The first game....

[orangelex44]

So, first game, take two....

This time I go with the Empire - mostly because my secret dream is to own a little empire one day. I pick the combat leader - the one with Aggressive AND Charismatic. If those two traits weren't overpowered enough, my final one is Imperialist, which gives Culture (fine, fine - Influence then) while lowering maintenence and doing some other cool stuff that may or may not become useful. I start the game prepared to cleanse the world of chaotic baddies as well as ....unpersuasive... buddies.

Having played that last game, I'm not quite as intimidated by the tech list as the first time - I'm still basically lost, but I have a general idea of where to head. At least, I know enough to rush Philosophy, picking up the free Cleric on the way. After that, I run through the general techs (please fix this, the path to Roads leads through Fishing and Crafting), with the plan being to get Iron Working before anyone else.

This map is a little smaller, only Standard, on Continents. It's a "Play Now", no customs - the only ones I really ever care about is Living World, which doesn't matter, and No Tech Brokering, which does. I'm still on Prince, though, so I'm not that concerned.

Anyway, my nearest (and, it tturns out, only) neighbors are the Spanish guys (led by Jose, who seems like a harmless Inquisitor type) and the Beasts of Chaos (led by a minotaur, go figure). My espianage tells me that Jose is also rushing for Philosophy. I win, because I'm smart enough to switch to Mysticism ASAP, and take Festivals simply because it's the most expensive tech right now. When I attempt to trade, I notice that my Lawful friend Jose is angry that I "treat my people badly"... this is unbalanced, since the civic he's grumpy about is a default - and even more unbalanced since the relations boost for same Alignment isn't working. Making friends is going to be hard, methinks.

By the way, now is a good time to mention that the music in this mod is sweet. The Empire's background music makes me want to go crusade...

I lose lots of Scouts before I realize that it's not worth it. They're more expensive than Warriers (despite being 1/3 the strength), and all the goody huts I get only contain a pittance of gold. I switch to a new tactic; giant expansion. This is when I realize my starting position sucks. I'm bordered by jungle to the north, ocean to the east, marsh to the south, and more marsh/both opponents to the west. My capitol is OK, my first town is OK, but my third is far from perfect (two Marsh and two Mountains). Oh, well... the terrain south of the Marsh fits another city, and I quickly fit one in the center of the continent before my rivals can get around to it. My little Empire is not so little anymore; I get reports that I'm the most Influential as well as the largest civ in the world! Yay!

In the meantime, I focus on building a monster economy in preparation for my Iron Working rush. I've already said I think the economic buildings are too strong; my one Cleric combined with Markets in every city let me keep my science firmly at 100%. One lucky city has TWO barley next to it; an Inn goes there (for specialists). I also build both the Grant Market Thingie (whatever it's called, for +100% Gold) and the Really Cool Brewery (because I've promised myself to try for it every time). The extra specialists I have running around go really well with the overpowered Caste System civic. I'm a total powerhouse.

Here's a neat feature... that Dye I'd ignored turned out to be much more useful than I planned. The Wartatoos promotion I'd forgotten to ask about ends up being caused by Dye, which rapidly changed my plans. I realize I can move much more quickly than I first thought. My defensive army of 6-7 Axemen, with a few newly-minted Catapults, will be more than enough to wipe out everyone I know.

Checking the scoreboard, I get two nice surprises. One, I'm stronger by far than both my rivals. Two, all those economic builds I have give me Espianage points, and thus, I can see lots of neat information - like the fact that I have both these guys outteched by an Age.

I'll keep you posted.



Question:
I researched the Gold magic tech because it sounded cool. Turns out, I actually need Gold to use any of it. Damn. What magic would be the best for me to get?

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

I'm not sure exactly which spells; there was one that did Fire damage (annoying, slowed my siege of the second capitol, he was sitting in the city and casting out) and I think the glowing monster assassins were another spell (which I think let them recapture that first city the Lizards beat me to).

excelent sounds like tzeentch magic is working with the AI then i was worried they wernt using them.

It seems like the tech tree is pretty quick to get through, should that be looked at too? I forgot to mention, the Lizards are managing this with Tech Brokering off.

indeed the techs DO seem a bit too easy to come across in this mod...

