Mechanos Affinity broken?

[rmunn]

I've been playing as the Mechanos lately, and I'm beginning to wonder if the Mechanos Affinity trait is working as intended.

The Mechanos replacement for the Catapult is the Organ Gun, which has a ranged attack of 4@70%. It also starts with Corned Powder and Mechanos Affinity. Corned Powder pushes it to 4@80%, and Mechanos Affinity (according to the civilopedia) should give its ranged attack a +1 damage and +10% damage limit, making its actual ranged attack 5@90% once all bonuses are figured in.

However, I've found that the Mechanos Affinity trait seems to be acting as "Refined Mana Affinity" -- in my current game where I managed to get six refined mana sources early on, my organ guns had a ranged attack of 10 and a 100% damage limit.

Since the Mechanos are guaranteed two sources of Refined Mana (one from their palace, and one from the Ordo shrine), that means that their post-shrine Organ Guns will have a ranged attack of at least 6, with no damage limit (or 100% damage limit if you prefer to think of it that way). Add the fact that they do collateral damage, and suddenly you have a stack-destroying unit of unequaled power in the early game.

The fact that you can do a bombardment attack at the end of your turn even after having used up all your movement adds the final touch of icing on to a very destructive cake. Here's how to exploit the Mechanos Affinity trait for fun and profit conquest:

1) Beeline Construction. Start building Organ Guns.
2) Get a Great Engineer as soon as possible, and build the Ordo shrine.
3) Take your stack of Organ Guns, along with a few melee units -- even warriors will be adequate -- and go march over to your neighbor's closest city.
4) On the same turn where you moved next to his city, select your stack of movement-exhausted Organ Guns and do a ranged attack onto his defending stack. If you've got a decent number of Organ Guns, some (or even all) of his defenders will be killed outright, and the rest will be weakened enough that they'll pose no threat next turn.
5) Next turn, fire again with your Organ Guns, killing the entire rest of his stack while taking no damage, and march your warriors and organ guns into his now-empty city. Rest one turn in the city to heal any minor scratches his archers did to you with ranged fire, then pick the next target city and return to step 3.

As much fun as it is running around the world and utterly destroying everything with an early-game unit, this feels broken to me. Was Mechanos Affinity really intended to add its +1 ranged attack and +10% ranged damage cap bonuses for every source of Refined Mana the Mechanos own? Or was it supposed to be a once-only thing?

 

[shoggi]

I'm not going to argue that mechanos affinity is really powerful, but it is working as intended.
It is "Affinity" and every affinity works more or less the same. It gives you a bonus (mostly 1 or 2 strength) for every relevant ressource.
So + 1 nature mana affinity gives you 1 strength per nature mana, for example.
And mechanos affinty gives you + 1 ranged damage and 10% to max damage.
Maybe it's broken, but it's definitly not a bug.

 

[Valkrionn]

Working as intended there. Honestly, it's the exact same power overall as any other affinity; It's just ranged instead of melee. That's it. And that's far more fitting for the Mechanos as a whole.

Now, is it too strong atm? Yes. But that's a matter of the siege units in general, not the affinity.

 

[isthmus]

Should mechanos units even get an improvement from multiple refined mana resources?

I'd be more in favor of an economic boost rather than an affinity boost for all siege units. I still think that some mechanos units should have an affinity for refined mana but these should be late-ish game.
I'm thinking along the lines of a mechanos-related guild that provides economic boosts like hammers or beakers, using a similar system as we know guilds now (pre RiFE overhaul of guilds).
Guild headquarters should get a free refined mana, and allows adeptus units who can get more refined mana. If mechanos are in game then they found the guild on the first turn, but other civs can found it if mechanos arn't in game (allows refined mana, and from that railroads to become accessible to other civs if they so desire but its still a mechanos specific advantage if they're in-game).
If possible the guild should impose some restrictions on religous units or buildings if you support it (mechanos are agnostic so supporting the guild is a no-brainer).

