First time poster, long time player (and HN vs AI issue)

[SerialK]

Hi there !

First of all, sorry for my poor english, it's not my native language. I also want to thanks Kael and all the FFH team for the amazing work they've done on this excellent mod.

I've not played with 0.34d yet, but i'm playing since 0.18 (or something) and enjoyed playing with nearly all leaders/civs. I've a few remarks about the mod I'd want to share. I'm pretty sure that some if not all have been posted on the board, but i don't have an Internet access at home so it's kinda hard for me to check every post here

Anyway, here we go.

I do like the idea of ancient forest used by the FoL religion, but is it really necessary that they grow up so fast ? They offer a huge bonus both in health and fighting (moreover for elves with the right promotions, not speaking of the "treant" worldspell). Don't get me wrong, I don't say they are overpowered, but having them growing a bit slower and/or downgrade to standard forests outside of FoL influence (not sure if it already does that or not) should be more consistant with the term "Ancient".

I've played tons of my recent games with the Svartalfar, the assassin / CoE combinaison works amazingly well with my game style. In fact too well as soon as i've created the hero, Alakazim (sp?), i know i've won the game. My troops conquering nearly empty cities. I know that the common answer to this issue is saying that the Civ AI is too weak to understand who the hell are all those HN assassins (and omg HN shadows) coming from. Yeah right, but it's still an unresolved issue. Dunno if it would work but maybe each AI could keep an internal counter (in fact, one for each other other civ). Let's say the Svart. are attacking the Bannor with HN. Each time a Svart HN is attacking, the bannor's counter has (let's say):
- 60% chance of doing nothing (unable to detect who is the attacker)
- 30% of increasing for the Svart
- 10% of chance to increase for random nearby race (damned we caught the wrong guy)
The value of each counter would slowly decrease when the civ isn't under attack for a while. And if the counter for a given civ reach a said amount the relationship will decrease, and may lead to a war. I'm no Civ4 modding expert but from a programmer point of view it's not very hard to implement afaik. And it would basically mimic what a 'real' player would do in such circonstances. Nerfing (a little bit) the HN in SP games without altering MP games.

Another race i enjoyed are the Hippus, dominating the world using a 100% cavalry line military was one of my best games. hopefully the small nerf to the raider trait will balance them. Because right now, i usually keep one barbarian city near/inside my borders and use it as a training ground for my horse archers.

Another complaint i have (damn, so many complaints for a game i love, must be crazy ) is about the Amurites. I sometimes do like playing with magic oriented civs. But compared to Keelyn/Balseraph or Sheiams (both evil), they are rather dull. The world spell is weaker than many, the mages with a one-time spellstaff promotion not as fun as they should be. Only the firebow has its use. They aren't especially weak, just dull (weird for a civ of powerful mages).

Another thing, why do animals stop spawning (i know about the FF modmod, yes) after a while ? Is there any particular / technical reason for this i'm not aware of ? (cause it leads to an unbuildable wonder, at least in 90% of maps, not too much a big deal, but still weird).

I've probably forgotten most of the things i wanted to say when i started the thread but it will be enough for now i think

 

[orangelex44]

Welcome to the forum!

You're right, many of your points have been make elsewhere; however, most people agree with them and don't mind them being brought up again. A little constructive criticism never hurt anyone - although the FFH team is rapidly getting a LOT of constructive criticism, so that may no longer apply. In any case, none of your particular points have really been addressed in .34 IIRC.

I can't really answer some of them (I, for instance, neever use CoE) - but here's the ones I can. The last of animals is a Civ design, hardcoded in the game. That doesn't mean that the FFH team couldn't change it (since Fall Further already has), but for some reason they are satisfied with it right now.

The Hippus are quite powerful, but not really unbalanced. They probably won't get many more changes going into Ice - but I'm often wrong, and no one really knows where the team will go next (including the team, at times... ).

The Svarts, on the other hand, are considered by many to be broken. There is a good chance they'll be tweaked, but again, I'm no expert.

Ancient Forests are the same way. Lots of people mention them, but they remain stubbornly the same over each version.... we'll see.

(By the way, your English is excellent for a non-native speaker.)

 

[Psycho_Ivan]

Since .34 released the chance of forests changing into ancient forests has dropped, so it occurs more slowly.

I think.

 

[marioflag]

Hi there !

