Jotnar: Balance Discussion Thread

[Breez]

I am playing them at Noble, Standard Size Map, Lakes.

They took me a bit to get going, but now that I am I seem to be steam rolling everyone.

I slowly had to lower my research rate till I was at 10%... 90% taxes. I was broke before I got ti rolling. Up to 20% research now, but having money come in as I capture cities.

I am up to 24 cities with an AC of 2. I am drowning in adult Giants. Some turns I get 3+ "a child is born" in the same turn.

I have
- 5 hill giants (including the stooges)
- 2 troll hunters (one level 15 who with HN and Othus' Axe has been REEKING havoc on my neighbors softening them up for invasion)
- The founder
- Bambur
- My original Worker
- 39 Adult Citizens that I really don't need. Sure I could make some more cities, but I am capturing cities so fast my economy can't keep up at the moment.

I finally declared nationality on all my units, just to give the AI a chance. Oddly enough my hill giants still can't capture cities, but they empty 'em out and thralls walk in and take them.

I am finding 3 thralls are capable of defending most of my cites because my HN units were keeping all the AI's from every getting stacks to attack me with.

Might it be possible to make it so if a child is born anywhere, then no other city can get one that turn? Or you may consider slightly reducing the chance per turn of getting a child at extremely low AC.

 

[WarKirby]

Why does the AC always need to have things to do with it?

The Spawn Rate is 3% per turn, calculated for each city, if I recall. so more cities = more chances. Theoretically, with 33 cities, you'd be getting a citizen every turn, although that rarely happens in practice.

There are some problems with this approach
1. Early on, when you only have one city, it takes forever to get citizens. So jotnar expand slowly and have poor starts

2. You enter rapidly accelerating returns as you aquire more cities. Each city yields more citizens, which can be more settlers, which found more cities, which give more citizens. Etc....


The way I think this should be addressed.

• Unlink spawn rates from the Armageddon Counter completely, I really dislike that.
• Make the Jotnar population cap, apply to the number of GIANTS, not only the number of citizens. Therefore not penalizing the player for not upgrading them.
• To compensate for the above, raise the cap to 3 per city.
• Change the spawning calculations to a manner more like the Archos spiders. ie, when you have none, you'll get a new one fairly quickly. When you have a lot, new ones will be rarer. Base "a lot" on what percentage of the population cap is currently in use.
• Limit giant spawns to once per turn
• Instead of calculating a spawn in each city, have the spawn calculated more centrally, and when a spawn occurs, have the giant's starting city randomly chosen.

 

[Randomness]

I personally like the idea of taking away the citizen's abillity to improve, then allow them to upgrade into workers. However, I think that the upgrades should also be much less expansive ( the highest in the 125-150 range, averaging around 45-75). This would make your citizens fairly useless untill upgraded, but make it much less likely to have 1 upgraded giant to every 5-10 citizens. I also think that the mountains need to be workable (prehaps even upgradable via windmills), and then flavouring them towards mountains, hills, and plains.

 

[Valkrionn]

What Xien said

I'm looking at tidying up the XML (quite a lot of it was mis-indented or had the blank fields that we typically strip out in UnitInfos/PromotionInfos, then addressing some of the other concerns raised on the boards, then adding some more appropriate power/asset ratings to units/promotions.

While you're at it, I'd like to see the unit and building requirements cleaned up a bit... Mostly removing Traditions as a requirement, and adding a civilization requirement instead. Should get the units to show up in the Jotnar 'pedia page.

 

[scutarii]

I like citizen spawning mechanic and their ability to do dirty work while awaiting for application to army.

Why?

From here jotnar draw their strenght? From many cities, due to cap and working area limit they are small but at the same time you can practically build up every workable tile.
Spawning as it is encourages to continiue jotnar's unique "living style".

The last thing we need here is to change spawning rate more scion-ish.

Due to pretty specific nature of various higher level warriors it is better to leave it to player to decide, what kind of soldiers he needs.


I know, I know, many play smaller maps and therefore prefer "early rush" civ styles but it is time to accept that jotnar does not belong to before mentioned category. Heck, even their hero is far more suitable for working ( big bonus in early phase) and defending from barbs than sending him for quick conquest.

I think it is unfair to whine and moan when civ does not suit to your favourite playing style.

 

[Breez]

Personally I never warrior rush. I am more of a builder personality.

My problem is this race DOES fit my play style. Too well. Once it gets started there is no stopping it. Some balance point needs to be found.

