FfH2 0.32 Balance Feedback

[KingOfLands]

Requiring either a Forge or at least the tech that allows forges seems reasonable, since it gives the free buildings. I wouldn't nerf it any more than that though.


I do however think that the City of a Thousand Slums does not belong at Engineering. The tech already has a very good wonder, and it makes no thematic sense. Good Engineering would have prevented slums from ever developing. I still think the most Logical Tech for the City of a Thousand Slums is Taxation. I'm guessing that taxes in a dark fantasy mod would not be progressive taxes but would (like ancient Roman taxes) be much harder on the poor than the rich. That would make them poorer, and force them to live in crowded slums.

I'd really like to see that moved to one of the strictly-financial techs as well, though then we'd probably see a drastic increase in the number of times Rhoanna builds it as the AI and that could be unpleasant. Still, it really is a little ridiculous to be getting two of the best wonders in the game in one tech.

 

[Sensemann]

the movement for hippus horsemen (3 movement + 1 for stable) are too huge. difficult to reduce it and achieve the advantage of the hippus. but think about the cavalry of normal civ, they get 2 movement only, so i think the hippus should get a maximum of 2 + 1 for stables and perhaps extra withdrawal chance and the movement for other units have to be adjusted.

 

[Medicine_Man_55]

Could a different rank 3 spirit spell be implemented? Trust just seems a bit lackluster for an archmagi level spell.

I was thinking something like "Last Stand". Enchant the strongest unit in the stack to have a +x defense bonus and % chance of surviving a defeat and healing to full while defending.

Just a thought.

 

[MondSemmel]

On the note of traits, Charadon has Aggressive and Barbarian (so effectively only one trait); same with Mahala who has Ingenuity and Raiders (the Doviello are already quite weak, and this imbalance doesn't help - besides, the Khazad have Ingenuity on both leaders as a third trait).


All leaders with Defender should receive a third trait, too in my opinion - or majorly buff the Homeland promotion (among other things, increase XP gained when defending?). The whole combat system punishes defending in Civ4 too much to make it a viable option in the even more combat-oriented FFH. Basically, defending gives less XP through direct combat AND you get less XP because a good assault will kill your defenders before you can even promote them in the next turn...
Besides, the aggressive attackers will probably have gained several promotions through their aggressiveness, and Homeland cannot compete with that.
(And finally, defending is boring.)


Hyborem has Expansive, which makes 0 sense for him, too. I don't know which other trait would make more sense, though - would Aggressive or Raiders work with his units? Arcane would probably be too boring, but what about Charismatic (or, rather, tyrannic )?


The Kuriotates World Spell gives 300 culture to all cities and settlements - this is an incredibly low amount for his cities, although it may be okay for his settlements. I'd suggest making it 300 and/or +x% (+33%? +50%?) culture, whichever is higher. Or replace their World Spell with something else.

Settlements being able to work the first ring might be appropriate, too.

 

[Nimbus]

On the note of traits, Charadon has Aggressive and Barbarian (so effectively only one trait); same with Mahala who has Ingenuity and Raiders (the Doviello are already quite weak, and this imbalance doesn't help - besides, the Khazad have Ingenuity on both leaders as a third trait).

The Doviello leader traits has always bothered me. Why do they get one less trait than the other leaders they share a similiarity to? Charadon's barbarian/agressive while Jonas gets Barbarian/Expansive/Spiritual and Sheelba gets Barbarian/Aggressive/Organized.
Then you have Mahala with Ingenuity/Raiders while Arturus gets Ingenuity/Industrious/Organized and Kandros gets Ingenuity/Aggressive/Financial. Seems to me that helping balance out the Doviello(whom most recent polls the community finds underpowered) would be adding a triat to each of their leaders. What trait I am not positive.

Hyborem has Expansive, which makes 0 sense for him, too. I don't know which other trait would make more sense, though - would Aggressive or Raiders work with his units? Arcane would probably be too boring, but what about Charismatic (or, rather, tyrannic )?

