FfH2 0.34 Balance Thread

[Kael]

Use this thread to talk about balance issues. Either in regards to civs, specific units or buildings, events, explorable lairs, etc.

 

[DemonMaster]

Question: Can't barbarian friendly (like the clan) explore dungeons and such? I played the clan and my goblin couldn't explore the dungeon he was on, but when I "declared war on the barbarians" I could.

 

[Kael]

Question: Can't barbarian friendly (like the clan) explore dungeons and such? I played the clan and my goblin couldn't explore the dungeon he was on, but when I "declared war on the barbarians" I could.

That is correct. Barbarian allies can't explore dungeons. It was to good for them since they would get to keep all the positive effects but most of the negative effects (nasty monsters spawning they could ignore).

Barbarian allies can still explore ship wrecks and they can buy units at goblin forts.

 

[mahazel]

Barbarian allies can still explore ship wrecks and they can buy units at goblin forts.

So what will happen if dungeon is on the plot, where barb civs want to build farm or mine? Can they raze it or something?

 

[Nikis-Knight]

That's a good point. I wonder if dungeons & lairs could provide the resources underneath in in a barb civ's territory only.

 

[Kael]

So what will happen if dungeon is on the plot, where barb civs want to build farm or mine? Can they raze it or something?

The engine should never place a lair on a bonus. I have seen the screenshot of a ruin on silk, Im not sure how that happened but it needs to be addressed.

 

[Blackmantle]

@ Kael: Quick and simple "fix" for the Barballies only whould have an advantage from exploring part: Make Barb-Monsters/Units spawning from Lairs hidden nationality.
Should cover most negatives to make them negatives again, shouldn't it (negative promotions whould still apply of course, as whould positives.)? Whould still have their cities safe from capture by those barbs (because HN-Units can't capture cities). But a minor advantage sounds somewhat ok for a whole trait as "payment". And undefended cities are still not really fun / desireable...

Even better: Only give barb-allies an HN-monster-result on exploration (since otherwise it could be exploited badly and the trait whould become sort of worthless if lots of exploration whould go on all over the Map by AI. Mind 3 + Command 1/2/3/4 ftw. ...).
If thats not to hard to do im sure the Players who like Clan + Chardaron whould like you alot. Im sure.

 

[mahazel]

The engine should never place a lair on a bonus. I have seen the screenshot of a ruin on silk, Im not sure how that happened but it needs to be addressed.

I`m thinking not only about resources, but normal plot without any bonus. If there is a lair, barb civs cant build city or farm on it, when normal civs have ability to destroy lair by explorations. I remember this problem from old version of Marnok mod, and sometimes it can be really irritating.

 

[Turinturambar]

One thing that is still really unbalanced is the copper resource. I'd like the bonus to change from +1 strength to something like +20%, like a combat promotion. The idea behind the change is that +1 base strength stacks with combat promotions giving you extremely powerful cheap units very early. Iron and Mithril seem fine, because they come rather late.

Warriors with copper are simply the best unit for a long time, until tier2 gets researched and they are extremely cheap to produce. As a bonus you can upgrade your best copper warriors to axemen for 75 gold to create units that the AI can't handle until it reaches tier3. As a further benefit the ability to get copper weapons comes with a very important economic ability, namely to chop forests.

A simple +20%combat promotion would still be very powerful (aggressive trait for free!), but it would not result in early uberunits. Right now gaining copper is the equivalent of getting heroic strength and defense on each of your units.

Right now the game is always trivially easy if a copper resource is nearby. Without a copper resource the game stays challenging. (Playing on immortal difficulty)

 

[Atnanor]

The engine should never place a lair on a bonus. I have seen the screenshot of a ruin on silk, Im not sure how that happened but it needs to be addressed.

Shouldn't it not matter? Arn't ruins just improvements?

 

[Kael]

Shouldn't it not matter? Arn't ruins just improvements?

You cant access a bonus just by having an improvement on it, it has to be the right improvement.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Hey Kael, for the Hammer issue with the Illians, how about making the Temple provide just a flat +1 or +2 hammer?

Also... doesn't it seem like the Illians should start with Ancient Chants and not exploration?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I don't see a problem so long as there is a way to remove the ruins (exploring a lair, pillaging...)

 

[CockyWizard]

Would it be possible for civilizations with the barbarian trait to pop lairs and ruins only if they are in their culture? It would still be giving them more of the advantage than disadvantage, but it seems more reasonable than completely blocking the square from improvement.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Let's talk Illians.

Been playing nothing but them all day.

First of all, is that the build speed of workers on Ice is extremely slow. This causes some annoying management of cities, because you generally want to build improveents first before the temple, and you aren't going to fully build up a city very quickly before you want that temple in most cases, and so you end up taking longer than normal.

Second of all, I'd like to see Ice mana get a bit more use. As it is now, it's almost completely irrelevant. You are almost the only civ that can get it, so the things you can do with it are only about on par with the Malakim summoning Desert lions.

Also, as far as I can tell, you can't build more nodes for it, and even if you could the second source doesn't seem to give promotions the way it ought to.

here's my thoughts on what to change here:

1) Give the illians a unique Adept with the ability to build Ice nodes with Elementalism.
2) Ice mana gives +5% Ritual Production (per source)

 

[TheGreatSteve]

Hey Kael, for the Hammer issue with the Illians, how about making the Temple provide just a flat +1 or +2 hammer?

Also... doesn't it seem like the Illians should start with Ancient Chants and not exploration?

I think exploration does fit them better. A cold-weather society is going to be generally nomadic, less settled in. They do revere Mulcarn, but winter is a very "natural" subject. Survivalism seems like a virtue closest to exploration.
Plus, their favoured terrain generally has deer and fur, both accessed by hunting, which you need exploration for.

Also, regarding events. They need to have more restrictions to prevent them from firing over and over. A cooldown, removal from the list after they pop, a severe reduction in likelihood that is slowly restored, something.(Or more of it if there is already measures in place)

Proper difficulty and balance is a razor's edge at the higher difficulties, and multiple free GP's and GA's ruin the game whether it's the player or the AI that gets them.

 

[Ahriman]

and multiple free GP's and GA's ruin the game whether it's the player or the AI that gets them.

Yeah, I tried a game and got a Great engineer and a great sage from dungeons in te first 40 turns. Also got some . .. .. .. .. .ing ogre who went and took out the Calabim.

 

[BugReportage]

Winterborn people: Blizzards are nothing but we fear snow fall...
(Might as well post that comment while I'm posting my CtD thingy)

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Stir from slumber costs 900 hammers. Eurabatres is stronger then Drifa, costs 360 hammers, and has the same tech requirement, and doesn't require you to have finished off a civ. Something's wrong with this picture.

I think 250 would be a more reasonable cost, considering the Illians are somewhat hammer challenged.

 

[Bitwise]

It might be better to compare the Illians to the Kuriotates directly as they are not meant to be balanced unit for unit.