May 6 Balance Change Proposals

[Legen]

Removing the xp from Logistics's 2nd attack makes sense, but Blitz isn't that strong to warrant it at the moment. Melee units take damage back when they attack, and they often end at low health if they attack twice, at danger of dying during the opponent's turn. If the xp loss on the 2nd attack goes for Blitz, I think the promotion will need a buff somehow.

Also, I think Blitz may benefit from being at the Shock branch instead of the Drill one. The higher flanking bonus and access to Overrun works into mitigating the health loss from attacking twice, as well as triggering heal on kill effects (Authority, certain uniques) more easily to make that second attack a safer choice. Meanwhile, cities with proper defensive infrastructure have high enough CS to force melee units to stop attacking from time to time in order to heal back; March may work better for sieges than Blitz for this reason. I'd consider swapping Blitz and March in the melee promotion tree.

 

[phantomaxl1207]

Is there a way to reduce the XP the 2nd hit gives instead of making it 0? That could be a good compromise.

 

[Rekk]

Meanwhile, cities with proper defensive infrastructure have high enough CS to force melee units to stop attacking from time to time in order to heal back; March may work better for sieges than Blitz for this reason.

Why would March help with having to stop attacking? Are you suggesting that it complement pillaging for health? It doesn't help healing otherwise.

 

[Stalker0]

Why would March help with having to stop attacking? Are you suggesting that it complement pillaging for health? It doesn't help healing otherwise.

A unit with march can attack and still heal on the same turn, especially if it has a medic 2 behind it. This means a marching unit recovers some of the damage it took from attacking.

 

[stii]

Are people really building loads of melee units and ramming them into cities?

I also find attacking cities with them before landships to be pretty useless even with 3 levels of city attack upgrades. They just take too much damage.

 

[andersw]

Are people really building loads of melee units and ramming them into cities?

I also find attacking cities with them before landships to be pretty useless even with 3 levels of city attack upgrades. They just take too much damage.

Mostly just defensive promos and fortify otherwise they just die , usually means drill -> cover 2 -> drill3 -> stalwart before thinking of any offensive promos.
Current game on emperor as shaka Im using impis offensively, that spear throw and 3move helps, on diety you're still unlikely to have much offensive room for them.
There is some room on emperor for other melee stuff as well like Caroleans, Berserkers and Samurai for example.

 

[Fluffball]

Firstly i would like to note that the poll is extremely biased as there are no voting options for happy as it is thus this poll only the popularity of one suggestion over another not how popular a suggestion may or may not be.

I feel some of the problems trying to be addressed are at best highly situational and in those very specific situations certain choices can seem overly effective but outside those very specific situations they are just average and maybe even useless.

Blitz and logistics being the best promotions by a wide margin is very much a personal choice and subject to the situation. I don't think getting xp on second attack really means much especially at the point these unlock.

If you have gone authority then blitz is a bit more attractive as you get the heal on kill at least but until the late game where your probably steamrollering anyway it can still be highly risky to stick a melee unit out there so you will probably want to pick up other protective promotions first so you can attack with a melee unit and not only survive the next turn but be able to keep that unit active after that without having to withdraw it to heal. If you haven't gone authority blitz is quite a poor choice, even if you have taken march beforehand as your likely to be taking so much damage that you will have to withdraw that unit for a while to heal.

For the ranged line i never really understood the love for logicistic unless your playing defensive. Yes in theory you get twice the xp per turn (and two waeker attacks) in the ideal situation where you have not had to move before hand but that comes at the opportunity cost of not having range or indirect fire on ranged units or extra movement on skirmishers. There is no advatage to having two attacks if you can't reach a target to attack it therefore logistics is usually not a great promotion if your playing offensively as you can't pick your battlefield and usually find your sight lines restricted. If your playing defensively then logistics is much better as you can pick your battlefield and ensure you can hit your target such as placing ranged units on hills or building roads for skirmisher units and logistics become much stronger and i feel that is fair as a none warmonger civ is usually heavily disadvantaged against aggressors and logisitics helps to even the odds.

