Speculative balance changes post patch

[xAlephx]

So I've been thinking about which civs will become stronger and which weaker after the patch. I don't have quite the history with civ to fully grasp the implications for all the changes, but nevertheless the question has been creeping into my head recently and I wanted to get some thoughts from all and sundry.

Elohim - will be somewhat weakened by the changes to the altar. Not critically, but the loss of early hammer bonuses to priests will slow them down a bit.
Hippus - depending on the prevalence of the nightmare resource, hippus may gain a good deal of power.
Ljosalfar - did I read somewhere that meteor and fireball can no longer bombard? I thought I did, but it's not in the changelog. If so, ouch.
Luchuirp - will be improved a bit in the middle game by the removal of stone and their reliance on it for crucial units. Also will benefit from the +1 happy from Enchantment mana from the get go, which is a nice benny. Late game will suffer a bit from the damage caps on fireball, but on the whole should benefit more from smoother start and middle - and now that Contagion can no longer kill, Golem's immunity to disease will come up more often.
Sheaim - the new Tar Demon looks like an ugly baby. Won't come anywhere near to compensating for the loss of RoF, but that's a good thing, and it effects everyone.

 

[Grey Fox]

Calabim - The loss of the Vampiric Governor will make them a little weaker in the very early game. But the changes to the Governors Manor will make the calabim more productive in the somewhat early, to late game. And will give you incentive to switch to the Aristocracy/Agricultural combo earlier. Although, maintenance of a large empire will be more expensive, since the Governors Manor will only give a -20% Maintenance, while Courthouses give -40%.

 

[xAlephx]

And the damage cap on contagion will likely be felt most heavily by Calabim. On the other hand, vampiric supremacy will only be underlined by the inability of most spells to finish a victim off.

Call it a wash? Lots of variables there, no clear direction.

Amurites - notably weaker. Magical damage caps affect them heavily, given their abundance of mages and fireball throwing archers, while the new affinity system will reward concentration of mana types against their cave of ancestors rewarding plurality.

 

[onedreamer]

Elohim - will be somewhat weakened by the changes to the altar. Not critically, but the loss of early hammer bonuses to priests will slow them down a bit.

Hmm, why would this be specific to Elohim ?

 

[xAlephx]

Hmm, why would this be specific to Elohim ?

It isn't Elohim only, any more than the changes to Contagion are Calabim only, or the loss of stone is Luchuirp only, but it is a change that effects Elohim more than most. Now that altar 3 no longer grants +1 production, religion rushers will be affected more strongly than those who were pursuing a more conventional approach early. Can you religion rush with others? Sure. Will they be affected as well? Sure. But the production bonus of altar isn't as central to any other civ's early play style as it is to the Elohim Monkrieg.

 

[onedreamer]

I still don't understand... you mean that Elhoim are more suitable to rush religions and that because they won't get +1 prod. from priests at the level 3 altar (but they will get more later) they will be weakened more than others ? How would these 2 things be connected ?

 

[xAlephx]

I still don't understand... you mean that Elhoim are more suitable to rush religions and that because they won't get +1 prod. from priests at the level 3 altar (but they will get more later) they will be weakened more than others ? How would these 2 things be connected ?

Am I confusing you with my references to religion rushing? I'm not limiting it to getting one of the big three early, but also choosing to shoot up religious tech line (located near the bottom of the tech tree, starting with Philosophy) before pursuing other obvious developmental choices (bronze working, writing, currency, trade).

Much of the below is stuff you know already. But I'm spelling it out so there won't be any more confusion in why I'm saying what I'm saying.

IF: the early Elohim game, as described in several posts by people far more experienced than me, is best spent a. founding a religion, likely OO, and allocating your first great prophet to founding the necronomicon b. bulbing priesthood with your second great prophet to unlock monk, religious discipline, and the early altar, while simultaenously c. farm spamming to run as many priests as possible to throw the early levels of the altar down, followed by d. cranking out monks with improved priest production / whipping them out with Slavery. Ideally, the only techs you would have at this time which are not required by OO or Priesthood would be agriculture and (SP) Education. At early phases of the game, Monks are devastating due to high strength, speed, easy access to March, and lack of early counter.

AND ALSO IF: No other civ is as suited to this play style as are the Elohim.

AND ALSO ALSO IF: Monks plateau in usefulness as the game progresses and both more advanced troop types and the Scourge upgrade become available.

THEN: delaying the production bonus of altar to a later stage will have disproportionately adverse effects on those who were relying on it as their major early source of production, most particularly the Elohim. If you're skipping Crafting / Mining because Priests are going to be your major source of hammers, and the hammer bonus for priests comes later, that's a blow.

If that's not clear, I don't know how to help. Also, the patch just finished downloading, so I'm checked out for days.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Well, hopefully there won't be such a clear best strategy, but to my knowledge nothing was done with weakening or strengthening any particular civ in mind. The Altar victory in general was a bit of a snowball victory before, with each stage making the next a bit easier ro more lucrative. Hopefully we'll get it so that it isn't clear and away easier than, say, domination or the Tower of Mastery.

 

[kenken244]

the elohim are waekened because dicyple cycles are no longer around so their monks are much much weaker

 

[vorshlumpf]

"Much weaker"? Perhaps "somewhat" weaker, but I think "much" is a bit too much.

 

[xAlephx]

On the whole I agree with your assessment, but it depends who you are fighting. Notably weaker against the Sheaim.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I think that monks should be made weaker but given a spirit affinity of 2, or possible multiple affinities (life, law, perhaps some negative affinities for body, death, and entropy)

 

[Seont]

huh, noone's mentioned the clan embers and the hordes of wolf packs. using my last few gamesas reference, clam embers, with careful harvesting, could feild a psychoticly large army of wargs in record time.