I agree Expansive makes no sense for Hyborem. After a release gets more stable(like right now) I usually swap out Expansive for Creative for him. Helps greatly in making sure his new cities don't get culturaly overwhelmed early.

 

[MondSemmel]

I agree Expansive makes no sense for Hyborem. After a release gets more stable(like right now) I usually swap out Expansive for Creative for him. Helps greatly in making sure his new cities don't get culturaly overwhelmed early.

That doesn't sound like it makes a lot of sense for him, lorewise. If culture is a problem for him, I'd rather have them fix the Infernal's spawning location (finally...) so he doesn't get sandwiched between cultural borders of different civs. Another solution would be to give their palace more culture or all their cities an additional culture producing building.
I don't know how appropriate Aggressive or Raiders would be, but IMO more appropriate than Creative.


And if Hyborem's settler would spawn one turn later, you could actually switch to him AND choose your preferred city location instead of the abysmal ones Hyborem usually has.
I don't know how to code this properly, but, for example, Hyborem could get a one-time-only spell called something like "summon Infernal denizens" and be set to be unable to cast a spell in the turn he appears (if the AI manages to understand this). If this were the case, a player could actually take control of the Infernals before they settle Dis...

 

[Draconian]

The barbarians destroy the Pyre if it's within the borders of a civilization. This doesn't make sense flavourwise and kills any AIs near the Pyre. The AI doesn't seem to understand that it has to defend the Pyre within its borders at all costs.

In my last three games the barbarians destroyed the Pyre a few turns after they spawned. Each time the Fire Elementals managed to destroy several AIs before they were finally killed. The AI isn't able to handle those Fire Elementals with warriors.

Would it be possible to make the barbarians unable to pillage the Pyre? If this doesn't work the AI should at least try to defend it.

 

[MondSemmel]

This thread contains some useful suggestions on making the early game economy more diverse. I think some of these things would make the game a lot more interesting in the early game and also a bit faster.
Basically, it would involve things like:

Cottages:
Make cottages available without tech requirement/with a T1 tech with -1 commerce on all levels. Education gives +1 commerce on all levels, so when you research Education, you have the same effect as before, but you can build cottages earlier.

Chopping:
Make chopping available without tech requirement/with a T1 tech but with severely reduced hammer gains (0%? 33%?) and then increase these values with Mining and Bronze Working - at Bronze Working (100% hammer gain), it would again work like it does right now. This would help a lot with forested ressources and decrease an early game advantage of the Elves - being able to get forested happiness ressources much earlier than others.

Farms:
Possibly make it so you can get Farms with -1 Food (i.e. they are useless) without a tech requirement so you can farm food ressources for their +2 Food
[On that note, Rice only gives +1 Food with Farms while Corn and Wheat give 2 - is this intended? If so, I'd suggest rethinking this.]. Agriculture would give +1 Food with Farms and still give you the Agriculture civic etc.

Exploration:
Make it more valuable somehow?

I'm not sure about Mines and Plantations, but I think they fit where they are. I'm not that happy about the Calendar tech, though - at least a second effect of anything would be great. What about making some of the ressources that can have Plantations invisible until Calendar? (I'm not sure about this suggestion myself, though.).

Generally speaking, you should IMO never have to research a tech for a single benefit - Tracking and Poisons are equally disappointing examples, for example, but there are more. Perhaps making a few more buildings or wonders on some of the "light" techs would help (and also benefit the more of less neglected builder style)?

Fishing:
Would probably deserve to be a T1 tech. One would have to look how much of an advantage this would be for the Lanun and adjust accordingly, but it would make coastal starts a lot more valuable for all other civs.
I'd personally also suggest making at least one early sea ressource with +hammers, or an ocean feature like suggested before. This would have to have a very subtle look though, or just appear in oceans within the borders of an OO civ.
The irony of having to build hammer heavy one-time-only workers (Work Boats) in hammer-low cities (coastal cities) is beyond me.
Perhaps one could also test making it so Work Boats aren't consumed when they build improvements (i.e. and see how that changes coastal cities?

