Jotnar: Balance Discussion Thread

[Vehem]

I'm not sure removing HN from trolls and hill giants is a good idea. I'd argue that it does fit the lore.

Trolls have the estranged promo, giving them a chance to turn barbarian. Their pedia entry mentions that many jotnar settlements are attacked by trolls. They're also quite biologically different from giants, and I don't think it's logical for the average erebusian to know that any wandering troll is a servant of the jotnar

Hill giants, similarly, have HN because there already are barbarian hill giants in the world. They serve the jotnar, butthey walk among their wild kin, and are indistinguishable from them to most people.

Aye - it could certainly be argued, but the Clan would have a stronger case (massed orcs are less unusual than massed giants - wild giants tend to be solo).

The main reason isn't lore based though - it's just that HN contributed to the steamroller potential. You can pick on weak units at no risk to the nation (they won't declare war), gaining XP and weakening rivals. I don't think they were ever really designed to be a subtle/deceptive civ, but HN makes it better to play them that way.

 

[Valkrionn]

Aye - it could certainly be argued, but the Clan would have a stronger case (massed orcs are less unusual than massed giants - wild giants tend to be solo).

The main reason isn't lore based though - it's just that HN contributed to the steamroller potential. You can pick on weak units at no risk to the nation (they won't declare war), gaining XP and weakening rivals. I don't think they were ever really designed to be a subtle/deceptive civ, but HN makes it better to play them that way.

That is exactly why I warmed to the idea... Always bugs me when the 'flavour' of the civ doesn't match the best play style.

 

[Tarquelne]

That is exactly why I warmed to the idea... Always bugs me when the 'flavour' of the civ doesn't match the best play style.

I find very little subtle or deceptive about rampaging bands of trolls or hill giants.

The "steamroller" part, OTOH, I agree with. If Civ offered a more sophisticated HN system along with a much more sophisticated diplomatic AI the "wild, maybe not!" Jotnar units could be done right. They're a lot of fun as HN but it's awfully hard for the AI to cope.

"Estranged" seems far more appropriate... and yet "Estranged" *does* allow for some subtlety: Make trolls and have them loiter near rivals, hoping they'll go barb. Sounds like something the good leader would avoid ("Sorry!"), the neutral one wouldn't embrace but wouldn't care about ("So!? Have you got a problem with me?") and the evil would would enjoy ("I never saw that troll before in my life.")

 

[Vehem]

They're a lot of fun as HN but it's awfully hard for the AI to cope.

Aye - a Human would spot instantly what is going on and declare war. Hidden Nationality suits units like Animals and Mercenaries that you can use deceptively against human players (I've been known to attack a human in a 3 player game from the direction of the other human player's borders, in an attempt to provoke a conflict), but if you want to rampage with Trolls and Hill Giants, there's a fairly good chance that a nation will realize where they're coming from.

Even if the giant attacking did happen to be a wild one, odds are most civs wouldn't bother with the distinction and blame "those giants over there" anyway...

=====

But still. Selectively attacking allows units to gain disproportionate strength with little risk of your own empire being attacked. Now you get to either fight barbarians, or engage in actual warfare (which can be risky if the initial attack fails) in order to level your units. The first battles at least will be genuine struggles, though as with any civ, the high level survivors will be prone to steam rolling the rest of the world (Jotnar more so, slightly tempered by the -30% combat XP from Giantkin).

 

[WarKirby]

A general thought.

If an HN unit is defeated in battle, it should be interrogated, resulting in anegativediplomacy penalty with the civ you were fighting, and possibly a declaration of war.

 

[Breez]

Another option would be to have the promotion Wild trolls get that make them go Barb (estranged?) include HN You could rampage in enemy areas until it wore off (kicking you out) or the unit when barbarian.

Would allow a VERY limited usage while keeping it basically following of the lore. While the troll is wild it can do much anything it wants. It either goes Completely native (Barb) or it calms down and joins the Giant society, there by agreeing to abide by the rules, i.e. recognizing foreign borders.

