Darn the incomplete civilopedia, i did not see Chalid had this spell. How's it's mechanics? Does it do like 40-80% damage with one blast? Or does it do a fixed 80% to all units in the stack? Or does it do a fixed amount of damage, distributed among the units on the tile with a cap of 80% damage each? (Again... the civilopedia...)
FfH2 Game Balance Thread
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Monkeyfinger
Deity
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It does a cap of 80, with the average damage depending on combat promos. Like if he has combat 5 he'll do 80 to most of the stack, while if he's fresh out of the gate he'll do a much wider range, with the lower end being maybe 10 or 20.
Zechnophobe
Strategy Lich
As a note, don't get into a balancing argument unless you've played both sides
.Chalid can turn on the crown and can also use the pillar on subsequent turns, meaning he can damage all stacks around him, as well as the strongest stack within 2 squares on the same turn in many cases. He's a BAD BAD man.
Also, while I don't think it'd be enough to base a religious choice on it, but the Ratha's ability to blind is a very solid one for taking control of otherwise difficult situations. AI's at the very least don't know how to handle the spell well.
First a general remark: A strategy based on one unit is always an inelastic, thus bad, choice. You can't take a risk EVER (while AV can just waste 2-3 Agares-Beasts if theres something worth it like killing Chalid), because as soon as chalid is down, AV clearly prevails.
If I run around with 4 Agares-Beasts, Chalid needs at least 5-10 axeman bodyguards. This also considerably slows him, which makes circumventing Chalid worth a try. On the other hand you also need Chalid to defend your Axemen which are otherwise cheap XP to the AV high-brow units. So splitting the AV army gives you a severe pain, due to your weaker backbone units (axemen vs. diseased corpses).
The pillar can be worked around by dividing the army, using a distraction stack of waste units etc. If i can keep my distraction stack behind my frontline, you can flame pillar them every turn, I just put a priest alongside and they will happily soak it.
The crown is not much better than the Flamering (60% vs. 40%). I recon it's passive, which is nice of course, but it's still just one blow per turn, which is most of the time healed by priests such that the cap is not regularly reached.
I must admit, I have never played Chalid, but even my theoretical considerations don't make me want to... Maybe I'll give it a try sometime.
If I run around with 4 Agares-Beasts, Chalid needs at least 5-10 axeman bodyguards. This also considerably slows him, which makes circumventing Chalid worth a try. On the other hand you also need Chalid to defend your Axemen which are otherwise cheap XP to the AV high-brow units. So splitting the AV army gives you a severe pain, due to your weaker backbone units (axemen vs. diseased corpses).
The pillar can be worked around by dividing the army, using a distraction stack of waste units etc. If i can keep my distraction stack behind my frontline, you can flame pillar them every turn, I just put a priest alongside and they will happily soak it.
The crown is not much better than the Flamering (60% vs. 40%). I recon it's passive, which is nice of course, but it's still just one blow per turn, which is most of the time healed by priests such that the cap is not regularly reached.
I must admit, I have never played Chalid, but even my theoretical considerations don't make me want to... Maybe I'll give it a try sometime.
Overpowered imo:
1. Beastmaster: Higher base strength than most heroes, doesn't make sense to me. Recon line should have slightly less powerful but mobile units with a few special abilities. Perhaps beastmaster should start with lower strength but gain more with each animal it captures. Maybe it should receive extra XP if built in a city with bear cage, etc.
2. Guerilla II promotion: In a city built on hills, this is way overpowered.
Underpowered imo:
1. Svaltalfar: Hidden nationality (their specialty) is a sometimes a disadvantage, your allies attack your units!!!
2. Esus religion: This is only useful to take advantage of AI's stupidity (sneak attack). Not at all fun or useful in hotseat.
1. Beastmaster: Higher base strength than most heroes, doesn't make sense to me. Recon line should have slightly less powerful but mobile units with a few special abilities. Perhaps beastmaster should start with lower strength but gain more with each animal it captures. Maybe it should receive extra XP if built in a city with bear cage, etc.
2. Guerilla II promotion: In a city built on hills, this is way overpowered.
Underpowered imo:
1. Svaltalfar: Hidden nationality (their specialty) is a sometimes a disadvantage, your allies attack your units!!!
2. Esus religion: This is only useful to take advantage of AI's stupidity (sneak attack). Not at all fun or useful in hotseat.
MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
I tend to think that Beastmasters should have level requirements, but again start with Subdue Animal/Beast. It would also be nice if they could carry animals as cargo, but unfortunately it is impossible to let them carry land animals and birds at the same time (without possibly significant SDK changes).
Guerrilla II is fine as it is.
I tend to think that the Svartalfar worls spell should give a promotion that lets a unit take HN whenever it wants instead of just giving out HN. I also think that declaring nationality should have IgnoreHasCasted instead of HasCasted, put possibly cause war if HN units reveal whose they are in rival territory.
I think that there should be an Esus state religion only ritual that makes rivals loose their maps of your territory. Spells that add fog of war or remove visibility of tiles completely could be cool too.