PS: And I specificially suggest these as changes to the main mod and not as a "if you want to, you could make these into your own modmod". I don't want to play a different game from anyone else, I want these ideas to improve FFH (and there are tons of people who play Advanced Starts due to the slow early game). These wouldn't change Advanced Start games at all, but make the FFH beginning a bit faster (and a lot more interesting than pressing "end turn" 20 times...).

Also, if these would be implemented, one could make an option (off by default) which would have all players start with a Worker in addition to their other starting units - this doesn't make sense right now because your worker cannot do anything without appopriate techs, making players who start with Agriculture overpowered. With the changes above, this would be a lot more balanced.

 

[westamastaflash]

Should the Balseperahs Cages stick around in a city when its captured? I just got a free "human cage"...

 

[bc1]

It probably has been stated before but the Luirchips' worldspell (golden hammer in each city) should come with strings attached, eg a tech requirement. The current ability to use it from turn one is way too powerful and unbalances the game at a macro level.

 

[bc1]

Slaves are still too easy a way to rush things on 032: it's way cheaper than civic rushing and without the unhappy. Needs balancing.

 

[MondSemmel]

Slaves are still too easy a way to rush things on 032: it's way cheaper than civic rushing and without the unhappy. Needs balancing.

I do think that pop-rushing via Way of the Wicked should become increasingly ineffective as time passes - population becomes more valuable, and gold more easily gained. However, gold-rushing may not be good enough in comparison.

I think Slaves really ought be changed somewhat so that slaves NOT gained via slave trade become stronger than they are now and at the same time that slaves via slave trade do not become the only viable choice for rush-building [Actually, I'm generally unhappy about being able to rush the Tower of Mastery so easily etc.].

For example, the Slavery civic could give a promotion with +X% hammers to all slaves gained through combat. If the basic rushbuilding costs of slaves were reduced, this would nerf Slave Trade (Although I'm against making them useless; what about giving Slaves/Slave Trade another ability, perhaps make it unlock a building like Smuggler Port?), while slaves gained via combat would be vastly stronger. Balance-wise, something like this would really help.

On that note, other self-sacrifice mechanics aren't particularly balanced. For example, Savants can be sacrificed for beakers, but this is based on unit level - and even with high levels, the amount is so small that it makes this interesting ability useless (actually, they do exactly the opposite of slaves: converting hammers to beakers (=commerce), while slaves convert commerce to hammers). Not being able to make a great work is already a disadvantage, but having the alternative ability be as useless as this is pretty unfair, I think.
I don't need an incredibly strong ability as a replacement, just give me something I can look at and not laugh at the mere idea of using it (as in the case of converting hammers to beakers with a ratio worse than even 1:1). Then again, Savants with Prophecy of Ragnarok (if this still works) might be a decent way to permanently increase the AC, but still...

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Donal Lugh, Greatest Demon Slayer in the world, DOSN"T HAVE COURAGE??!!!! Okay, something weird with that.

He probably should, but if you cast hope (which he has) and spend a turn in the city you get courage automatically.

 

[Frozen-Vomit]

Why is Hyborem Expansionist? This trait just gives health bonus and faster lighthouse building (both aren't necessary because the infernals don't need food. The "no upkeep cost for compassion civics" is also irellevant because the infernals best use "fend for themselves" anyway.

I haven't thought about which trait should replace expanionist but it clearly has to go...

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I like the Hyborem as Arcane/Aggressive/Barbarian/Charismatic/Fallow/Industrious/Organized/Spiritual/Summoner. It makes killing the Hyborem unit and making the leader loose all his traits that much more fun.

