Is The Nexus too easy to build(Conversely, are Gates too expensive)?

[Onionsoilder]

Hmm...

That's interesting. I assume that you would get a free Mage Guild, Forge and Carnival with their associated Wonders too.

For argument's sake I'll ask: Would there be any point, ever, of building the Nexus for Kuriotates if it didn't do this?

If it costs the price of two Obsidian Gates to build, and you only have three cities that get the reward, why bother? (Perhaps as a denial tactic?) In fact, your big cities aren't going to be far enough apart to bother with Obsidian Gates at all. 300 hammers for +1 trade route isn't a very good deal. I'm of the opinion that the Nexus (that adds to all Settlements) makes it worthwhile to get Pass Through the Ether if you are Kuriotates. Otherwise this is a dead tech for you.

Even if their settlements didn't get Obsidian Gates, it would still be worthwhile to build. For the cost of two Obsidian Gates, they get three. Granted, Obsidian Gates in general seem less useful for the Kuriotates, but well-placed cities would still be 6 tiles apart, which takes 3 turns to traverse once they get Engineering for better roads.

My point is that The Nexus is very, very cheap (600 hammers total) compared to what it gives (300 hammers worth per city). I would like to either see the cost of The Nexus increased, or the cost of normal Obsidian Gates reduced(preferably the latter, or maybe both).

 

[Grantor]

The Obsidian Gate is, in fact, the most expensive building in the game (tied with Planar Gate, Infirmary, Grove and Alchemy Lab). [All 300.]

The cheapest buildings that add a trade route are the Tavern [250] and Lighthouse [160] (and Smuggler's Port [120]).

So, how much is an airdrop "worth"?


But I think that Onionsoilder underpriced the cost of the Nexus for Kuriotates. First, you need to research this expensive tech (before other players). Saving 300 hammers is not that great of a deal when you count that in. Let's say you "bought" the tech as your freebie for the Grimiore. Well, that cost 400 hammers (to save 300 hammers).

Also, for K., does it matter if you can teleport between the three cities in the center of the empire when you would rather get to the borders? Certainly that's how the other races use Obsidian Gates, to push the fight into their neighbors. (Plus, K. should really be going for the Cultural win...)


But, OP argues that paying 600 hammers to get a 300 hammer per city is too good of a deal.

Guild of Hammers is 550 to get 250 hammer builders in every city. Plus it gives +1 hammer per Engineer. Wowza!

Not a fair example because of the harsh requirements, but Grand Menagerie is 120 to get a 120 hammer building in every city, plus it gives +2 happy per city.

And, except for Eyes and Ears Network, the most expensive wonder is 750 hammers.

Perhaps the Obsidian Gates are too expensive. Perhaps The Nexus is too cheap. Same could be said for the Guild of Hammers in that case. I would rather compare the wonder's cost to that of other wonders, not to the specific cost of the reward it gives. Wonders, in general, are a huge benefit to the first one to build it and that's something that is not new to FfH2.

Actually, here is the whole list of things in the game that cost more than 600 hammers:
Mishabber [5000]
The Mithril Golem [5000]
Tower of Mastery [4000]
Eyes and Ears Network [1,500]
Crown of Akharien [900]
Tower of (magic type) [800]
Winter Palace [800]
Tower of Complacency [750]
Mines of Gal'Dur [700]
Tower of Eyes [700]
Temple of Temporance [650]

Personally, I think I may edit my game's XML and change The Nexus to 750. This is a ten second fix that anyone can do because you're only changing a single number. Now it is equal in cost to the Tower of Complacency. But I wouldn't think of setting it any higher, when comparing it to the items on this list.

 

[Onionsoilder]

But, OP argues that paying 600 hammers to get a 300 hammer per city is too good of a deal.

Not quite what I was talking about. I was saying that If the Kuriotates have Pass Through the Ether, it would be more worthwhile to build the wonder than to build individual gates, even though they only have a couple cities.

Guild of Hammers is 550 to get 250 hammer builders in every city. Plus it gives +1 hammer per Engineer. Wowza!

True, but keep in mind that the nature of these wonders is very different.

Forges will generally be built only in your well-established, high-production cities, were they will provide the most benefit. Spending 250 hammers when you're pumping out 40 hammers a turn is a huge benefit, since you get an extra 10 hammers per turn. The building pays for itself in ~30 turns. On the other hand, it is unlikely you will bother building a forge in a fringe city that only produces 12 hammers per turn. It would take 21 turns to build, and wouldn't pay for itself until 65 turns later! If you do get Guild of Hammers however, the extra 4 hammers per turn is a nice benefit,but nothing huge, especially compared to your main cities.

With The Nexus on the other hand, Obsidian Gates are best in both your main cities and outlying cities, so you can quickly switch units in and out for upgrades and reinforcements. It would take forever to build The Nexus in an outlying city, and unlike a Forge, would actually be a huge benefit, especially during war.

 

[UncleJJ]

I would suggest that the stagnation it avoids is overseas conquests. Without a free Obsidian Gate, you would still have to do the first step, send a strike team to conquer a city. But then you have to either spend several more turns shipping back-up troops to the fight, or you would have to wait for the revolt to finish, and then you would have the slow building of a new Obsidian Gate.

