FfH2 Game Balance Thread

[TheGreatSteve]

Spoiler :

Could Regeneration and Poison be given maximum durations, like 10 turns, as well as lasting until healed?
Regen checking for full health at the end of the turn means you never have to recast it on some people(I'm lookin' at you, Vampire Valin) I'm not a fan of huge amounts of micro, but it being a little less fire-and-forget would be okay.

More important is poison. Now that Combat promo's don't grant health and there's all these goblins running around with poison strength, it gets really annoying since recon line can't get March. Had a game earlier where my starting scout got a poison blade, ended up racking up a huge amount of exp. Then he killed a spider miles from my civ. .1 strength and poisoned takes FOREVER to heal.

Edit: Never mind, just realized that I can't think of any promotions with durations so it's probably not possible. Could we just get a new promotion that gives some of the increased healing of the old Combat? Like

Camp
Requires Woodsman or Guerrila
Gives 5% more healing(doesn't allow to move and heal)
5% increased defensive strength

Or just let mounted, recon, and archery lines March. Disciples can't keep up with horsemen and it's kind of weird that my hunter needs a priest to help him explore the wilderness.

 

[Keyeth]

I mean you could just give poison and regen a chance to wear off at 10% per turn, which would theoretically max it out at 10 turns (obviously bad luck can make it last longer, but that seems legit).

Having said that, I like poison and regen working the way they do.

 

[Gul'dan]

Two small independent issues:

1. Evil civs have a diplomatic advantage over good ones as:
a) there are more evil civs than good ones, thus on average more AIs will like them.
b) the evil civs are on average more aggressive than good ones.
These two facts have the effect that good civs will usually have much more (and earlier!) military trouble with AI which is espacially problematic on higher difficulties. A war in turn 30 with 5-10 incoming warriors might severely endanger your early expansion.

2. The great library is overpowered. It gives you 2 great sages in 50 turns without the need for any additional effort (i.e. without loss of production, growth or commerce). The first sage after 13 turns will usually increase your research by ~30% as most of it is in you capital anyway. It costs only 350 hammers and comes extremely early (turn 120 sometimes, even on deity).
Balancing suggestions (not cummulative of course):
a) Change it from a world wonder to a national wonder. This still . .. .. .. .s barbarian leaders, so they should in that case be released from their 10%-penalty. The inability to build libraries is tough enough.
b) Make it not give 2 sage specialists but one (settled) great sage in the city.
c) Make it not give 2 sage specialists but a library in every city. This is much weaker as your 3 best cities already have their libraries to even build the wonder, yet a library in every new city is still a decent bonus to your production capacity (not so much research, as you would build them quite early in every city anyway).
d) Shift it to a much later tech, e.g. to the alchemy labs. At that time it won't spoil the game so much.
e) Remove it completely and lower the costs of the writing tech.
I would tend to suggestion c or b.

 

[Kael]

Two small independent issues:

1. Evil civs have a diplomatic advantage over good ones as:
a) there are more evil civs than good ones, thus on average more AIs will like them.
b) the evil civs are on average more aggressive than good ones.
These two facts have the effect that good civs will usually have much more (and earlier!) military trouble with AI which is espacially problematic on higher difficulties. A war in turn 30 with 5-10 incoming warriors might severely endanger your early expansion.

2. The great library is overpowered. It gives you 2 great sages in 50 turns without the need for any additional effort (i.e. without loss of production, growth or commerce). The first sage after 13 turns will usually increase your research by ~30% as most of it is in you capital anyway. It costs only 350 hammers and comes extremely early (turn 120 sometimes, even on deity).
Balancing suggestions (not cummulative of course):
a) Change it from a world wonder to a national wonder. This still . .. .. .. .s barbarian leaders, so they should in that case be released from their 10%-penalty. The inability to build libraries is tough enough.
b) Make it not give 2 sage specialists but one (settled) great sage in the city.
c) Make it not give 2 sage specialists but a library in every city. This is much weaker as your 3 best cities already have their libraries to even build the wonder, yet a library in every new city is still a decent bonus to your production capacity (not so much research, as you would build them quite early in every city anyway).
d) Shift it to a much later tech, e.g. to the alchemy labs. At that time it won't spoil the game so much.
e) Remove it completely and lower the costs of the writing tech.
I would tend to suggestion c or b.

Excellent feedback. I'll lower the free specialists from 2 to 1.

