Unit Tiers & Tech Branches Rebalancing

[to_xp]Gekko

QCT junkie
Joined
Dec 16, 2005
Messages
7,950
Location
Seyda Neen, Vvardenfell
there's been some excellent discussion on the FFH base forums lately here ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=353270 )

it started with just ideas to make warriors worse after the early game, but it grew into something bigger. most of the points in there apply to WM mana as well since it closely follows base FFH.

my take on the discussion:

1) Animal Mastery should NOT require Iron Working, since otherwise you might as well go up the melee line instead, ignoring recon. imho the tech prereq should be dumped and AM should be made more expensive, similar to other T4 techs.

2) a similar thing could be said for other endgame techs that require expensive techs from completely different branches of the tech tree, like Engineering ( needs Bowyers ) and, IIRC, Divine Essence ( Mithril Working + Theology ? )

3) IMHO point 2) should be evaluated based on "how many different T4 units does this tech branch give"? right now it goes:

Melee: Berserkers, Phalanxes and Immortals ( 3 )
Recon: Beastmasters ( 1 )
Mounted: Knights ( 1 )
Economic: Shadows ( 1 )
Construction: Crossbowman, Arquebuses ( which are more like T3.5 imho ) ( 2 )
Magic: Archmages ( 1 )
Archery: Marksmen ( 1 )
Religion: High Priests ( 1 )

note: I'm ignoring Druids, Paladins and Eidolons here since being dependant on alignment they can't really be evaluated in here ( i.e. they are only accessible 33.3% of the time )

isn't it pretty obvious that we have an issue here? a possible solution imho would be to:

a) move Immortals to the end of the Religious line : now Religion has 2 and Melee has 2.

b) move shadows to the end of the Recon line: now Recon has two. possibly add something else to the Guilds tech to justify its cost

c) move crossbowman to the end of the archery line: archery now has 2. to make up for the loss of them, Machinery could give a new civic, Industry, which gives improved yields from lumbermills, windmills and watermills ( yes, please bring back watermills :D ) . also, Slavery could give improved yields with workshops, which right now are pretty useless until you get Guilds ( ! ) . I've always hated that bonus to quarries, how many quarries are you going to have in your empire, 2? :lol:

d) add back Armored Cavalry tech, move knights to it. Warhorses give War Chariots, which are T3.5 like Arquebuses, i.e. not as powerful as T4, but buildable en masse. they would share the weaknesses of chariots, making them situational like arquebuses ( war chariots good at open land warfare, arquebuses good for conquering cities ) . Mounted line now has 2.

e) you'll see this leaves only Magic line with just one T4 unit... we could get bold and add back the old distinction between mages/archmages and conjurers/summoners ;)

4) separating the Melee line and the Metal line: I love this idea. Melee line would become Metal line, while axemen->champions->berserkers+phalanxes would get moved to the warfare->military strategy line, which would become the new Melee line and obviously get lenghtened, leading to Rage tech and a new one for Phalanxes.

5) related to point 4) , and also to the "let's make warriors less useful after the early game" discussion: tie metal ties to unit ties ( possibly while wearing a tie :lol: ) , and make 'em available to pretty much any unit. i.e. t2 units can use bronze, t3 also iron, and t4 also mithril. I don't see why horsemen, or recon units should not be able to benefit from better weapons, while it makes sense that you wouldn't waste expensive high tier weapons on lowly warriors/scouts.

6) related to points 4) and 5) . some units should REQUIRE resources to build... building swords, axes or knights without metal is silly, and should not be allowed. this will mean more competition to get metals, but also promote the use of other kinds of unit based on what resources you have.

7) high tier ships and siege engines should be able to ranged bombard ;)

8) to encourage use of navies for both the human and the AI, remove resource requirements from ships ( possibly aside from high tier ones ) , and increase their cargo capacities to encourage overseas colonies
 
I like the discussion and the points you have made. It really attempts to make the 8 different lines unique with a unique path. This potentially makes for environs where drastically different armies oppose each other. Interesting.

I would not discount Druids, Paladins, Eidolons as not being part of "religious" line (true, druids aren't really part of a religious tech tree). As you say, they are available 33.3% of the time but any one and only one is 100% available to you depending on allignment.