First of all, sorry for my poor english, it's not my native language. I also want to thanks Kael and all the FFH team for the amazing work they've done on this excellent mod.

I've not played with 0.34d yet, but i'm playing since 0.18 (or something) and enjoyed playing with nearly all leaders/civs. I've a few remarks about the mod I'd want to share. I'm pretty sure that some if not all have been posted on the board, but i don't have an Internet access at home so it's kinda hard for me to check every post here

Anyway, here we go.

I do like the idea of ancient forest used by the FoL religion, but is it really necessary that they grow up so fast ? They offer a huge bonus both in health and fighting (moreover for elves with the right promotions, not speaking of the "treant" worldspell). Don't get me wrong, I don't say they are overpowered, but having them growing a bit slower and/or downgrade to standard forests outside of FoL influence (not sure if it already does that or not) should be more consistant with the term "Ancient".

I've played tons of my recent games with the Svartalfar, the assassin / CoE combinaison works amazingly well with my game style. In fact too well as soon as i've created the hero, Alakazim (sp?), i know i've won the game. My troops conquering nearly empty cities. I know that the common answer to this issue is saying that the Civ AI is too weak to understand who the hell are all those HN assassins (and omg HN shadows) coming from. Yeah right, but it's still an unresolved issue. Dunno if it would work but maybe each AI could keep an internal counter (in fact, one for each other other civ). Let's say the Svart. are attacking the Bannor with HN. Each time a Svart HN is attacking, the bannor's counter has (let's say):
- 60% chance of doing nothing (unable to detect who is the attacker)
- 30% of increasing for the Svart
- 10% of chance to increase for random nearby race (damned we caught the wrong guy)
The value of each counter would slowly decrease when the civ isn't under attack for a while. And if the counter for a given civ reach a said amount the relationship will decrease, and may lead to a war. I'm no Civ4 modding expert but from a programmer point of view it's not very hard to implement afaik. And it would basically mimic what a 'real' player would do in such circonstances. Nerfing (a little bit) the HN in SP games without altering MP games.

Another race i enjoyed are the Hippus, dominating the world using a 100% cavalry line military was one of my best games. hopefully the small nerf to the raider trait will balance them. Because right now, i usually keep one barbarian city near/inside my borders and use it as a training ground for my horse archers.

Another complaint i have (damn, so many complaints for a game i love, must be crazy ) is about the Amurites. I sometimes do like playing with magic oriented civs. But compared to Keelyn/Balseraph or Sheiams (both evil), they are rather dull. The world spell is weaker than many, the mages with a one-time spellstaff promotion not as fun as they should be. Only the firebow has its use. They aren't especially weak, just dull (weird for a civ of powerful mages).

Another thing, why do animals stop spawning (i know about the FF modmod, yes) after a while ? Is there any particular / technical reason for this i'm not aware of ? (cause it leads to an unbuildable wonder, at least in 90% of maps, not too much a big deal, but still weird).

I've probably forgotten most of the things i wanted to say when i started the thread but it will be enough for now i think

Welcome to the forum!!!

A lot of your points are often discussed on the forum and personally i agree with you about elven and forest issue.Actually the team has not yet touched the issue but every version there are lot of balance changes, so perhaps in the future elves and forest issue will be done differently.

Animals don't spawn after sometime because their place is taken by barbarians, which can be a lot more dangerous to developing civilizations than animals (which can't even enter borders).

About Amurite i agree with you they are a bit dull compared to Balseraph and Sheaim, but those 2 civs are among the most funny to play in FfH2.

Anyway lot of good points

 

[Caradoc]

With the Amurites, you can have a good time Govannon-izing your units. Be sure to try High Priests and Druids.

 

[SerialK]

Well, thanks for the warm welcome

he Hippus are quite powerful, but not really unbalanced. They probably won't get many more changes going into Ice [...]

Perfectly fine for me, i wasn't trying to criticize the Hippus, they are perfectly fine imho. My point was more about the Cavalry/Raider combinaison than about the civ itself anyway.


By the way, I used the Svarts + CoE in the "Dumb.AI vs HN.Units" part of my post as an (good) example -and because i do like this civ very much- but it was more related to the HN units in general than to the Svarts. You can apply the exact same logic and possible fix for any Civ using HN units (and/or captured animals).

With the Amurites, you can have a good time Govannon-izing your units. Be sure to try High Priests and Druids.

