What would you cut?

[marioflag]

More than cutting elements i would rather see those elements better integrated in the game.


-elephants and chariots. Those units are not really flavourful for a fantasy game.I would rather see them as specific units for some civs for example Elephants could be available only to Hippus civ, while Doviello get Mammoth Rider

-Mobility. Mobility should be available only to Cavalry units because it cuts strategic elements to cavalry, it's particularly too strong on heroes because it makes them too strong on defense and attack.

-Specialization of promotions. While moblility is the most pressing i also hope that other promotions are available to less units to increase the unit specialization.City Raider for example doesn't seem really fit with Disciple units, while woodsman for example could be a recon, animal and beast units specific promotion without adding that also to melee units.

 

[Verdian]

I looked at the tech tree and thought of some more not yet mentioned.

1) The dungeon. I've never built this, it doesn't seem worth the -1 unhappiness.
2) The Rage tech. All that for one unit? Maybe it will be more helpful now that defensive buildings stack with culture, but not enough to warrant its own tech.
3) Animal Mastery tech. Again, all that for one unit, and a promotion really only good for that unit. Late game, there are few reasons to want to subdue beasts.
4) Stirrups tech. 2500 beakers for a unit that requires archery.

Also, remember this is for things you want to remove, not general changes. I know it can be a fine line.

 

[woodelf]

I agree about Dungeons. It either needs something to be added to it or simply removed.

 

[Moon Hunter]

My suggestions:

- cut the elephant... absolutely useless.
- keep the magic spheres, and all three branches the way they are now. I think it adds a lot to the flavour of the mod as such. /maybe merge of sorcery and summoning, but keep all the spheres
- make mobility recon/animal/mounted only
- make the specialization promotions /city raider, city garrison/ grant a penalty to opposite promotion when maxed out. e.g. CG III will grant -20% city attack
- remove ring of warding. never built that anyway.
- remove the packs, and make lairs only destroyable by recon units... to keep wildlife last longer. add new animals.
- dont you dare touch the privateers and pirates. they make the seas entertaining
-maniac had in his modmod managed to avoid the micro management by having his mid tier units have % chance of having promotions they would otherwise get from upgrading a unit (technically remove micromanagement)
- remove forts
- remove/alter dungeons

I think all from me for now

 

[bc1]

Buildings:
Combine Archery Range and Bowyers [westamastaflash, TallJimbo, Monkeyfinger]: agree
Combine Combine Mage Guild and Library [westamastaflash, TallJimbo]: disagree
Combine Tavern and Inn into one building [westamastaflash, TallJimbo, Monkeyfinger]: agree
Combine stables and hippodromes [TallJimbo]: agree
Remove or consolidate Alchemy Lab [xienwolf]: agree, remove
Remove or consolidate Aqueduct [xienwolf]: disagree
Remove or consolidate Ring of Warding [xienwolf, Monkeyfinger, Pocus]: agree, merge with mage guild ?
Remove or consolidate Forbidden Palace [xienwolf]: disagree
Remove or consolidate Winter Palace [xienwolf]: disagree
Making many buildings incompatible [MagisterCultuum]: strongly disagree (is this a cut ?)
No free buildings from events [Seven05]: agree
Make buildings cheaper [several]: balance issue
Remove dungeons [Verdian,woodelf]: agree

Units:
Remove basic elephants [most posters]: agree
Remove animal packs [MagisterCultuum]: disagree
Remove privateers [Lord Bayushi]: disagree
Change great commanders to great generals [Lord Bayushi, Monkeyfinger]: agree
Merge Swordsman/Axeman [xienwolf]: cosmetic
Remove siege units [xienwolf]: ?
Remove chariots [Seven05]: disagree
Remove Lanun maceman and Infernal hunter from world editor [fenboy]: low priority
Remove mobility promotion: disagree
Cut down ship types [Verdian, slowcar]: disagree

Magic:
Merge summoning and sorcery [Eddiit, TheCowSaysMoooo, charleswatkins]: agree
Remove fireball & meteor [xienwolf]: strongly disagree
Change fireball & meteor to ranged spell [MagisterCultuum]: very low priority (is this a cut ?)
Cut down the number of magic spheres [subanark, TheCowSaysMoooo, charleswatkins, slowcar]: disagree, would prefer merging summoning & sorcery and corresponding spell remap
Spell availability with multiple nodes [subanark]: strongly disagree, level 1/2/3 is complex enough (is this a cut ?)
Remove useless summons [Lord Bayushi]: which ones ?
Remove magic resistance [subanark]: disagree

Techs:
Remove basic tech research [Seven05]: ?
Remove poison tech, move most units to deception [MagisterCultuum, mtagge, slowcar]: agree
Remove pass through the ether tech [Monkeyfinger]: disagree
Remove rage tech [verdian]: ?
Remove animal mastery tech [verdian]: agree
Remove stirrups tech [verdian]: ?

