Scions Balance?

[Tarquelne]

Would remove alot of the micro from it,

I like that the HL have a unique mechanic - they *don't* spread automatically. OTOH, I don't like micro...

The casting delay and 9-at-a-time of Redactors is supposed to decrease (or at least dilute) the micro, but it's still a factor.

Maybe something different... A "process" (like Wealth) is a possibility. (But boring, I think.) Or maybe Creepers. Perhaps you can either use them for more HL tiles or let them mature for the other abilities. (Adjust the abilities so that more HL/other abilities is an "interesting decision.")

 

[ICanHasName?]

less micro with haunted lands would really be nice. I dont see why I wouldn't want haunted lands everywhere once I have necropoli, but it takes a ton of clicking to get it done and really isnt worth it. Less micromanagement with creepers would be nice too, maybe make them automatically AI controlled so they just wonder about and fight enemies, like enraged Alcinius. If they managed to get blooded they could drop a haunted lands wherever they happen to be inside your territory.

As for balance, scions are pretty random depending on Alcinius, mana types, awakened spawning etc. It seems like they are relatively powerful most of the time, but I play on crowded maps where there population disadvantage should be smaller.

 

[WarKirby]

I've never seen the scions excel under AI control.

For the most part, they manage to be competent. Mostly keeping up with the rest of the world in tech and empire size. Sometimes they do badly, and die.

I've never seen them build vast continent spanning empires, or take the world lead, which I have seen done by Ljosalfar, Dural, and Malakim

 

[Deamon]

The problem with scions is thier extreme early game .. to compensate for that perhaps we could nerf their early units?

Make their scouts into 1 3 units with a decent bonus against animals and perhaps some nasty spread on kill mechanism to counter their extreme weakness somewhat. [I'm thinking facehuggers from alien] Also, not upgradeable to hunters.

Make their warriors into 2 1 units. [zombies? The mindless husks that one day may recieve the honor of hosting a patrian soul..]

and ... *drumroll* give their diciple line a free upgrade that buffs the warrior line, and the hunters a free upgrade that buffs the scouts [In the same stack].


The scions would still have their advantage but the effort/time it would take to make a "stack of doom" and steamroll the others should be more in line with the normal civs, and their power would be delayed somewhat.
Perhaps reducing the supportcost for those units would be a good idea too since you'd need far more of them.

Messing with the awakend rate just feels like the wrong way to go..

 

[JimMorrison]

That seems harsh. A stack of Orcs rolls up to your city, and you're likely as not going to take a couple losses. You'll spend the entire early game just pumping out warriors to replace your losses to barbs. And that's only if you stay purely on defense, and get your city bonus. In the field, you will lose 1-2 Warriors per Orc, and you'll get even odds against Goblins - not accounting for terrain.

 

[Mylon]

Okay, after having played the Scions a bit in FF...

Yeah, making haunted lands is a pain in the rear. For what seems like +1 or +2 commerce. A nice boost, yes, but I'd be happy if the creepers could be done away with and workers simply given the ability to auto-haunt.

The Exchange seems broken. +1 trade route in every city? These can be built multiple times. Build 2-3 of these and every city will have maxed out trade routes.

The slow growth of population seems annoying. Awakened cost far too many hammers. Reborn likewise, and the tech/building requirements to get access to reborn is insane (fairly high up in the tech tree, plus 4 buildings per Cathedral of Rebirth). I could deal with slower free population (indeed, free population seems to stop rather abruptly anyhow) to compensate.

 

[WarKirby]

Slightly offtopic, how big exactly, is a Horned Dread or Abomination?
Do they seem especially monstrous?

 

[Tarquelne]

Slightly offtopic, how big exactly, is a Horned Dread or Abomination?
Do they seem especially monstrous?

Hmm... I do picture the Horned Dread as being pretty big. It could very well be Monstrous.

I don't picture Abominations as being that nearly that big... but they could be.

Re: Exchanges. Making it 1/5 cities rather than 1/4 could help, but I wouldn't want to push that mechanic any further. What if they required Tax Offices or Patrian Bazaars rather than Markets?