So this gives religious line (2) units 100% of the time. Where to put Immortals then? Maybe Magic line?
 
well then you should also consider that Druids are Recon ( commune with nature ) , so Recon gets 3 and it throws the math off :lol:

but, your idea about moving Immortals to magic line is also nice. we could add in Tarquelne's Holy Warriors module, which makes paladins tied to Order, Druids to FoL, Eidolons to AV, and adds 4 other units tied to each religion. that would allow us to space them more evenly on the various branches.

another possible solution is having units that are crossovers between branches. Immortals could be Melee+Religious, Knights could be Mounted+Metal , Crossbows could be Archery+Construction, Axemen could be Melee+Metal, Shadows could be Recon+Economy , etc.

this last solution would be probably harder to balanced out, but possibly more interesting :)
 
ideas to make Recon more interesting:

able to use metal weapons, lower base strength, bonus vs barbarians ( they are Recon so they are supposed to have it easy in the wilderness, Beastmaster could get a more substantial bonus vs them since they are T4 ) , rangers start with capture animals and beastmasters with capture beasts, and captured animals can be "merged" with recon units to increase their strength.
 
[to_xp]Gekko;8928717 said:
ideas to make Recon more interesting:

able to use metal weapons, lower base strength, bonus vs barbarians ( they are Recon so they are supposed to have it easy in the wilderness, Beastmaster could get a more substantial bonus vs them since they are T4 ) , rangers start with capture animals and beastmasters with capture beasts, and captured animals can be "merged" with recon units to increase their strength.

Hmm... Sounds rather like something we're doing, here. :p

One thing I'm considering after looking at requirements for various religions: Hunting is too expensive. It is 360:beakers: while other techs at it's level are 200. To fix that, I'm thinking of dropping Hunting to 200, renaming it Trapping, and creating a new recon unit (Trapper, obviously) at 3:strength:. I don't think it's OP, as it would be equivalent to a warrior, with a city attack penalty. Then, bump Hunters up to Tracking (which we renaming Hunting), and give them 5:strength:... Adjust all recon tech prices to take into account the lower initial cost, generally dropping prices by around 100:beakers:.

And yes, historically trapping is a higher tech level than hunting; But Hunter sounds stronger than 'Trapper', and the name fits with the use for the Camp.
 
honestly I don't like the trapper, but I wholeheartedly support splitting hunting and tracking, the first giving camps and the second giving hunters... camps take way too long to get researched otherwise :lol:
 
@Valkrionn, put camps at exploration. Hunter gatherers have been killing game (including elephants) and skinning furs long before roads, etc. I never understood why this was put at such a high level tech in the first place (and then rather than fixing it, adding ad hoc workarounds like improvements without tech, Doviello camps, blahhh). Otherwise, your adjustments make sense to me.

@Gekko, would be nice if it were possible to get to T4 units along any line without having to advance too far along the others. Seems like that would differentiate tech strategies more between games/civs. Yes, this would accelerate the appearance of T4's, but I'm all for wrapping up games and minimizing the slow cleanup phase (which I never finish anyway).
 
[to_xp]Gekko;8928832 said:
honestly I don't like the trapper, but I wholeheartedly support splitting hunting and tracking, the first giving camps and the second giving hunters... camps take way too long to get researched otherwise :lol:

Honestly, I'd have weakened the hunter and the new unit would be the tracker, if that wasn't already used for the Austrin. :lol: As it is, I'm adding a new recon unit so that I can make the tech cheaper, without nerfing the whole recon line (as moving the hunter to tracking without a replacement would, unless tracking is ridiculously cheap, which brings a whole nest of other problems).

@Valkrionn, put camps at exploration. Hunter gatherers have been killing game (including elephants) and skinning furs long before roads, etc. I never understood why this was put at such a high level tech in the first place (and then rather than fixing it, adding ad hoc workarounds like improvements without tech, Doviello camps, blahhh). Otherwise, your adjustments make sense to me.

I'm honestly not worried about camps; As with FF, and Wild Mana if the option is selected, improvements do not require a tech in RifE (Well, the Mills will next version, but they're special). Camps can be built from turn 1. Which fits with the whole 'Recovering from disaster, some knowledge has been passed down' thing; Camps are just slower before Hunting. I can live with that.

I really don't see that method as a 'workaround', as it is quite fitting for FfH; If this were BtS, where those techniques are actually learned for the first time, I wouldn't use it. But in FfH, the techniques already exist for basic things of that sort, they are simply perfecting the art when you acquire the tech that boosts the speed.

The MAIN reason I'm doing this is to bring the tech requirements for FoL into the same cost range as OO and RoK, which is important for a different project.
 
