Is the Nature/Archery tree too weak?

[wig]

Is the Nature/Archery tree too weak, in relation to the other research trees? This might seems like a rhetorical question, and to some extent it is. I've probably played a hundred games of FFH2 (curse you, Kael!) and I can count on one hand the number of times that I've teched past Hunting on the NA tree. I'd like to find out if it's my playing style that's the issue, or if other people have the same experience.

I have two basic early playing styles; Early Rush and Growth. Early Rush involves ramping up my production and attacking a nearby civ, while Growth involves growing my commerce as much as possible to get ahead in the tech race.

Here's the list of Nature/Archery Techs, with some notes on how each civ fits into my playing styles. I took beaker costs from a Noble difficulty game, standard size and normal game speed.

Exploration
Requires: Nothing
Leads to: Cartography, Fishing, Hunting
Allows: Can Build Roads
Cost: 162

Notes: Good tier 1 tech.

Cartography
Requires: Exploration
Leads to: Nothing
Allows: Open Borders Agreements, Map Trading
Can Build: Pact of the Nilhorn
Cost: 260

Notes: Pact of Nilhorn is a good choice for an early rush. Open Borders can be useful, but I often want to prevent other civs from walking through my territory early on. It's a dead end tech, so unless you're gunning for the stooges, it's not very attractive early game.

Hunting
Requires: Exploration
Leads to: Archery, Tracking Way of the Forests
Allows: Hawk, Hunter, Acrobat, Hellhound, Lizardman
Can Build: Camp
Cost: 468

Notes: It's a tier two tech, but as expensive as most tier threes. Hunters are good in defense and in the field, but a liability at city attack. Since I don't tech past this level much, I rarely use hunters for an Early Rush troop; there's not point in building up XP for troops that I won't be upgrading in the future.

Camps are ok, but the resources (Ivory, Deer, Fur) are uncommon compared to farm and pasture resources. The yields on the camp improvement are generally poor (+1 commerce on Ivory seems especially stingy). The scarcity of resources and poor yields makes camps a non-factor in most games, and it makes Hunting a weak choice for a Growth game.

Archery
Requires: Hunting
Leads to: Bowyers, Stirrups
Allows: Archer, Dwarven Slinger, Gilden Silveric,, Javelin Thrower
Can Build: Archery Range
Cost: 390

Notes: Defensive troops are becoming more attractive now that the AI is improving. However, reaching Archery and 3/5 archery units costs me 1020 , while I can tech to Bronze Working for 942 , which gets me 4/4 Axemen (usually 5/5 with Copper nearby) with the ability to build mines thrown in.

Tracking
Requires: Hunting
Leads to: Animal Handling, Poisons
Allows: Enables Sentry Promotion
Cost: 520

Notes: This might be the worst tech in the game, and it's an absolute killer in terms of choosing which tech branch to tech. It's expensive and grants only a non-essential promotion while adding nothing to growth, production or commerce. The only other tier 3 tech that doesn't lap it in usefulness is Philosophy, which I consider a proper barrier to the power Priesthood tech. The only time I research this tech in the early/mid-game is when playing the Sidar to get access to Ghosts and their hero.

Animal Handling
Requires: Animal Husbandry, Tracking
Leads to: Feral Bond
Allows: Harlequin, Ranger, Satyr
Can Build: Spider Pen, Nature's Revolt
Cost: 1235

Notes: Some nice troops in this tech, though requiring Satyr to be upgraded from lvl 4 units does makes take some of the shine off it. However, at 1235 there are just too many other better choices. Just one example; I could spend 988 instead and tech Horseback Riding and Trade, giving me the Mobility promotion, Chariots, +1 trade routes per city, Inns and the ability to trade techs. No contest.

Poisons
Requires: Tracking
Leads to: Nothing
Allows: Assassin, Chanter, Devout, Ghost, Taskmaster, Alazkan the Assassin, Rathus Denmora
Cost: 1040

Notes: It's must if you're playing the Sidar or Svartalfar. Otherwise, it's never worth trudging through Tracking to get here.

