play balancing the civs

[davidlallen]

This thread is for pointing out which civs are too strong or too weak. The goal is to give each civ a theme which has significant benefits and makes it play differently from the other civs. This may be a combination of unique units, unique buildings, and the dune wars concepts of unique resources and unique abilities.

 

[davidlallen]

This post shows the current special abilities of each civ. It is up to date with the 1.6.5 release.

Atreides
* Hawk Thopter, a UU replacement for Vulture Thopter with +1 move.
* Pilot School, a UB replacement of Aerie which gives more XP for starting thopter and hornet units.
* Bee interceptor, UU replacement of Wasp with longer range and better intercept.
* Owns Caladanian Wine UR, +2 happiness

Bene Gesserit
* Sayyadina UU, teaches combat/drill promotions to units in stack.
* Line of 4 Kwisatz Haderach UUs, each one is irreplaceable and gives bonuses to all units in stack. For example, the ultimate unit gives +50% attack strength, two first strikes, and immunity to first strikes.
* Reverend Mother, a late game spy type unit with access to diplomatic missions. These include +1 diplomatic bonus, convert city, and destabilize civilization. Requires Sisterhood Covenant UR, so other civs may build it.

Bene Tleilax
* Plague effect on combat result which gives -25% strength and is easily passed from one unit to another. If an infected unit enters a city, the city receives -2 health.
* Axlotl tank, late game building to provide ghola (clone) unit commanders with high experience.
* Face Dancer, UU of spy, has access to Poisoner spy promotion. Can assassinate settled great people.

Corrino
* Imperial Trooper UU replaces heavy trooper
* Laza Tiger UU replaces master guardsman; a HN unit intended to pick off isolated enemy units.
* Selamlik, UB of courthouse building which gives -50% war weariness.
* Several powerful melee units unlocked by Sardaukar Cooperation UR.

Ecaz
* Elaccan Gladiator, UU of hardened bladesman; high strength, but automatically dies after any combat win or lose.
* Smuggler: has trade mission like Great Merchant but less powerful.
* Smuggler's Haven: replaces Landing STage; same effect, but Ecaz can build three instead of two.
* Sculptor's Garden: UB of Mushtamel; +1 trade route.
* Owns Opafire and Semuta UR (+2 happiness)

Fremen
* All initial units, and some later foot units, start with double speed desert movement.
* Several powerful melee UR units unlocked by Water Debt UR.

Harkonnen
* Can generate slave units on combat victory.
* Devastator Tank, UU of Heavy Scorpion.
* Slave Pit, UB of courthouse which has no real effect since slavery "whip" is temporarily removed.
* Inkvine Regiment UU of Heavy Trooper.

Ix
* Four walker UR units unlocked by Thinking Machines UR
* Three UB which are variants of the late game automated factory and research center; these use thinking machines, and the Ixian variant avoids the happiness penalty.

Ordos
* Spy units gain 1 XP per turn.
* Trike, UU of Quad with +1 movement.
* Chemical trooper, UU of Grenade Trooper with more collateral damage.
* Saboteur, UU of spy. At present this has no special effect.

 

[Slvynn]

reserved for Corel graphic balance tables (need to do, perhaps at weekend)

 

[keldath]

i think bene gesserit should get some sort of a fighting unit.

also, harkonen needs another powerful unit.

this is a very important thread .

 

[davidlallen]

i think bene gesserit should get some sort of a fighting unit.

Actually I think I have given them too much military strength in 1.6.5, and I am interested in feedback. My original proposal is in this post with some discussion following. The BG will have +25% strength on every unit in their stack of doom from the early game, with additional, stronger stacks in the mid and late game. It may be too much.

 

[Slvynn]

I think Atreides lack something related to Loyality *prehaps another promotion that gives morale/something aviabke with some nationa uu wonder/building
I think that Harks and Ix now need to get some stuff earlier (Conscrptins Centres which wil be more benefical) (some minor but usefull early game stuff for ix)

 

[Ahriman]

I suggest that we think about expanding mechanics and units before we worry too much about faction balance. We should make sure that we think each faction has enough flavor and the potential to actually *play differently* before we worry about balance.

A couple of UUs here and there do not make factions play differently.

At the moment, most of the factions will not play particularly differently, we need to improve this.

