FfH2 Game Balance Thread

[[to_xp]Gekko]

shouldn't the hero promotion give xp up to 101 instead of 100? stopping just 1 xp short of a new level-up seems unfair

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

shouldn't the tower of mastery and final altar of the luonnatar be projects? right now it's way too easy to avoid the DOW by just stockpiling gold befor starting them and then completing them in 1 turn.

 

[Lone Wolf]

shouldn't the tower of mastery and final altar of the luonnatar be projects?

I agree, Gekko, but you now should beware the fury of people who always rushed it in one turn...

 

[Tasunke]

as for the earlier mentioned Dragon Slayer balance, I think dragon slayers should be a 4 limit national unit, base strength of 7, while their champions are replaced by militia base strength of 5, but overall cheaper to produce, ect. (even if costlier to maintain)

I also propose that adenturers should start with not only hero, but strong as well.

 

[Grey Fox]

shouldn't the hero promotion give xp up to 101 instead of 100? stopping just 1 xp short of a new level-up seems unfair

Stopping just before a level encourages activity as opposed to pacifism.

 

[ExMachina]

This should be easy to fix. Just the "cure disease" spell should only target living units, not units with the promotion as currently.
Another solution would be to make diseased corpses(the only undead having this promotion I can think of) immune to the cure disease spell.
It should be very easy to do, and it suprizes me that Kael hasn't done this yet. It is obviously an exploit!

Or just lower the strength of Diseased Corpses and give them a Disease Carrier promotion instead of Diseased.

 

[Lone Wolf]

it suprizes me that Kael hasn't done this yet. It is obviously an exploit!

Kael is mean...

 

[phildev]

I was thinking that if the Malakim are desert people should they get the ability to farm the deserts? If the Illians can farm ice terrain why should the Malakim not be able to do the same with deserts?

 

[Kael]

One thing that annoys me about horse archers if how often the AI upgrades them from archers with City Garrison promotions. The unit doesn't get defensive bonuses, so I'm pretty sure that promotion is worthless to them and a waste of xp when that path is followed. It would be nice if the promotion was replaced with a free promotion pick upon upgrading.

I checked this and the City Garrison does help units that don't get defensive bonuses.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

shouldn't barbarian trait leaders have a way of exploring the epic lairs, to get the mana out of them? like broken sepulched, pyre of seraphic... you'll never get the mana if you can't explore them

 

[Tasunke]

I checked this and the City Garrison does help units that don't get defensive bonuses.

Very nice, this opens up a whole new realm of possibilities.

Does this mean, by extension, that Fyrdwell can have limited defense from trees?

 

[Keeper_GFA]

Very nice, this opens up a whole new realm of possibilities.

Does this mean, by extension, that Fyrdwell can have limited defense from trees?

I think that situational modifiers are deducted from the attacker (rather than added to the defender) and this is why they work in unexpected situations. So yes, units that do not gain defensive terrain bonuses will still get the bonus from terrain related promotions.

 

[Emptiness]

Does this mean, by extension, that Fyrdwell can have limited defense from trees?

They won't get the base +25%/+50% terrain defense from Jungle/Forest/AF, but if you upgrade Scouts promoted with Woodsman I & II to Fyrdwell and they will get the +60% Jungle/Forest/AF defense (+ attack of course) from the promotions. Highly recommended when practical.

 

[ExMachina]

I think that situational modifiers are deducted from the attacker (rather than added to the defender) and this is why they work in unexpected situations. So yes, units that do not gain defensive terrain bonuses will still get the bonus from terrain related promotions.

I think it's just a matter of bonuses from terrain (which includes walls and cities, I believe) versus defensive bonuses from promotions. I believe the "No defensive bonuses" tag only eliminates the defensive bonuses from the terrain, having no effect on promotions (and maybe unit abilities as well, but I'm not sure on that).

 

[Morlark]

shouldn't barbarian trait leaders have a way of exploring the epic lairs, to get the mana out of them? like broken sepulched, pyre of seraphic... you'll never get the mana if you can't explore them

You do get the mana if you don't explore them. I tested it, I've got a save game where I have both the broken sepulchre and the pyre, and I've got the mana from both of them (haven't built any death/fire nodes yet and I've got the mana). I think you have to research some tech first. (Knowledge of the Ether?) That feels a little inconsistent, IMO, since non-explorable mana sources like the standing stones always grant their mana without any research. But in any case, you don't need to explore the epic lairs in order to secure their mana sources.

 

[Calavente]

a question about balance :
why is enthropy III so much worse than empyryan III ?
I mean compare 10% damage up to 40% to 30% damage up to 60% !!!!
the withered promotion doesn't compensate IMO. (save when the enemy stack is SO huge that you can't kill all the units in 1 turn and even then, it doesn't compensate.)