 

[Tarquelne]

Upcoming changes. Not too late for feedback...

Reduced population/Reborn from captured/razed cities:

Population of captured cities reduced slightly. (About 13%.)
Reborn gained from razed cities reduced by 1. (It's cumulative with the above change.)

Passive HL generation:

It's still unit based, which I think a strong "plus." But the association between the units and the HL tiles might now be too obscure.

Based on # of Ghostwalkers, Haunts, and Redactors you have. A Haunt counts as 2 Ghostwalkers, a Redactor as 4. The Black Lady doubles the total.

Total * .15% chance for Forest, Jungle, Ancient Forest to transform into HL.
Total * .1% for Plains, Grassland, Floodplain, Wetland.
Total * .05% for Desert.

The checks are independent: A Floodplain will get the .1% and the .05% check, for example.

HL tiles will only appear within your borders. And only if you're Scions.

I very much expect future adjustments to the figures. (If not the whole system.)

Ghostwalkers and Redactors retain their ability to "plant" HL where you wish, thought the GW's time has moved from 4 to 6 turns.

Creepers:
Arawn's Dust works on Camps, too, and has no chance of failure.
Fed Creepers won't cause war if they "take root" in a rival's territory.
Resistance Roll on Burrowing Thorns moved from +10 to -10.
Rooted Creeper's stats generally boosted.

 

[zup]

I wish the haunted lands spread outside Scion borders.

 

[ZeroZeroSix]

Its my first time as Scion and I like it....my setting are:

Warlord
Large map
Temperate
Medium sea
Quick speed

Someting wierd on that game tought is that the first religion discovered was order on turn 266 (very late) and most civs still run arround with warriors. Another thing is that the Centeni unit and its upgrade all can have the mobility 1 according to ciclopedia but there is no way they can have it.

My bigest city is the capital at 6 population so maybe I did not know how to manage them for now.

 

[Mylon]

I'm not sure why you'd want to reduce the scion population gain. I tried a game. Most of the AI's cities were only size 10 or less, and if I was lucky a size 7 city would give me one reborn when razed. I'm not quite sure why the AI's research was so poor, but eh...

 

[Tarquelne]

I'm not sure why you'd want to reduce the scion population gain.

The reductions on captured/razed pop-gain? To try and de-empahsize warfare as a way to get population. Especially the Reborn from razed cities.

Were you using Godking, btw? You get quite a bit more population from cities under Godking.

 

[Mylon]

No, I was using Republic. I didn't know about the extra population gain from God King. I was using Aristocracy at one point, but the automated population stopped waaaaay back.

 

[Deamon]

I think my critisism to balance may have been a bit hasty.. After playing quite a few more game on immortal (with and without blessing of amathon, large map) I've noticed quite the difference.

With the slight difference in power of the units I've had quite a bit of trouble producing enough to not get stompeded by hords of undead/nasty neighbours. And unless I've been lucky enough to start next to 3-4 goldmines + a patrian artifact or two and riverlaiden countyside my tech has usually fallen behind quite fast, even then I usually get surpassed midgame.

How well a game goes is heavilly dependant on startinglocation and the opportunities for early foreign trade routes.. In these games so far the only factor thats been able to slightly close my gap to the lead's been the spawning of awakened from razing cities.

I've also noticed that flavor start often place the scions in less than optimal starting locations (may have to do with malakim snagging it when they're in the game.) every now and then. In the woodlands, far from any gold/gems/incense/patrian seems just wrong.

 

[WarKirby]

I think the passive awakened spawning needs to come a bit easier and hae a bigger cap.
But why have a hard cap on it at all?
The chance for new awakened degrades over time, so eventually it's going to bring diminishing returns unless a lot of effort is put in. I'd really like to see it as an option. It seems liike you're forced to use warfare. Have to fight people to convert them, and to raze their cities.

 

[Tarquelne]

How well a game goes is heavilly dependant on startinglocation and the opportunities for early foreign trade routes..

