FfH2 Game Balance Thread

[Grey Fox]

I figure we need one of these by now. We can't only concentrate on bugs, AI and documentation. Game Balance is crucial for a fun experience, and not only in Multi-player. If one option is weaker than the others, then it is rarely selected by any player and will not contribute to the complexity of the game. All hard work on these civilizations, units, promotions, spells or whatever will be for nothing if it's never used.

And if some civilizations are much stronger than others you will be fighting these in the end game more often than others, etc...

I'll start with pointing out what I think is obvious, Magic. Something needs to be done to the stack-damage spells. Spells like Maelstrom, Tsunami, Ring of Fire are just TOO GOOD at damaging stacks, it doesn't matter how many units it is in the stack they all get damaged. Compared to Siege units which only do collateral to 6 units or so, it's just overpowering.

My suggestion is to cut down on how many units the spells are able to damage. And/or cut down on the amount they damage. And add more magic defense to units in cities. And/or make Walls and Palisades cut down on the damage from spells like this. It only makes sense that a wall would protect from a Tsunami wave, or the wind from Maelstrom, not to mention the fire from the ring of fire.

Well that's my rant for now. Post your balance issues or comment on others, like mine above.

Balance Discussion Threads

Civilizations

• The Doviello Unique mechanic
• Defender Trait
  

Religions

• Esus Barbarians

Civics

• The Pacifism Civic
• Has anyone ever used Social Order?
  

Buildings and Wonders

• About the lack of construction line Wonders

Combat

• Suggestion: Improve Catapults
• Suggested changes to combat balance
• Does anyone else hate gunpowder?
  

Magic

• The Balancing of Puppets
• Entangle should not be castable on some terrains
• Some Level 3 spells feel like a Missed Opportunity
  

Units (and Promotions)

• If you can build Auric Ascended, do you need him?
• Saverous is missing out on all the fun!
• Guardsman Promotion
• Suggestion for Man'o'war Ships

Note: I'm gonna go through these later and summarize them as well.

 

[snarko]

I agree on making some limit on how many units it can hurt. Right now once I have enough units that can cast stack damage or stack immobility spells I fear no armies... except one that does the same, only better.

Spell extension could also increase the limit to make it usefull for such spells.

 

[Yaotzin]

Certainly agree on the stack-damagers. Perhaps one unit per combat/metamagic level or somesuch. Certainly well promoted Archmages should be much more effective than a fresh mage.

Also, more options to defend against magic. The magic defense promotion is borderline useless, and it's about the only thing you've got anyway. At the moment magic is like high-level Wizards in dnd, it doesn't matter how much you throw at them, because stack-damagers simply become more powerful the more units you throw.


I'd like to see more city defense buildings and/or spells. At the moment, taking a city isn't much more difficult than taking units on a forested hill with a citadel/castlethingy. And once bombarded, it's actually easier. Recommended: if possible, make more wall type buildings, and make each of them provide a minimum amount of bonus defence. So a city with palisades can't be reduced below 10%, walls 25%, or something like that. Cities should be the most difficult tiles to capture, they aren't at the moment.

I'm sure I have other issues, but my memory is poor.

 

[someone67]

I know that this has been mentioned many times before, but the Markesman is just not worth the beakers. and it isn't immune to defence-strikes like all other units with the marksman-promotion are.

 

[mimic]

Spells like ring of fire/tsunami should be limited to the highest level priests so you can't overuse it or alternatively simply just make it weaker.

 

[MiKa523]

I also agree on the stack-damaging spells.
Maybe instead of putting the same limit on the amount of damageable units, make some spells do more dmg to less units and some spells do less dmg to more units.

 

[Grey Fox]

Added some links to other balance discussion threads in the first post.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Maybe the wide-ranging spells you mentioned should just hit the top unit on each stack per, + 1 per level of spell extension. That gives collateral damging spells like fireball their due still, but still makes them great if surrounded. Just a thought.

 

[PotatoOverdose]

Its not really fair to compare catapults and mages. Mages should be far more effective because they come far later in the tech tree, thousands of beakers later in fact. By the time you can field mages, you could have fielded huge stacks of catapults/trebuchet which are just as effective (if not more so if you have dwarven adepts). If you reduce magic to damaging the strongest unit in a stack (as has been suggested), you effectively nerf air II (and similar spells from the religious line) to the point where it is weaker then (or at best, as strong as) a tech that could come over a hundred turns earlier.

Just my two cents though...

 

[OzzyKP]

I think the problem isn't necessarily that the spells are overpowered, but that there is no defense against them. The magic defense promotion should be much easier to get and should be far more desirable than it is now. Perhaps have a whole magic defense line comparable with the combat and first strikes lines, that ends with a magic immunity promotion.

But don't make it a dead end line of promotions either (that always dissuades people from taking those promos) have like Magic Defense I allow you to get Shock I or something similar. So people will be encouraged to go down that line, and have at least a few units that survive those powerful spells.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Nooo!!! Don't nerf magic again!

I think that allowing more non-magical alternatives is a much better approach. For starters, letting Archers(/horse archers) and Siege units have ranged attacks like in FF. Of course, I think only one unit should have lethal ranged attacks: Marksmen. That would turn a normally overpriced near useless unit in t an awesome one, as it could kill without risking its like at all (if its stack is well defended).

Also, I'm thinking Magic Resistance should give a combat boost against arcane units just like shock does against melee. I suppose I'm open to splitting it into two levels and having one of them come sooner too.

