Making Elves more flexible and less overpowered

[[to_xp]Gekko]

so, it seems to be common consensus that elves ( especially ljolsafar imho ) are overpowered. but that's untrue.

Elves following FoL and using Guardian of Nature are overpowered ( imho) .

it makes perfect sense that that is the most viable and rewarding choice for elves flavour-wise, and I like that. but I think the synergy here is overdone, and FoL with GoN is the ONLY viable choice if you are elves, making FoL a no-brainer. (unless you are roleplaying of course, but that's a different matter )

and that goes against the FFH philosophy of giving as much freedom of choice as possible to the player, doesn't it?

so I think that Guardian of Nature should have a cap to the amount of health and happiness that it can give. no more elven megacities that make no sense and should be exclusive to the Kurios anyway imho. suddenly, FoL is still the best choice for elves, but no longer a no-brainer, while all other civs are unaffected by the change as they are not going to have every single tile around their cities forested.

btw, imho Guardian of Nature should prevent anyone adopting it from chopping AND casting blaze. OTOH, it should give access to a new forest-preserve style improvement that can be built in forests+ancient forests and gives like +2gold or something, making FoL more appealing to non-elves ( currently it's pretty weak imho )

so, watcha guys think about this?

 

[onedreamer]

I don't agree with many points. In short:
- Svartalfar are more powerful than Ljosalfar both in human and in AI hands
- Guardian of Nature isn't overpowered as you and many others think, by a great deal. It has high maintenance, instead of paying this maintenance you can use money with gambling houses in order to increase happiness, but you get to SAVE this money instead of wasting it, and with all the other tools you have to harness happy faces it may not even be necessary to run this high maintenance civic. The health bonus it gives is also marginal since an elven civ will presumably cover its land with forests which already provide plenty of health.
- I don't like FoL heroes and generally switch to Order with Ljos and to Esus or other evil religions with Svart after adopting FoL for a while.

The only real feature of FoL is Guardian of Nature (and the heroes), if you consider this it's hard to say that the civic is overpowered O_O

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I'm definitely not saying that it's overpowered. I just think that the synergy of elven civs and guardian of nature is overdone, making all the other choices fade in comparison

 

[heisenberg]

btw, imho Guardian of Nature should prevent anyone adopting it from chopping AND casting blaze. OTOH, it should give access to a new forest-preserve style improvement that can be built in forests+ancient forests and gives like +2gold or something, making FoL more appealing to non-elves ( currently it's pretty weak imho )

I won't really call FoL "weak"--true, non-elves do not get as much out of FoL as the elves do, but the ability to build mega-cities brimming with happiness/health with GoN is still pretty strong on its own. FoL cities might take some time to grow to max size, but once you get there its hard to beat their production power imo (unless you're comparing it with dwarven arete). After you hit priesthood you can pretty much custom-make the amount of forests you need for a good balance, and perhaps pick Yvaine up later for terra-forming.

mmm... for eg. FoL is still my top pick for the kurios, for them to grow really big (then again it probably isnt a fair comparison since they are sprawling ) that said, outside of GoN, Yvaine and druids are pretty darn strong if you manage to keep to neutral and hoard those nature manas... affinity can create some real beastly units~

 

[onedreamer]

edit: in answer to #3

well I listed a number of reasons why this wouldn't be exactly true, at least IMHO. Besides, since GoN is the only feature requiring FoL as a state religion, it's obvious it is a no brainer. It's pretty much the same with Arete. And the synergy is rather between FoL and elves than elves and a civic that has no more impact on elves than any other civ.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

that's right. I'm not saying that GoN is a no-brainer. FoL is ( for elves ) . if you are FoL, it's just obvious that you go GoN of course. but the fact that if you are elves you ALWAYS go FoL is no good imho. I'm all for having a synergy between elves and treehugging, but there should still be other viable choices

 

[Mailbox]

There are other viable choices after turning all your trees to ancient forest, such as going Arete for even more production if you're in an especially hilly area. However, as long as elves can build in forests and ancient forests give + 1 , FoL will be a no brainer first religion for the elves.

 

[onedreamer]

@post #6

yeah I do agree with this. Although I'll repeat that my general tactic with elves is getting FoL just long enough to have a consistent number of ancient forests and a couple of priests of the leaves, then switch to other religions; and I don't seem to miss Guardian of Nature too much. It's also true that the alternatives to GoN for elves in that civic branch are really sub par, since the main competitor would be Agrarianism but that one isn't very good with forests.
The main reason why GoN is so appreciated by Kuriotates players (it seems to me I see GoN associated more often to the Kurios than to Elves) is that this civ has reduced upkeep costs so the biggest downside of Guardian of Nature (high maintenance) is less of a problem.

