FfH2 Game Balance Thread

[Grey Fox]

Gibbons puppets are illusions and illusions can only summon illusions I believe.

 

[loocas]

Gibbons puppets are illusions and illusions can only summon illusions I believe.

Sorry to make you repeat yourself. I double checked and here's what's happening: GG's summons are indeed illusions; His puppets have puppet and illusionist promotions, but their summons only have puppet promotion, and can therefore kill.

 

[civ_king]

Magister... for dessert, have the marksmen get EXP for each guy the kill at range

 

[Thimblyjoe]

this is something that may have come up before, since it's been in the game for forever. I just played as the Malakim for the first time today, and I was a little disappointed. They should have more incentive to stay in the desert. One commerce per square is not enough. I have a few possible fixes for this, but I think if this doesn't get redressed, the Malakim will be completely sideboarded. Unless of course I'm missing something. Here are my ideas:

1) Give them food instead of commerce or in addition to commerce.

2) and this is the big one, allow the malakim to build on desert like the elves can build in forest.

I found that it was more profitable to take my deserts (even the ones with scrubs), which were producing 1 commerce (and 1 hammer), and use spring to turn them into plains and build a cottage. In the short run I'm producing an extra food and hammer (or the same number of hammers for the scrubs) and in the long run, my commerce goes higher. Either I'm missing something, or the Malakim fail at being desert wanderers. I want this redressed.

 

[Psycho_Ivan]

I disagree about your statement about 1 commerce not being enough. Though a single commerce is largely useless (who's going to send a citizen out to a tile for only a single commerce?) it's an amazing boost when coupled with flood plains or an oasis, and the occasional resource. (Incense, Reagents...)

Certainly shouldn't be entirely discredited. And the solution of finding food in the desert? If Plains can only produce 1 food, I highly doubt that Deserts could match that.

 

[Thimblyjoe]

they're desert folk, you'd be surprised what they could scrounge up in a pinch

 

[Psycho_Ivan]

Perhaps, but deserts are, by and large, inhospitable to humans, and for good reasons. I could go on about this, but do I really need to make a point about why deserts (most, anyways.) meet few criteria for any kind of lasting dwellings to be kept?

 

[Err0l]

If you're going to take Malakim as desert nomads, then:

1. Reduce their upkeep from distance.

2. Give them free specialists for, say, three desert tiles in the fat cross that aren't used by another city one free specialist.

That kind of encourages Malakim to build much small cities that are far from each other.

 

[nealhunt]

Puppets + Summoning trait.

Triple the number of summons, lasting triple the amount of time is more than a little bit overpowered.

Even with them as illusions, it's just silly. Most of the time summoned units are suicide troops anyway, just spent to wear down the enemy before you send in your permanent troops to finish off and get xp. "only" 90% damage is practically a benefit because you don't accidentally kill something off with an illusion before a real unit gets a chance at the xp.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I just saw Kardith Lorda adopt city states at early game in a small map Erebus. doesn't seem like a good choice since he's the best at exploiting God King.

btw, I know that the AI loves to have overlapping BFC, but the Kuriotates AI builds cities wayy too close to each other and ends up wasting much of the potential of their super cities. it they could be instructed to space them out more, it would be great.

 

[Thimblyjoe]

ok, I understand that deserts are supposed to be inhospitable, but as the Malakim, who are supposed to be desert nomads. I think there should be enough advantage to staying in the desert that you don't want to leave. I found myself terraforming my land completely, because the benefit was not enough to outweigh the problems. Please tell me I'm missing something, because it just doesn't seem right.

 

[lordrune]

ok, I understand that deserts are supposed to be inhospitable, but as the Malakim, who are supposed to be desert nomads. I think there should be enough advantage to staying in the desert that you don't want to leave. I found myself terraforming my land completely, because the benefit was not enough to outweigh the problems. Please tell me I'm missing something, because it just doesn't seem right.

I just don't see how you can make a Malakim city in a desert location more productive than a grassland/plains location without really breaking the game. We've seen some ideas posted, but they're never complete solutions and there are always issues with the implementation.

 

[Thimblyjoe]

I just don't see how you can make a Malakim city in a desert location more productive than a grassland/plains location without really breaking the game. We've seen some ideas posted, but they're never complete solutions and there are always issues with the implementation.

allow the Malakim to build on desert tiles, like I said before. If we allow that, it becomes feasible to have a desert city for the Malakim. It won't be as prosperous as a city in the plains, but it will at least be able to stand. The coding shouldn't be hard. The guys managed to allow the elves to build improvements on forests, how much different from that can it be?

 

[Nor'easter]

I noticed that some of the posts in the bug thread seem to be more balance issues, so I thought it would be helpful to bump this thread back to the first page, so people can post balance issues here instead.

 

[westamastaflash]

I think Tsunami ought to be nerfed a bit. Ring of Flames could perhaps be reduced to 30% instead of 40% max. Malestrom is much better now that it has been nerfed. I'd suggest moving Magic Resistance to require Combat 2. That should help significantly.

 

[Zechnophobe]

I think Pillar of Fire needs a bit of a down Tweak, or at least reduce to a range of 1. With Crown maxing at 60% damage, and pillar at 75%, and being able to cast both (Meaning you have very good odds of 75% damage) Chalid is truly the most combat relevant unit in the game. He's a victory condition all by his lonesome.

I wouldn't even mind that so much if he were harder to get, and located in a more MILITANT religion. As it is right now though, the Empyrean are by far the most militant religion out there!

 

[Thunder_Gr]

I think the point about the Malakim is correct. Malakim should, at least, be able to get 1 food from desert enviroments. Perhaps also give them the ability to plant scrubs.
Anyway, if they are really desert dwellers, they should get some abilities that can give them benefits in the desert, so that you can survive there. The Illians and Elves have much more benefit from snow/forest respectivelly. How come and the ability to build on snow is not overpowered for the Illians and would be overpowered to build on desert for the Malakim?
IMO, it makes sense to give the Malakim similar benefits in desert as Illians get in snow.

 

[KingOfLands]

I posted this in the bug thread, but it kind of got buried.

Given that Iron is usually very uncommon and poorly distributed, requiring it for Kuriotate airships seems to defeat the point of the unit.

 

[PotatoOverdose]

I agree that chalid is very powerful for his tech requirement (maybe too much so). Nerfing Chalid would be fine, if empyrean had another hero or other worthwhile features, but they don't. In fact, both CoE and empyrean seem rather weak unless you really want their heroes, and if you nerf said heroes there really isn't any reason to go for the appropriate religions. I think, rather then a balance adjustment to a specific unit, empyrean (and esus) need to have some readjustments, making both religions less of a one trick pony (sometimes an overpowered one trick pony).

Also, Gibbon+Puppets+Summoner needs to be fixed, because the end summons don't get the illusion promotion, turning Gibbon into a victory condition for the Balseraphs.

 

[Marnok]

I think to make Malakim more desert seeking, don't just try to turn deserts into the equivalent of plains for them, but give some different angle to desirable deserts.

Such as, allow Malakim units in Desert plots to gain XP slowly (a bit slower than adepts gain?). Perhaps each plot can only benefit one unit per turn, so it's no good just stacking everyone on one small sandpit and waiting for them to become uber.

Other ideas might be, a random Sandstorm which rises up against aggressors in Malakim owned deserts (like the Treants), or occasional Sand-Lion spawns in desert terrain.

With a different benefit, you don't run the risk of turning all plots into bland lookalikes, but create interesting choices (do I want fatter population, or a more rugged military?)
With these ideas I think you would still have open, sweeping desert and the *feel* of open desert, while still making them desirable for the Malakim.