PERSONALLY I would like to see the Estranged be coded as Enraged is, in that the AI controls the unit. That way the HN portion suggested above can not be abused by the human player. You only get control when that wears off. Controling a "wild" unit doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Of course I would propose lowering the cost to acknowledge that the wild unit is less useful. 5 amy still be too low but 10 or 20 might not be bad.

 

[xienwolf]

One thing I'll try to work on this summer is setting up AI which can handle Hidden Nationality.

1. If a battle happens with an HN unit, during the skipped War Weariness check, instead it will check that unit type against the list of Barbarian Civ units. If it doesn't match up, or has the wrong type of race, then it checks against the currently living player Civs for a matching unit type, default promotion, and/or state religion. All players who COULD have used the unit will suffer a diplomatic penalty of "You cannot control your own troops!" that will slowly build with more and more harassment. This penalty will automatically apply to a player if the battle happened within their cultural control, regardless of the chances that the HN unit belonged to them.
2. LeaderHeadInfos will gain a new Threshold field which controls the attitude which is required for them to be willing to attack someone else with the HN units they personally control. Another threshold value for what attitude they are willing to move their HN units into another player's territory (typically it will be the same value). The Threshold will also apply for killing HN units within another player's borders (ie - if I do not attack anyone Friendly or better with my own HN units, then while I wander through your territory I also don't attack any HN units I find if I am Friendly or better with you. Of course, if you turn around and attack ME while I am wandering through, you'll suffer diplomatic penalties)
3. Another project being worked on is teaching the AI to proactively defend against Barbarians to prevent pillage-parties. This will naturally extend to attempting to wipe out HN units which enter their borders. There will be no link to the Leaderhead Threshold for killing other people's HN units within your own cultural borders, all existing HN units will be a target

With these 3 complete, the AI should play fairly well with the whole concept of HN units. They'll have a player's intuition for where a unit came from ("Gee, I was just attacked by an HN Alazkan... FAERYL! KNOCK IT OFF!"), and will eventually decide to begin counter-harassment, and then eventually full on war. Allies wandering through your territory will be less likely to kill off any HN they randomly discover (though backstabbers like Faerly will probably ALWAYS be willing to fight HN). And AI will attempt to kill any HN units in their territory instead of just sitting around wishing that their units would stop mysteriously dying.

 

[WarKirby]

All players who COULD have used the unit will suffer a diplomatic penalty of "You cannot control your own troops!" that will slowly build with more and more harassment.

I can see a flaw here.

What about... a nightwatch. Anyone can build those, and they're identical for all races. Is attacking someone with a nightwatch going to make them paranoid enough to declare war on the entire world?

 

[Tarquelne]

I can see a flaw here.

What about... a nightwatch. Anyone can build those, and they're identical for all races. Is attacking someone with a nightwatch going to make them paranoid enough to declare war on the entire world?

Weigh it toward relationships that are already poor.

 

[WarKirby]

Weigh it toward relationships that are already poor.

So if you maintain a pretense of friendship, you can more easily get away with HN attacks?


In any case, with this kind of AI, HN trolls and giants woluld be ok.
Semi related, I think we need barbarian wild trolls spawning around the world, like hill giants.

 

[xienwolf]

Nightwatch is a religious unit, so anyone who follows Esus would suffer the penalty. Since I am trying to make them as smart as a human, that means anyone who doesn't have a religion and isn't agnostic.

 

[WarKirby]

Nightwatch is a religious unit, so anyone who follows Esus would suffer the penalty. Since I am trying to make them as smart as a human, that means anyone who doesn't have a religion and isn't agnostic.

I was about to say, following esus is supposed to be a secret.

But remember that you can build Esus units without following CoE, including shadows. So trying to guess who has esus as a state religion isn't likely to work.


On another note, I can see this hitting the Svartalfar incredibly hard. Being as they're one of the only two elven races, if it's using race to guess things, then they're going to be found out incredibly easily.

It might be a good idea to have some way of doing "hidden race". like maybe cutting off their pointy ears to make themselves look human, causing their racial promo to be hidden, and not factored into these calculations.