 

[heisenberg]

yea i suppose so, thats why ancient forests was hit with the nerf bat to 3%/turn i believe. Its still possible but it sure took a while for enough forests to transform, and you could possibly lose out on getting those heroes on your other primary religion if you dawdle in FoL for too long.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

actually I'm pretty sure that the main reason why GoN is appreciated by Kuriotates player is that the Kurios are ALWAYS looking for more happiness/health to keep their megacities growing and producing

 

[marioflag]

I don't agree with many points. In short:
- Svartalfar are more powerful than Ljosalfar both in human and in AI hands
- Guardian of Nature isn't overpowered as you and many others think, by a great deal. It has high maintenance, instead of paying this maintenance you can use money with gambling houses in order to increase happiness, but you get to SAVE this money instead of wasting it, and with all the other tools you have to harness happy faces it may not even be necessary to run this high maintenance civic. The health bonus it gives is also marginal since an elven civ will presumably cover its land with forests which already provide plenty of health.
- I don't like FoL heroes and generally switch to Order with Ljos and to Esus or other evil religions with Svart after adopting FoL for a while.

The only real feature of FoL is Guardian of Nature (and the heroes), if you consider this it's hard to say that the civic is overpowered O_O

As Gekko said i also find the synergy to be just too strong. Elves can have supertiles with Ancient Forests and Improvements while Guardian of Nature acts as a Globe theather for all cities, it makes their economy easily the strongest.I have also played some MP games vs Ljosalfar players and the only strategy viable is to rush otherwise a good player will always perform better than you. I can understand if Guardian of Nature is not changed because it's balanced for non Elven civs, but honestly supertiles without worrying about happiness is just too much for elves. it seems the most overpowered among the overpowered strategies.

 

[smusebaer]

If the elfs had a UU unit, that could forest into elder forest without FOL, perhaps a little bit later and on a other way (with sorcery for example or with elfen workers at a later tech), that would make the elfs more flexible. Not more powerfull, if the other ways are a little bit longer.

 

[Skitters]

I'd like to see a limit to the size villages can grow to in forested tiles as the idea of a town situated in a forest - and particularly an ancient forest - doesn't sit well with me.

Perhaps then with GoN there could be a cap on village size on the basis that growing any larger than village size would be detrimental to the forest and therefore conflict with the guardian theme?

 

[heisenberg]

well even the elves still take quite awhile to grow large with GoN. An early rush to limit their growth would help if you are worried about them growing too big.

 

[marioflag]

I'd like to see a limit to the size villages can grow to in forested tiles as the idea of a town situated in a forest - and particularly an ancient forest - doesn't sit well with me.

Perhaps then with GoN there could be a cap on village size on the basis that growing any larger than village size would be detrimental to the forest and therefore conflict with the guardian theme?

I like that suggestion because it is more realistic and would balance the powerful improvement + ancient forest tiles, but the problem is that it would make farm + ancient forest a no brainer.So penalties should be applied to all kind of improvements built in forests.

well even the elves still take quite awhile to grow large with GoN. An early rush to limit their growth would help if you are worried about them growing too big.

This imply that the rush should be successful , which is not always the case considering Ljosalfar powerful world spell.Ancient Forest + Farm assure a fast pop growth though.

 

[onedreamer]

As Gekko said i also find the synergy to be just too strong. Elves can have supertiles with Ancient Forests and Improvements while Guardian of Nature acts as a Globe theather for all cities, it makes their economy easily the strongest.

the fact that GoN allows for huge cities is a double edged weapon because that only means more upkeep costs and GoN has high maintenance costs, I will not stress this enough. You can obtain similar or even better results with gold spending and gambling houses. With all that health building public baths everywhere wouldn't be a problem either, and that's another 3 happy. How much happiness do you guys actually need to grow to size 30 cities ?

 

[MiKa523]

I'd like to see a limit to the size villages can grow to in forested tiles as the idea of a town situated in a forest - and particularly an ancient forest - doesn't sit well with me.

That's a good idea.

I agree that the elves could use some nerf besides the fact that they can't use catapults.
But they are too depending on FoL anyway(worldspell anyone?) even if there would be some downside to it.
Imho the problem is that you can't nerf FoL/GoN without taking the last bit of usefulness of this religion for non-elves.
(If you wanna discuss this, use one of the many "FoL for non-elves" strategy threads!)
So Skitters idea is a good start, because it mostly targets the elves.
Instead of reducing the max. cottage size, one could also simply add that Ancient Forest gives -1 commerce on each tile.
I have 2 other ideas:
-Remove forges for elves to compensate for the massive production increase granted by forests/ancient forests
-Move "bloom" to highpriests of leaves and maybe therefore make it target more than one tile, which would also reduce some MM, because you don't have to deal with every single tile.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I like the idea of limiting the size of cottage-types to villages as well. good call Skitters

 

[petepetepetep]

Total conjecture here, but my impression of fantasy-setting elves (like, I don't know, in lord of the rings and such) has always been that there just aren't too many of them. As such, the continent-straddling empire of pop. 30 cities does seem like a little much. I wouldn't want to cripple the race, but perhaps eleven cites should grow more slowly than others? Their nigh-unlimited potential for growth wouldn't be so bad, if it just took them a while to work up to it. Furthermore, "Ancient" forests seem to manifest everywhere within less than twenty turns of converting to FoL. Perhaps those should take longer as well?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I think that taking twice as long (or even longer) for both growing and starving would be appropriate for the Elves.