For the record I also like that the new giants are workers. I just think they need to limit the spawns slightly.

Please make ANY changes minor. Let them be tested and then adjust again if needed. I hate huge reactionary changes that swing too far the other way.

 

[WarKirby]

The last thing we need here is to change spawning rate more scion-ish.

Why?

I identified two key problems with the current system. Are you refuting my assertation that thee's a shortage of citizens in the early game, and a large surplus once your empire gets off the ground?

I've suggested a spawning mechanic which would address these issues, and be more fair overalll. It happens to be similar to an existing design, because existing designs are tried and tested. Although I did specifically ite Archos, not Scions. there's a lot of difference.

 

[scutarii]

Why?

I identified two key problems with the current system. Are you refuting my assertation that thee's a shortage of citizens in the early game, and a large surplus once your empire gets off the ground?

I've suggested a spawning mechanic which would address these issues, and be more fair overalll. It happens to be similar to an existing design, because existing designs are tried and tested. Although I did specifically ite Archos, not Scions. there's a lot of difference.

I see your point, but...

Early jotnar citizens can be workers and at too early phase several workers may be overpowering.( not exactly overpowering but they would negate AI bonuses at higher level)
Since citizens counts as upkeep, it is better to let 'em work til you have enough of money to upgrade some of them: not possible at ancient era, usually.

I admit, jotnars are not able to defend vs early rush well, but hey, most of civs are not!

Let scions have their "birth" mechanic, archos their and jotnars their...

large surplus later...? Massive conquest to either way changes it to lack of capable soldiers.But later spawning during wartime needs some extra testing, I, at least, had to buy mercs due to emergency....

 

[WarKirby]

Let scions have their "birth" mechanic, archos their and jotnars their...

Let me mention something.

97 turns before my first citizen, in the last game I played.
to begin with, your chance of getting a citizen is a mere 3%

On the other hand, this chance linearly increases with each new city. By the time you've got 5-6 cities, you're rolling in citizens. They can be upgraded to pretty darn powerful, regenerating, mountain walking, 4 attack, hidden nationality trolls. for a mere 5 gold.

I#m not suggesting they shouldn't have a decent reserve of citizens. But it seems like a problem when you have more than you know what to do with.

Jotnar take forever to get off the ground, but then they pretty much steamroll anything. I'd call that a bit unbalanced in several ways, and I think it needs some tweaking.

 

[scutarii]

Let me mention something.

97 turns before my first citizen, in the last game I played.
to begin with, your chance of getting a citizen is a mere 3%

On the other hand, this chance linearly increases with each new city. By the time you've got 5-6 cities, you're rolling in citizens. They can be upgraded to pretty darn powerful, regenerating, mountain walking, 4 attack, hidden nationality trolls. for a mere 5 gold.

I#m not suggesting they shouldn't have a decent reserve of citizens. But it seems like a problem when you have more than you know what to do with.

Jotnar take forever to get off the ground, but then they pretty much steamroll anything. I'd call that a bit unbalanced in several ways, and I think it needs some tweaking.

Once AI gets his favourite line going - assassins and rangers, trolls are in deep trouble.

By far bigger issue IMO is lack of capable defenders in troll line...

We need more testing really before shouting at each other. 1 or 2 games is IMO way too few.

Scions took several months and hundreds of hours testing before finding more or less of balance...and this work continiues....

 

[Vermicious Knid]

It might just be me...but the global "no defensive bonus" bothers me. A civilization that is crazy about walls (steading, walls give + happy, unique wonder wall) gets no defensive benefit from them? I don't know what would need to be tweaked for the sake of balance if the Jotans were allowed normal defensive bonuses, but I can't wrap my mind around why they don't get them. Why wouldn't a wall built to giant scale be as useful to a giant as a wall built to human scale is to a human?

 

[WarKirby]

It might just be me...but the global "no defensive bonus" bothers me. A civilization that is crazy about walls (steading, walls give + happy, unique wonder wall) gets no defensive benefit from them? I don't know what would need to be tweaked for the sake of balance if the Jotans were allowed normal defensive bonuses, but I can't wrap my mind around why they don't get them. Why wouldn't a wall built to giant scale be as useful to a giant as a wall built to human scale is to a human?

You have an interesting point here.

They don't get defensive bonuses from hills and forests, because such things are generally too small for them to bother with.

It would be interesting to see a special Jotnar wall that gives defensive bonuses only to giants, though.

But it would have to be several times more expensive than a normal one. And also, thralls wouldn't be able to benefit from it.


