FfH2 0.30 Balance Issues

[Aradiel]

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

Once i played on huge map with 2 continents, the baseraph ai went rampage (on prince!?)and conquered 2 other ais and then turned on me with 3 stacks 12+ units of expierienced swordsmen catapults priests. I only had some archers, some swordsmen and cavalry at that time. So i was outnumbered 5:1 and had no chance to hold my citys. I casted the ljosfalar worldspell and thought hey i get 3 or 4 treants but instead i got about 5-6 per city!? So in total about 40 treants which last 5 turns mmhmm... the first thing i did is i attacked my other neighbour and took 2 citys from him within 2 turns. Treants too slow not cabable to attack a city no? 3 or more 11 strength units against bowmen axemen? Ironically the invasionforce of the baseraph was so big even the treants barely where able to push them back, but my neighbour was overrun by the trees of terror!

I would ask for a change: 1: The treants only spawn around the unit that casted the spell. For each ancient forest tile you get 1 treant but not more than 5 which also last 5 turns. If there is any hostile unit entering your realm the chance of spawning a treant is increased by 50% for 5 turns.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

So that Animals won't all be hunted off at the beginning of the game, I would recommend making scouts unable to attack (like in vanilla), but still letting all the other recon units attack (it might be appropriate for goblins to still be able to attack too).

Also, since hunters have domesticated wolves in their graphics anyway, maybe subdue animal should require hunting instead of Animal Husbandry. (It might also make sense for animal husbandry to require Hunting, or have it be an our requirement)

 

[Deon]

Well there's the point. Usually by the time you gain "subdue" promotion all animals are hunted by your/AI scouts and your scouts are lvl 7-9 -.- (at least on marathon/epic speeds).
Well this may cause some unrest but it is not the only option. Another option is to use "wildlands" option with a standart+ map, usually it's ok if enough free space are left uncolonized.

 

[Ringtailed]

I'm playing single player vs the AI on immortal difficulty at normal speed. It's turn 8, and Loki just entered my borders o_O

Does the AI Balseraphs get him for free? Otherwise that's some massive hammer production(he costs 180)...

 

[Darkheart]

Yeah....
I started a game on marathon speed and Loki was on my borders at turn 6.... the AI was using him as a scout

 

[Sarisin]

Speaking about the Balserphs...

Does it ever seem to you that some civs (not including those with the Barbarian trait) seem to get mostly a free ride with barbarian attacks, especially in raging barb games?

When you play enough FFH2 you start to identify trends.

For example, in my current game I was the first one to be hammered by the raging barbs. That's fine as I am playing Mahala and love his Raiders trait. I had a few turns rest, then they came again. I never saw many barbs go into Perpentach's lands. As a result, he quickly had at least 20 cities, while I was constantly fighting to protect the improvements in my 3 cities.

When I finally was able to must an army together (I really needed the defenders for the constant barb attacks), I sent them after the Balserphs. When I arrived with my Three Stooges and a couple of other high XP units I found each of his cities guarded by one or two Merrymen. That's it. The same barbs that were attacking me whole game could have easily overrun most of his civ.

Of course, he was far ahead of me in the Techs. and, amazingly, after I took a city down or two, the Harlequins, Swordsmen, and even a couple of heroes started appearing.

Anyway, I have noticed in other games that Keelyn also expands quickly and doesn't seem to get attacked much by raging barbs?

Anyone else notice this?

Oh, BTW, when I have played the Balserphs, I have NOT been ignored by the barbs!

 

[OzzyKP]

I'm not entirely impressed with the Crusade civic. A small boost that fits the flavor would be to eliminate the extra upkeep units cost when they are in foreign territory. The unit supply costs. That makes it easier for players to actually crusade and invade other civs.

 

[onedreamer]

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).

Ok let's see:

so you have a chance to conquer the second/third city of ONE of your enemies.
1- You haven't won.
2- How will you defend your conquest ?
3- It's a World Spell, not a freaking level 1 spell.
4- You still must have forests near your opponent etc etc.

 

[jenks]

Aside from minor adjustments to buildings for balance and flavour, the two main problems for me in FfH are currently the weakness of Archery, Archers are potentially less powerful and already less versatile than comparative units and the blandness of Cavalry, as surely units on horseback should recieve distinct benefits to their movement.