Yep. I hadn't considered early f.t. routes, but I do think starting location is much more important than it is for other civs. Bad starts seem worse, good starts better. I'm not sure if there's much that can be done about it. It may be because of a very fundamental difference between Fallow and non-Fallow civs: The terrain need only offer and rather than , , and . (And maybe all you really need is . Enough of those and you can go take someone else's .)

I've also noticed that flavor start often place the scions in less than optimal starting locations (may have to do with malakim snagging it when they're in the game.) every now and then. In the woodlands, far from any gold/gems/incense/patrian seems just wrong.

I'll take a look at that.

I think the passive awakened spawning needs to come a bit easier and hae a bigger cap.

(For other reasons the cap will be raised by 6 in the next patch.)

But why have a hard cap on it at all?

1) Because in some games bonuses build up quite a bit faster then the degradation. Yes, *eventually* the degradation has to win. But for the expected game length you'd be getting very high spawn %s.

2) To make you switch methods. A conscious design decision to put a bit of "english" on Scions play. (In case Fallow fanatical pop-spawning undead hedonists isn't enough.)

It seems liike you're forced to use warfare. Have to fight people to convert them, and to raze their cities.

That's why a recent patch made it harder to get Reborn via priests, but easier to build. And why the next patch will decrease Reborn/population from razed/captured cities.

And given that, what you want - an increase to spawning rate and/or cap - is something I'm open to. Either via a straight-forward tweaking of the numbers or (ideally) via the introduction of more ways to get a bonus. (Any suggestions?)



I could also increase the Scion War Weariness modifier, or lower the bonus from the Dark Council. (How many players even notice they have a War Weariness penalty, I wonder.)

EDIT:
Hey, if spawning does need an increase, how about the ability to get "great people" (note the lack of caps) from spawning? Rather than every Awakened being a generic population-unit you sometimes get a unit with some experience, or even - rarely - a Great Person (there are the caps.). These represent Scions who've remembered something useful to the new Age - most likely military experience. This would be based on some fraction of the spawning % and run in parallel - so you'd get these units in addition to Awakened.

 

[xienwolf]

You could make it so that peaceful actions are able to raise your cap. Quickest way I can think of off the top of my head would be to raise the cap for any player whose attitude toward you exceeds a certain level. That wouldn't translate too well into Multiplayer games though, so if the other player is a human base it on how long you've had open borders maybe? (Could even do it that way for the AI I suppose, then it naturally enhances itself over time). Initially I thought a hefty bonus for each vassal you have, but the standard method of acquiring vassals is war, not peace.

 

[WarKirby]

I think, ideally, I'd love to see a mechanic whereby you can rely purely on awakened spawning, OR go capture reborn, but without them stacking up and being uber powered together.

Xien is thinking along the right lines, I'd say. Perhaps basing it on trade instead could be more advantageous.

Possibly also, the degradation rate could accelerate a bit after a certain point, but new, expensive buildings could also become available to raise it. Requiring you to build them (while you're NOT making troops) to keep up your spawn rate.

To be honest, I'd be happy without the reborn mechanics completely, and the awakened spawning made the pure focus of the race. My style is generally peaceful builder, and having to raze cities or capture enemies to increase my population, isn't something I like to do. For the most part, I enjoy building in relative isolation until the time comes to crush the world with a horde of T4 units. So generally I like my wars after all my growing is done.

But that's just my preference. My general point is, choice is good.

 

[Tarquelne]

To be honest, I'd be happy without the reborn mechanics completely, and the awakened spawning made the pure focus of the race. My style is generally peaceful builder, and having to raze cities or capture enemies to increase my population, isn't something I like to do.

Don't forget that you can build Reborn in Cathedrals of Rebirth. After spawning ends that's intended to generally be the best way to increase pop. (Along with any more Awakened you might build in the capital.) Vis a vis choice there's still warfare.



I do like the idea of a "peace dividend" for awakened spawning. Increase the default rate but add a penalty for War Weariness? But Attitudes might indeed be the way to go.

Reborn-building has a bonus for Open Borders, which is appropriate for them.