FFH2 .25 Balance Feedback

[Nikis-Knight]

2. On high levels the religion that gets founded first is usually totally dominant. The AIs usually have open border treatments and will quickly spam missionarys everywhere. This results in later religions not being adopted, or not even being founded, because everyone is good/evil when the dominant religion happens to be AV/Order. Games with a totally dominant religion are not particularly interesting, so I propose all or a mix of the following changes:

Hmm, we could also push back open borders agreements. Maybe code of laws, or perhaps even either deception or honor.

 

[Peng Qi]

I like the idea of weighting religions if it's possible. I mean, I once had Bannor switch to Octopus Overlords. I thought "OK, I'll just convert all of his cities to the Order." Despite having all of his cities Order and not being anywhere near any other Octopus Overlords characters, he stuck with OO instead of converting.

 

[Sureshot]

ya, whats worse is when a good civ like Luichurp Founds Order, has it in every city, and converts to leaves.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

3. Units can attack and cast in the same turn.

Hmm, this is a big change. I understand if issues come up that are too complicated to fix, but for example, allowing inquisitors to attack and cast on the same turn is quite a boost.
Can we make casting spells then require and use a movement point?

 

[Sureshot]

kael said he didnt want the spell casting costing movement because of the AI before

 

[Nikis-Knight]

ah, that makes sense.

 

[Kael]

Yeah, its all about the AI. If I could get some good AI logic around if the AI should cast or attack, or cast or move I would do it. But there are to many variables in those conditions to do it, so to make the AI more competitive it cant be forced to make that determination.

So every AI unit every turn looks at all its available spells to see if it can cast any, and if so which one weights out the highest. Even with that its pretty hard to get the AI to figure out if it should fireball or ring of flames, crush or whirlwind, wither or bless. But I think we have a decent model for doing that (though others may be able to improve on the specifics, the important part is that the system can handle those aspects).

Throwing in "should the AI cast bless or move, cast fireball or attack, cast heal or attack" etc is just going to trip up the AI.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I get you... though generally unless its a druid, inquisitor, or hero, it might as well never attack. (and druids could probably do to lose some str. imo.)

 

[onedreamer]

Its supposed to be random, but it is weighted to not happen so much in capitals or in cities with many religions already present.

(Holy City location)
It's not supposed to be random, and actually Kael had specified the criteria with which it is chosen, a while back. Namely it is your biggest non capital city without a religion (edit: not totally sure about this last condition). In most cases that equals your second city, but not always. You can predict where it will happen and even make it happen where you want by working on city population, the only random part of this is if another religion "accidentally" spreads to the city you designated as holy city before you found your own religion.

 

[onedreamer]

I like the idea of weighting religions if it's possible. I mean, I once had Bannor switch to Octopus Overlords. I thought "OK, I'll just convert all of his cities to the Order." Despite having all of his cities Order and not being anywhere near any other Octopus Overlords characters, he stuck with OO instead of converting.

Did you try asking him to convert ? Sometimes it takes only that (this is from regular Civ4 btw).

 

[Peng Qi]

Did you try asking him to convert ? Sometimes it takes only that (this is from regular Civ4 btw).

"We don't like you enough."

I ended up just opening worldbuilder and removing OO from all of his cities.

 

[Fanatic Demon]

I'am not sure if this is a feature or a bug but are hill gianst with hidden nationality supposed to be able to capture rival cities? THey are sure effective in it when supported by some mercanaries. They allowed me to capture several cites after the war durring peace time.

 

[Jenaelha]

Jonas offered to trade me his resource for nearly every resource I had, which I refused, but when I cleared the table and continued to negotiate by asking what he wanted for his Body Mana, he demanded that I give him... NOTHING! So I did, and confirmed that I was getting Body Mana for nothing. Funnier thing is, when my culture spread and I took over that border resource, my advisor page still showed me getting Body Mana from Jonas.

 

[Basil II]

Isn't the build cost on these a little high for just a 2 str guy with sentry and now no healing? I know they can be real valuable for preventing barb spawn but costwise they still seem a bit much...

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I have a feeling that they may soon just become the first level disciple unit of the Empyrean, so trying to balance them now as a Malakim UU probably isn't a very high priority.

 

[Sureshot]

might be nice if Freaks and such only turned barb when not in their own territory

 

[onedreamer]

Lightbringers need to be increased of 1 point of strength like all other units. They cost more than a scout but have only one movement. Assuming you can compare their visibility to the scout's movement (questionable), they still lack that 50% vs animals that would let them survive exploring. Currently they are a totally worthless unit, and being them a unique unit that's really a shame.

Disciple units should have a cap.

 

[Peng Qi]

Hidden nationality units being able to capture cities is very imbalanced, because the AI doesn't know how to properly use them. Furthermore, it ruins the roleplaying aspect of the mod when your very good friend and ally who shares the Order religion with you is attacking you and pillaging you.

 

[formless blob]

The amount of armageddon increase you get for razing a city seems pretty severe. I just had a game where I razed 3 cities of size 20ish. Needless to say, the world went straight in the crapper in the blink of an eye (+60 on the armageddon clock).

 

[Civkid1991]

does the spread of hell or the allignment of a player effect the special features? Would seem weird if the infernals had the mirror of heaven or something like that...