I really do not have a problem with overseas invasions in FfH2. It is much easier than in BtS, where I guess I've done it 30 times at least. There is no need for Obsidian gates, and you don't even need to use arcane magic or OO, although they make it even easier. In FfH2 the key techs to grab early are Iron Working (shipyards and QueenotLine) and Optics (Frigates, Caravels, circumnavigation bonus) and then send caravels out to explore while researching Astronomy (Oceanic trade routes and trading resources, QotL and Arcane Barge). While exploring build 10 frigates using shipyards. Once you have found the other civs, gained the circumnavgation +1 movement and open borders with one or more overseas nations wait for Astronomy. Then get overseas trade routes (+100% overseas and +150% foreign) and trade happiness and health resources to grow your cities. If you decide an overseas invasion is worthwhile (a barbarian city or weak civ) upgrade 4 frigates to QotL and embark the army (20 to 30 units including support). Sail to other continent and take a city or two before making peace. With Astronomy the cities are already viable economically due to trade routes. With a sizeable fleet I can decide whether to expand the colony on the other continent or concentrate on the starting one. And cities can come out of revolt the turn they're captured using an Acolyte or Disciple of Leaves to pop the borders. However, there is no need for Obsidian Gates with a properly organised navy.

That's game slowdown.

Not really. The invasion can be done long before Pass through the Ether can be researched.

However, for half of the victory conditions of the game, this Wonder is no help at all. There is no need to conquer the others for Religion, Tower and Culture wins.

No, the increased commerce will be a significant boost to the economy and makes the wonder a no brainer whatever the victory condition is. A sure sign it is overpowered.

And, yes, we agree: there are many ways to speed up victory once a player has reached a "winning position". I'm suggesting that this was Kael's design goal for the Nexus (and these other tools). Its "goodness" would be relative to the type of win you were aiming for. And what type of world set-up you used. It would truly be a torturous slog to try to conquer a large-sized archipelago world without the Nexus; yet it's only a convenience on Pangia.

I find Archipelago and other water heavy maps easy and interesting. Once you understand how to organise a fleet of frigates and QotL the logistics are easy. Coastal cities are easy to take and defend, and they pay for themselves quickly due to trade routes.

The idea of a wonder that reduces the cost of other improvements is interesting. I believe Civ II and III had those. But I notices that none are in vanilla Civ IV. I will hazard a guess: the reward of this wonder is too delayed, thus players never build this wonder in actual play.

This is a game that thrives on choice and diversity. It is much more interesting than BtS (IMHO). I just want wonders that I can decide to build if they fit in with my game plan or not, not ones that are so overpowered that they make me feel I'm being stupid if I don't build them. Unfortunately, Guild of Hammers and Nexus are in that category of being stupidly overpowered . For me they seriously detract from the game and I'd like them toned down.

I would suggest that anyone can disable a wonder/building/whatever that they personally dislike by deleting it from the XML. That's pretty easy.

I know, and there is worldbuilder too . I just want to be playing the same game as everyone else, therefore I would like that game to make sense and have some sort of balance (despite being a fantasy game) and hence I make my criticisms.

 

[Grey Fox]

Lots of buildings should be cheaper imo.

 

[Grantor]

I just want to be playing the same game as everyone else, therefore I would like that game to make sense and have some sort of balance (despite being a fantasy game) and hence I make my criticisms.

If I may tease you here: so, you want us to nerf our Nexus's and Guilds's so you can feel better about the game you play at your house?

Since Kael has recently vacillated on the "I'm done adding new features to Fall From Heaven 2" so he could add the Wild Mana feature set, there is a change that this could be revisited. But the FfH2 team seem to be of the thought that three years of playing/testing has shown that the costs are working for them.

And I did say I was going to increase the costs of the Nexus at my house. While the game is specifically designed so that it tips out of balance once a player gets beyond a certain point, I understand what you mean about providing a fair challenge.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Another fix would be to require three obsidian gates in your empire per the Great Library and other wonders. That's effectively a 900 hammer boost in its production cost.

 

[Grantor]

Another fix would be to require three obsidian gates in your empire per the Great Library and other wonders. That's effectively a 900 hammer boost in its production cost.

Cunning solution. I like it.

But that would not work for the Guild of Hammers, which has also been cited in this thread. The forge becomes available on a different tech than GoH.

 

[readercolin]

Why wouldn't it work? Yeah, it means you have to have both engineering AND smelting, but is that really such a big problem for the benifit it provides? And on top of that, does it really make sense for everywhere to get a forge when forges can't even be built yet?

-Colin

 

[Grantor]

Well, it would be the first Wonder ever that required a separate tech to be built. I always did think it was strange that it offered a building that wasn't even on the same branch of the tech tree.

My only feeble support of this is that you took a tier 2 Wonder that already costs 550 hammers (that's a lot at tier 2!), added an additional tech requirement, and then added 750 hammers of pre-production.

