Guild of the Nine way too overpowered

[schlalex]

I have been a FFH Fan for quite a time now. The Change of this guild from an actual "guild" to a wonder has made it far too powerful. While the guild could spread to other civs so they could hire the mercs,too, now the builder has its huge advantage for his own. I am playing Deity-Difficulty, so the Mercs are nearly every time a necessity to build for me, cause it is by far the easiest way to counter the big AI stacks in the medium game. Since the AI on Deity has such enormous production bonuses, it is sometimes even the only way to survive depending on your own land. So it is just a necessity to beeline to currency to build this wonder. And this is the point i dont like, because FFH gives u so many wonderful techs to beeline to. But they all stand no chance against the GotN!
So here is my conclusion. After the GotN is built, EVERY nation can hire Mercs in every city.They are mercs, so they should not care who they are fighting for. As a compensation, the empire who builds the wonder may hire the mercs for a lower price (maybe 150 instead of 180) and receives a small amount of gold (maybe 10) for every merc that is hired by another civ. Even if the guild is independent, they have to pay taxes .
Making these changes, the GotN would still be powerful, but there would be much less need to beeline to it and build it by yourself. Giving you much more variety in your techpath and so further increasing the flavour of FFH.
Any comments?

 

[Honor]

I support this, with the below merc cost adjustments and no gold receiving from GotN itself.

Merc cost for the GotN-owning civ: 200
Merc cost for non-GotN-owning civs: 300

 

[Sephi]

there is really no need for a change. You can already build warriors/scouts and upgrade them with in most cases. It's a little bit more expensive than mercs but gives stronger and more experienced units.

 

[Honor]

You have a limited production capacity most of the time (depending on the number of cities you control), and being able to simply purchase an army instead of building it is extremely powerful, and it is also what would enable a smaller civ to compete with the larger ones in terms of military strength.

 

[schlalex]

The best of the GotN is, that u can hire them after the wardeclaration. So u do not need to pay the maintenance for the army in the peacetime. You just need an amount of gold and in the turn, the enemy declares war upon you, you can hire your army at once. As Honor said, you often do not have the production necessary to build an army that can compete with the SoDs of the AI in the midgame. Your cities need all that juicy buildings first (at least on the highest levels).

 

[Sephi]

If you have trouble with production, simply build some warriors and upgrade them to tier3 for 195 .

 

[Emptiness]

I am playing Deity-Difficulty, so the Mercs are nearly every time a necessity to build for me, cause it is by far the easiest way to counter the big AI stacks in the medium game.

So here is my conclusion. After the GotN is built, EVERY nation can hire Mercs in every city.

Do you really want the Deity-AI to be able to hire Mercs after you've researched Currency and built the wonder? I'm thinking that will make the problem of dealing with those stacks worse, to the point that building GotN would actually be a bad thing. At least now you have the option of denying Mercs to the AI by beating them to the wonder.

Yes, the advantage in Merc-buying is in the hands of the builder because of the favorable pricing and tax dividend suggestions you've made, but that works for the AI if it builds the wonder. Could you really afford to risk the Hippus, for example, building the wonder? Yeah, you'd be able to buy Mercs, but you and everyone else who buys them would be handing the Hippus free Mercs via taxes, plus their Mercs would be cheaper - so they'd be winning the economic war in a Merc-for-Merc trading situation. Oh, and their Mercs would be mounted, too. I think you'd find that GotN would still be "must build", but then after you built it you would have lost most of the advantage that building it first provides in the current situation.

 

[DioAurion]

I haven't played too many games of FFH2 yet but I can say that guild of the nine makes intercontinental raids far too easy. I once landed a small elite fighting force and quickly took a city in balseraph lands. The balseraph army then appeared with overwhelming numbers (atleast 5 to 1). At 0% research I found I could hire 5 mercenaries a turn. By simply pillaging the roads leading to the city to buy time I quickly turned the odds into my favor, this wonder more or less destroyed the world's 2nd strongest army for a mere 2k gold.

Guess what I am getting at is maybe it should at least become one of those 'for the continent it is built on' type of deals. Or maybe you can only produce the mercenaries from the city it is built in. That would balance it out quite a bit.

 

[JonathanStrange]

I rarely use GOTN, I just don't have the money most times for a sizeable merc army and when I do have the cash, I don't need the mercs.

I can envision Amelanchier (my usual leader) financing hiring of numerous mercs solely through the +100% pillaging he makes, and this having a snowballing effect, but we'd have to really pillage the hell out of the enemy.

I'd like to see an AAR where GOTN was the decisive factor in the game. Are there any? I just suspect this is another "this is too powerful if..." -- there appears so many cool game mechanisms that the AI just don't truly use and thank Suecellus they don't!

 

[Thunder_Gr]

I think there is a large portion in the balance thread about the Guild of the Nine. I had supported the need to allow other civs individual buildings that would allow them to hire mercs at a higher cost.
The result was taking the price from 120 to 180. It appears that Kael does not want to alter the current mercenary system.