What I would do is (perhaps) reduce the cost of the archery tech, make archers cheaper like in vanilla civilization, and have the archery range have a unique fuction to improve the archers.

Its a great flavorful concept but I dont like it. Whilst making an adept-style XP growth for archers near the range is a wonderful idea it is going to be a big job to code (and is unlikely imo) to make the cut of the FfH teams ever-expanding 'to do' list.

The main issue about balance is that Archers cost 60 hammers and are exclusive defenders, the comparison from the melee/metal line is that Axemen cost 60 and are potentially more powerful units as well as being more versatile. The best and most straight forward fix to balance this is reduce archery tech cost from 300 to 200 beakers, and reduce Archer hammer cost to 50 instead of 60. Why is everyone swooning over some idea that will need heavy coding when the balance is possible with straightforward XML cost changes?

Archers are admitedly underpowered, the 15% specialization above Axmen does not compensate for the inability to use metals and poor attack you get for the same price. Well, there is the first strike, but still.

Why is the Archery flavour-promotion "Drill" the only one which did not increase in the mod? I love the way promotions are more important in FfH than vanilla, but while Strength promotions doubled from +10% to +20%, Drill remained the same. 'Drill' is now 'Strengths' poor cousin, potentially less powerful, and less versatile.

The only line that seems to need more balance is perhaps the cavalry line. It's beaker intensive, yet yields zero economic benefits past trade. It's only worth going down it for some of the more powerful unique units.

Very powerful units. Too beaker intensive, too expensive units, lacking in any distinguishing aspect as almost every unit is able to get 2 or more movement points with only 2XP.

I suggest a change to the mobility promotions to make the high movement range of cavalry their most important and distinguishing feature compared with other land units.
Mobility I (+1 movement) Make available only to units who have Drill I.
Mobility II (+2 movement) Make available only to Mounted units.


-------------------
CivIV: Great game , with an even better Mod!

 

[Quetz]

I strongly disagree with nerfed or modifying mobility. FFH lacks unit transport besides ships, and it can take FOREVER for anything to get where it needs to be, even with mobility.

 

[Ringtailed]

I've been thinking about the "Barbarian World" starting option. It's the one that places barbarian cities on the map at the start. I'm wondering what the idea behind this option was. If it's to give barbarians a larger presence in the early game, it fails miserably. In practice Barbarian World is mostly a race to expand by grabbing poorly defended barb cities with warriors.
In the games I've been playing with that option on, I don't think I've built a single settler the entire game.

So I've been thinking, maybe barbarian cities created with this option should start with archers for defense to make them harder to conquer.

Edit: Another thing I've been thinking about: starting techs. Civs that start with exploration are at a huge disadvantage over civs that start with Agriculture or Ancient Chants. Crafting can sometimes be an OK tech if you're near wine and gold, but otherwise it's bad also. In particular I'm wondering why Bannor start with exploration. It doesn't seem to fit them thematically nor from a gameplay standpoint and I don't think they're overpowered to the point where they need a poor starting tech.

 

[jenks]

Animals
I see Bears, Giant Spiders and Elephants and they make up probably 90% of the spread.

Bears I would say are currently working quite well, but I would say the spider breeding feature is now defunct as it is too low % spawn chance, and even lower % survival chance for the baby spider (+ it will very rarely upgrade).

Gorillas and tigers are too rare still, and lions and wolfs dont survive very long in game cause they are too weak (would last a bit longer if they still had the dens spawning or a chance to upgrade to lion pride / wolf pack).

The elephants are not more common, but just survive the longest due to high strength, but dont have much use other than static defender once captured. I'd like to see them upgrade to War Elephants late game, or have their own unique building as per each other animal (could provide happiness or an ivory resource).

 

[star_gazer]

Maybe Mobility 1 could be changed to a % modification instead of straight +1? If Mobility 1 were +50%, then 1/2 move units get +1 and 3/4 move units get +2, so that cavalry units benefit more from mobility. Making Mobility II +100% seems excessive, so perhaps it could be +50% and +1 or +50% and reduce movement penalties.

 

[Mesix]

I strongly disagree with nerfed or modifying mobility. FFH lacks unit transport besides ships, and it can take FOREVER for anything to get where it needs to be, even with mobility.

You haven't seen a Hippus Horseman that can cross an entire continent (including two or three empires) in a single turn. The Hippus seriously must have the Blessings of Hermes on thier horseshoes.