Bowyers
Requires: Bronze Working, Archery
Leads to: Machinery, Precision
Allows: Firebow, Longbowman, Nightwatch
Can Build: Bowyer
Cost: 3120

Notes: 3120 just for better bowman ? I've never researched this tech.

Feral Bond
Requires: Animal Handling
Leads to: Animal Master, Commune with Nature
Allows: Baron Duin Halfmorn, Kithra Kyriel
Cost: 2080

Notes: The Nature tree becomes very specialized at this point. There's not much point in continuing if you're not running FOL/Guardians of Nature.

Precision
Requires: Military Strategy, Bowyers
Leads to: Nothing
Allows: Marksman
Cost: 8320

Notes: Never got here.

Animal Mastery
Requires: Feral Bond, Iron Working
Leads to: Nothing
Allows: Beastmaster, Myconid, Spiderkin, Herald
Cost: 2080

Notes: The Beastmasters I've dominated are pretty good . The Iron Working prerequisite on this tech makes it much less accessible and attractive.

My basic conclusion is that the Nature/Archery branches is sparse and redundant. There are no Civics available in the N/A branch, and other branches offer similar troops at similar costs, bundled with economic, production and growth benefits. I envision the nature branch as an early game option, but that's not the case in my playstyles. Hunters are good early troops, but not effective for an Early Rush strategy, and with camps being ineffective there are no useful economic or production benefits to make it useful in a Growth strategy.

Elves have enough syneryto make the N/A branch useful, and I normally Beeline Poisons with the Sidar, but otherwise I avoid it. Is this the way the game is intended? Am I looking for too much out of the N/A branch, or am I missing something that makes this strategy more attractive. I'd like to see what other people think on the subject.

Kael and co, my thanks for a game that's engrossing enough for me to write a response like this

 

[Ecofarm]

Recon line is the best (after arcane, which requires less civ-based specialization).

Hunting: Who needs archery when you have 4str mv2 (or better) hunters who are level 5 from slaughtering barb warriors and goblins??

Handling: rangers 7str 2mv (8str wit nature2 mage) - you cannot beat this defense for the cost (in beakers or hammers). Satyr (they can kill anything with forest2). This tech is really not optional unless you are specializing in melee and getting iron early.

Poisons: 3-5 assassins can change a war from stagnant to sweeping victory.

Feral: Baron!! Kith is nice

Commune: Yvain (impassable terrain)(best non-arcane religion_hero in game), Druids... meh (impassable terrain) dwarven or balseraph are nice, Genesis

Mastery: 14str 2mv, no religion req

Precision: Beastmaster with marksman = ~30str assassin. Upgrading a combat 4, blitz marksman ranger to beastmaster = absurd.

Bold = overpowered, Red = uber_overpowered

Archery: Sucks, cept hills kinda... nah, who am I fooling it SUCKS
Bowyers: It's a prereq for something, right?



.02 (Full disclosure: I don't like melee line. You melee people are nuts. I only get iron for beastmasters - I rarely play melee_based civs. Dwarves and mimics are all I can imagine it's good for.)

 

[Uberness]

Archery is underpowered, no arguement there, but the nature one is one of the most powerful lines, sure there is that tracking bump to cross to get into it, but overall the techs are cheap with strong troops and nearly every one of them allows a hero or strong unit.

Druids can be a super economy boost, or for khazad a army crusher, if upgraded from priests they get the rank 3 divine spell and cure (which kinda makes high priests worthless however to a neutral civ)

beastmasters start off strength 14, better then most other units, rangers are 7 strength and are 8 with poison, you can get them long before anyone has iron if your early economy can handle teching it for awhile, and the baron/kithra/yvain make it a really hero heavy line.

Plus assassins and shadows can just murder everything at 99% or 100% odds and take out important casters.

Also, if you want chariots, you need construction and a siegeworkshop, you also need bronzeworking and copper or iron to get there strength to something decent.

 

[Ecofarm]

Posting and not on hamachi to play... tsk tsk.

No excuses; boss can kiss butt; ffh = life.