 

[Aline]

I say: remove the +10% dmg cap and you at leat cant kill of everything without acctualy fighting

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I don't agree with you.
Honestly if you have problems with artillery use any sort of horseman to destroy them.

Since the affinity adds up to ranged instead of normal combat they should still be fairly easy to kill in a strait fight.

 

[isthmus]

I don't agree with you.
Honestly if you have problems with artillery use any sort of horseman to destroy them.

Since the affinity adds up to ranged instead of normal combat they should still be fairly easy to kill in a strait fight.

That's true but you can load up the mechanos siege units into their flying units, and still use the ranged attack whilst being transported. This means that the siege units have enough mobility to hit and run and escape from a mounted response. Especially if there's a handy mountain or lake nearby to prevent being attacked.

 

[Grey Fox]

That sounds like an oversight...

 

[Valkrionn]

I say: remove the +10% dmg cap and you at leat cant kill of everything without acctualy fighting

That would make it useless. More strength, without the ability to make use of it, is pointless.

Again, IMO the issue isn't the affinity. It's of the same strength as any other affinity. The issue is the number of units which have it, and the strength of those units. I'm going to be tweaking that.

That's true but you can load up the mechanos siege units into their flying units, and still use the ranged attack whilst being transported. This means that the siege units have enough mobility to hit and run and escape from a mounted response. Especially if there's a handy mountain or lake nearby to prevent being attacked.

That sounds like an oversight...

Not so much an oversight as a "Not much to do about it". Similarly, you can transport mobile fortresses without railroads if you load it into a transport.

 

[Niveras]

I don't agree that the issue is the affinity is as strong as any other affinity: the fact that it increases the damage cap in addition to damage means, at the very least, it is doing two things rather than just the one for melee affinity. Just because it does the same thing as melee affinity (or near enough in your estimation) doesn't make it balanced, not when ranged combat itself is already so powerful to the point of exploitation. But you are right this is partially a factor of how ranged combat works itself.

Incidentally, how does ranged combat work itself? That is, how does attacking unit's ranged strength affect how much damage it deals?

I'd be inclined to say that mechanos affinity should only increase the unit's ranged damage cap rather than both the strength and the damage cap, and probably halve it at that (5% per refined mana). That still gives you killer units that can obliterate a stack without engaging in direct combat, but you'll need more refined mana (or more advanced units) to hit the damage cap, and more units to whittle down the defenders because each siege unit is not one-shotting everything it and its collateral damage hits. Requiring a bigger investment means less chance to steamroll your opponents 100 turns into the game - or however long it takes to get Construction and some refined mana.

Could fix the mobile fortress issue by making them transports themselves. Though maybe not: certainly you can't load a naval transport into a naval transport, but hunters are transports for birds and can load into a naval transport (as long as it's not carrying a bird itself). I'm not sure if that is a result of special coding on the part of the hunter, being not really a transport but simply "carries birds." This wouldn't work for siege units, though, unless you made them all transports as well.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

That's true but you can load up the mechanos siege units into their flying units, and still use the ranged attack whilst being transported. This means that the siege units have enough mobility to hit and run and escape from a mounted response. Especially if there's a handy mountain or lake nearby to prevent being attacked.

I don't quite see what you intend to say.
If someone is attacking you it is you who will have the advantage of roads.
And roads + horse units = dead artillery.
Its not like Airships were immune to attack last time I checked.

It's not that I don't see how the whole affinity thing could become overpowered in the right conditions it's just that I don't see these conditions being easy to achieve.


I mean, if your enemy does not have fireball adepts/horse units or other high mobility forces by the time you tech to airships and get your self 6 mana nodes than he deserves what's coming to him.

In my games I usually have to go conquering just so that I can get my 3rd+ node.

So this one goes to the ones making the mod. Please think about this clearly.
I for one starkly believe that while this might be an issue you need a hell of a lot luck for it to become the thing rmunn described.

