Issue of the overpowered units

[yavoon]

And people seem love to discuss UU in isolation. In reality you have to combine a leader's traits and UU to see if this leader is powerful or not. Caesar gets a nice UU, no argument, but it's not like this UU will give you an automatic win. Overall Caesar's trait combo is just so so. I'll take any financial leader and feel good on any given game. If this leader also has a good UU (like Eliz and Catherine in vanilla, or Victoria and Wang in Warlord), I'll take them over Caesar and believe I have a better chance of winning.

while u can certainly balance a civ in several different ways, I think its wise to have the UU's atleast w/in earshot of each other in power. if for no other reason then ppl generally want to feel good about their UU. to give them a horrible UU and awesome traits might make the civ fine, but wont make ppl happy.

 

[methane]

while u can certainly balance a civ in several different ways, I think its wise to have the UU's atleast w/in earshot of each other in power. if for no other reason then ppl generally want to feel good about their UU. to give them a horrible UU and awesome traits might make the civ fine, but wont make ppl happy.

First of all, as someone who's more often a builder than a conquerer, I like the traits more than the UU! It's the traits that make the bigger difference from one game to the next for me.

I don't have the expansion yet, but you now have to include the UB in the balance equation. I'd like most traits to be reasonably close to each other in power so modders can easily add new leaders (with 2 different traits) to the civs without the the civ+leader being greatly over or under powered compared to their competitors. This doesn't require the UU's being balanced, only the UU's + UB's being balanced. You could have a powerful UU with a weak UB or vice versa.

As I've said, I don't have the expansion yet, but it doesn't seem like firaxis has done this. It does seem that the UU+UB+traits seem mostly balanced, though there are still some ensembles that seem slightly stronger/weaker than others.

 

[DaviddesJ]

what I dont understand about the overpowered units is its REALLY OBVIOUS they're overpowered. I actually didnt think they'd change the redcoat or cossack, because its so obvious they were overpowered that it had to be intentional....right? I mean they can't be so bad at civ that they didnt notice the power of cossack/redcoat/praetorian? right?

I believe they made them powerful intentionally, but there was so much whining about it that they decided to just water them down and save themselves some grief. I like having powerful UUs, myself, but there are quite a few online who will complain incessantly about "balance" if any civ has any significant advantage over any other. And "unbalanced" UUs make the SP game more interesting and enjoyable, but they do pose a problem for MP.

 

[yavoon]

I believe they made them powerful intentionally, but there was so much whining about it that they decided to just water them down and save themselves some grief. I like having powerful UUs, myself, but there are quite a few online who will complain incessantly about "balance" if any civ has any significant advantage over any other. And "unbalanced" UUs make the SP game more interesting and enjoyable, but they do pose a problem for MP.

I actually like the change. and the closer balanced it is the more discussion u can have about strategy and traits etc, so it improves SP as well.

 

[DaviddesJ]

the closer balanced it is the more discussion u can have about strategy and traits etc, so it improves SP as well.

This is just false. If the civs have different, significant advantages, then you can discuss the game from all of the different points of view of those different civs. That's more discussion, not less. If the UUs are all nerfed so that they make no significant difference in the game, that's one less thing to discuss.

 

[50_dollar_bag]

One thing that can make UUs and UBs unbalancing is when thay are available during the game most UUs and UBs are available at around the same era of the game having a UB for a longer time throughout the game can be unbalancing. For example the Dun (Celtic) and Ger(Mongol) affect all units built eligible for the free promo for the rest of the game.

 

[a4phantom]

This is just false. If the civs have different, significant advantages, then you can discuss the game from all of the different points of view of those different civs. That's more discussion, not less. If the UUs are all nerfed so that they make no significant difference in the game, that's one less thing to discuss.

I'm pretty sure yavoon's advocating the first and not the second - if a few civs are extremely over powered, then the other civs do not have significant advantages.

50_dollar_bag: One thing that can make UUs and UBs unbalancing is when thay are available during the game most UUs and UBs are available at around the same era of the game having a UB for a longer time throughout the game can be unbalancing. For example the Dun (Celtic) and Ger(Mongol) affect all units built eligible for free promo the rest of the game.

Good point. Just another point for gamebreaking Roman superiority though, the Praets have an insanely long lifespan (they're as good as maces against everything but melee, and cheaper) and come out very early. The other famously (and apparently formerly) OP units, Redcoat and Cossack, don't come around until much later, often after the game's been decided. PS I remember when a 50 dollar bag cost 50 dollars.