 

[andrew_yaweb]

The ability to buy N number of mercenaries, every turn if you have the gold, is out of balance. There should not be an unlimitted number of trained mercenaries in a world, as least not without a supply and demand based increase in their cost. When I plop into enemy territory, I make sure I have one disciple to do a great work to get out of civil disorder, I sacrifice a merc. to spread their religion and then select all and buy all the merc's I can. Hell, even ships can hire merc.'s, that's odd in itself. So, i wind up with a disposable army that I can through around like cannon fodder, I can be a numerically growing number of them each turn and the 100th never costs more than the 1st.

All that seems out of whack. Thankfully the computer seems not to be smart enough to spam like that, only I do it to overwhelm the AI.

 

[MiKa523]

-Is it intention that you can build pretty advanced mages by spreading the ashen veil in your altar city as neutral/good civ and just build savants with lot of xp in order to upgrade them to mages??
The only downside seems to me that you could loose your city to hyborem's whisper?!
What's the point of being able to upgrade savants to mages?

-Lanun Champions (Boarding parties) can only be built in cities with a habor, which results in either a lot of MM in order to upgrade your warriors/swordsmen on big maps with lot of land, or causes Lanun being unable to build them at all on certain map types or if they don't have harbor cities.
I understand that they are a "water-civ" and that there are enough other powerful units balancing the loss of champions, but I still think Boarding Parties should require harbors or training yards in order to be able to build them on low water maps.

 

[Sarisin]

I'm not sure these are balance issues as such, but observations of v. .32 that certainly affect gameplay:

1. The AI now never razes any cities it wins in battle. I think this change may have started a version back. Unless the pop. is 1, the AI will capture every city it wins. This is true of barbarians too. It seems to me that in the past cities would be razed. Now, every city, regardless of location (some are just terrible, particularly in relation to the winning AI civ) it is captured and not razed.

This affects the AC, of course, but also how fast the map is filled. I don't know what you can do with the regular AI civs, but I would like to see the barbs raze cities they take rather than capturing every one. They get plenty of cities through their prolific spawning rate and Barbarian Lands, if that option is selected. Razing just makes more sense with the barbs.

Note: I think there is an option that says no razed cities, but I do not have that selected.

2. I have been in scores, if not a hundred wars in the current version. Not once, has the civ I have been at war with asked for peace. Has anyone else noticed this? If you do not propose peace, the war will go on forever until one or the other civ is wiped out.

Why don't the AI civs propose peace to you any longer - it used to happen all the time, often with Gold, Techs, resources offered. It must be happening with AI civ vs. AI civ as often their wars are quite short. However, why won't they ask the human player for peace?

 

[Ecofarm]

I like the Hyborem as Arcane/Aggressive/Barbarian/Charismatic/Fallow/Industrious/Organized/Spiritual/Summoner. It makes killing the Hyborem unit and making the leader loose all his traits that much more fun.

You forgot Raider! Denizens of hell on a rampage must have this.

 

[Medicine_Man_55]

Not specifically a balance issue, more of a thematic issue: Is there any chance that musket-equipped troops might be de-emphasized in a future release of FfH? Having a bunch of fools running around with firearms kinda detracts from the rich swords and sorcery feel of the game.

Here are the thoughts behind this observation:

1) Historically, large cannons were developed long before hand held firearms, so having just siege and ship-mounted artillery being available with the gunpowder tech is defensible from a technical standpoint.

2) Muskets would be a fine national unit for a few select civs, perhaps even getting buffed up a bit. My suggestions would be the Grigori, Khazad, and maybe Lurichep. Rationale for the Khazad/Lurichep is obvious. Rationale for Grigori is that they are naturally more focussed on scientific innovation.

3) If adopted, changing muskets to a civ-specific national unit could spice up the Malakim hero Teutorix quite a bit. Don't allow the Malakim to build musketmen, but give Teutorix the ability to summon a small number of the unit (possibly all with the demon-hunter promotion -- heck, give Teutorix demon hunter for free as well).

None of the above is critical or game changing, but it just seems odd to me that musket troops are potentially more common than crossbowmen, especially in a fantasy mod.