Other:
Streamline SDK code [MagisterCultuum]: workload tradeoff
Forced coucil membership [subanark]: strongly disagree (is this a cut ?)
Change the new religions to guilds [subanark]: disagree (is this a cut ?), but perhaps the Esus religion is redundant with the Council of Esus
Streamline vassal requests [Lord Bayushi]: very low priority (is this a cut ?)
Dampen fire spread [Lord Bayushi, eddiit]: agree (but how is this a cut ?)
Excessive building/tech/resource requirments [Seven05]: ?
Streamline civics further [Pocus]: agree
Remove forts [woodelf]: agree

 

[zxcvbnm]

Whatever you do, don't cut magic spheres. Instead you could make magic a bit more diverse to make those spheres more interesting.

 

[onedreamer]

I would remove:

- Civ specific spells (the AI just doesn't understand them, and for me as a player they arent very interesting and just another source of balance problems)
- Marksman and Guardsman promotion, Mobility 2+ promotion
- Elephants and Spiders
- Dimensional Mana. Unless you do something about it. At least the superunderpowered Sheaim would get a decent starting mana.

I would not remove, but reduce and rethink:

- AC effects, especially the Wrath, which I'm not liking at all in its latest version.


I'll edit this post if I find more stuff.

 

[Willgar]

Think the current version is pretty good and just needs a polish to the AI.
A few things maybe worth cutting:

Removing tier 1 chariots would fix the broken Cavalry line.
Crossbow's seem somewhat pointless between longbow and gunpowder units
Micromanaging bloom - just let bloom be used over existing improvements for the elves
Fort mechanic - not sure if it is even working or what bonuses it gives?
Inn / Tavern - maybe just one building?
Tax Office / Money Changer - maybe just one buillding?
Carnival / Colleseum - maybe just one building?
Machinist / Weaponsmith - maybe just one building?
Pagan Temple - with the loss of the old disciple unit - is this really that vital?

 

[Nikis-Knight]

People are talking about cutting second level unit allowing buildings... if so, maybe make it so the archers/axemen/horsemen/adepts don't need the buiding, but the later ones do (rather than vice versa.)

personally, I like both inn and tavern; they stack, so it's kind of like making trade route economy it's own thing. Could use a price reduction, (10-15%?) though.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Mercantilism's too late and taverns too expensive for that to really work as is.

 

[Tarquelne]

Pagan Temple - with the loss of the old disciple unit - is this really that vital?

Source of G.Priests before getting a religion? I don't know about "vital", but that's how I think of them.

I enjoy FFH2's complexity and near-redundancies quite a bit. Code maintenance and AI integration are a different story, though. If it wasn't for those two factors I'd suggest that nothing be cut. And I can't really judge how difficult those are for most units, buildings, etc.

However: Chariots, Crossbowmen, Elephants, forts, Al. Labs and Dungeons are all elements that could be dropped and I wouldn't miss them at all.

Crime, spreading fires, world spells, Acheron, and Great Commanders are all elements I would miss but could easily imagine as not being worth the effort.

I'd rather see Bowyers and Hippodromes made more attractive than removed.

Magic: If it needs to be reduced perhaps drop Conjurers and distribute the most interesting 2nd lvl. summons among either the Priests or the Mages. Keep the Summoners, though.

If it's mages: Retain just enough 2nd lvl. summons to ensure each civ's. palace mana supplies at least one summons.

The Sh. could get a UU Mage: Conjurer. Illusionist and Puppeteer could be UU Summoners. Well, or Mages.

The Summoning tech might allow for the building of some additional units, "summoned" at Mage's guilds or the like. That might be a way - hopefully less complex overall - to re-include some summons. But as "normal" units rather than Conjurer-launched attacks.

 

[nealhunt]

In general:

Buildings - Either combine them or give pre-reqs. The plethora causes clutter.

Arcane Techs - simplify the tech tree. You could either fork the early techs and combine later (conjurers and mages specialize early but use the same later techs in different ways) or keep them together and require specialized techs for summoners/archmages. Also, the "in between" steps in the chart don't provide much. They are ignored until it's time to go for the next mage level, so they could probably be cut and their expense moved into the next step up.

Magic spheres - the spheres with very few spells could be combined into others.

Ships - I agree with the poster that said the promos combined with the multiples ships is redundant. Either cut down the number of vessels or cut the promos.

Promos - The specialty damage resistance are unnecessary.

Crime - I know there are some mechanics which use this, but I see very little game effect from the crime mechanic.