 

[Darksaber1]

Ya, at Feral Bond you can get the Baron with 11, 3, and he can make you a potent army for free. Sure, the chance of creating a werewolf is only 25%, but then you get a 5 unit with enraged that has a 100% chance of becoming a 8, 2 unit. And that has chance to become a 11, 3 unit every time it kills. The Baron is tought, no doust about it.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I still think that the best way to fix this is to give archers (non-lethal) ranged attacks. I've done so in my version and found it a huge improvement. The AI uses it very effectively. Any unit left in a tile adjacent to a city defended by archers will be hit by archers from a distance and then wiped out by hunters and horsemen.


Of course, Kael still thinks that ranged attacks are purely the domain of mages, and that giving the ability to archers detracts from the magic line.

 

[Sureshot]

at the least archers should be given 3/6 or 4/5 strength, doesnt make sense that axeman are 5/5 with copper and archers can only hope to match axeman on defense and match warriors on offense

 

[Vitek]

I agree with you that resources for camps have very low yield compared to how rare they are.
And archers should maybe be little bit stronger (Either 3/6 or 4/5).

Otherwise, I don't think natural tree is not weak, it just has t be used properly. Archery tree is propably other thing, I rarely go after them.

 

[wig]

Recon line is the best (after arcane, which requires less civ-based specialization).

Is this due to your style of game setup, or just your general opinion. I play small Perfect World maps (84 by 50 roughly) with 9 civs, start anywhere, Immortal with Aggressive AI. It's a little cramped compared to some setups; I don't get a lot of animals (which might explain my lack of the recon line), but plenty of Barbs and uppity AI.

Hunting: Who needs archery when you have 4str mv2 (or better) hunters who are level 5 from slaughtering barb warriors and goblins??

I like Hunters, but are they worth the cost to get them? Do you beeline Hunting and then work on your economy? Why research hunting when you can tech to Bronze working at roughly the same cost and start building mines along way? (edit. my costs are wrong, I was still thinking about Archery here)

In addition to their inherent penalty to attack cities, Recon units can't get the City Raider promotions. What's your city busting formula in a Early Rush game?

Handling: rangers 7str 2mv (8str wit nature2 mage) - you cannot beat this defense for the cost (in beakers or hammers). Satyr (they can kill anything with forest2). This tech is really not optional unless you are specializing in melee and getting iron early.

Poisons: 3-5 assassins can change a war from stagnant to sweeping victory.

I agree that the cost isn't too bad, but any time you research down this line, you're essentially stunting your GEP (growth/economy/production). The troops are good, but are they that much better than what you can field in the other lines while you're picking up important GEP elements (library/trade/mines/religion)? I guess I never see a point where I value the recon troops more than additional GEP.

.02 (Full disclosure: I don't like melee line. You melee people are nuts. I only get iron for beastmasters - I rarely play melee_based civs. Dwarves and mimics are all I can imagine it's good for.)

In one word, Warfare. 120% strength bonus at City Raider III, plus National Epic, Form of the Titan, and Military State and Conquest civs. For less than Tracking.

I'm going to play a game dedicated to your Recon philosophy on my standard setup, as an experiment. Can you give me a rough tech order to approximate your play style? What victory you tend to shoot for?

 

[Ringtailed]

Archery is definitely weak (that's been beaten to death at this point), but you'll never convince me Recon is weak. Rangers are cheaper in terms of beakers than champions, are strength 7 move 2, and there's no anti-recon promotion. Also, in no way are Chariots comparable to Rangers. Chariots = 5/3, move 3, no defensive bonuses AND requires Construction due to siege workshop requirement.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

It's difficult to lightbulb, that's the real problem. Researching takes too long in FFH2, you need to bulb your way up, build that key unit and go for blood.

- GS can get you arcane line
- GM can get you economic line (mercenaries and the powerful Eyes and Ears, which I love rushing for)
- GP can get you religious line
- GE can get you metals line

How do you plan on getting recon line quickly?

 

[KingOfLands]

While I've got not problems with the recon/druid line, I dislike the heck out of Tracking and the archery line is much too expensive to research for a pretty limited benefit. About the only time I go down it is if I'm aiming for Firebows on the Amurites, and even then it gets put off 'til my wizard situation is under control.

