Shiem - PryeZombie Way too good?

[PotatoOverdose]

Well it looks like I stirred a hornets nest.
I like all the strategies to counter the PZ's, but I still say that when Illians are up against Sheim with a very high difficulty, it is almost impossible to counter. You are unable to build units quickly enough to keep pace with the exploding PZ onslaught. The 50% extra fire damage is the killer. The slow spell is good but it does not always help as it can just get you trapped in enemy territory. When they are in a city it is impossible to siege safely.

I am not saying they are extremely broken but I would like to see some sort of defence. Why isn't there a chance for them to explode. At least this will reduce the number of popcorn lemmings. Maybe treat them like a national unit, not limited to 4, but the number allowed based on the difficulty level of the game and the map size. many of you would have a better idea of what is considered fair.

Notice the bold statement. Deity and Immortal are by definition unbalanced. That is the whole point of those difficulties. In BTS, your lucky if you can win a third to half your deity games (unless you use some really gimmicky strategies like rushing the AP+controlled religion spread) on most maps. In ffh, Deity and immortal are relatively easier. This is also why I'm a proponent of anything that makes the mod harder. Imo, the difficulty of FFH should be at least on par with BTS. As it stands, its about 1-2 levels lower. That's actually one of my primary reasons for not wanting a PZ nerf. That and the fact that on noble vs noble (be it mp or sp), PZ's aren't particularly hard to counter.

 

[Grey Fox]

I want the game balanced for Human vs Human play, I don't care as much if the game is unbalanced at the hard levels vs the AI. That discussion is pointless for balance issues (but not for general game play, SP is overall played more after all).

And as I see it, the PZ is imbalanced in MP, at least so long as it's explosion can kill.
Balance is hard to achieve. But when something is (way) overpowered the easiest thing to do is nerf it slightly, in iterations, play test, until a good level has been achieved.

At the moment we have a unit you can get after 3 cheap techs (though, admittedly, something you probably wouldn't beeline unless you start near wine, gold or gems) that;

• Requires no building
• Cost the same as an Axeman
• Can be upgraded from warriors
• Explodes when they die, causing much more devastation than catapults or similar, or even fireballs (though those aren't built)

Some of the suggested counters are;

• Horsemen, a weaker unit that requires a stable, horse resource, requires a similar amount of research but arguably weaker techs. (You can't even be sure that you have horses until part of the research has been done)
• Chariots, requires horses, Trade + Construction. So a "much" later counter compared to Horsemen.'
• Destroy Undead II mages, requires [Divination] (if you don't have life mana from palace or the Tomb), [a free mana slot], Sorcery and at least one lvl 4 adept.

The above are the basic counters suggested by players against Pyre Zombies. Only one of these is really going to make it in time against a Pyre Zombie rush, and that is the Horsemen. But they are going to be facing an opponent who is possibly outproducing them (mining vs animal.h), requires no buildings, have a unit with defensive bonuses that wins even when it loses.

Other counters are Axemen, preferably with Mobility promotion. Though realize you will probably lose many more than normal.
You need to have an active defense against PZ, so holing up with archers in cities on hills will only work if you have enough archers. And you probably won't.

In the Unofficial MP Balance Patch (Started by Methuselah, based on input from the MP community) we lowered the damage cap to 80%. Not sure if this is enough or too much, that requires playtesting. (This has not been released yet)

I'm not sure if moving back magic resistance promotion is a good solution, it might be. Seeing how Magic is still very powerful against stacks of units, it might. Way way too powerful much of the time in my opinion.
I'd like to introduce a cap of units affected by many spells (almost like with collateral damage), and stuff like city walls should lower damage from spells like Tsunami. But thats another discussion.

 

[Earthling]

Counter #1 : Warrior rush the Sheiam with two Good civs. (IMO mp even should still take account of diplomacy - if you're not roleplaying then you can still just gang up on Sheiam like people do against Rome...)
Counter #2 : Out tech the Sheiam by trading with another Good civ.(IMO mp even should still take account of diplomacy - if you're not roleplaying then you can still just gang up on Sheiam like people do against Rome...)
Counter #3 : Fight the Sheiam on your own with warriors/axes then just outtech them to better counters because they have no special economic bonuses, and the war will be costing them a lot of money/prod to go on the offense.
Counters #4+ : the ones you mentioned.