 

[Jules.lt]

Which will also make it possible to have GP other than sages in the city with the Great Library. Thanks, Kael

 

[Zechnophobe]

Which will also make it possible to have GP other than sages in the city with the Great Library. Thanks, Kael

I really don't like nuking the strength of wonders any more then they are. The industrious trait is already amazingly weak due to so very few wonders that are truly worth building, and the wide tech tree meaning that few civ's will have access to it to begin with.

In general, I think wonders should be a bit better in general, and cost more, so that the Industrious trait seems more relevant.

 

[kenken244]

Why not just remove the hardy promotions. Right now they are almost useless and hinder the AI.

 

[Methuselah]

Why not just remove the hardy promotions. Right now they are almost useless and hinder the AI.

Wrong area. This is for FFH, not FF complaints.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

That was not fair, really!!. An opinion posted by Gul'dan, and, before anyone manages to react to it, it gets into the patch and is released!!
Why?

 

[Imuratep]

Now that most of the ressources being visible from the beginning and many improvements actually requiring great knowledge like lumbermill are connected to early techs that are not always logically strongly related to them, but are in fact connected to them because of balancing reasons could we please put camps to an earlier tech?

In the early game hunting is by far too expensive to make it worthwile to build a city near these resources and the boni given by them aren't as big as the boni of most other resources given at early techs. Even an accumulation of fur is just as good or even weaker than the accumulations of dye which aren't that rare.
By putting it to a slightly more expensive exploration or by putting camps to animal husbandry, they would actually be useable and not just a gimmick if you anyway want to research in the direction of the technologies that follow.

 

[Verdian]

So, I have been experimenting with OO and Lunatics. I really like how they work now, and building lots of Lunatics and watching some of them run amok is great fun. I have some suggestions for them, and I suppose Enraged in general.

1) Could you make a little circle pointer (like when Orthus is spawned or you find a uncover a new resource) point to a unit when it becomes Enraged? It would be nice to know when a guy goes running off.

2) I built an army of Lunatics and was eagerly awaiting them to Enrage en mass and swarm over my enemies. But they just kind of trickled away. Could you make it so the player can actively trigger them to go Enraged? I do not think this imbalances them, and as they underwent experimentations it could make sense for the OO to be capable of setting them off.

3) I think it would relieve a lot of the annoyance left with Crazed if it granted a small percentage of withdrawl. It is great to watch a unit go charging in and win, not so great when in his weakened state he gets crushed next turn. A small chance of withdrawl would at least create some hope, and a tiny little victory ("Huzzah!") when a Crazed unit manages to flee. Of course, if this was added, it would mean the Crazed promotion would have to removed at the beginning of the players next turn, and not at the end of the combat (otherwise the withdrawl chance would go away immediately after it won its combat, and not play a part in the upcoming retalitory battle).

 

[Gul'dan]

Interesting idea to just reduce to one sage. It will be interesting to test play this. As a small modification I would suggest that on some tech the second sage could be re-added, maybe the tech where Govannon sits on the Magic tree.

The point that industrious is rather weak is quite true though, even more so since a number of late wonders have been removed in 0.40. I think the best way to deal with this is to power up the mid-game and late-game wonders (not such an early one as the library).
a) For instance I could see akharians crown giving one free tech in addition to its 100% in one city. (Or some magic bonus like lowering the levels for promotions in the line from 4/6 to 3/5, or giving 10 XP for magic units built in that city or giving all adepts built there rank 1 also in every mana you have only once...)
b) The Hall of the Kings (dunno the english names) could very well give one or two free culture in every city.
c) The Halls of architecture may additionally give a free Ingeneer in the city where they are built.
d) The Tower of Far Sight (or whatever its name) could give +1 or +2 sight range beyond the cultural borders, at least in the city where it is built.
e) The Network of Eyes and Ears might work also without open borders (because in this phase of the game the AC is usually high, so 3 open borders are impossible to fetch most of the time and also for flavour reasons: I don't see espionage being hindered by closed borders, cf. soviet union...).
f) The Shrine of Sirona should have a lower bound of e.g. 3 points of health restored (20% fixed is somewhat obscure).
g) The free promotion of the Prophecy of Ragnarok could also give +10 or +20% strength for combat units.
h) The Mithril Weapons tech could very well allow a wonder that grants +10% or +20% prod on combat units (So a similar effect as the formerly existing Golden Ambos on that tech) because Phalanxes are just not worth the huge tech cost most of the time.