The position of logistics in both the skirmisher and ranged line reflects this also with i being on the barrage side which gives bonuses to damaging units below 50% which is more useful on the defense as on the defense you are more likely to use you melee units first to attack so they stay in their nice safe defensive positions still and can be cycled out eaily next turn (assuming you built roads, as you should have) and then finish off the enemy with ranged attacks where as range and indirect fire are on the accuracy side which gives bonuses to units above 50% which is the more offensive side where you are likely to be using ranged units to weaken a target and use melee to finish them off and occupy space while getting a nice heal.

With all that in mind this often has little meaning if your not at least playing aggressive and maximising xp on a select few units as it can be quite a slog to get to this quandry from simply fighting and you only become spoilt for choice if you studiously go for the city state quests which give xp for capturing cities and lucky enough for them to be suitable targets so a the minor amount of additional xp your getting from blitz/logisitic at that point is but a drop in the ocean.

For logisitics on ships i feel that is far from the main issue with the speed/ease of naval warfare, with it being much more down to the open terrain of the seas and the devastating nature of a first strike attack even without logistics. Logistics does add to that first strike devastation but it simply speeds up the inevitable rather than making it inevitable. At the point logistics in naval warfare comes into play wars in general are usually much faster paced and a first strike on both land and sea can be devastating until the AI manages to mass it's units and build a defensive line. While in theory there is a cheese you can do with logistics where you can use it to move after attacking this is heavily negated until battleships as even if you have line of sight you can only attack coastal tiles and the AI is usually pretty good at not leaving units to be picked off on the coast unless it is hemmed in and then you micromanaging to cheese a promotion is not really the AI's real problem. I must admit i have experimented with this cheese in the past to try to give additional attacks while leveling up my other ships, maximise damage in general or to prevent my ships being hit in return and tbh it really wasn't worth the hassle. If your ranged ships have logistics at least some melee ships will have the vanguard and or siege and taking a coastal city will be really quick so you can just let your ranged ships take a hit or two and you should be bringing enough that they can be cycled out to heal anyway.

Having said that people are quite happy to play the game as they please as it is really a single player game and if they feel something is cheesy it is up to them whether they feel happy using it or not.

Not sure i see the logic of re-adding range to ships so that you can outrange land units and compensate for removal of move after shoot on one hand while removing logistics from ships to stop people doing this via cheesing it. Range does generally increase damage more than logistics as it allows more ships to fire from a safe spot thus not only increasing the immediate amount of shots available but also generally more shots available in the future as ships aren't getting damaged in the process and don't need to be withdrawn to heal.

Bit meh on giving both side indomitable as while it is a very good promotion allowing all ranged ships to get the promotion severly hampers the already weak boarding party promotion and i wonder do people really take bombardment as a first choice over targeting anyway?

If i was looking to improve the naval promotions i would move damage to land units to the bombardment line leaving damage to ships in the targeting line and this would leave shrapnel rounds where it is making more sense and fit in with changing broadsides to volley. This would also make me want to use the bombardment line more often as it would then be truely useful to have anti-naval ships (targeting line) and anti-land ships (bombardment line).

Regarding submarines, i feel the biggest issue with submarines is that they come so late it is difficult to judge what may or may not be useful. The wolfpack line is strong as it is the obvious choice that plays to what a submarine should do and even in a heavy warmonger game i rarely get any leaf promotions on my submarines so even with an improved promotion tree i likely will only take torpedo 1,2,3 for the most part and if i am lucky one of the leaf promotions if i make an effort to use my submarines. As submarines only really have one task and they have so little opportunity to gain xp and promotions tidying up the promotion tree would be useful as a second branch seems pointless. The one change i would like for submarines is to allow them to gain more xp such as being able to attack land units again, even if it was minor damage just to allow them to gain some xp and have a chance of gain more than the 3 core promotions. More interesting for me would be giving them an xp multiplier to make up for their late arrival and limited chance of combat as it can be quite easy to sweep the seas clear of enemy ships. Maybe even give them significant xp for pillaging trade routes also.