Guerrilla II is fine as it is.
I tend to think that the Svartalfar worls spell should give a promotion that lets a unit take HN whenever it wants instead of just giving out HN. I also think that declaring nationality should have IgnoreHasCasted instead of HasCasted, put possibly cause war if HN units reveal whose they are in rival territory.
I think that there should be an Esus state religion only ritual that makes rivals loose their maps of your territory. Spells that add fog of war or remove visibility of tiles completely could be cool too.
ExMachina
Warlord
- Joined
- Jun 5, 2008
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- 203
Here are the balance changes I've made for my games:
-Increased the defense of Longbowman by +1, so they are now slightly better at defending than Champions (but still worse at attacking).
-Allowed all archery units (except Marksman) to use Bronze, Iron, and Mithril weapons, so they compare with melee units.
-Crusader and Paramander -1 Str, can use Bronze, Iron, and Mithril weapons.
-Paladin and Eidolon -2 Str, can use Bronze, Iron, and Mithril weapons.
Haven't touched mounted or recon units, not sure if I'll do anything with them.
-Increased the defense of Longbowman by +1, so they are now slightly better at defending than Champions (but still worse at attacking).
-Allowed all archery units (except Marksman) to use Bronze, Iron, and Mithril weapons, so they compare with melee units.
-Crusader and Paramander -1 Str, can use Bronze, Iron, and Mithril weapons.
-Paladin and Eidolon -2 Str, can use Bronze, Iron, and Mithril weapons.
Haven't touched mounted or recon units, not sure if I'll do anything with them.
sylvanllewelyn
Perma-newb
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- Oct 19, 2006
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- 2,020
Maelstorm looks so good on paper, until I can't find a way to bring a large enough stack of undamaged units more than two spaces away to finish them off. This is especially useless when your enemy has a stack of doom in a city with a high priest. Whatever damage you deal them, they just heal it all back next turn. The only one that can effectively utilize a combination of fireballs and maelstorms is the Hippus, and even then only with haste.
Methuselah
King
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If your mage is on the same square as the rest of your units they won't get affected by malestrom.
Iceciro
Special Ability: Decimate
Yeah, you make a really huge SoD and stick a Maelstrom mage or two in it, then partytime, and let something like unpromoted bronze axemen cut down the defenders.
Maelstrom is actually really nice, used properly.
As a sidenote, I do feel that the Ashen Veil get too many toys - and the Council of Esus not having Priests to cast Divine spells or heal stacks is pretty bad for them - I usually pick up deception for the Undercouncil and join the OO or FoL. Sometimes Empyrian depending on the Civ. CoE has always been a better support civ, in my mind. You don't need them as a state religion to access all the neat things Undercouncil gives, or to get the free Shadow mana and in-border-invisibility that the Nox Noctis give you. I've never seen Gibbon as enough of a reason to take CoE as a full state religion.
Saverous and Hemah? Different story. Saverous especially, as he's an early murder-machine.
Maelstrom is actually really nice, used properly.
As a sidenote, I do feel that the Ashen Veil get too many toys - and the Council of Esus not having Priests to cast Divine spells or heal stacks is pretty bad for them - I usually pick up deception for the Undercouncil and join the OO or FoL. Sometimes Empyrian depending on the Civ. CoE has always been a better support civ, in my mind. You don't need them as a state religion to access all the neat things Undercouncil gives, or to get the free Shadow mana and in-border-invisibility that the Nox Noctis give you. I've never seen Gibbon as enough of a reason to take CoE as a full state religion.
Saverous and Hemah? Different story. Saverous especially, as he's an early murder-machine.
Don't improve the Svart worldspell, it is huge as it stands. Usually when I play against my friend (who loves svart and plays them rather good, I think) he uses this spell around turn 100, when he has 2-3 Swordsmen with ~50 XP (the forest speed really helps the svartalfar creeping in the early game). Then he uses these high-enders to ravage the lands of his "allies", rendering them quite helpless, as the AI just tries their usual anti-barb strat, which basically consists of feeding him lots of XP. The leader trait doubling pillage gains allows him to leave his research around 90-100% quite some time. If the svart were given the ability to turn out HN and turning it back on, they can go pillage und harvest XP without risk. That should not happen.
Jabie
Wanted in Monte Carlo...
Re: Malakim.
The problem seems to be that they don't have much incentive to keep their land as a desert. Sure you get Sand Lions, but that's about it. One Adept with Spring can quickly update their lands to something more profitable.
A number of suggestions jump to mind:
* Have a Desert Survival tech a la Seafaring which reveals wadis, animal grazing, dates, etc. to improve deserts for Malakim only.
* Give the Malakim buildings that depend on the number of the deserts in their radius. Maybe the Malakim could not receive smokehouse or granary but get some kind of Storehouse that cost the same but retained food on a 5% per Desert space (max 80%) in fat cross and provided the necessary health bonuses.