Another one, which might be a bug (and actually might be fixed by now): In 0.34 the Sky Compass didn't work on the unique Sheaim ritual (and possibly also on other "race" specific rituals). This should be fixed.

 

[Gul'dan]

Another idea for the Spy Network wonder: Why not grant it a chance to get any tech at least researched by one opponent you have open borders with. Like 5% every turn if only 1 has it, 20% if two have it, 50% if 3 or more have it. This means you will most of the time be roughly 25 turns behind the best opponent you have open borders with, which sounds quite reasonable to me. The downside would be the extreme luck dependence...

 

[Err0l]

Or you simply could add more wonders. My suggestions:

- Prophecy should give a large immediate boost to the AC.
- Add a wonder to Math.
- Several early-game wonders in tier 2 techs, like, say, Construction.
- Shrine of Sirona should be usable three times per turn.

etc... etc...

 

[Gul'dan]

A friend of mine gave me yet another idea for the Network of Eyes and Ears wonder:

For each player you have open borders with you get a certain percentage (e.g. 25%) of the research cost for any tech he has. Example: You have open borders with two players. Both have tech A while only one has tech B. Then you pay only 50% for tech A and 75% of tech B.

This could be combined with the idea that espionage is also possible but more difficult if you do not have open borders: For such players you could get a lower percentage on techs (e.g. 10%). Example: You have open borders with 2 players ("friends") and know 3 others ("foes"). All of your friends and foes have tech A, one friend and one foe have tech B, two foes have tech C. Then you pay 20% for tech A, 65% for tech B and 80% for tech C. Closing formerly open borders should not cut the bonus because once acquired knowledge should not be lost. As soon as the bonus hits 100% the tech should be given to the player which could be the most difficult part to program (dunno much about that stuff myself).

As a side effect this system would also give you a bonus in tech trades which adds some nice flavour in the way of "espionage is the big brother of diplomacy". Alltogether this would in my view really make this wonder worth its 1500 hammers, which it isn't now.

 

[Jules.lt]

This Eyes and Ears network idea seems way overpowered in games with many civs. Just allowing it to work with civs you don't have open borders with is already borderline...

I wouldn't mind Prophecy of Ragnarok also giving Stigmata to units built in the city, on the other hand.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I find the event that lets you choose to get a free great bard in exchange for 15 turns of disorder quite odd. Why would you ever turn that down, seeing how the Great Bard can instantly end that disorder? It seems like a choice between a lot of free culture or nothing.

Also, it is odd that the disorder from this event does not make borders retreat.

 

[iffi]

I find the event that lets you choose to get a free great bard in exchange for 15 turns of disorder quite odd. Why would you ever turn that down, seeing how the Great Bard can instantly end that disorder?

It is a small brain puzzle, intended to give you the sweet 'Ah, got it!' feeling after figuring it out. Secondly, it allows the wiseguys to boost their self-esteem in the forums.

For the record, I was dumb enough to turn it down several times until I read about it in the forums. Figures, I haven't got the event since..

 

[xilr]

Did the Sheaim really need that summoner nerf in "t" ? Last time I played Keelyn she did seem pretty strong (but I think puppets got nerfed since then)... But both Sheaim leaders effectively got nerfed with the summoner change. The old "summoner" seemed pretty fair given the bulk of their offensive ends up summoned units, used for both protecting stacks and attacking....

 

[Gul'dan]

This Eyes and Ears network idea seems way overpowered in games with many civs. Just allowing it to work with civs you don't have open borders with is already borderline...

This could be easily repaired by modifying the percent bonus by the overall number of players at the beginning of the game. E.g. for open borders 250%/#players and for closed bordes 100%/#players. Then my numbers would come out for 10 players in game where the player who has the wonder should also count to the #players.

Given that the wonder sits on a quite expensive (thus late game) tech (guilds), needs 5 guest houses at 250 hammers each, which also means it needs 5 cities with a decent prod, and 1500 hammers to build it, it is just ridiculously weak as it stands. For me the usual game is a large balanced map with 8 AIs. It is utterly impossible to have open borders with three AIs not having completely outteched at least one of them (even on deity), because by the time the wonder comes the cummulative AI stupidity usually had you eat one or two of them and break the neck of the strongest one.