And before I forget, the Ratmen settlements weren't naming themselves properly, it was a TXT_KEY_SETTLEMENT thing.

ah yes, i noticed this too, ill fix it in the next patch

Thanks for the well written gamereport/AAR - I'm enjoying reading it, & lots of useful feedback for improving the game.

Agreed more revies like this from other casual players would be WONDERFUL!

Maybe one thing we should work on is start replacing those FfH "tips" during loading with a few quick ones that explain some of the important features unique to this mod - especially stuff like the religions/shrines and combat-driven Influence work in a very unique way that should be pointed out to help new players. I'm especially pleased that the AI is managing to use magic nicely, the magic is one of the most flavorful things in this mod.

yeh thats true, maybe Ahriman would like to write them up? your very knowledgable on how the mod works and are good at writing would you mind?

So, my first game ends not in fire and brimstone, but with RL intruding....

damn thats a bugger i was looking forward to see how you got past the lizzies and lahmians, oh well.

By the way, some of the things I've been reporting as bugs may instead be from the old version, since I'm not sure what exactly was happening and what files the new version was referencing to.

nope it all sounds like its from 1.4, especially the skaven settlement bug (the sprawling trait is a new addition to 1.4)

Makes some sense. Tyranny represents a militaristic state, that goes on conquests and forces vassalisation.
It might make more sense to move it to feudalism though.

do vassal states REALLY make sense in warhammer? i think enslaved civilizations is far more common. Darkelves enlave whole races of huymanoid beasts from the mountains of naggaroth, and the chaod dwarves enslaved the hobgoblins and orcs...

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

When I attempt to trade, I notice that my Lawful friend Jose is angry that I "treat my people badly"... this is unbalanced, since the civic he's grumpy about is a default - and even more unbalanced since the relations boost for same Alignment isn't working. Making friends is going to be hard, methinks.

your right, ill remove the diplo penalties from the default civics.

By the way, now is a good time to mention that the music in this mod is sweet. The Empire's background music makes me want to go crusade...

agreed Orlanth did an awsome job compiling a new soundtrack

One lucky city has TWO barley next to it;

thats nothing, i had a city with 9 (yes NINE) barley in its fat cross once this needs to be sorted but i dont know how resource placement works

The extra specialists I have running around go really well with the overpowered Caste System civic.

yeh some of those free specialists should be dropped.

how do you think caste systems could be better balanced?

Here's a neat feature... that Dye I'd ignored turned out to be much more useful than I planned. The Wartatoos promotion I'd forgotten to ask about ends up being caused by Dye, which rapidly changed my plans.

i like that too ploeps idea of course ive been wondering if extending the area that dyes spawns in, and reducing the number of dyes, would be a good idea, or whether the large spawn of dyes only in jungle is good becuase of encouraging trade...

I researched the Gold magic tech because it sounded cool. Turns out, I actually need Gold to use any of it. Damn. What magic would be the best for me to get?

none of the spells should require gold... yep i just checked and none of them require gold. any chance of a screenshot of this?

personally my favourite winds of magic are shadow (a good combo of buff, summon and damage spells, as well as the awsome mirror of ulgu spell which summons an illusion of the caster) and also celestial (great damage and buff spells, plus eventually the ability to summon a nuke equivilant at the cost of killing your arch mage, oh and faster EXP gain, magic damage from the vision of Azyr spell), beast is a good wind if you are finding yourself up against a lot of horsemen/chraiot/animal or beast units, and light is also pretty good. each wind has some cool stuff, (but at the momebnt id stear clear of bright magic because i still need to add in 2 more spells, it only has 6 spells in its repatoir)

 

[orangelex44]

All things considered, PL, my strategy against the Lizards would probably have been to ignore them, or die. Seriously, they outnumbered, outproduced, and outteched me - and none of the AI would even consider attacking them, since they were so strong. With my limited knowledge, there was no way for me to compensate or catch up.

As for balancing Caste System, I'd have to doublecheck what it does, exactly. Right now the extra gold and espianage (I think that's what it gives), combined with tons of free specialists, results in a beastly economy. Again, without actually checking the exact stats, the first thing would be to limit or remove the extreme amount of free specialists. Then, I'd consider removing or reducing the bonuses specialists get; unlimited specialists is a pretty decent ability even when they're just the base strength.