Here is why this is a feeble argument: You can still build the City of a Thousand Slums when you get Engineering. In fact, why isn't the GoH requiring Smelting instead of Engineering? If it was placed in Eng to avoid over-rewarding those that rush to Ironworking (which makes sense), you just gave an even greater reward to builder nations that race to Engineering.

How would this affect Khazad, who has Dwarven Smithys instead of Forges? I assume that the GoH would substitute in a Smithy for each Forge, but when counting up the pre-req, would the Smithy buildings count?

 

[readercolin]

When the Khazad get GoH, it provides a dwarven smithy in each city. Same for any other wonder that provides a building if a civ has a civ-specific version of that building. As for it being at engineering instead of smelting, it probably was moved there to avoid over-rewarding people who rush ironworking, as that is widely considered to be the strongest branch in the game. As for it costing 550 hammers, when a forge costs 250 hammers, is 550 for a forge in every city really expensive as long as you have more than 2 cites, especially as it can be built in your main production city, yet provide the bonus the bonus to ANY city.

-Colin

 

[grayrest]

As for it costing 550 hammers, when a forge costs 250 hammers, is 550 for a forge in every city really expensive as long as you have more than 2 cites, especially as it can be built in your main production city, yet provide the bonus the bonus to ANY city.

In my mind, the primary benefit of the GoH is not the free forge but rather the extra hammer to engineers when running guilds.

 

[popejubal]

Why wouldn't it work? Yeah, it means you have to have both engineering AND smelting, but is that really such a big problem for the benifit it provides? And on top of that, does it really make sense for everywhere to get a forge when forges can't even be built yet?

-Colin

It's a problem for my sometimes strategy of grabbing Iron with Killmorph's wonder and then researching Engineering without Iron Working.

I get Forges + Iron without ever even seeing a tech beyond Bronze Working. When I need bigger melee units, the Octopus Overlords units do just fine for me.
(I'm certainly not going to stay in RoK after I build the Mines.)

 

[Grantor]

Well, yeah. Wonders are powerful and a great deal at the costs listed.

Every single wonder is under priced for the benefit it offers. Tower of Complacency squashes all unhappiness in your best city. How many Carnivals does the equal? We should really be comparing the cost of wonder-to-wonder, not to the value of the benefit. Or, alternately, we could just increase the costs of all of the wonders.

But my argument against the proposal was for analysis, not to take support from the idea of requiring 2 or 3 forges first.

By the way, requiring two or three Forges (or libraries or theaters) is all more or less the same, when you are counting the number of turns it takes for your best production city to make the Wonder. Unless your production levels for 2nd and 3rd place are hugely different, which is not often the case. Except that your 3rd building can make 2 units (or not). Which I don't think is a huge difference.

Ah, and I thought of an argument for why you would not want to build the Guild. (Again, a weak argument.) All of your 12 hammer outlying cities now get the dubious benefit of 4 hammers, but also get saddled with plus one unhealthy. Not ideal for starting cities.

But, to return to why this is a good proposal. Making the Nexus and Guild of Hammers require 2 existing buildings does put these wonders in line with the Great Library and the Theater of Dreams. That's a good thing.

I haven't played vanilla is years. Do they have wonders that grant free buildings without requiring a build yet? That product was (allegedly) professionally play balanced. My instinct is to go with matching that model for structuring the costs and requirements for wonders.

Anyone have an answer on that?

 

[TheLazyHase]

I haven't played vanilla is years. Do they have wonders that grant free buildings without requiring a build yet? That product was (allegedly) professionally play balanced. My instinct is to go with matching that model for structuring the costs and requirements for wonders.

In civ2 and civ3, wonder that give a building in every city were all severely overpowered and sowewhat a must. Most notably the civ2/3 pyramids.

In civ4, there is a lot less wonder. In fact, I can remenber only three such wonder : stonehenge, that give a not-so-great building on every city and is somewhat cheap, the eiffel tower, that is a modern stonehenge (same kind of building given to every city), that varie between weak and useful, and the three-gorge dam, a very very costly wonder that give a good building to every city.

Stonehenge is balanced by the difficulty to get it (it's a very early wonder that does not cost a lot, so you must build it quickly when you'd better do more settler).

The Eiffel tower is balanced by the building it give : since it's far from being a mandatry building for every city, it's nice to have, but hardly a big problem not to have it. It tend to be a warmonger wonder, because it give culture in every city, and consequently it help avoid revolt and hacving more land to exploit. Also, it can give some happy face in every city, and that can be especially nice by wartime.

The three-gorge dam is balanced for two reason : the first, it's costly to make. The second, the building it replace is more or less already built in all your city by the time you make it, because if not your production tend to be pretty weak. So it's hard to really gain hammer with this wonder, and it came rather late. It's a wonder for those who conquer a lot of city, since it's the better way to gain city with factory but without powerplant late in the game.

FfH wonder, in my opinion, seem a lot more powerful than theses vanilla example. They give building that are a lot more powerful and mandatory, are overall cheap, and remind me of civ3 wonders. I know that they are designed so the winning civ win even more, but still I tend to find it too much for my taste. Then again, it's easy to mod.

(note that some other wonder seem very very powerful for me. For example, the one that give 3 hill giant. But I does not have played a lot of game, so I believe that I may very well be wrong)