In terms of our goals:
i) Fremen are probably closest to playing differently because of sandriding, and we could go much further if we give guardsmen sandriding, remove their access to most suspensor/thopter/vehicle units, and maybe give them the capture unit ability.

ii) Ix have the potential to be differently (particularly with the mechanized trait) in favoring a much more vehicle-heavy army type.

iii) Tleilaxu have the potential to play differently if we can increase their "isolationist/disliked by everyone" theme and boost their priest economy.

iv) Ecaz have the potential to play differently if we can really encourage them to rely heavily on trade routes; we want to make it so that they want to keep having good relations with lots of people, to maintain open borders and resource trading, to really maximize their economy size.

v) BG are going to have a tendency to want to keep at peace except for *one* enemy at a time, using their Kwizatz Haderach to boost a super-stack of doom.

vi) Ordos have some nice flavor as mercenary raiders as AI players, but how can we make them feel more like raiders in human hands?

vii) Corrino don't feel very special. How can we improve this?
How can we make Atreides and Harkonnen feel like they will actually have different playstyles?

 

[Slvynn]

Its simply easier to balance things when adding, later it will be harder to track balance. More stuff - more uncertain it is, so balance observation good before adding things too.
Also to avoid featrures being stufed in single era etc...

 

[Deliverator]

I suggest that we think about expanding mechanics and units before we worry too much about faction balance. We should make sure that we think each faction has enough flavor and the potential to actually *play differently* before we worry about balance.

A couple of UUs here and there do not make factions play differently.

At the moment, most of the factions will not play particularly differently, we need to improve this.

I agree with this. Factions that play differently is an ongoing quest and I think we have a fair way to go with it. We can obviously fix stuff that is clearly overpowered, but it maybe that the response to one faction being too strong is to make the others stronger rather than nerf them. I think it is probably too early to worry too much about balancing when we have not really made the factions very different from each other.

Redirect other points to the Civs thread.

 

[davidlallen]

Let me clarify what I meant by "balancing". Some civs are too weak due to lack of unique abilities. Let us agree which ones those are, and give them some powerful, thematic abilities.

Looking at Ahriman's list, I see that Atreides, Harkonnen and Corrino "fail" so far.

Atreides has some air power, and diplomacy was suggested. Diplomatic advantages do not work against human players, so we cannot do too much with this.

Corrino was supposed to be unique because of Sardaukar, but that did not work since they are URU and not UU. I'm not sure what to do here.

Harkonnen could go further with slaves; we had to take out whip a while ago but perhaps due to all the other tuning, we could try adding it back. Then their current UB would do something. There are some other suggestions, such as drafting, an advanced missile, or replacing the barracks with a +20% production, +0 XP building. The "traitor" unit was also suggested but this capability already exists; spies can destroy buildings such as walls.

Also, I should point out that Ordos is supposed to be a spy civ, not so much a raider civ; perhaps the espionage missions are too subtle, but it may be worthwhile to try a game with a bunch of spies to see how their effects really work.

So, let's get more feedback on Ordos and the new BG; let's try to get some good ideas for Corrino and Atreides.

One interesting experiment "somebody" could try is to turn on whip again and see what happens. To add this back, edit file gameinfo/civ4civicinfos.xml. Find the section for slavery, underneath that find the line <Hurrys/>. Replace the line with:

			<Hurrys>
				<Hurry>
					<HurryType>HURRY_POPULATION</HurryType>
					<bHurry>1</bHurry>
				</Hurry>
			</Hurrys>

Previously, all of the AI's immediately switched to slavery and whipped their populations almost down to zero. We could not find out why, so we removed it.

 

[Ahriman]

Diplomatic advantages do not work against human players, so we cannot do too much with this.

I do not think that all benefits and balancing must be for multi-player only. We had an overwhelming endorsement of a singleplayer focused mod design from the poll I made.

Tleilaxu penalties revolve around being disliked by everyone, Atreides benefits can include being liked by everyone. They're minor advantages, so they don't particularly mess things up in a multiplayer game, and they're still useful unless every player in the multiplayer game is a human. I think this is pretty rare; my impression was that many multiplayer games still included AI players. And I don't think we should try to balance for the very rare small map 2 human player game.

Diplomacy benefits for Atreides are very flavorful.

Harkonnen could go further with slaves; we had to take out whip a while ago but perhaps due to all the other tuning, we could try adding it back.

I don't see us having changed anything that would solve the AI whipping problem. I think the problem occurs because of how water production is concentrated in only a few tiles, and how cities grow very fast when those few tiles are worked, so the AIs think it is a good idea to keep small cities that grow fast and whip lots.
The "half length unhappiness from whipping" is not much of an advantage for Harkonnen even if we could get the AI to whip sensibly. Maybe if it were *no* unhappiness from whipping, an/or if each pop whipped gave a larger hammer bonus.
Have we made the slave changes, where slaves are 2 moves and can move across deserts, and can be sacrificed in cities for hammers? I forget.

Also, I should point out that Ordos is supposed to be a spy civ, not so much a raider civ;

Says who? I think that just "spy civ" is narrow and boring (you can't build a civ around just one spy UU, that the AI won't even use that well). I think they should be mercenary raiders. Raiders fits in very nicely with their mercenary attitude; you buy them into a war, they come along and pillage, stuff, then make peace for a profit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Ordos

Also, they dabble in forbidden technologies... maybe we should give them a preference for Technocracy religion?