Oh yeah, its the commando promotion. Why do horses get this anyway???

 

[Mesix]

I've been thinking about the "Barbarian World" starting option. It's the one that places barbarian cities on the map at the start. I'm wondering what the idea behind this option was. If it's to give barbarians a larger presence in the early game, it fails miserably. In practice Barbarian World is mostly a race to expand by grabbing poorly defended barb cities with warriors.
In the games I've been playing with that option on, I don't think I've built a single settler the entire game.

So I've been thinking, maybe barbarian cities created with this option should start with archers for defense to make them harder to conquer.

Edit: Another thing I've been thinking about: starting techs. Civs that start with exploration are at a huge disadvantage over civs that start with Agriculture or Ancient Chants. Crafting can sometimes be an OK tech if you're near wine and gold, but otherwise it's bad also. In particular I'm wondering why Bannor start with exploration. It doesn't seem to fit them thematically nor from a gameplay standpoint and I don't think they're overpowered to the point where they need a poor starting tech.

The Bannor seem suited for Ancitent Chants more than Exploration.

 

[xienwolf]

Could the Promotions given to immobilize a unit for Blinding Light and Entangle maybe also make you immune to the spell? This way a unit would be able to have 1 turn to move before you can re-apply the spell and it is no longer possible to "lock down" a target.

Charm could possibly go for the same mechanic. But I still think that the chance of it wearing off needs to be increased to 50% so that you can only disable HALF of a stack, it is unlikely to often be used on a single unit, unless that is a Hero or otherwise well promoted unit, or the caster in question is out alone and get surprised by a wild animal. If it is a 50% chance to wear off, it should be a guarantee that it lands of course (assuming that the check is done when you hit END TURN, because then it simulates a 50% chance to hit the target at all since it might wear off that first turn before the opponent gets an opportunity to notice you even cast the spell, if the check is done after the opoonent gets his turn, then it should continue to be resistable).

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Blinding light and Entangle don't use promotions to immobilize units.

I've noticed that using blinding light (which usually immobilizes for 3 turns) on an immobilized unit doesn't immobilize for any more than 1 turn.

I believe that (except in my modmod) entangle immobilized for only 1 turn, which is useless (without simultaneous turns); it wears off at the end of your turn, before the unit would be able to move anyway.

 

[xienwolf]

Well, not using a promotion makes it a lot harder to keep them from being able to be chain cast It really is something which ought to be impossible, thus providing the poor saps a possible way out of having their troops at your mercy.

Does Dispell Magic clear up Entangle/Blinding Light? Probably should do so there as well, then at least there is a magical counter to a magical strategy.

 

[Ecofarm]

Does Dispell Magic clear up Entangle/Blinding Light? Probably should do so there as well, then at least there is a magical counter to a magical strategy.

I agree, it definately should but I don't think it does. It should also remove charm from all (or at least most) units in the stack, not just a couple.

 

[Sarisin]

Animals
I see Bears, Giant Spiders and Elephants and they make up probably 90% of the spread.

Bears I would say are currently working quite well, but I would say the spider breeding feature is now defunct as it is too low % spawn chance, and even lower % survival chance for the baby spider (+ it will very rarely upgrade).

Gorillas and tigers are too rare still, and lions and wolfs dont survive very long in game cause they are too weak (would last a bit longer if they still had the dens spawning or a chance to upgrade to lion pride / wolf pack).

The elephants are not more common, but just survive the longest due to high strength, but dont have much use other than static defender once captured. I'd like to see them upgrade to War Elephants late game, or have their own unique building as per each other animal (could provide happiness or an ivory resource).

I agree with all your comments except that I have not seen all that many Giant Spiders in my game - certainly none after the first couple hundred turns.

In each of my games there has been what I call a Bear Explosion. Just Bears, and a rare Elephant. The others are not spawning and are quickly killed off by ai troops not interested in capturing them.

One exploit is to just garner XP killing Bears with units, but that gets tedious too.

Your suggestions on the Elephants have come up before, but nothing has been done. They do make good static defenders early on (Lizardmen seem to kill them quite easily though), but the problem is capturing one with a Scout!

The game/mod is great, but I think there are a lot of players that would enjoy a bit more variety with the animals and chasing the great quest of the Grand Menagerie. I have not come close to getting it in .30 as Tigers, Gorillas, and now even Lions are hard to come by.