 

[DaviddesJ]

I'm pretty sure yavoon's advocating the first and not the second - if a few civs are extremely over powered, then the other civs do not have significant advantages.

OK. Even if some civs have interesting, significant advantages---and others don't---that still creates more interesting variety in the gameplay, and more interesting strategy issues to talk about. (How do you best use those advantages? How do you defend against those advantages?)

 

[yavoon]

This is just false. If the civs have different, significant advantages, then you can discuss the game from all of the different points of view of those different civs. That's more discussion, not less. If the UUs are all nerfed so that they make no significant difference in the game, that's one less thing to discuss.

ur confusing balance w/ variety. if ppl have disparate abilities but those disparate abilities came out approximately equal in power u would have a lot of strategic discussion. if u have disparate abilities where there are obvious sucky and good civs then u have much less discussion.

I think what ur thinking I'm saying is that because I want things to be balanced I want things to be ineffectual or bland. when that is not true.

 

[Colossian]

Watiggi, your argument is a good one for Single Player. If you want a different experience every time, then why not have part of it be whether or not you are or are born near the almighty Romans? The problem is for Mutiplayer, where balance does count for something.

Good point!

One more thing, the overpowered Preatorian is nothing. In fact, I do not think Preatorian is overpowered. Roman doesnt have the nice traits. But the problem is... Standing or rushing Pratorians on the hill, its really overpowered. Do you know why ppl doesnt like the overpowered Pratorians? Because ppl doent want to play with Roman's trait, except its UU. I think Roman is good for AI in SP or a Warmonger in MP.

I hope we're talking about these words, balanced/unbalanced, fair/unfair, normal/over. Civ4 is a game, not a real life. This is for Fun. I have to repeat this question again. Do you want the overpowered units in Civ4/Warlords?

 

[Watiggi]

The Praetorian could also be seen as the all purpose defensive unit too. Think about it: All you would need is a Praetorian in each city (in SP). Julius's traits would allow him to build settlers fast and the Organised trait will dampen the burden of having many cities growing at the same time. Build Praetorians, have them defend the cities. Focus on expansion with building settlers and use the Praetorians to defend the city. It would take a dedicated effort for the AI to dislodge them. One wonders whether this is kind of what they are made for. The strong Praetorian defensive units can quickly be used to take out a close rival if need be too, but the focus is on actual expansion. That would make for a good builder game - not very challenging - but good nonetheless.

 

[a4phantom]

It's an all purpose everything unit. That's the problem.

 

[Gumbolt]

It seemed to me that he was indicating that the Mongols were notably, meaningly especially ruthless. Which for all I know they might have been, although the competition was fierce.

I think its fair to call Mongols notably ruthless.

'Mongol rule in conquered territories had two faces. Resistance and rebellion was countered by ruthless annihilation' http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/WestTech/xmongol.htm

I would hardly call the writers ruthless annihilation sending a letter warning for bad behaviour.

That being said i never compared the mongols to a particular nation in my post. Although i cant think of one that reduced Asia population by 30 million if thats true before or after Mongal Rule. I doubt even the Romans or Alexander came close to that in their time. Now law and order/ discipline might be another issue for romans. Far too much to cover in a post.

As for this praetorian unit. Leave it be or reduce strength to 7. I can just see a stack of axemen waiting to block praetorians getting run down by Roman chariots. That being said my biggest civ score over 100k was playing Romans on civ 4. My next nearest score was half that. Never got past producing praetorians and cats all game over 2 continents.

 

[MisterBarca]

The point is how OP a civ is. In reality even Praetorians can be neutralized with axemen. Redcoats and Cosaacks have been nerfed in Warlord. So to me it's a big stretch a player playing those civs with strong UU will beat you EVERY TIME. Afterall once you hold off the Praetorians, Romans are going nowhere.

The game has been made fairly balanced, and I don't want to see the game to be "further balanced". Communism leads to no fun.

Amen, brother.

 

[a4phantom]

The Romans destroyed Judea and displaced the Jewish population from ancient Israel for disobedience, and launched the Third Punic War to destroy Carthage and its population after the Second war had already eliminated it as a competitor. Mao and Stalin probably reduced Asia's population by over 30 million each (for Stalin it probably depends where you draw the Europe-Asia line), although that's much less compared to the population than the Mongols if rotten.com is a reliable source. Hitler would have if he hadn't been defeated before he got far into Asia.

As for playing Rome, I've had the same experience. The only way I've beat the game on Monarch without absolutely stacking the deck* is to use Rome.

* I beat it with Incas, but only on a tiny world on marathon speed.