 

[wig]

Archery is definitely weak (that's been beaten to death at this point), but you'll never convince me Recon is weak. Rangers are cheaper in terms of beakers than champions, are strength 7 move 2, and there's no anti-recon promotion. Also, in no way are Chariots comparable to Rangers. Chariots = 5/3, move 3, no defensive bonuses AND requires Construction due to siege workshop requirement.

I'm not trying to convince anyone that Recon troops are weak. I'm trying to get someone to convince me that the Recon line as a whole isn't deficient, or more specifically that the Recon techs are worth researching despite the noticable absence of GEP (Growth/Economy/Production) elements in the line.

I've basically hard-wired myself to get the most 'bang for the buck' in FFH2, and in the Recon line's case it doesn't seem to me that the Recon troops are worth the deviation from the GEP elements available in the other lines. There are certainly cases where there are benefits too obvious to ignore (Poisons for Sidar/Svalt, for example), but overall I've built up an aversion to the line, whether it's due to game setup, style of play, etc. I'm going to give them a shot, and I'm hoping someone will give me a strategy that will help me get the most out of the line.

 

[Blackmantle]

@sylvanllewelyn: GA (you just need to take heed for the order of teching, not researching something redirecting your path of Bulbing)? If you need / want to bulb at all.

*Puzzled about how such statements are hurled around without checking*

And please don't pretend GAs are hard to get if you aim for them (drama being one sure and fast source which can take you right to animal handling. You even can bulb Drama itself with an GA for a real early slingshot of animal handling). GEs for example are much harder to come by. So metals line is slower. (by far)

Also Rangers / Assasins are cheap to get without any bulbing involved. (and if you go for an academy or playing a research heavy-faction teching without bulbing is very easy. At least up to Poisons / Animal Handling)

Should you go for FoL after above Slingshot (which should not be all that hard) you get a 9/4 city attacker (satyrs, and Level 4 is not all that hard to reach. Level 3 / 6 XP beeing possible out of the box rather easily thanks to Anerons Bounty and a number of other sources.) which is really scary. Recon or not at a stage where everyone else starts to have late Tier-2s (like Chariots which might be nice but are pathetic compared to rangers), or if they hury extremely might have weak Tier 3s (like Horse Archers or Priests).

Add poisoned blade and you have a 10/5 Unit with 3 Promotions. So thats about 16/8. You consider that one weak really?



"Nature" line is one of the strongest lines in the game hands down. With Driuds being one of the strongest (thanks to being upgradable from priests lately.) units in the game alltogether (even nondwarven and nonbalseraph if you promote the right priests to them.)

In fact Rangers / Assasins are the earliest Tier 3 Units. Hands down. With small "ifs" for certain civs that favor other lines (but thats somewhat logical, isn't it?).


@ Wig: Obviously you don't know how to get most milage out of Druids then. If you whould, you whouldn't state such things.
Once you have seen an Empyrean or OO-Druid mopping up civs without any chance of retaliation you won't want to miss them. (Order Druids can be very nice as well albeit more for builder playstyle and upgrading your terrain / buffing your army than for direct combat)
Even in the Field without any Peaks to hide on thanks to Entangle. (Crown of Brilliance + Entangle is really scary).


Those Units are the power of Divine, Arcane and Recon-lines combined. (healing and cure of disease, recruiting an army on their own via Command 3/4, tier 3 divine spells / stackbusting spells / a decent permanent summon + combat power.)
and as the icing of the cake you also get poisoned Blade (which buffs all your recon you got before and after reaching Druids.) + Terraforming on top of it all.




That said it won't beat an axemen-rush. Beeing the strongest Unit of Tier 2 hence nothing else will other than axemen-rushing yourselves. And if the map is not Pangea / 1-landmass or small it wont work all that well to win a game alltogether just by Axrushing one or at max two civs (which is not all that bad.).
But for taking out an AI even a hunter-rush will suffice most of the time.
In the field though Hunters will tear Axemen apart after some promotions and even be on-par with copper axemen thanks to higher speed in lieu of an anti-melee promotion.




Archery Line as Ringtailed already said has been labled as bad quite regulary in this forums (if you try Marnoks Mod that will change a bit though since city defense is much more important / valuable there.)