Trait Loss for Infernals and Mercurians - I don't think this is needed. I don't know if cutting it would save much in the way of code, but if it does, definitely cut it because FFH is definitely slower than vanilla, by a wide margin on my machine.


Specific items:

Elephants - make them more interesting or cut them

Dungeons - delete or make them useful

Ring of Warding - delete or make it part of a Mage Guild combination/pre-req

Dwarven Slinger - Dwarves have nothing else on the archery line, making an archery range pointless. The only time I see this is bad AI play or when I've chosen the "No AI building requirements" option. Cut the unit or cut the building req.

Rage/Bear totem - an awful lot of effort for little payoff. Cut or combine with something else.

 

[it-ogo]

Overall it's a pity to remove anything because almost everything can be improved to be interesting and usefull... Give a good reason to kill an elephant and you can make it an essencial part of strategy.

But (don't beat me, please) what IMO really does (did) not worth efforts are random events. I mean all of them. Many events are nice to read one time but I don't feel them as worthy part of gameplay. Events are not very nice even for flavor. I was eager about events from the very beginning but now I am disappointed.

And "crime rate" cathegory is not interesting now.

Guilds are good (at least in project) but I think they may be much better on the deterministic base then on the base of random events.

 

[Ekolite]

Am I the only one that actually likes having lots of buildings? There's no reason to merge stables + hippodromes etc and merging mage guilds and libraries is ridiculous. The AI is being fixed in Ice iirc - then they'll be able to use everything right. There is no reason to remove anything just because the AI doesn't know what to do with it yet.

The only things I agree with are

-the removal of Elephants and war elephants - unique war elephants can be incorporated into the rest of the cavalry line (war turtles can be lanun chariots etc)

-Changing Dungeons to make them more widely used.

 

[Yaotzin]

In no particular order:

Either remove or have an option to turn off the hell graphics, they make my computer cry (and others too I'm sure).

Remove the desert blight thing, it hurts everyone equally and just adds a bunch of micro, which just makes it kind of annoying, plus the AI can't deal with it, though that's a general problem, and yes this sentence is terrible.

Seriously trim the summoning branch, with a couple exceptions they're all just generic combat units. Removing the branch altogether and putting the good stuff into sorcery could work too.

Fires: All sorts of problems with them, they kill weaker computers (like mine!), they're kind of annoying, you can mess up FoL/Elves, they're really powerful for FoL/Elves if they're in jungle, putting them out adds tons of micro, and probably others. Either remove or make them not spread or something.

Bloom is such a micro hassle, just let us bloom over improvements. Consider letting bloom in towns too Let my elven archers get woodsman II too, everyone knows elven archers are the best forest units! [this is removing micro, so it's relevant] Would seriously help the AI too I imagine.

Doubt this would be popular, but remove all, or almost all, offensive spells from the Divine line, other than anti-undead stuff. Mostly for flavour reasons, priests should not be killing living things [could make an exception for Veil I suppose]

Most important: Remove any bloat from the code or whatever, FFH is just glacial compared to vanilla, and vanilla is ridiculously slow for a 4x strategy game.

 

[GePap]

I agree with cutting back on the endless forest fires, and also of removing the desert component of the blight.
I agree that dungeons have no real current use, and that elephants are not worth it. Neither are beastmasters nor bezerkers as they are currently structured. Both should probably become possible upgrades to high level units, like Immortals. Beastmasters could be a possible upgrade for any hunter or ranger level 6 or up, and get rid of the animal mastery tech. Bezerker could be an upgrade for any level 6 melee unit much like Immortal, and get rid of the rage tech and totem poles as well.

War Elephants are also not worth an entire tech and a building either. Make them civ only units for a couple of civs, possibly a replacement for knights at the end of the cavalry line, say War elephants for the Malakim, Mammoth Riders for the improved Ilians.

Ring of wardings should be removed unless they are significantly strengthened (adding 50% or plus magical resistance) and then make them more expensive.

In terms of buildings, some should require prerequisite buildings or civics, to increase diversification. A civilization that is all about religious self-control should not be able to make gambling houses or taverns for example. Also, some civic choices should be incompatible, like Liberty and Slavery, or Theocracy and comsumption.

In terms of ships, what is the point of having Triremes and Dragonships? Get rid of one of them. Also, make it impossible to upgrade ships. This last thing is probably highly unpopular, but it would force more thinking in terms of ship building.

 

[bc1]

On second thought, I believe Kael's question requires clarification: what would we cut from the game or what would we cut from the game learning curve requirement ? From this last viewpoint:

Buildings: very linear, no chages required to reduce complexity.