 

[Slvynn]

Yes, i think that Ordos should prefer Techno too.
They shoud have raider stuff - i agree.

But i disagree about Diplomacy with Ahriman - yes - diplomacy penalty useless in certain settings - so perhaps , we need to add something which will balance it. Diffrent religion penalty will not be usefull in FFA MP game, and , as we told , we cant deny MP balance.
So, that means , we should think how we can improve situation to balance, and not to ignore this issue

 

[davidlallen]

Tleilaxu penalties revolve around being disliked by everyone, Atreides benefits can include being liked by everyone.

The Tleilaxu penalty is being locked into one religion, which has effects against a human player. You had proposed +2 diplomatic bonus, which has no effect against a human player. As I have mentioned previously, there is one existing slot in the game for arbitrary diplo advantages, but I have already used it for "your terraforming is threatening the spice". So this is complicated to add.

I don't see us having changed anything that would solve the AI whipping problem.

Since then, we have added a hammer bonus for towns; in Slvynn's patch we have decreased the benefit of windtrap; and in 1.6.4.1 keldath integrated the BBAI bug fixes regarding worker actions. Since we do not know why the problem was happening, any of these could have fixed it accidentally.

Have we made the slave changes, where slaves are 2 moves and can move across deserts, and can be sacrificed in cities for hammers?

Yes for the first two, and no for the third. The problem with the third is that the AI needs to be taught to move slaves into a city, and then pop them.

Says who?

I am referring to the existing status of the game. Their only special ability is +1 XP per turn to spies. The trike and chem troooper have very minor effects.

 

[Ahriman]

You had proposed +2 diplomatic bonus, which has no effect against a human player

So what? Not everything has to be about multiplayer.

So this is complicated to add.

I thought you had a workaround in mind. Its no huge deal though.

The biggest problem with Atreides really is that pre-Dune Atreides of Duke Leto I and Paulus, and all their history, is completely different from Alia and Leto II. I think the former flavor is much more interesting (benevolent honorable), the latter two are less coherent.

The problem with the third is that the AI needs to be taught to move slaves into a city, and then pop them.

Are you sure? The AI was able to use it in FFH without any trouble, and its just a minature great engineer ability.

Also, I should point out that Ordos is supposed to be a spy civ

I am referring to the existing status of the game.

Ok, I was thrown by "supposed to be".

The trike and chem troooper have very minor effects.

The trike effect is not particularly minor. That thing is very powerful in the early game, and excellent for pillaging. 4 moves if it starts the turn inside friendly territory.

 

[davidlallen]

The AI was able to use it in FFH without any trouble, and its just a minature great engineer ability.

Does FFH have exactly this type of slave, or was it a more specific unit? I will look at the AI's for that unit. But the tradeoff is between building an improvement, and speeding a building, which does not seem like a vanilla tradeoff.

 

[Slvynn]

Diplomatic change is not sagnificant change. It's difference is less adding more UU. It should not go instead of serious features.
And yes, DW is not FFH, and FFH's fail, imo, that they went way of neglecting MP. There are alot of players who wont play FFH, and still play civ b/c there is more challenge and balance.
That poll means nothing, and it show good percent of votes for mp .

While refining bonuses will not throw SP gamers, some stuff will throw MP gamers out. There are 1000 ways to add flavour, and insisting on adding more and more such bonuses - insisting on denying quite big populace playing mod.

Another stuff :
i think New culture system is too powerfull. With BG i can do amazing things, pop endless culture borders and take cities at will just by culture. Seems it is bit over-done. Need to tone it abit down.

Also i think 1st KH is too powerfull. It come so early and 25% to all stack - thats alot. Still, BG is easy civ to play now. I know it i compare it.
Perhaps 15% for 1st one will suffice

Small observation - they are like Tleilaxu but MUCH more powerfull
Lets compare
Religions - BTl cant convert BG Can, it have monopoly on Shai Hulud at current setting. I found SH on Immortal without any problem.
Plague of BTl? Well it is rivailed just by 1st Kwizatz - quite early, before wars even start...
What later? Later BG just grow more and more powerfull. For BTl, which is already powerfull compared to some other civs it will be too strong rival.
I think that KH line come too early and perhaps 1st KH is too strong.
I know that balancing should be done mostly through adding, rather than nerfing - but i think its a case where it need some tune down for sure.

 

[Ahriman]

Does FFH have exactly this type of slave

Not exactly; it is a half-speed worker, not a +300% worker, but it doesn't die when it finishes an improvement.
But the build vs sacrifice tradeoff is pretty similar.