What i especially dislike about archery are the ridiculous Tech cost of Bowyers and Precision in addition to the open (Iron Working for Boyers) and hidden (Mithril Working for Marksmen) tech requirements for Tier 3 and 4 Archery-techs.
Precision must be the single most overpriced tech for its effect in the whole game, at least the way in which its implemented now.
Archery is bad but seems borderline acceptable at rare times where you are at serious defensive.
That line needs some work. And badly.

 

[kumquatelvis]

What bothers me is that in order for your longbowmen to be really good you need metal weapons (copper and iron). And to build beastmasters you need iron. So you HAVE to go the metal route. And if you're doing that anyway, why not just build a bunch of champions?

 

[hbar]

I think lumbermills should be tied to the archery line, like mines are with metal.

Make them available at archery, give +1 at bowyers, and +1 at precision. That would address at least some of the economy concerns and make archery a better option, depending on the situation. No lumbermills in Ancient Forests, though, that's OP and thematically wrong.

They should also boost production of archery units (and wood golems) by 5% per lumberyard in the BFC. Also, I think instead of strengthening archers (as suggested above) they should get more first strikes (again, thematically informed). Perhaps something could be added that gives archers 2x the normal first strikes?

As far as recon goes, I agree that it is a bit OP'd, but I think that is mostly because there is no anti-recon promo. If there were, there would be a reasonable counter and they would be balanced. As it stands, Shock is the default no matter who your opponent is or what troops you face.

 

[MrPopov]

In my own games I've given drill II and drill IV each a +20% to recon in addition to allowing Shock, Cover, and Formation I coming from their respective Drill OR Combat promos (ie drill I or combat I you can get shock I. note though, I have still restricted level II shock, cover, and formation to the combat line). What do you guys think of that change?

 

[Artan]

Would it be possible to give archery units the ability of 'defensive cover' along the lines of:

Whenever a stack is under attack, the defender receives one first strike chance (or even first strike) for every archery unit in the stack (up to a maximum of say four).

 

[Ringtailed]

I've basically hard-wired myself to get the most 'bang for the buck' in FFH2, and in the Recon line's case it doesn't seem to me that the Recon troops are worth the deviation from the GEP elements available in the other lines. There are certainly cases where there are benefits too obvious to ignore (Poisons for Sidar/Svalt, for example),

Well, bronze working is a very powerful tech early because it grants both axemen, ability to use bronze weapons promos on your warriors, and forest chopping.

But, after that the economic advantage of the metal line drops off significantly. The recon path, on the other hand, leads to druids for vitalize (and other things, but vitalize is usually a strong economic bonus).

Also, Poisons is valuable to any civ that can use assassins, not just Svartalfar and Sidar. Its effect of killing weak units (and finishing off units that have been damaged) is not duplicable by any other line.

Personally I think the recon line is well-balanced. I hate the idea of adding anti-recon promos. As it is they are barred from city raider and have a city attack penalty. This has the effect of generally making recon units best for fighting outside of cities and melee units best at attacking cities which I believe to be reasonable. Possibly I could support changing the city attack penalty to a city strength penalty making them weaker at city defense too.

It's difficult to lightbulb, that's the real problem. Researching takes too long in FFH2, you need to bulb your way up, build that key unit and go for blood.

I've never really found it to be the case that researching takes too long. For me it comes down mostly to:
1. Lots of cottages
2. Libraries and (less important) elder councils. Run sage specialists where feasible
3. Use the Great Sages to build Academies and cause a golden age

Recon line is cheaper as far as beakers go so it's not particularly hard to just research it, even up to druids. (You can use great bards to lightbulb Commune With Nature if you are so inclined.) I'm also curious about how you'd go about lightbulbing the metal line with great engineers... as far as I know you can't even get those until you research smelting or engineering for forges (exception: Luchuirp).

 

[Caradoc]

I forget what they were called, but there used to be Archers of Leaves or some such. They had an interesting upgrade path and I'd like to see them come back. Wouldn't mind seeing a Dwarf hammer thrower or a Barbarian spear chucker either.