nations, because it's harder to get them than melee and they also require techs for bronze/iron thing.
* Different materials? First way to empower archery units, make them not tied to melee group and something preferable is to rid of "bronze" and "iron" bows (I don't like it). Maybe we should have "exceptional", "composite", and "enchanted" bows or something like this instead of bronze/iron/mithril, and these upgrades will be obtained through the archery tech-tree as you progress, and also require no resources, only special building in town, let's call it "master fletcher".
* Different tech-tree for materials? Another option is to separate melee tech tree from crafting materials. This way you'll develop +weapons and all unit types don't mess up with archery. But I don't like this option really, because it further expands the tech tree (unneeded) and also archery units are now something that don't require resources to build and melee are.
So I'd prefer just another bow-upgrades (If you think "exceptional", "composite" and "enchanted" are not good enough, try to think about names) without the melee techs.
3) Rock/paper/scissors? Melee, archers, mounted?
* Strategy over numbers. I think it's a nice idea to implement the "triangle" feature to the basic combat unit types.
I.e., archer beats pikeman, pikeman beats horseman, horseman beats archer.
Are you tired of your elite swordsmen dying under the rain of arrows? Send your fast cavalry to punish those bastards!
Well it is not necesarry to be implemented for the low tier units, but let's say archers will have bonus against melee (maybe a bit lower than shock promotion) and cavalry will have bonus against archers (due to the fast moving speed and maneurs). We can leave melee as they are, because I don't see the point why the warrior will beat knight, I think it's opposite.
Also you want to make it the way different - high lvl melee units have shields to cover from arrows and cavalry is more vulnerable to direct fire on short distance -.-. You decide which way is better.
* F34R MY KNIGHTS! It may be too hard to balance "strength" issues for mounted/melee/archers, so if you want to implement the morale some day, it'll be much easier - you will get morale pwnage if archers attack melee units or if knights rush into the archers' formation.

I put faith in you and hope my words can give you some nice ideas.

 

[Deon]

When you kill someone who has the Axe (or staff, or whatever), it remains in the square of the original wielder.

I also thought that the item-capture mechanism should work like slavery, if your attacker can't occupy the same tile as the previous wielder. When you defeat the enemy with some artifact, you should get it on the same tile as your killer.