Would boradly support the swapping of Chu Ko Nu and Hwatcha promotions back as i feel both units feel lot less individual.

 

[Rekk]

Mostly just defensive promos and fortify otherwise they just die , usually means drill -> cover 2 -> drill3 -> stalwart before thinking of any offensive promos.
Current game on emperor as shaka Im using impis offensively, that spear throw and 3move helps, on diety you're still unlikely to have much offensive room for them.
There is some room on emperor for other melee stuff as well like Caroleans, Berserkers and Samurai for example.

Sort of why I think Drill should be "takes less damage from cities in general" instead of "deals more damage to cities when attacking".

 

[azum4roll]

Removing the xp from Logistics's 2nd attack makes sense, but Blitz isn't that strong to warrant it at the moment. Melee units take damage back when they attack, and they often end at low health if they attack twice, at danger of dying during the opponent's turn. If the xp loss on the 2nd attack goes for Blitz, I think the promotion will need a buff somehow.

Also, I think Blitz may benefit from being at the Shock branch instead of the Drill one. The higher flanking bonus and access to Overrun works into mitigating the health loss from attacking twice, as well as triggering heal on kill effects (Authority, certain uniques) more easily to make that second attack a safer choice. Meanwhile, cities with proper defensive infrastructure have high enough CS to force melee units to stop attacking from time to time in order to heal back; March may work better for sieges than Blitz for this reason. I'd consider swapping Blitz and March in the melee promotion tree.

Blitz melee ships are also a problem with the amount of movement points they have. They can safely attack twice THEN retreat. Land Blitz is noticeably weaker with or without the extra xp, but it's still good for an Authority player. I agree with the Blitz and March swap though.

 

[stii]

Blitz (on lands units) feels really win more to me. If you are taking low damage and can kill multiple units it is great but at that point it hardly matters. I'd rather take promotions that keep my units alive.

 

[Legen]

Are people really building loads of melee units and ramming them into cities?

I also find attacking cities with them before landships to be pretty useless even with 3 levels of city attack upgrades. They just take too much damage.

From time to time, yes. You can't always have that many artillery units sieging a city, which can result in the city healing a sizeable amount of the damage they deal. Having Drill units ramming occasionally can double or triple your effective damage-per-turn on that city, as that healing doesn't scale with how many hostile units are attacking.

The same rationale about healing can apply to melee units. Yes, they take some good damage when they ram into a developed city, but that can be offset by healing. With March, you can reduce the effective damage-per-turn taken from ramming the city. So, if a March melee unit takes, say, 40 damage on the ram and has a Medic II ally on his side, then the effective damage-per-turn taken is only 20, half of what a non-March unit faces. Meanwhile, I dare you ram a non-March Blitz unit twice for more than 80 damage taken (accounting the -13% CS loss from taking 40 damage) on that same city in a single turn.

 

[notaspambot]

I would disagree with the XP nerf on the basis that it's too broad: Logistics might possibly warrant it, but it also hurts Blitz and Air Logistics too. I don't think Logistics itself warrants the nerf either- the one point I do concede is that it makes balancing UUs a bit more tricky, but that alone isn't enough of a concern, in my opinion. Land units already have strong alternatives to contend with, while I would argue that though individual naval units might be strong with Logistics, naval ranged units as a class suffers from being relatively fragile and frontage/flanking being king in naval combat, meaning that it's not something that particularly ruins the balance.

Still, I do see the arguments for it, so I would be willing to see a Logistics nerf so long as it's limited to Logistics alone.

I also disagree with the change to naval promotions, especially the removal of Logistics entirely for naval units. Hitting Logistics on a naval ranged unit is one of the few highlights that naval combat has right now, because it's the most reliable way of securing kills and making you feel like you're "winning" in naval combat. And naval combat desperately needs whatever such joys it can muster to make it bearable for a player. Range is strictly a downgrade and not nearly as useful as it is for land units except in edge cases (bombing land units/cities).

The submarine changes feel fine though. No opinion on the UUs until the changes for Logistics, if any, are made final.