[to_xp]Gekko;8928547 said:
another possible solution is having units that are crossovers between branches. Immortals could be Melee+Religious, Knights could be Mounted+Metal , Crossbows could be Archery+Construction, Axemen could be Melee+Metal, Shadows could be Recon+Economy , etc.
this last solution would be probably harder to balanced out, but possibly more interesting :)
that is soooo cynical :D I love it !
IMO the way the units are made is almost balanced.

single branche T4:
archmage : arcane
lich : arcane
paladin-eilodon : religious
high priest : religious
Beastmasters : recon (+metal) : one of the cheapest T4 unit to research, even considering you need iron.
marksman : archery (+metal?)
phalanx : melee (metal)
knight : mounted (+metal)
arquebuse : engineering

mixed branche T4 :
berserker : religious/melee (rage is a religious tech, needing fanatiscism)
Immortal : religious/melee (maybe make them go out of mithril working : divine essence is already expensive enough)
Druid : recon-religious
crossbow : archery/engineering (+metal)
shadow : economy/recon

There are single branche T4 units for each branches (save , religious and arcane getting the best of it.
My only issue is that most mixed T4 and even some single-branche units need the metal line. And there are too few mixed T4 units.
I would love a cross of religious and archery or recon and arcane ...etc
 
Gekko, your first post just looks like a bunch of random suggestions to me. I am not saying they are good or bad, I don't understand what this is about.

1) you explained elsewhere and I agree with this. Iron working already prereq for so many tier4 Units, I will change the prereq tech.

2) the reason for this is balance. Also gives incentive to research more than just one tech branch

3) there is no reason to give every tech branch the same amount of tier4 units. Is one tech branch too weak compared to others?

4) maybe make iron working cheaper and add a tech that has military strategy and iron working as prereqs and gives Champions?

5+6) don't see the point or how this would make the game more balanced either
 
imho there's no tech path that's really weaker than the others, it's the melee line that is ( most of the time ) superior to others due to the fact that you will want metals anyway if you go down the archery or mounted path, so since you're already going to get those techs you might as well just use melee instead and save lots of beakers on other lines. the fact that it gives more T4 units also seems unfair to me, seeing how powerful they are. separating melee and metals could be a solution, but it's obviously just a suggestion to be discussed ;)
 
The MAIN reason I'm doing this is to bring the tech requirements for FoL into the same cost range as OO and RoK, which is important for a different project.

good job on letting camps get built with Exploration Sephi. however, do consider splitting Hunting in 2, adding Tracking, and having Hunting allow camps and having the same cost range as fishing and mining, while having Tracking unlock Hunters ( you could also switch them around so that Hunting give hunters, seems better :lol: ) . cost of tracking would be such that it costs nearly the same to get axes, archers and hunters.

nothing really gamechanging, but having FoL need a similar amount of beakers compared to RoK and OO seems sensible :)
 
[to_xp]Gekko;8931587 said:
good job on letting camps get built with Exploration Sephi. however, do consider splitting Hunting in 2, adding Tracking, and having Hunting allow camps and having the same cost range as fishing and mining, while having Tracking unlock Hunters ( you could also switch them around so that Hunting give hunters, seems better :lol: ) . cost of tracking would be such that it costs nearly the same to get axes, archers and hunters.

nothing really gamechanging, but having FoL need a similar amount of beakers compared to RoK and OO seems sensible :)

Really, since you don't have the Austrin just call the Hunter the 'Tracker'. It's what I want to do, just have to come up with a replacement name for the Austrin unit....

Edit: I'm renaming the Austrin unit to Trailblazer, so I'm keeping the Hunting/Tracking techs, and making a new "Tracker" recon unit.
 
bleh... melee line gives 3 because melee line is militaristic. Other lines don't give as much, because they give better builder bonuses
 
bleh. A complete "rebalancing" of this magnitude is asking for a massive imbalance.

I mean, FFH has evolved over years, and been refined and rebalanced over that time, and you are proposing basically genetic engineering. The risk of unintended consequences is huge.
 
bleh. A complete "rebalancing" of this magnitude is asking for a massive imbalance.

I mean, FFH has evolved over years, and been refined and rebalanced over that time, and you are proposing basically genetic engineering. The risk of unintended consequences is huge.

Just because FfH has arrived at these placements after it's development does NOT mean they are perfect. While I do agree with you that a rebalancing that large isn't needed, something should never be ruled out just because "FfH didn't do it that way, FfH is always right, ergo, you're wrong". ;)

Introducing the new Trailblazer!
Sorry Valkrionn. Couldn't resist.

Hehe, honestly I thought that too. Though the alternative names were:

  • Pathfinder
    • Spoiler :
      ag360_pathfinder_front.jpg
  • Seeker
    • Spoiler :
      legend-of-the-seeker-poster1.jpg
  • Sealgaire
    • Gaelic for 'Hunter'. They already have a Highlander unit, so I was hopeful, but I don't like the word. :lol:
 
Back
Top Bottom