You can't balance the game around extreme luck + blessings of amalthon.

 

[Valkrionn]

The issue with the Airships is that you can position them on mountains and then attack. This is handled easier with Mountaineer troops, of course, so the Khazad would be able to wipe the floor with you there.

For the rest, I agree with you; I don't see the affinity itself as an issue at all.

 

[isthmus]

The issue with the Airships is that you can position them on mountains and then attack. This is handled easier with Mountaineer troops, of course, so the Khazad would be able to wipe the floor with you there.

For the rest, I agree with you; I don't see the affinity itself as an issue at all.

This is basically it - blimps arn't hard to get since optics is actually quite cheap tech to get to relative to stirrups or sorcery.

The mechanos are guarenteed two sources of refined mana however, once from the palace and another from the religious shrine, which only requires a great engineer. Organ guns are being produced with 6 ranged and 90% cap for pretty much all of the game. Only one more node is required for 100% which isn't hard to find. You may as well have organ guns start out with 90% and 6 ranged. I don't have a problem with the size of the affinity, it's just that very little effort is required to actually get a strong unit. If the mechanos had to get 3 mana nodes with refineries then like PPQ said, the opponent deserves what's coming to him.

 

[drayath]

One the subject of ranged attacks from airships etc.

If the ranged combat code cant be touched is it possible to add an auto promotion to unit on board other units being transported to firing (e.g. 'Sealed for Transport' -10 range, -200% damage cap etc.)

And ideally if possible don't allow a unit to board a transport if it has already fired (e.g. no transport in, unload, fire, load, transport out).

If this is not possible apply promotion based on transport status you could at least no one like 'obscured sight' for archers. E.g. 'Unstable Footing' automatically applied if a unit is on terrain it would not be allowed to move on by itself (e.g. on sea transport, air transport over mountain). Either no ranged fire, or large (over -50% or cap at maximum of 50% etc.) to ranged damage cap.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Don't you think that is one huge and horrible nerf?
I personally think your proposal is insane.

 

[Niveras]

It would make sense that artillery packed up for transport would be unable to fire, and it would definitely be unsafe to unload 7 cannons (or whatever) on the deck of a frigate or airship to launch a volley against a target. Of course, fantasy game with fireballs and gods == reality logic, et al.

That said, ranged combat is extremely effective right now. Its original balancing factor is supposed to be the inability to actually kill units, and their low mobility (halving, or worse, the movement rate of your army). Their benefit is supposed to be 0 risk of losing the unit, softening up strong targets to better your odds of killing powerful defenders. Any time you buff a unit's strengths (increasing the damage cap/average damage inflicted by a ranged attack) and negate their weaknesses (movement speed, damage cap again) you get something that's overpowered. That holds true for any unit, not just artillery, though specifics vary.

Overpowered units = boring gameplay = "why don't I find this fun anymore?"

You don't have to go full swing in the other direction to balance Mechanos artillery. Just tone things down a little - especially the affinity, but if you can manage the mobility issue that would be good too. If the Mechanos needed clean up troops for each city they take (which may or may not be an extreme requirement depending on how big the AI's stacks are) it would go a long way to helping bring their artillery back from being obscenely powerful.

Of course, on the flip side, combat in FFH is also supposed to get "easier", or at least faster, as the game wears on (for instance the Baron and his exponentially increasing horde). Whether fixing Mechanos' early game power will unduly affect them in the late game is hard to say. I'd guess it depends on how you go about it - which is why I suggested reducing the affinity, meaning they'll still be stack-wipers late game when you have more refined mana. Another possibility could be a second kind of special mana affinity - one for the ranged damage cap, one for ranged strength alone - while splitting and leaving the affinity modifiers as is.

 

[CarnivalBizarre]

Mechanos is so overpowered it's really silly as it is now. So nerf them however you want, but do it good.