And yes, DW is not FFH, and FFH's fail, imo, that they went way of neglecting MP. There are alot of players who wont play FFH, and still play civ b/c there is more challenge and balance.

If we are "only" as successful as Fall From Heaven, we will have done pretty well as a mod....

That poll means nothing, and it show good percent of votes for mp .

If you really think that poll meant nothing, then you are immune to logic and evidence, and there is no point discussing anything with you.

I think you are just unable to look at things rationally and accept that your preferences are in fact in a minority.

There is nothing wrong with trying to make multiplayer reasonable balanced, but we should not reject any mechanic out of hand that does not affect human opponents.
Remember that even in a multiplayer game, there are generally AIs, and so effects like diplomacy bonuses are still useful.

Lets compare

Shai Hulad is not a very good religion. Zensufism is better, because its shrine is very powerful.

I know that balancing should be done mostly through adding, rather than nerfing - but i think its a case where it need some tune down for sure.

There is nothing wrong with reducing the power of an ability if it seems too powerful. I haven't tested it, but I wouldn't have any difficulty in believing that a 25% stack bonus quite early in the game was too strong. 15% seems like a good suggestion to me.

 

[Slvynn]

If we are "only" as successful as Fall From Heaven, we will have done pretty well as a mod....

The ones who seek flavor above all already found FFH and voted in the poll. (check people who browse Creation and Customization and then % of them from FFH forums)
The ones who dont like game unbalanced or with that circumstance-fragile balance not playing FFH. There are much more who not playing FFH, than ones who do that. You'll never be such a great flavor-wise. You dont need to follow someones steps. You can do same thing (bringing lot of people , who bough Civ4 because of FFH) but for different population. Rabit is catched - why you want to catch it when weasel is aviable and still running....

I dont like FFH, because i got tired from it. I cant really play games where i feel certain disbalance. There are few things that - for my opinnion - more like player exploits than tactics - and i dont like this too. Where no balance in MP, or in SP it very situational. I dont play it.... Am i wrong? And i am not minority.... there lots of people like me - my friends RL (they all playing Civ4 but denied to play FFH - 3 of them - reason - disbalance), keldath said same, alot of people who playing MP and dont like disbalance.
I dont see reason to send them away because you think that someone will come to play DW because of huge maximized flavor - no, they are playing FFH already. You can go with good flavour but you can get those who love balance .

 

[Ahriman]

The ones who seek flavor above all already found FFH and voted in the poll.

The poll was for people who play mods. Yes, almost everyone who plays mods plays FFH, because its the most successful mod out there.

You'll never be such a great flavor-wise

Why not? We're working off the genius of one of the greatest authors of all time. Frank Herbert > Kael.

You dont need to follow someones steps

Why do you think that anything that isn't focused on multiplayer balance is somehow a clone of FFH? This makes no sense to me.
Its not either: a) Have perfect multiplayer balance or b) be the same as FFH.
That is a false dichotomy.

I dont like FFH, because i got tired from it. I cant really play games where i feel certain disbalance.

Did you play FFH for dozens of hours before you got tired of it? I bet you did.
Think of it this way. There are maybe 15-20% of the player base who care about multiplayer. Suppose that they get tired of the mod after playing it for only a few dozen hours.
Well, the remaining 80% of the mod will get tired of playing the mod more quickly too if all of the factions play basically the same, because we aren't willing to tolerate any mechanics that might not be perfectly balanced in multiplayer.

And i am not minority.... there lots of people like me - my friends RL (they all playing Civ4 but denied to play FFH - 3 of them - reason - disbalance),

I wonder if you don't understand what the word minority means. Just because you know 4 people who have one set of preferences does not somehow mean that you are not a small minority. Not everyone is like you.

 

[Slvynn]

hah i don't agree with couple of points, but i don't want to argue. I think flavor achievable without overusing diplo-mechanics and such, it makes fun. You can maintain huge flavor and keep balance. But well, i do not want to start again pointless hassle-bassle, we know what is each one's oppinion, i just telling you that adding of flavor can be made many many mechanics but we need to some keep away, otherwise many people wont play DW, for people who love flavor you can provide it in many ways, for people who want balance you can provide in one way. So the result should be adjusting many of adding flavor to one of keeping balance, simultaneously. When stuff in one dimension (you can count it), you can make nice tuning both for balance and for flavor.
Hassle-Bassle, i just played BTS game. I like that feeling of even odds.

The thing, main thing that civs not only should play differently - but there should be reason for it. Reason to play certain civs... Its beautiful when you can play them differently and you know - any civ you play you have even odds with other civ which play differently , even odds to get to the "win" point. It's less fun when you feel/know at some point that your way is shorter/longer because of certain disbalance/circumstances/game type. It's not avoidable, but adding more of such mechanics, piling them wont do good. Pile them and huge flavor lose its value by good percent.