Yeah, I remarked on the resource bunching before - specifically there was a ton of Ivory hanging around my last game; this game is much better. Lots of Marshes, though - not exactly a resource, but something to be considered nonetheless.

Dumb question: what does AAR stand for (from orlanth's post)?

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

As for balancing Caste System, I'd have to doublecheck what it does, exactly. Right now the extra gold and espianage (I think that's what it gives), combined with tons of free specialists, results in a beastly economy. Again, without actually checking the exact stats, the first thing would be to limit or remove the extreme amount of free specialists. Then, I'd consider removing or reducing the bonuses specialists get; unlimited specialists is a pretty decent ability even when they're just the base strength.

yeh, ill look at redcing the free specialists first then we will consider dropping the specialist change from the civic

Dumb question: what does AAR stand for (from orlanth's post)?

ive absolutely no idea O_O so its not really a dumb question

 

[orlanth]

specifically there was a ton of Ivory hanging around my last game..thats nothing, i had a city with 9 (yes NINE) barley in its fat cross once

Wow, I will have a look at reworking the appearance frequencies in Civ4BonusInfos.xml. I think I would know how to fix this resource bunching actually

Orlanth did an awsome job compiling a new soundtrack

Thankyou! I appreciate it.

As for balancing Caste System, I'd have to doublecheck what it does, exactly. Right now the extra gold and espianage (I think that's what it gives), combined with tons of free specialists, results in a beastly economy.

I've removed/toned down some of the specialists from resource processing buildings in my latest version, though I did really like having these because they add local flavor/interest to things like the Inn and Tavern. Fixing the resource clustering should make these buildings less powerful as well. I was hoping to get to an average of zero to two specialists per city once you construct all resource processing buildings, do you think this still would be too much? Once the unique improvements like Mark of the Old Ones etc have a function I'd be fine to lose the local specialists from these. I don't know what to make of all these new civics; but maybe they should have less dramatic effects overall. I think we should try putting them back to the version from the forum post about civics and then make some gradual changes from there.

ive been wondering if extending the area that dyes spawns in, and reducing the number of dyes, would be a good idea

I think this might be a good idea since Dyes are somwhat of a strategic resource as you point out.. I'll try making a slight tweak in this direction when I work on the Bonus xml.

question: what does AAR stand for (from orlanth's post)?

After Action Report , kind of a strategy game retrospective sometimes written in character. Or at least that's what it's called by fans of Europa Univeralis, who write an unbelievable number of these!

 

[Ahriman]

When I attempt to trade, I notice that my Lawful friend Jose is angry that I "treat my people badly"..

Yeah, I don't like how this works in this mod; it makes more sense in FFH when you start in the middle of the health civic range, and can go up (which good likes) or down (which evil likes). The diplo bonus for being Lawful is also broken.

yeh thats true, maybe Ahriman would like to write them up? your very knowledgable on how the mod works and are good at writing would you mind?

I can try at some stage, might be a while though before I have the time.

how do you think caste systems could be better balanced?

I'd still *love* to see this one favoring a serf/lord economy, if you can figure out some way to have civics give a bonus to only particular specialist types.

Dumb question: what does AAR stand for (from orlanth's post)?

AAR = After Action Report.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

I'd still *love* to see this one favoring a serf/lord economy, if you can figure out some way to have civics give a bonus to only particular specialist types.

i agree, its on my 'things to ask vehem' list

 

[orangelex44]

Alright, another 80 turns have passed....

As expected, the Chaos beasts are pushovers, they're still stuck on Warriers - my stack of Catapults and Wartattooed Axemen tear through their lands. The Chaos guys seem to have been stifled by too many forests around, along with the AI's reluctance to get Brewing and use Barley effectively (they love to put Cottages on the resource, I've never seen an AI Brewery). Three more promising cities are added to my Empire, and one heathen town put to the torch.

In an amazingly short amount of time, the old Chaos lands are fully integrated into the Empire. All that's really needed is a Courthouse, Market, and Elder Council - 2 Research, 3 Gold, low Maintenence, and various happly/health boosts turns any crappy slum into a productive town. Building a Forbidden Palace never hurts, either... from a wartime low of -15 Gold/turn, my 100% Science slider now nets +8 Gold/turn. Great!