Magic system: (sorcery+summonning)x(21 spheres)x(3 spell levels) is a bit overwhelming, with some spheres a bit weak. But I like the flavor of having many spheres, and there needs to be spell levels, so merging sorcery & summonning would be a way to halve complexity while giving opportunity to remap spells & summons to make spheres more evenly worthwhile. The divine branch is even more complex to understand, because access to its different spheres is dependent on the religion - which itself has effects at the civilization level. Yet how can complexity be decreased without scrapping the divine branch altogether ? I like the idea to have only spells like destroy undead.

Units: one of the things that took me some time was finding out what the "good" units were and how to get them. Some can only be built, others can only be upgraded from other units (which ones ?), some both, and several conditions may have to be met: tech, resource, religion, civilization, alignment. Then you need to factor in: spells, promotions, weapon types, special abilities. I would suggest that to make things less complex without cutting down on the game experience, all of this has to be made more intuitive: for example, review the logic to prevent good civs from access to druids yet allowing them to build vampires (of course anything can be justified, but you get the point), strange unit upgrade paths etc... And perhaps heroes should not be buildable at all: why not give them only by event when things are going badly as a "rubberband" mechanism ? Don't great people arise when facing challenging times ?

Events: the fixed AC events are a micromanagement nightmare, especially blight since everything happens at the same, predictable time. The AC should only be used to influence the probability of bad (or good) events (example bad events: loose N population points in city CCCC, X unhappy for Y turns, Z unhealthy for T turns, new hellfire tile, new hell tile, monster lairs spawning in remote locations, friendly unit becomes enraged, evil barbarian heroe spawns etc...; these could be tailored to a civ's alignment).

My 2c!)

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Personally I think that Ring of Warding should be switched to a spell (probably metamagic, if it ever gets in). I'd prefer it actually work through a temporary improvement or feature so it can work in the field.

 

[Nor'easter]

Well, you already cut a lot of stuff out going from Fire to Shadow, including some units that I definitely miss (Flurries, Shield Walls).

As a general matter, I'd say that it's unnecessary to have buildings whose sole or primary purpose is to build a national unit, of which you can only have three anyway. So Large Animal Stables can go (I saw in the 0.31 changelog thread that you're already doing that -- I would have kept the tech as a prereq and just gotten rid of the building). Groves and Bear Totems have other effects, so they should probably stay.

Kind of minor, but the Dragon's Roar promotion for Eurabatres, Acheron, and Abashi seems pretty useless now, with how Cult of the Dragon has been changed. Back when CotD was a religion, you'd actually have units of that religion and the dragon's roar would convert them. Now that its mechanics are completely different, I don't think I've ever seen a unit with CotD. So either get rid of the Dragon's Roar promotion or (more desirable) rework CotD to be something like what it was in earlier versions.

I really don't think too much else ought to be cut. Please please PLEASE do NOT get rid of fireballs and meteors. I also don't think there's anything wrong with the Blight turning plains into deserts -- yes, it makes water mana a must-have, but it's WATER, of COURSE a civ needs it.

One think I would try to eliminate is the micromanagement needed after hell terrain hits your lands, when your deserts become burning sands and you need to constantly send adepts around to put out fires. Easy fix would be to allow the Spring spell to upgrade Burning Sands to Fields of Perdition? Broken Lands? (I forget which is the hell terrain equivalent of plains.)

I think that's it from me. As I noted up front, you pruned things quite a lot going to Shadow, so it may not be necessary to do much more, certainly not in terms of eliminating techs from the tech tree or eliminating large numbers of buildings. The variety makes this mod fun.

 

[Ahwaric]

- elephants - I do not think the 0.31 solution is best possible. I would prefer making them useful. 0.31 will force you to keep a worthless unit from the beggining of the game to get a chance to upgrade it to the war elephant 400 turns later - so probably no more war elephants (or can they be upgraded right away? That could be a bit early). Moreover, I would prefer warchariots removed instead, and chariots moved to the bottom of cavalry line (upgraded to horseman and then to horse archers, war elephants & knights)

- buildings that only allow to build units (except mage guild). Just keep training yard and give it some extra bonuses and do not make it necessary to build anything.

-remove or change bear totem & dungeon

- merging sorcery & summoning lines. Keep or merge tier 4 casters, but merge mages & conjurers

- less mana types, but more diverse. 12 or a few more at most. Death & entropy in my opinion are almost the same and should be merged, I think there are more. On the other hand, I would like to see dimensional back and maybe metamagic (can be one mana type) - the flavour & function is different than already existing ones.

- gunpowder resource - pointless. In reality, no special resource is needed to make gunpowder (yeah, I know it is a fantasy game), comes late and has nothing special about it

- great commanders - as always, great generals instead. But it is not really a cut