Chandrasekhar
Determined
I was going to post the following points in their respective threads, but I believe I have enough ideas here to merit a full-fledged suggestion discusion thread.
1) The AI seems extremely hesitant to upgrade the units that require resources and buildings. Units that don't require any resources or buildings (I believe the Drown fall into this category?) are commonly built, however. I'm not entirely certain whether they're not even researching the appropriate techs or if they simply aren't choosing to build them.
In a more or less peaceful scenario, this doesn't hurt them much. The barbarians also don't seem to build axemen, worg riders, or anything like that until much later, so the AI and the barbarians maintain a status quo.
This balance is disturbed, however, by the human player. A human can easily build a single training yard/hunting lodge and several axemen/hunters without disturbing their economy. This not only allows a human to completely overwhelm most AI players in the early-midgame, it also allows them to defeat any barbarian attacks with dreary ease, and makes them more or less impervious to any attacks the AI launch.
Suggestion: Greatly increase the AI tech priority of Bronze Working and Horseback Riding. Prioritize building a training yard/stable in one of their high
producing cities. Increase barbarian tech level and tier-2 spawns to compensate, and to provide adequate challenge to the human player.
2) I've noticed the AI building the wrong improvements on resource tiles many times now. Specifically, they seem to like building farms on reagents, dye, and other plantation improvements.
This is indicative of the fact that some of the resource improvements are much less efficient to get (from the AI's point of view) than to simply replace with other improvements. I've actually noticed myself agreeing with them at times, resulting in the cottage-sheep and cottage-corns that I'm so well known for in multiplayer. Still, this results in them having very few resources, either to keep or to enhance their happicap and healthiness, or to trade.
It's easy to see why the AI doesn't prioritize plantations. Calendar gives the ability to build plantations and a mediocre wonder. Hunting gives hunting lodges (potential +1
, +1 
), the first tier-2 unit, and access to three more techs, one of which founds a powerful early religion.
Suggestion: This is a toughie. Simply rebalancing the tech costs would mean that plantations would be everywhere and camps would be inefficient to build. However, simply moving the hunting lodge and hunters to the Tracking tech would serve the tri-purpose of balancing the beaker costs of axemen and hunters (currently hunters cost 325
while axemen and horseback riders cost 725 each), allowing the cost of hunting to be balanced with that of Calendar, and giving a purpose to that currently useless Tracking tech. That's the solution I'd push for.
3) If you've ever tried to get a conquest victory late game, but don't want to keep the cities to conquer, you've probably noticed how irritating it is to have masses of orc spearmen spawn in the newly created fog of war to come after your cities.
This doesn't increase the difficulty, as the axemen and possibly rangers that you have at your disposal by this point can take care of the barbarians with ease. It does make for a huge amount of micro-management, though, as lizardmen and spearmen swarming out of the fog of war can easily capture workers or make your tiles unworkable while you try to defend your borders. It's an annoyance, and extra micromanagement besides, and I believe it shoudl be stopped.
Suggestion: I know the game stores residual culture, as building a new city in an area previously held by the enemy will cause that city to start with a low percentage of its native culture. What I'd like to see is residual culture stopping barbarians from spawning. I'm not sure if that's possible, but I'd love to have it implemented if it is.
4) Blitz comes too late. I know this is just an opinion, but when you can get 2-move units after a tier-1 tech, it becomes an issue. It's a powerful ability, yes, but it's not so powerful as to cost the same amount as a tier-4 unit.
If I have an axeman with combat III, and my oponents just have warriors, I'd very much like to be able to cut through them without pause each turn. If my foe is well defended, then my axeman will become worn down after some attacks and need to heal for a few turns. If he's not well-defended, then he deserves to be destroyed quickly. Requiring units to only attack once per turn for the majority of the game simply slows down warfare, and, Kael, you've said quite a bit that when someone is going to win against an enemy, you'd prefer them to be able to do it quickly instead of with a long, drawn out war of attrition whose outcome is already known from the beginning.
Suggestion: Move Blitz to an earlier tech. Duh.
I think adding it to a tech in the horseman tech path would add some much needed spice to that line.