 

[PotatoOverdose]

I think guild of the nine should work like a true mercenary guild. Everyone can purchase mercs, but the nation actually owning the wonder gets a cut of the gold for each merc hired. Something like +10 gold per hired merc globally representing tithes for allowing the guild to incorporate in your lands. Thus mercs become available for everyone (as they should be), but there exists a very real incentive to build the guild, and a disincentive for non-building civs (as there should be, mercenaries aren't supposed to be you first choice military units) because no one wants to feed too much gold tot he owning civ.

 

[schlalex]

Do you really want the Deity-AI to be able to hire Mercs after you've researched Currency and built the wonder? I'm thinking that will make the problem of dealing with those stacks worse, to the point that building GotN would actually be a bad thing. At least now you have the option of denying Mercs to the AI by beating them to the wonder.

Yes, the advantage in Merc-buying is in the hands of the builder because of the favorable pricing and tax dividend suggestions you've made, but that works for the AI if it builds the wonder. Could you really afford to risk the Hippus, for example, building the wonder? Yeah, you'd be able to buy Mercs, but you and everyone else who buys them would be handing the Hippus free Mercs via taxes, plus their Mercs would be cheaper - so they'd be winning the economic war in a Merc-for-Merc trading situation. Oh, and their Mercs would be mounted, too. I think you'd find that GotN would still be "must build", but then after you built it you would have lost most of the advantage that building it first provides in the current situation.

I am talking about the fact, that at the time the GotN is built, the Hippus will have stacks about 40-60 highly promoted Horse-Units. Add 20-30 unpromoted Mercs and you will see, that this wont make a big difference.
And you should not forget, that even on Deity the AI does not have sooo much cash to spend. Its huge advantage is its possibilty to upgrade all the units at ridiculous prices. But since the Mercs are (hopefully) not affected and still cost 180 Gold, the AI wont be able to hire 50 Units every turn.
But the overall point is, that I dont want to be forced to beeline to the GotN just to make sure,i am able to hire Mercs at all. I want to research the techs that fit best to my civ! And since on Deity the AI will research Currency very fast and build the wonder immediately, i could still be able to resist the 40+Stacks at a time, where i can neither have such an army built by my own nor pay the costs for it in the time it is built.

 

[Breez]

But the overall point is, that I dont want to be forced to beeline to the GotN just to make sure,i am able to hire Mercs at all.

I find it interesting that some folks say the wonder is too powerful and you want to get the effects with out even researching the tech to be able to build the wonder? Seems backwards.

Mercs should not have the ability to buy mercs. Thus slowing down the ability to use mercs to blossom out of nothingness. Maybe have the wonder allow other cities to build a Hiring Hall which would allow each city the ability to hire one merc per turn instead of each UNIT to buy one each turn.

The city with the wonder itself should be the only city with the ability to buy a multitude of mercs in one turn.

 

[megamanx06]

can other players hire mercs if they're in one of the GotN owning cities? they should.

 

[schlalex]

I find it interesting that some folks say the wonder is too powerful and you want to get the effects with out even researching the tech to be able to build the wonder?

You misunderstand! The wonder is not too powerful because of what it DOES, namely the Ability to recruit the Mercs. They are weaker than Champions, so they are definetely not uber.
The problem is that the builder denies the mercs to all other civs. And this IS crucial, because in some Situations the mercs are the only way to resist certain situations. FFH is all about production (like Civ4 Vanilla). But there are some civs that are designed for little production (Lanun come to mind) in exchange for more commerce. Or just start in a place with lots of floodplains and little hills. The mercs are designed for those situations, so that u can use your economy directly to build your military.
So if there is a wonder that denies you this completely when somebody else builds it, you must confess that you will do everything to get it yourself.
And so it is overpowered!

 

[Honor]

If you have trouble with production, simply build some warriors and upgrade them to tier3 for 195 .

oh yes, that is very nice, but you can do that only once/city/turn which may turn out to be less than enough sometimes (*cough* diety *cough*).

 

[Azhral]

No, you can do it once per turn per unit. So you can get heaps per turn if you have enough units (and gold).

Although it may have been fixed, Hired mercs could hire more (resulting in infinite units), also worked with slaves, which is probably why it was changed.

 

[Honor]

No, you can do it once per turn per unit. So you can get heaps per turn if you have enough units (and gold).

Although it may have been fixed, Hired mercs could hire more (resulting in infinite units), also worked with slaves, which is probably why it was changed.

Did you actually read what I quoted Azhral?

In case you did: You can only do it once/city/turn (maximum), because that is how many warriors you can actually build per turn (if all of your cities can build 1 warrior/turn).

 

[Tasunke]

I like the Idea of everyone able to buy more expensive merks after guild is established ... maybe after building a "hiring halls" or somesuch. Still, I'd say that the owning civ should get a hefty chunk - 30-50% hiring cost, just so that they will always have enough cash to field the biggest merc army (not for realism)

That being said, I have no problem with the current system and think that attention is better spent elsewhere for the developers. (like AI)

 

[Sephi]

oh yes, that is very nice, but you can do that only once/city/turn which may turn out to be less than enough sometimes (*cough* diety *cough*).

Instead of just saving up you also have to build some warriors. Someone who plays on deity should be able to do that