FFH2 .25 Balance Feedback

[Pelaka]

My main problem now is the games are so randomly balanced. Each game seems to hinge on several random elements:

1. Is Barbatmos in the game? If near my he cripples my expansion. If near the AI's he cripples them... unless they are randomly at peace with barbs. Worse is when he decides to wander.

2. Playing a raging barb game where half the AI civs expand freely because they are at peace with barbs sucks. I've had games where some civs are up to 6-8 cities while I'm still trying to get workes to safely develop my first one.

3. Does the dragon randomly despawn? If so, whoever gets his horde with the free mithril becomes god.

4. Do the AIs bother to make any advanced units? They have the techs, but they never seem to build the buildings needed to make them. They seem stuck in a warriors/workers/settlers mad expansion rush.

5. I've played in Prince/Monarch games where the unit and tech costs are not inflated (is that just for me or the AI I can't tell).

6. If starting with barb cities, it is very easy for a player to use them to get 2-3 easy cities (just 1-2 warrior defenders) but the AI doesn't tend to leverage this, giving a player too much of an advantage.

Until these can be fixed the game isn't really much fun for me.

Pel

 

[Pandemonis]

Actually this is misleading because trade routes are while the -10% is to . This means that if you're running an empire with a high science slider, the commerce is converted directly into science and then modified by buildings, while the gold for such an empire is usually low. This means if you're getting 20 per turn in an empire with 15 cities and activate Foreign Trade, you will lose 2 but gain 2-3 (or even more in coastal cities) in each city. Those 2-3 will be multiplied by libraries and such and you'll end up with in excess of 40-50 .

So there are situations where Foreign Trade is very valuable, mostly for large empires with a high science slider (but it does have other uses).

Indeed, my mistake, I always get confused since they change the little arrows from CivI :cute:

However, +1 Trade route will rarely give you more than 2-3 commerce. I agree indeed that with a large empire running a high slider, with foreign cities to trade with it might be worth 40-50 bulbs. I havent done the maths, but I'd like to see at which point you get more more bulb/gold when switching - number of cities, development of trade, etc. instead of just moving your slider.

To Gamestation: how about adding a foreign relationship bonus with this civic: ie. "We appreciate the years you supplied us with resource" a d "Our open borders agreement bring our people together" get each double bonus. Now THAT's something I might want to invest gold in

 

[kioras]

I wouldn't mind a change to the satyr unit to allow a little more use for non-elves leaves religion. Alow them to build either elven pastures/plantations, so that people with leaves(AI too) can do something with it. The AI will often take the religion, and leave the forsts, but isn't able to properly use it.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Personally I think that the Forest Preserve terrain improvement (which Kael didn't remove from the game, even though you can never build them) sould be buildable for leaves civs (or if it is too difficult to make improvements religion dependent, merely require Hidden Paths), and should also increase the chances of that forest becoming an ancient forest.

 

[formless blob]

4. Do the AIs bother to make any advanced units? They have the techs, but they never seem to build the buildings needed to make them. They seem stuck in a warriors/workers/settlers mad expansion rush.
Pel

I have been trying a few things to address this issue, as it is the killer issue for me. I have seen the AI start a war and build swordsmen and horsemen on turn 123 in a quick speed monarch game. In this game I had 10 players on a standard map, and I edited the mod so units can be built without the prerequisite buildings. I noticed that when the war broke out, the AI started building units in many of its cities, which it could probably not have done without removing the prerequisites. This was with aggressive AI.

I think the building prerequisite concept may have to be scraped, maybe to be replaced with buildings giving a bonus instead. At least this should be considered, as a way to improve the AI (remember its not just about the AI building the buildings in some cities, its about the AI's ability to go into war mode, and spew out units from all over its empire).

Also I noticed that the settler is very expensive, this could be holding the AI back. All in all, the early game is very slow, which is obviously intentional, but It may lead to the AI getting bogged down.

Something can be learned from the BTS aggressive AI, as it is a pleasure to play against in the standard game. If only FFH could play like that, then it would be better even, than my dreams of CIV5!

 

[Zifnab]

The AI seems to undervalue mana a lot. In previous versions it was almost impossible to fairly get mana through trading, but in my last couple of games I've had other civs practically giving me their excess mana.

More specifically, Flauros offered his only source of body mana to me in exchange for fish and Dain gave me his second air mana for nothing.

Now I realize that these civs did like me when they offered these great deals (+5-+15 in attitude usually), but shouldn't they want just a little more in return?

 

[kioras]

Personally I think that the Forest Preserve terrain improvement (which Kael didn't remove from the game, even though you can never build them) sould be buildable for leaves civs (or if it is too difficult to make improvements religion dependent, merely require Hidden Paths), and should also increase the chances of that forest becoming an ancient forest.

Perhaps the best thing would be to allow forest preserves buildable with hidden path's, but only giving a bonus when in the guardian of nature civic (like +2 gold). Maybe they could only be built by satyr's also.