Also, quick mention about how I hate the poll and the way it's organised. It's a bunch of options of which some are dependent on another, while others have nothing to do with each other, all in random order, and without a "none of the above" option to boot! Blegh.

 

[pineappledan]

I would disagree with the XP nerf on the basis that it's too broad: Logistics might possibly warrant it, but it also hurts Blitz and Air Logistics too.

Holy crap, it’s even more of a problem on air logistics, what are you even talking about?

Also, quick mention about how I hate the poll and the way it's organised. It's a bunch of options of which some are dependent on another, while others have nothing to do with each other, all in random order, and without a "none of the above" option to boot! Blegh.

you want to make a new poll where each option is split into a yes/no option, resulting in 22 options, be my guest; make your poll. I tried making separate polls using straw polls once and people bellyached about that too. There's no pleasing anyone

 

[notaspambot]

Holy crap, it’s even more of a problem on air logistics, what are you even talking about?

Air units only have a short window before they begin to be intercepted, after which Air Logistics suffers the same problem as Blitz. It's still good, definitely better than Blitz, but not that massively a problem in my opinion.

you want to make a new poll where each option is split into a yes/no option, resulting in 22 options, be my guest; make your poll. I tried making separate polls using straw polls once and people bellyached about that too. There's no pleasing anyone

My choice would have been to add in brief headings to each option: 1)/2)/3) for each "main" option, and then 1a)/1b)/1c) for each suboption, and then reorder them so that all the relevant ones are grouped together. Then add a none of the above option.

 

[Rekk]

Consistency is important; removing XP from the second attack of a single promotion is inconsistent, especially given all of these promotions do exactly the same thing in the code: increase the number of attacks the unit has. Ranged attacks, melee attacks, air attacks, all are just considered a unit's attacks.

 

[Stalker0]

Air units only have a short window before they begin to be intercepted, after which Air Logistics suffers the same problem as Blitz. It's still good, definitely better than Blitz, but not that massively a problem in my opinion.

In my experience, there are always areas to avoid interception. Air Logistics is the go to promo for my air units, I always take it. That said, it frankly has nothing to do with the XP, its the simple fact I'm doubling the damage of my air units...what other promotion can top that? So whether people want to make air logistics also half XP won't affect my promotion decisision making one bit, its more a question: "Do people want to slow airplane's leveling in general?"

 

[Legen]

Personally, I have no issues with removing xp from blitz itself for consistency's sake. I just think it should get some small benefit as a compensation, since I don't think Blitz deserves a nerf. Something as simple as "+X% experience" would do.

 

[notaspambot]

Consistency is important; removing XP from the second attack of a single promotion is inconsistent, especially given all of these promotions do exactly the same thing in the code: increase the number of attacks the unit has. Ranged attacks, melee attacks, air attacks, all are just considered a unit's attacks.

I don't disagree- which is why I'd be willing to see a Logistics nerf, but not necessarily the XP nerf as proposed. For example, we could also slap a -50% experience gain on Logistics and call it a day.

That being said, I think we need to go back and clarify why XP should be limited to first attacks in the first place. The main rationale given seems to be that Logistics breaks UUs otherwise. But do people also think that there is a legitimate balance issue with Logistics/Air Logistics outside of the UUs, or even just multiple attacks granting experience in general?

I personally disagree with both, but I'd be more pliable to the idea if people had actual concerns regarding them.

Personally, I have no issues with removing xp from blitz itself for consistency's sake. I just think it should get some small benefit as a compensation, since I don't think Blitz deserves a nerf. Something as simple as "+X% experience" would do.

Yeah, if the XP changes do go through, I think adding a compensatory buff to Blitz would be a good addition to go along with it.

 

[pineappledan]

Personally, I have no issues with removing xp from blitz itself for consistency's sake. I just think it should get some small benefit as a compensation, since I don't think Blitz deserves a nerf. Something as simple as "+X% experience" would do.

At least for ships, could reduce the CS penalty

 

[azum4roll]

At least for ships, could reduce the CS penalty

There's already no CS penalty for Blitz. Blitz's main selling point for melee ships is still moving after attack.