The Spanish-ish guy next to me is half my score - mostly because of a weak economy leading to slow tech. He was slow to get Roads - so even though he expanded to cover nearly half the continent, these cities were weak and only wounded his economy even more. I could conquer him - and probably should - but I hold hopes that I can vassalize him instead. He's got Roads now, though, and is slowly making up the distance between us - he's actually about the same size as me in area, just woefully low in population, production, technology, and GNP.

I'm still sitting on a half-dozen Hedgewizards, letting them XP before I upgrade them. I researched Alchemy to get the Sorcerer's Stone - for the Gold I need for that magic tech I researched - only to find out that you need Gold to make Gold. Unfortunate... and kind of counterintuitive, when you're turning Iron into Gold why do you need Gold to begin with? Anyway, I try for another cool-sounding magic tech - Lore of Fire - and find out I need something called Brightstone. I've never seen any of this stuff; do I need some tech to see it?

I've started building my first UU, Halberdiers - which are really amazing; the Barracks' extra XP, combined with Apprentice, combined with Halberdiers' starting Musicians let me get Senior Officer (or something like that) immediately - and free Morale is nothing to scoff at. My first Militia come around now, too - these guys are a big step stronger than Warbands. In a drastic change from last game, I haven't even researched Horseback Riding yet - following the cue of vanilla Civ, mounted units are much less useful than melee units. I'd maybe like if mounted units were kicked up one more attack strength (to make up for no City Attack promotions), but increased in cost by about 50% (ponies cost $$$$).

After taking the Alliance civil, I find that I effectively control it - all votes only need 1 of 2 to pass, and human trumps AI in votes. Maybe the Alliance votes should require at least three civs to trigger?

So right now it's trun 300, and I'm firmly on top of the power list... my next objective is to get some ships and pwn the fools across the sea. I'll also possibly invade and force the Spanish guy to capitulate, just because I can... I guess power IS corrupting!


No questions this time, everything went pretty straightforward.

 

[Ahriman]

As expected, the Chaos beasts are pushovers, they're still stuck on Warriers

Beasts of chaos are still totally undeveloped at the moment. You might have better luck selecting enemies from the more-fleshed out factions.

The Chaos guys seem to have been stifled by too many forests around

Forestlock is a big problem, both in this mod and FFH, because of how deep down the tech tree bronze-working is for clearing forests. I think we're likely to let players clear forests from the start (or from agriculture) at half speed, and without any hammer gains. This should hopefully clear up the problem.

along with the AI's reluctance to get Brewing and use Barley effectively (they love to put Cottages on the resource, I've never seen an AI Brewery)

I think this could be fixed by slightly improving the tile yield bonus from the brewery. Pastures, mines, plantations and wineries on most resources give big tile yields, but breweries not so much.

is a Courthouse

Courthouse is pretty late-game, and marketplace fairly expensive. The lack of maintenance reducers in the early game make early over-expansion dangerous.

He was slow to get Roads

Roads are too expensive atm, AI very often doesn't get them early enough and so really really suffers.

following the cue of vanilla Civ, mounted units are much less useful than melee units

Not really true in this mod, at least in open territory. Mounted units are very powerful on offense; 8 strength for cavalry vs 7 strength for swordsmen (with iron weapons), and withdrawal chance too. Cav are also much more mobile (3 moves on light cavalry and horsearchers) and great for pillaging. And knights are the best offensive unit in the game really. Cavalry kicks ass in general, particularly from some of the stronger cavalry civs.
You *can* just go with melee units, but you miss a lot from ignoring cavalry, particularly on larger maps where it takes forever to shuffle your units around on roads.

 

[orangelex44]

Yeah, cavalry are pretty balanced late-game - but there's a big gap between Ancient Cavalry, Light Cav, and Knights - that's where the equivalent Melee units are stronger, because they're so much easier to get when you use cavalry you're fighting the next step up of cavalry. Withdrawal is nice, but tough to use effectively (relying on withdrawal a lot means that you don't acquire any XP)- and there still is no way to run an effective conquest past the early game on cavalry alone. You need Catapults to weaken towns, and Cavalry are completely useless at guarding the Catapults. As it is now, you can use infantry without cavalry, but not cavalry without infantry. Archers, as always, are entirely superfluous - it's very possible to run a game and NEVER build a single one.