* Give all Malakim units a Desert Guide promotion. All Units without the Desert Guide promotion suffer a 10% chance to get lost in deserts. Getting lost causes them to be held for one turn and suffer 10% heat exhaustion damage. This would synergise well with the Tower of Light which fling fireballs at the Malakim's foes.
The problem seems to be that they don't have much incentive to keep their land as a desert. Sure you get Sand Lions, but that's about it. One Adept with Spring can quickly update their lands to something more profitable.
A number of suggestions jump to mind:
* Have a Desert Survival tech a la Seafaring which reveals wadis, animal grazing, dates, etc. to improve deserts for Malakim only.
* Give the Malakim buildings that depend on the number of the deserts in their radius. Maybe the Malakim could not receive smokehouse or granary but get some kind of Storehouse that cost the same but retained food on a 5% per Desert space (max 80%) in fat cross and provided the necessary health bonuses.
* Give all Malakim units a Desert Guide promotion. All Units without the Desert Guide promotion suffer a 10% chance to get lost in deserts. Getting lost causes them to be held for one turn and suffer 10% heat exhaustion damage. This would synergise well with the Tower of Light which fling fireballs at the Malakim's foes.
As for the beastmasters: They have -20% city attack and can't get city attack promotions (and can't pillage to complete the set) so just sit back behind your walls and regard them as scouts. This makes up for their base strength quite well. I would rather suppose to cut the mobility promotions over 1 as I have always felt they were to fast thus replacing knights and being much cheaper in research. The idea to raise his strength when he captures different animals has a good "flavour" but it has the drawback that most of the land is settled when beastmasters come, making it difficult to find any animals (on a balanced map, as for my experience).
Why are Illian priests better than the hill giants?
a) they get terain defense.
b) they get free XP to get started with base promotions.
c) the ice elementals can be used to damage enemies thus making a fight secure for the priest, giving them easy XP gain.
d) ice elementals crack 2-3 archers in a city. Try it: Their initial chance are a discuraging 0.2% but usually the third one gets ~5%, sometimes when you are lucky even ~10-20% so it is just a matter of time until you are lucky and kick the archers.
e) they have heal 2, allowing them to charge faster and get marching early on.
f) They are cheaper (400 vs. 500)
g) You don't risk someone else being faster, wasting your invested production.
Just try it out and compare. The Priest won't disappoint you.
Maybe position in the tech tree and hammer cost of the priest ritual and "the deepening" should be interchanged. The deepening sucks as it stands, as it only doesn't harm you as much as others if you build the temples of the hand which turn flooded tiles and plains into grassland and kill the river commerce.
Why are Illian priests better than the hill giants?
a) they get terain defense.
b) they get free XP to get started with base promotions.
c) the ice elementals can be used to damage enemies thus making a fight secure for the priest, giving them easy XP gain.
d) ice elementals crack 2-3 archers in a city. Try it: Their initial chance are a discuraging 0.2% but usually the third one gets ~5%, sometimes when you are lucky even ~10-20% so it is just a matter of time until you are lucky and kick the archers.
e) they have heal 2, allowing them to charge faster and get marching early on.
f) They are cheaper (400 vs. 500)
g) You don't risk someone else being faster, wasting your invested production.
Just try it out and compare. The Priest won't disappoint you.
Maybe position in the tech tree and hammer cost of the priest ritual and "the deepening" should be interchanged. The deepening sucks as it stands, as it only doesn't harm you as much as others if you build the temples of the hand which turn flooded tiles and plains into grassland and kill the river commerce.
I recon most of you play erebus maps with lots of mountains and thus easy defendable bottlenecks and less effective barbs? Maybe some of my comments sound so strange because I usually play balanced, which means laaaaaaaaaaarge borders, huge barbarian hoardes and a thus totally different gaming and balancing experience.
WarKirby
Arty person
I noticed today, it seems a bit odd that infernals and/or demon units don't get double movement in hell terrain.
Dwarves get it in hills, and elves in forest. Just seems like something that should be there.
i'd say, just add that to the Demon racial promotion.
Dwarves get it in hills, and elves in forest. Just seems like something that should be there.
i'd say, just add that to the Demon racial promotion.
CladInShadows
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jul 2, 2008
- Messages
- 81
After playing through the Barbarian Assualt scenario yesterday, I believe that the Amurites starting with an Adept instead of a scout should be commonplace in every game of FFH2, just like the Elves start with a second scout instead of a Warrior. It would really add to their flavour, which currently dosen't kick in until mid game when Mages finally become available. With only their starting Mana, and the inability to gain any more until after Knowledge of the Ether, this would only give them early access to the floating eye, for their scouting needs, Blaze, to help with those annoying jungle startes, and Haste. While this is certainly not overpowering, it would really give them a unique starting strategy, and if we're even lucky the AI might even learn to do okay as them.
![[to_xp]Gekko](https://civfanatics-data.community.forum/avatars/m/74/74677.jpg?1475248346){kind=avatar}
[to_xp]Gekko
QCT junkie
that's a nice idea, actually. seconded 