 

[xienwolf]

Why? Any human would instantly know that the pasty white elven units are coming from the Svartalfar. Why shouldn't the AI know that as well?

 

[civ_king]

are Jotnar good on really dense maps, say tiny with 28 civs?

 

[WarKirby]

are Jotnar good on really dense maps, say tiny with 28 civs?

That would be amusing to try.

I'd say, very much yes. Scions would also be good, as both of them aren't reliant on building settlers.

 

[Vehem]

are Jotnar good on really dense maps, say tiny with 28 civs?

Haven't tried that one, but they are very amusing on Erebus maps without any Peak Softening...

*stomp* *stomp* *trip over a mountain* *splat* "Oh sorry, was that your settler?"

 

[civ_king]

LOL when I do tiny 28 civs i use Oasis
I wonder if we could have negative peak softening

 

[Vermicious Knid]

So...patch M. The change list looks awesome (although the nerf to mills makes me cry).


Couple of thoughts.


1. What about allowing jot workers to upgrade to the mage equivalent (skald?)? Would allow you to have mages that are really, really good at building mana nodes and would make upgrade to workers less of a dead end.

2. I fear that the Jotnar are a bit strategically narrow. Some that is by design (lots of small thoroughly-improved cities, small elite armies). However, it would be nice if there was some more choice in how you developed your cities, had greater freedom to pursue the various paths to victory, etc... As it stands all of your cities are going to end up size 8, regardless of terrain or resources. Furthermore they will end up size 8 just as rapidly as a human city...which doesn't match the "slow-breeding race in trouble" lore.

3. What about increasing food consumed per population rather than a hard cap on city size? Would make the cities grow slower and it would leave room for a specialist economy...a relatively inefficent one, but a specialist econ nonetheless. Would also make cottage spam less of a no-brainer for them, which as it stands is a little thematically jarring.

 

[Arctic Circle]

Aye - it could certainly be argued, but the Clan would have a stronger case (massed orcs are less unusual than massed giants - wild giants tend to be solo).

The main reason isn't lore based though - it's just that HN contributed to the steamroller potential. You can pick on weak units at no risk to the nation (they won't declare war), gaining XP and weakening rivals. I don't think they were ever really designed to be a subtle/deceptive civ, but HN makes it better to play them that way.

I must say that I had some idea of the early units having HN, making it possible for Jotnar to supress the growth of neighbours in early game. It was never intented to hang on beyond tier one.

Perhaps only allow HN on the Jotnar units if they have evil alignment, aka use the Leader Uxol. Uxol are not financial, and there is less steamroller effect? It also make Uxol a more attractive choice.

Also, since many have said 'I'd never use Uxol' .. remember that since he is barbarian, you can recruit goblins at goblin forts to supplement your own troops. AND all your wild trolls that go barbarian will attack your enemies.

He is also more adapted to a magic-strategy, something that works rather fine. Remember that you'll get spellcasters that max out around 10-13 in strength.

If you go Ashen Veil and push up the Armageddon Counter you can also mass-produce orc conscripts. Often you can build up a good amount of Jotnar anyway, IF you are careful with them. Having casters that use summons work very well for this.

But not everything is fun and games, last game I was attacked by Ljosalfar, about thirty fawns and a bunch of hunters and warriors appeared on my borders (War was declared) and I had Egrass, a Mouth of the divine, nine citizens and a bunch of Thralls. My workers actually saved two cities as defensive units. From my nine citizens that I turned into Wild Trolls, one defected and ran off, and all the other ones died trying to keep my cities. It took 150? turns to get back to having nine citizens and if not the Ashen Veil hero popped two turns after Ljosalfar attacked and I had a Goblin fort within my cultural borders ... they would have taken me down.

 

[Arctic Circle]

By the way, if fighting a Jotnar player, if you can - attack from three fronts at the same time with three decently equal stacks. Problem is that Jotnar have some awesome units, but they are few and sometimes badly distributed among the cities. Its really hard to defend many cities at once when you only have about five kick-ass units + Thralls.