 

[PotatoOverdose]

I have to agree with Magister, magic does not need another nerf. Its already been nerfed far too much imo. There was a time when you could successfully defend your civ using adepts if you had the right stating mana types (mind I gave charm and death I gave a strength 4 skeleton). The problem with magic is that it has a very steep research cost with relatively low initial returns. This means that you can't just defend your civ using magic, even if your civ favors magic heavily. You need to research all the mundane metal techs that your more mundane-heavy rivals research with better results. This means you start with an inherent disadvantage. Now eventually, once you research enough mundane techs to hold your own, you can begin the long task of building up your superior magical forces. Even then, it will be many turns before your magic is strong enough to gain an effective advantage against your rivals.

That is what balances magic. It starts off significantly weaker then other tech paths, completely unable to defend itself. But, as the game progresses, it becomes more powerful and eventually surpasses the other tech paths. If this advantage is taken away from magic, then all you have is a tech path that starts of weak and ends on parity with other tech paths as opposed to tech paths that have the same result but start off strong.

Also, there are counters to magic. Assassins work well, as do highly mobile units that can move in, attack, and move out of range (i.e. any raider mounted units).

 

[Yaotzin]

Magic in general doesn't need a nerf, maybe even needs a buff. The stack murdering spells are OP though. A few mages can knock off half the health of...100 units if you have them. That's a bit silly. I also don't like how freshly minted mages do the same damage as a high level Archmage. Maybe make the damage go up for Archmages, and dependent on level too?

Magister: What's the point of giving a combat bonus vs Arcane units? They're terribly weak anyway, if you attack them they're probably toasted. Magic Resistance needs a big time buff though.

 

[GePap]

Perhaps the combat and drill promotion could increase magic resistance at the higher end - I assume that each "unit" is just that, a group of warriors, and a well trained, veteran bunch is less likely to break and run in the face of magic attacks. Also the weapons promotions, since part of having bronze or iron or mithril equipment would also mean better armor, and thus some extra protection.

As I suggested in the thread linked to by Grey Fox, I agree with the idea of adding new defensive buildings to make cities much harder to crack, but they should be very expensive to build and maintain, so that they are limited only to large or critical cities.

I would also suggest giving RoK priests a better spell. Shield of faith is a fine small bonus, but it really doesn't scream Kilmorph specifically. I say either boost the spell and make it a non-permanent promotion (on top of 10% strength add bonuses against all non-physical damage types), or give them a second spell. Perhaps a city boost spell that adds a small number of hammers to production (not base production, but final production). No idea about possible name.

 

[Lade]

I think that a couple civs are too weak simply because thjey have few or weak "special mechanics"

Its simply nor fair to compare the Calabim with their vamps or the Gregori with free heroes to a civ like the Amurites, who basically have to depend on their hero for anything special, or the Malakim who recieve nothing special except free commerce on desert tiles

The Mercurians seem to be another example, they're almost worthless on standard or smaller

 

[Dux_]

Nerfs are no fun, better make everything else up to par of powerful stuff.

 

[MetalMilitia-]

so i dont know if this is the right place for suggestions for AI changes but in any case, this is a bit of both.

It seems to me that the ai isent building enough defense early on. Ihve seen many capitals lost to regular barbs and ofc orthus very often steamroll through AI lands with ease. 1 or 2 plain warriors with no promotions in a city during the initial barb zerg just isent enough and no where near what to expect to use if orthus spawns nearby.

Not to mention that they are completly open to rush tactics by other AI players (gotta love svartalfar scout rush).

Might it be an idea to give palaces a defence bonus? It makes sense. In any case the AI needs some work here.

 

[Lance of Llanwy]

A minor one, but I just realized that Life mana is required to build the Tower of Alteration. But you get the ability to construct Life mana nodes from Divination. Given that Alteration only unlocks 3 mana types and Life mana is required for the Tower of Alteration, wouldn't it make more sense for Life mana nodes to become available from the Alteration tech?

 

[Monkeyfinger]

The only anti-stack spell I consider worthy of a nerf right now is Tsunami. The others have things to reign them in:

Pillar of Fire, Crown of Brilliance and Wither all require a lot of beakers, and the former is 1 unit only
Ring of Flames has a low damage cap (40)
Crush is 2 civs only
Maelstrom is weak, unusable if there's any neutral units around, and a bad idea if your stacks are split

Tsunami is, for the most part, a stronger maelstrom attached to spammable units. Lakes can enable it, so that restriction doesn't mean much.

 

[loocas]

In my current game as Keelyn I have GG with Death 3, Twincast, and Spell Extension 2. With puppets that's 12 Wraiths at any given time, which slaughtered Acheron. For some reason the wraiths aren't illusions and they kill everything, which may be because GG is now a lich. He still has illusionist, but isn't passing on illusion.

EDIT: The wraiths aren't illusions because they were summoned by puppets, I'm guessing. I think all puppets should have illusionist, but that's me.

Very interesting discovery loocas. I never thought of using Gibbon as an early one-man-army-of-doom with Balseraphs. It is as intended for puppets not to be illusionists (although I assume they are illusions if summoned by Gibbon.

I'm taking this discussion over here to the balance thread. Keelyn + Gibbon + Your Favorite Summon is just way too much to be available at Deception. For starters I think puppets should copy illusionist, so you'd at least have to send someone in to clean up.