 

[UNIT 666]

I think wither does compensate! :l

 

[Calavente]

how so ?
does -10% compensate for a 20% damage cap and 20 % more damage ?
the less experience is worth nothing.
withered can be removed by any priests. so the whole stack isn't bothered by the reduced health rate.

then empyrian III demands lvl 6. and to not spend any promotion. the only risk is to lose the unit if it is an "arch-priest" AND you change religion. (low risk)
enthropy III demands lvl 6 and 3 promotions, with a crapy lvl2 spell. and the unit is weaker that arch-priest.
thus enthropy III should be at least equal in overall power. as it is it's way worse.
10% damage till 60% and empyrian III be 20% damage till 40% or 50%.

I wish to adress a point which is not only a problem of balancing between different factions but also narrowing down the decisions one faction can effectively make:
The Horse Bowmen come way too early because the stirrup tech is too cheap. They have
*Base Strength 6
*up to 85% (Hippus 95%) evasion
*Speed 3 (Hippus and Kuriotates: 4)
*the possibility to have marching, as warriors can be promoted to them.

At least the last point ist obviously simple (and logical) to fix. Still I recommend tripling(!) the cost for the tech, as it is a "dead end" tech anyway with no impact on the rest of the tree. Don't only do the math but play it and you will see, that the horse bowmen are at least as good as rangers and champions. I would say the evasion makes them better by a long shot, as the evasion allows them to take otherwise risky battles, so they gain XP insanely fast. Their cheapness forces one to take the Horse Bowmen with about any faction (except Calabim, the vamps still own) and takes quite some flavour from the game.

Please don't cite the fact that AI with Horse Bowmen is not superior to the ones choosing champions as evidence that I am wrong. The AI is simply clouless and exploits neither the evasion nor the mobility of these units to their advantage.

as a sidenot, horse-archers being as good as ranger or champion is normal it is also a tier III unit !!
champions are 8 with iron, can become 10, can use terrain and city defense.
rangers are 8 with poisonned blade, low city attack, intermediate movement, can subdue animals and beasts, have better exloration yield.
longbowmen are (in defense) 9 with iron, 10 with firearrows.
horse-archers having evasion up to 85% compensate for having only 6 and being weak when attacked. I think it is balanced.
It can almost do the same job as catapults that are tierII units and do collateral damages. The bonus of horse-archers vs cats is the high movement.
the xp is slow late game as 1xp per fight is very low vs the 2-3-10 xp some units can gain when you are not retreating. Sûre, it does help for going up to 10xp. but after that :/

Speaking of archers, I always thought they were too powerful for when they appear. Once they pop up they basically make any kind of attacking impossible until catapults and bronze axemen show up. Really puts a stalemate hold on any kind of early warfare. They're not even that bad attacking either.

I mean, you have a unit that's strength 5 on defense when everything else is 3 to attack, a city/hill bonus, and a first strike. They don't need all that. They'd be fine with just two of those, or even only one. As of now they're like crossbowmen showing up when everyone's still using champions to attack, except even worse because you don't have magic or siege that early

archers are powerful. but not OP IMO. If you have archers, your neighbourg should have hunters (4) or axemen/swordmen 4 or even 5 if they found some copper. (that even more true as archery is VERY expensive
thus your archers cannot realistically attack your neighbourgs. you can only defend.

The one with archers made the choice of defense vs offense. and even then, attacking archers with 5 axemen is not worse than attacking warriors in city with warriors, you should have the same difficulty. I don't understand your problem.

 

[Elyssaen]

Is Chalid Astrakein's affinity (+2 per Sun Node) really all right?

I've just come away from a game in which he and a Vicar arrived in Sheaim territory far from home and destroyed them. Ride of the Nine + hiring mercenaries in the first city I took was part of that, but the bigger part was that Chalid had 25 (8 Sun Nodes).

A ridiculously powerful Chalid should come at a cost, and it does – you have to set your empire to expanding to capture mana nodes ASAP and only build Sun Nodes. However, the synergy that really bothers me is the Aurealis, which also has +2 per Sun Node. If I'm right they're two of the three +2 affinities, and they're on the same mana node!

It seems that you can rush to Honor and have a hero who:

— is potentially stronger than the Meshabber of Dis
— has Pillar of Fire to severely damage enemy stacks
— can become a very powerful spellcaster otherwise
— gives you an extra vote on the Overcouncil

and while you need a very specialised strategy to make him work, it's a strategy that then has brilliant synergy with summoning Aureali.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I personally prefer going back to Entropy III's old name of Enervation instead of Wither, and making it behave like ti does now plus having it remove Blessed, Valor, and Courage from its victims.