Kioras

 

[Gamestation]

To Gamestation: how about adding a foreign relationship bonus with this civic: ie. "We appreciate the years you supplied us with resource" a d "Our open borders agreement bring our people together" get each double bonus. Now THAT's something I might want to invest gold in

That's a really interesting idea for foreign trade. It fits the trade is war's natural enemy idea and it could overcome the inevitable close borders tensions.

 

[Airwreck]

My main problem now is the games are so randomly balanced. Each game seems to hinge on several random elements:

1. Is Barbatmos in the game? If near my he cripples my expansion. If near the AI's he cripples them... unless they are randomly at peace with barbs. Worse is when he decides to wander.

3. Does the dragon randomly despawn? If so, whoever gets his horde with the free mithril becomes god.

4. Do the AIs bother to make any advanced units? They have the techs, but they never seem to build the buildings needed to make them. They seem stuck in a warriors/workers/settlers mad expansion rush.

Items 1, 3 and 4 have been somewhat addressed

Patch "f":
1. Removed Extension II from Barbatos.
2. Decreased the chance Ancient Forests will spawn.
3. The AI now prefers buildings that enable new units.
4. Fixed a problem with the Feed spell.
5. Golden Ages are now displayed in the date line.
6. Life mana from the Tomb of Sucellus can now be accessed.
7. You can no longer summon infinite Treants.
8. Increased the Woodsman I bonus from +20% in forests to +30%.
9. Fixed an issue that could cause unique features to spawn on top of each other.
10. Fixed the Financial trait (so it will be applied correctly when given through the adaptive or insane traits).
11. Reduced the mutation chance from chaos mana from 3% per to 2%.
12. Adapative trait is now applied reguarly (based on game speed) instead of randomly.
13. Changed the doDamage function to work with variable max hit points.
14. Fixed the FFHAddPopup error when switching religions.
15. The Dragon's Horde no longer provides Mithril, instead it passes out the Enchanted Blade promotion.

 

[Sureshot]

might be neat if there was a elohim tier 1 monk-like unit that could upgrade to their Monk unit later, something like the malakim lightbringer.. or consequently make their warrior a disciple unit capable of upgrading to a monk

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Personally I prefer making their UU weaker, but giving them 1 or 2 spirit affinity (depending on how much weaker). (I almost always make this change. Sometimes I also let devouts upgrade to monks, meaning some weaker monks, without the extra altar xp, can cast sanctify)

 

[Sureshot]

devouts upgrading to monks is a waste tho, you can get monks as early as devouts. i wouldn't mind monks losing a strength, but they need a unit that can upgrade to them, and possibly something they can upgrade to.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Well, its not a waste if you have a lot of spirit mana.

I wouldn't mind multi tiered monks though (perhaps the first level at mysticism and the third at righteousness?)

 

[jenks]

Perhaps the best thing would be to allow forest preserves buildable with hidden path's, but only giving a bonus when in the guardian of nature civic (like +2 gold). Maybe they could only be built by satyr's also.

Kioras

not a bad shout for adding value to the satyr, similar but not quite as valuable as the dwarf building mines

 

[onedreamer]

Beelining Writing is too easy and too powerful if you start with Ancient Chants or Agriculture, because starting techs are very long. You can consistently be the first to Writing and the first to Great Library, this results in a very early free Great Sage (too early) plus the GL it really makes the game much easier to play. I'd at least move the Great Sage to a later tech.
Also, the Obelisk should not allow an artist specialist because it's quite earlier than other buildings that allow specialists, and more often than not the first building the AI will build. This results in an AI Great Artist spam which more often than not penalizes them because producing Great Prophets for the Altar victory will be longer for them and the human player will easily take advantage of this.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Just wondering, can you get a free great person from purchasing a tech in advanced starts? I never have, but that could mean that an AI purchased it first. Anyway, popping out great sages with advanced starts (at least is you give your self enough starting gold) is really easy (you can place libraries and elder councils in every city relatively easy, you can't do much to get other specialist early on. True, you can buy pagan temples, but since religions aren't founded until the game starts you can't collect prophet points as quickly), and the other GPs are much harder to get.

 

[Civkid1991]

just a quick thought: if the elohim are able to see the unique features then maybe the amurite should be able to see the mana nodes from the beginning...


*sorry bout spelling... quick post...*

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Philosophy tech is empty, but it's prereq mysticism has four items. Why not bump one or two back, such as God-king civic?

 

[xienwolf]

I'd second that idea. Though the things after Philosophy are pretty worthwhile, the early point in the game at which it is worth going after them doesn't really allow for reasearching an empty Tech. And with the lowered inflation, God King is likely to be a pretty popular Civic.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I'm curious if the ai bonuses were changed. Our AI may not be as up to snuff with the unmodded BtS AI due to a different tech tree, building reqs, etc. (I'm stating the obvious, here.) Anyway, the bonuses were reduced in BtS under the assumption better ai would pick up the slack. If so maybe they should get some of their bonues back, such as cheaper unit upgrades and whatnot.