In short, I really question whether people find pyre zombies more powerful than just the Clan, or Doviello, rushing in the early game. The AI may be able to spam PZ's at high levels but that's no worse than Tasunke's spam of horses which start with withdrawal 3 because of free xp... the AI bonuses are not the main part of balance. Compared to civ4 BtS, FfH is a game with a strong emphasis on war, good vs. evil, and lots of other things. Many civs which build up strong economies/late games are going to be weaker against rushes but more militaristic/evil civs - but I don't think this is unique to the Sheiam. I also wonder whether people who find PZ's overpowered found summons like way, unbelievably overpowered then (because I found the summons to always be much worse than PZ's, balance wise, especially before the change).

 

[PotatoOverdose]

I have started to dislike using mp in balance discussions at all. The way I see it, there are two types of mp: 1) all or nothing, anything goes or 2) Additional specific rules that limit certain tactics to achieve a more 'fun' game.
#1 is the type that myself and friends play at LANs. In these games, I have not noticed anyone favoring the Sheaim anymore than any other civ that has early advantages.
#2 is the type that a lot of the community here and on #erebus seem to prefer. The problem is that in #2 using certain strategies (combining certain worldspells with a warrior rush, early attacks/pillaging in general, using scouts/mounted units to steal workers to name a few) are frowned upon or explicitly forbidden. The problem that arises from this is as follows:
a) Much in the above list are some of the most effective counters against a PZ rush. The Sheaim, if they do a PZ rush, will do so against a neighbor. Being a neighbor of the Sheaim means you can, and probably should, rush them. The problem is if these early attacks are forbidden, and no earlier attacks prior to Axemen and whatnot are allowed in the given mp circle (as is often the case), PZ's become the earliest and best first strike weapon. They effectively gain all of the advantages that some of the early civs have (e.g. the doviello) with none of the disadvantages. In this event, this is clearly imbalanced. However, the imbalance occurred not because of some fault in the game itself, but in the extra rules imposed to create a more 'fun' game. In a mp game that is more inline with #1, the Sheaim may have to fight to stave off early attacks/invaders and survive. Indeed, in option 1, the Sheaim are no longer the immediate and most deadly threat. That role falls to civs like the doviello and the hippus, to name a few. Just consider the above when supplying mp evidence/support for a change that has an effect on the game as a whole.

Also, another note: A while back I did some testing of PZ's and Archers in cities. Assuming stacks of relatively comparably promoted Pz's and Archers,and a moderate city defense bonus (keep in mind archers come a little before axemen too), Archers tend to be capable of defeating stacks of Bronze Weapons Pz's in 12v12 combat. More than that, and the PZ's start to win more consistently, but static defenses of up to 10-12 comparably promoted archers tend to hold out against similar stacks of Bronze PZ's in a static defense scenario. Sstacks of 10-12 tier II units are huge for the first 125 turns or so (and after those first 125 turns you've really had quite a lot of time to find a counter that works). Obviously, when the Pz's didn't have bronze, the archers were significantly more successful. Conducting these tests led me to believe that PZ's really aren't as op as suggested. I can also provide a WB save of the given situations, if anyone is interested on conducting tests of their own, as I still have mine saved

 

[Senethro]

90% cap for PZs!

 

[Honor]

It might have been a better idea to simply increase the cost of PZs if you think they should be nerfed. A damage cap just takes away from their flavor in my opinion.

 

[Senethro]

Honestly, I think a 95% damage cap vs. units that are in cities/forts would be enough.

 

[Grey Fox]

3. Grind Adepts vs. Goblins and pop Sorcery with Great Sage. It'll only take 1 lvl 4.

That's not really gonna work very well. First of all, the first bulb after KotE is Alteration, I'm not sure if once you have Alteration that Sorcery is the next bulb. But despite all this, if you have Alteration and Sorcery is the next bulb, one Sage won't be enough if my memory serves me right. And you'll still need Divination if you don't have life mana.

 

[Senethro]

What are the lightbulb priorities anyway?