As to the trolls, I'm finding thus far that they aren't really in danger of anything. Troll hunters are str6 (attack) at a base, and that's before unitage upgrades they'll likely have.

Their low defensive strength is a minor issue, but I feel that you shouldn't really be defending as jotnar. It becomes a non issue when you sit on a mountaintop and are unassailable.

 

[Lekkric]

I don't get why normal walls wouldn't be useful for the giants. I agree that the giants wouldn't be slowed much by walls, but that's indicated by their bombard ability. When they're defending, it's human-sized people attacking the walls, so the wall should be just as useful as for anyone else.

 

[WarKirby]

I don't get why normal walls wouldn't be useful for the giants. I agree that the giants wouldn't be slowed much by walls, but that's indicated by their bombard ability. When they're defending, it's human-sized people attacking the walls, so the wall should be just as useful as for anyone else.

because they can't stand on top of normal sized walls, and hide among the crenellations from incoming arrows

 

[Vehem]

Make the Jotnar population cap, apply to the number of GIANTS, not only the number of citizens. Therefore not penalizing the player for not upgrading them.

Change the spawning calculations to a manner more like the Archos spiders. ie, when you have none, you'll get a new one fairly quickly. When you have a lot, new ones will be rarer. Base "a lot" on what percentage of the population cap is currently in use.

I'm toying with something along these lines at the moment, as it does address the issue of "not enough vs too many" - when you're short of giants, you'd get them quicker. When you have a lot, you'd get them far less frequently.

As the Giants rely upon their age mechanic to grow in strength, it doesn't really benefit them to have a high turnover (sending out giants to fight and die so that you get more and more).

 

[Lekkric]

because they can't stand on top of normal sized walls, and hide among the crenellations from incoming arrows

But they can just stand behind the wall. If normal sized people were being attacked by 1-1/2 foot tall people, you wouldn't need thirty foot walls that you can stand on. A 6 foot wall with a 1 foot high walkway behind it would be enough to protect you while allowing you to shoot back.

Either way, a civ that's flavor-wise geared toward walls and fortifications should get some benefit from those walls.

 

[WarKirby]

Either way, a civ that's flavor-wise geared toward walls and fortifications should get some benefit from those walls.

I always thought that the wall happiness bonus was more to do with compensating for the lack of usual benefit from it.

 

[Vermicious Knid]

because they can't stand on top of normal sized walls, and hide among the crenellations from incoming arrows

I always imagined the Jotnar as similar to the Giants from the Thomas Covenant books...and those giants were certainly capable of building appropriately scaled buildings.

How tall are FFH giants anyway? If they are the size of D&D giants (10'-20') then they should be able to get benefits from forests, walls, etc... If they are 100' feet tall then I agree that wall/forest/whatever bonuses make no sense.

 

[WarKirby]

How tall are FFH giants anyway? If they are the size of D&D giants (10'-20') then they should be able to get benefits from forests, walls, etc... If they are 100' feet tall then I agree that wall/forest/whatever bonuses make no sense.

This... is an interesting question.

I imagine them as being tall enough to pick up an average sized tree, and use it as a two handed club. Not a huge redwood tree though.

I envision the average man, as coming up to just below their kneecaps in height.
Presumably in combat, human soldiers would fight by injuring a giant's legs with blades, or by hurling things (spears, arrows, etc) at it's upper body.

 

[Breez]

I completly agree that it is odd they have affinity for walls when

A: Happiness is completely useless it is EXTREMELY easy to get to 8 happiness with out building walls.

B: They get no defensive bonus from them.

Thralls do, but 25% or even 75% of 2 is NOT much to hang your hat on. Would it make since to let them have normal defensive bonuses but a racial -25% defensive in hills, forrest, jungle, and marsh? Would let them get Defensive bonuses from walls AND let them make use of Forestry and Mountaineering proms they can buy but are darn near useless

As to the trolls, I'm finding thus far that they aren't really in danger of anything. Troll hunters are str6 (attack) at a base, and that's before unitage upgrades they'll likely have.

Their low defensive strength is a minor issue, but I feel that you shouldn't really be defending as jotnar. It becomes a non issue when you sit on a mountaintop and are unassailable.

Troll Hunters are fine but cost 165 gold... Wild trolls are a different matter, which are what you alluded to earlier for 5 gold. When upgraded to a Wild troll the Giant Citizen's defense drops from 4 to 3. Wild Trolls are NOT a good cheap defensive option. Troll hunters are an option but they are not cheap.