Well, that's all for now, folks. Fire away, I'd like to see how these are recieved.
1) The AI seems extremely hesitant to upgrade the units that require resources and buildings. Units that don't require any resources or buildings (I believe the Drown fall into this category?) are commonly built, however. I'm not entirely certain whether they're not even researching the appropriate techs or if they simply aren't choosing to build them.
In a more or less peaceful scenario, this doesn't hurt them much. The barbarians also don't seem to build axemen, worg riders, or anything like that until much later, so the AI and the barbarians maintain a status quo.
This balance is disturbed, however, by the human player. A human can easily build a single training yard/hunting lodge and several axemen/hunters without disturbing their economy. This not only allows a human to completely overwhelm most AI players in the early-midgame, it also allows them to defeat any barbarian attacks with dreary ease, and makes them more or less impervious to any attacks the AI launch.
Suggestion: Greatly increase the AI tech priority of Bronze Working and Horseback Riding. Prioritize building a training yard/stable in one of their high
producing cities. Increase barbarian tech level and tier-2 spawns to compensate, and to provide adequate challenge to the human player.2) I've noticed the AI building the wrong improvements on resource tiles many times now. Specifically, they seem to like building farms on reagents, dye, and other plantation improvements.
This is indicative of the fact that some of the resource improvements are much less efficient to get (from the AI's point of view) than to simply replace with other improvements. I've actually noticed myself agreeing with them at times, resulting in the cottage-sheep and cottage-corns that I'm so well known for in multiplayer. Still, this results in them having very few resources, either to keep or to enhance their happicap and healthiness, or to trade.
It's easy to see why the AI doesn't prioritize plantations. Calendar gives the ability to build plantations and a mediocre wonder. Hunting gives hunting lodges (potential +1
, +1 ), the first tier-2 unit, and access to three more techs, one of which founds a powerful early religion.Suggestion: This is a toughie. Simply rebalancing the tech costs would mean that plantations would be everywhere and camps would be inefficient to build. However, simply moving the hunting lodge and hunters to the Tracking tech would serve the tri-purpose of balancing the beaker costs of axemen and hunters (currently hunters cost 325
while axemen and horseback riders cost 725 each), allowing the cost of hunting to be balanced with that of Calendar, and giving a purpose to that currently useless Tracking tech. That's the solution I'd push for.3) If you've ever tried to get a conquest victory late game, but don't want to keep the cities to conquer, you've probably noticed how irritating it is to have masses of orc spearmen spawn in the newly created fog of war to come after your cities.
This doesn't increase the difficulty, as the axemen and possibly rangers that you have at your disposal by this point can take care of the barbarians with ease. It does make for a huge amount of micro-management, though, as lizardmen and spearmen swarming out of the fog of war can easily capture workers or make your tiles unworkable while you try to defend your borders. It's an annoyance, and extra micromanagement besides, and I believe it shoudl be stopped.
Suggestion: I know the game stores residual culture, as building a new city in an area previously held by the enemy will cause that city to start with a low percentage of its native culture. What I'd like to see is residual culture stopping barbarians from spawning. I'm not sure if that's possible, but I'd love to have it implemented if it is.
4) Blitz comes too late. I know this is just an opinion, but when you can get 2-move units after a tier-1 tech, it becomes an issue. It's a powerful ability, yes, but it's not so powerful as to cost the same amount as a tier-4 unit.
If I have an axeman with combat III, and my oponents just have warriors, I'd very much like to be able to cut through them without pause each turn. If my foe is well defended, then my axeman will become worn down after some attacks and need to heal for a few turns. If he's not well-defended, then he deserves to be destroyed quickly. Requiring units to only attack once per turn for the majority of the game simply slows down warfare, and, Kael, you've said quite a bit that when someone is going to win against an enemy, you'd prefer them to be able to do it quickly instead of with a long, drawn out war of attrition whose outcome is already known from the beginning.
Suggestion: Move Blitz to an earlier tech. Duh.
I think adding it to a tech in the horseman tech path would add some much needed spice to that line.Well, that's all for now, folks. Fire away, I'd like to see how these are recieved.