 

[Brugarin]

I've played against hordes of exploding undead and it's quite difficult to handle them all. (playing on emperor level, with balseraph) What I did was build several mimics, fight wandering flaming zombies and steal the fire resistant promotion. That was enough to keep them at bay. Meanwhile the world was set on fire, AC became 70, uber AV demon came out of it's egg as immunte fo fire as can be and started to pound away at the remaining hordes of zombies.

Everyone lived happily ever after in hell.

P.S.: Also i saw the ai using mages! And with great Success! They threw specters and fireballs at me like crazy. Never saw them used by the AI before. Good Job AI team! Hooray!

 

[Grey Fox]

What are the lightbulb priorities anyway?

As long as you have Mysticism it's; KotE -> Alteration -> Divination -> Elementalism -> Necromancy -> Sorcery (requires Writing) (2 required to pop it, or one which gives the majority of the beakers) -> 3 was almost enough for Arcane Lore -> Pass through Ether -> Strength of Will.

Arcane Lore trumps the Mana Techs once you have Sorcery.

Sorcery got a bit cheaper after each bulb of it's requirements (or maybe rather your science output was boosted a bit, though on a national lvl so can't see it in cities). Not enough to matter much though.

Once you have Mysticism, KotE trumps everything, unless you have it, sages would pop Agriculture -> AH-> Calendar -> (Writing if prereqs) -> Exploration-> Hunting-> Animal Handling. If you don't have Writing and all 4 of the Mana techs it goes back to the Agriculture line.


Testing done on small inland sea map with 5 players on Monarch difficulty at quick speed

 

[Uncas]

Just thought i'd mention Arthendain as a good unit to have for Khazad against Sheaim since he gets destroy undead

 

[Senethro]

Now theres an interesting possibility. You could use an iron orb slingshot to pop medicine with any luck.

 

[Grey Fox]

Would be fair to mention Arthendain is the RoK 2nd hero, not the Khazad hero (thats Moros or whatever he is called, at Iron Working), so that would work for anyone that got RoK.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

80% damage cap on explosions sounds good.

 

[Ranos]

Also, another note: A while back I did some testing of PZ's and Archers in cities. Assuming stacks of relatively comparably promoted Pz's and Archers,and a moderate city defense bonus (keep in mind archers come a little before axemen too), Archers tend to be capable of defeating stacks of Bronze Weapons Pz's in 12v12 combat. More than that, and the PZ's start to win more consistently, but static defenses of up to 10-12 comparably promoted archers tend to hold out against similar stacks of Bronze PZ's in a static defense scenario. Sstacks of 10-12 tier II units are huge for the first 125 turns or so (and after those first 125 turns you've really had quite a lot of time to find a counter that works). Obviously, when the Pz's didn't have bronze, the archers were significantly more successful. Conducting these tests led me to believe that PZ's really aren't as op as suggested. I can also provide a WB save of the given situations, if anyone is interested on conducting tests of their own, as I still have mine saved

I think the bold sentence in this post sums up the problem the best. People have a strategy they use and that's the strategy they like. Something comes along and they:

A) Don't want to change their strategy and so complain that something is op

or

B) Try a couple of things that don't work and then complain that something is op

There have been a number of suggestions that all work well against PZs. Some better than others of course and some cost you a lot of production and you lose a lot of units. Try the strategies out before you say PZs or op. If they work, then you have a new way to deal with them. Since they have been posted on here, and since I've used some of them myself, I can pretty much guarantee you that they work.

Now I can't speak for MP, since I really don't play it, but in SP, PZs are not overpowered.

 

[Keeper_GFA]

80% damage cap on explosions sounds good.

Yeah, cuz nobody would attack a stack of units who only have 20% health.

 

[Ur_Vile_Wedge]

A damaged stack that has to be attacked one unit at a time gives a chance for survivors to limp away. And the other day, I had a game where I had a big stack of Doom facing off against the Sheaim. I had Valin attack, barely winning with his life. I thought he was safe, with 5 guys who had guardsmen, but along comes a stupid pyre zombie, gets massacred attacking a paladin, and in the explosion, Valin dies. A damage cap would have let me keep my hero.

 

[Jules.lt]

It's true that the PZ is a sort of super assassin when it comes to sufficiently wounded units; it ignores guardsman and targets all of the wounded units in one go.

I wouldn't mind a cap, but only to prevent the explosion from actually doing the killing, so 95% or 99% rather than 80%.