And Imperial roads make the extra movement from Cavalry much less useful.

 

[Ahriman]

Yeah, cavalry are pretty balanced late-game - but there's a big gap between Ancient Cavalry, Light Cav, and Knights - that's where the equivalent Melee units are stronger

?

You can get stirrups as easily as you can get feudalism. Try getting light cavalry quickly and using them. Yes, if you only get ancient cavalry once you already have militia swordsmen, of course they look weak by comparison.

And yes, a cavalry army isn't as good at assaulting and taking cities, but its pretty amazing for a pillage war. You dont' have to conquer an enemy in war; you can just pillage their empire to death for massive cash and have killed their tech in such a way as to make them never recover.

Archers are pretty effective city defenders. You're playing on a really low difficulty, so you never really have to face big enemy stacks trying to take your cities. Archers are pretty good against that, a couple of city defence militia bowmen in a city with a palisade or walls can hold off an awful lot, whereas a couple of swordsmen or spearmen would die much more quickly. And crossbowmen are fantastic to have in stacks to slaughter any melee units who try to assault it.
Low difficulty games tend to be all about city assaults; less so on higher difficulties once the AI can build some real stacks.

I think the first tier of archery units are slightly weak (might be worth increasing their attack by 1) but otherwise I think the balance between unit lines is pretty decent.

Many civs will also have excellent bowman UUs that are more than just city defenders, featuring better terrain or offensive capabilities.

The Empire, with good melee units (halbardiers are excellent on offense and are very mobile), access to imperial roads and great cannons are probably one of the easiest to run with just melee and siege units. Other factions, less so. Try a faction like the Hung with good cavalry and no imperial roads. Or a raider faction, where cavalry can pillage massive areas very very quickly.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

I'm still sitting on a half-dozen Hedgewizards, letting them XP before I upgrade them. I researched Alchemy to get the Sorcerer's Stone - for the Gold I need for that magic tech I researched - only to find out that you need Gold to make Gold. Unfortunate... and kind of counterintuitive, when you're turning Iron into Gold why do you need Gold to begin with? Anyway, I try for another cool-sounding magic tech - Lore of Fire - and find out I need something called Brightstone. I've never seen any of this stuff; do I need some tech to see it?

im not seeing this requirement for either brightstone or gold. could you specify if it is required for the colleges to be built, the units or what?

i dont recall changing magic to require these resources (as it is its a pain in the arse to get acollege and adding a resource requirement is just daft...) perhaps its meant to be a 'double production speed' thing rather than requirement...

 

[Ahriman]

These things were supposed to get a double production speed; maybe they were given a requirement by accident?
The philosopher's stone was supposed to have double build speed with gold. Bright wizard college supposed to have double build speed with brightstone.
There were a bunch of changes and costs to wonders (including the colleges) that got implemented recently.

 

[orangelex44]

Yeah, I have yet to manage to get any magic other than the basic; they all require a rare resource I don't have. Plus, there's only one kind of tower thing I can make (i.e., I can only use one of the Lore magics, but I can research them all)- is this intentional?

 

[Ahriman]

The Empire shoudl be able to research all 8 Lore of X techs.
Design intention is for them to be able to research any of the techs, but to only be able to build 3 colleges (any three, but only three).

Sounds like some bugs have been introduced.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

brightstone increasing build rate forthe bright college makes no sense... sure the name is both bright, but brightstone has nothing to do with fire (plus it is only provided by the mines of Gunbad unique feature)

hopefully these magic bugs will be fixed in the next patch (which should hopefully be up soon, though im afraid i go back to Uni tomorrow and then my free time will be reduced dramatically once more )

 

[orangelex44]

Yeah, I've researched every Lore tech but as of right now, the only one that even shows up as possible to build is the Fire one (I think; may be a different one but it's the first one I researched) - which I can't build since I have no Brightstone. I wanna magic!

 

[Ahriman]

I had thought that brightstone was a magical stone used by mages as some kind of focus.

If not, you could shift the double-speed to marble, or remove it altogether.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

ok thanks Orangelex, it should be fixed in the next patch.

if you cant wait for the patch give woodelves highevles or darkelves a shot. their magic all works fine.