About Govannon, Yes, I forgot about that. Probably the only thing funny, but limited to a few spells. Fun to promote every single unit to raise skeleton, but the idea of an amurite legion of death is err. weird to say the least. An most of the other spells doesn't really need to be trained 'cause as an amurite you are supposed to have a bunch of spellcaster in every unit pile you have.
About the T3 Priests & Druids, yeah, but not specifically amurite related afaik.

 

[Keeper_GFA]

About the T3 Priests & Druids, yeah, but not specifically amurite related afaik.

I think he meant using Govannon to teach them "arcane" magic.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

welcome to the forums, and note that your english is actually excellent ( I'm not a native speaker either, but your post looks just fine )

I agree with most issues you've posted, let's review them:

1) Ancient Forests growth rate too fast: that's right and that's why it got nerfed in 0.34

2) Alazkan being totally awesome: agreed

3) Amurites being dull: yep. check out this modmod, you'll probably like it http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=287683

 

[Caradoc]

I think he meant using Govannon to teach them "arcane" magic.

Right. Even Priests end up with 2nd level spells like Fireball, Shadow Walk, and Mutation -- and the 3rd tier units get 3rd level spells from any of the five schools that Govannon teaches.

 

[SerialK]

Well I guess my former english teacher wasn't so bad after all

Right. Even Priests end up with 2nd level spells like Fireball, Shadow Walk, and Mutation -- and the 3rd tier units get 3rd level spells from any of the five schools that Govannon teaches.

Oh, I never thought about that, that's a nice trick that i'll definitively try. But it doesn't really change my opinion on the Amurites

 

[loffenx]

I do like the idea of ancient forest used by the FoL religion, but is it really necessary that they grow up so fast ? They offer a huge bonus both in health and fighting (moreover for elves with the right promotions, not speaking of the "treant" worldspell). Don't get me wrong, I don't say they are overpowered, but having them growing a bit slower and/or downgrade to standard forests outside of FoL influence (not sure if it already does that or not) should be more consistant with the term "Ancient".

0.34 Changelog:
"47. Reduced the chance of burnt forests upgrading to new forests and forests upgrading ancient forests from 10% per turn to 3%."

I've played tons of my recent games with the Svartalfar, the assassin / CoE combinaison works amazingly well with my game style. In fact too well as soon as i've created the hero, Alakazim (sp?), i know i've won the game. My troops conquering nearly empty cities. I know that the common answer to this issue is saying that the Civ AI is too weak to understand who the hell are all those HN assassins (and omg HN shadows) coming from. Yeah right, but it's still an unresolved issue. Dunno if it would work but maybe each AI could keep an internal counter (in fact, one for each other other civ). Let's say the Svart. are attacking the Bannor with HN. Each time a Svart HN is attacking, the bannor's counter has (let's say):
- 60% chance of doing nothing (unable to detect who is the attacker)
- 30% of increasing for the Svart
- 10% of chance to increase for random nearby race (damned we caught the wrong guy)
The value of each counter would slowly decrease when the civ isn't under attack for a while. And if the counter for a given civ reach a said amount the relationship will decrease, and may lead to a war. I'm no Civ4 modding expert but from a programmer point of view it's not very hard to implement afaik. And it would basically mimic what a 'real' player would do in such circonstances. Nerfing (a little bit) the HN in SP games without altering MP games.

You actually want to Nerf CoE? Most people seem to think it's a bit weak at the moment, as far as State religions go anyways. Did you win a domination victory in the mentioned game? Just curious. Anyways I love CoE but have long felt it a bit underpowered, soooo... I'll have to play more and ponder on this.

Have to agree regarding the Amurites, my inital with them was over their choice of Civ-colour, but even after I've changed that I can never bring myself to keep playing them. They're as you say, dull.

Another thing, why do animals stop spawning (i know about the FF modmod, yes) after a while ? Is there any particular / technical reason for this i'm not aware of ? (cause it leads to an unbuildable wonder, at least in 90% of maps, not too much a big deal, but still weird).

Would like to see this implemented myself.


And Welcome to the forums!

 

[SerialK]

I don't think CoE is really 'underpowered' or 'overpowered'.
I don't like those terms anyway

But like i said before my point isn't aimed at the CoE. But at the way the AI (doesn't) handle aggressions from hidden nat. units. 'Cause currently they are defenseless against them when exploited correctly by the player.