EitB v12 Wishlist/Progress

[Kragroth]

That's a change I'd be more than happy to make.

This is better but does little to change Sidar's mediocrity and the fact that waning is still an anti-mechanic.

[Ellimist]

This is better but does little to change Sidar's mediocrity and the fact that waning is still an anti-mechanic.

Maybe, but I'm interested in seeing how effective that change would be. Iskender won FFH-5 with the Sidar against a very strong field that included both Sons of the Inferno and Keelyn the Ridiculous, and his capital ended up having 29 waned great merchants by the end of it.

I think they could be viable on a map that isn't excessively large. There have already been several changes that improved the Sidar somewhat from their FFH version, such as changing Sandalphon's traits, adding a second leader, and expanding Sever Soul to the rest of the recon line. Another simple change that might be worthwhile is adding priest specialists to the palace bonuses, which would open up some altar synergy.

Another potential change that would affect more than just the Sidar would be to restore the GPP counter increment to what BTS has. I believe on normal speed, BTS increments 100-200-300-400 while FFH/EITB increment 100-300-500-700. This makes specialist economies less viable in general, which is something the Sidar are supposed to specialize in. I haven't looked for Kael's notes on this subject, but I suspect this was done in an attempt to nerf aristograrianism.

Reverting this would be a boost to the Grigori, the Malakim, and the Sidar, and potentially also to the Infernals, Ljosalfar, and Svartalfar. Would it be too big of a boost? I'm not sure, but I don't think any of these civs are currently too overpowered to try it out.

[Qgqqqqq]

Actually, that is something I want to get into. I believe it's one of the things people commented several months back (I still have a document literally titled "EitB stuff to respond to" which is 2000 words long), and I'd like general feedback on that (namely, restoring the GPP increments to their BTS defaults) and b) some sort of alteration to the bulbing schematic, which is currently very hard to (ab)use in FFH, due to the separation of tech paths.


@Ellimist, I presume you would suggest priests/great prophets recieve +1gpt? Is that too much of pushing the GM out, though, even pre-Altar? And it's not like they've got any bonuses to go down that line.

[Bobchillingworth]

It may just be the result of my somewhat recent embrace of the Drama tech (for all eras), but Creative seems just a little bit weak to me as a trait. It's not bad or anything, but unlike BTS creative it doesn't provide several cheap useful buildings to earn its worth beyond being a monument replacement. That leaders like Flauros and Volanna have gotten saddled with it to bring them down substantially in power should be a sign that it's not quite up to par with the rest . I propose it get at least one more discounted building- something most civs will want to build frequently, that isn't too high up on the tech tree. I was going to suggest Libraries, but IIRC Philo already claims the discount on them.


Or it could get some other boost- maybe +1 beaker, +1 culture from all specialists, or zero inflation. Just throwing ideas out there.

[Ellimist]

I'm trying to think of a suitable building, but the options are pretty sparse. The boost to specialists could be good.

@Ellimist, I presume you would suggest priests/great prophets recieve +1gpt? Is that too much of pushing the GM out, though, even pre-Altar? And it's not like they've got any bonuses to go down that line.

It might. There would be a trade-off of 1h2g vs 4g, and great merchants are usually going to be inferior to prophets.

[Mardoc]

Double speed production of thanes? (and the other missionary units same role different name)

[Bobchillingworth]

The specialist idea was inspired in part by boosting specialist economies being one of v12's goals, but I didn't put a ton of thought into it.


Another possibility- all buildings which produce at least two 2 beakers / culture / gold produce +1 more. Has okay synergy with Philo, Fin and Spi. Might be difficult to implement though.

[DaveV]

I propose it get at least one more discounted building- something most civs will want to build frequently, that isn't too high up on the tech tree.

Public Baths?

[HidingKneel]

I wouldn't mind moving Shades back to 17 exp instead of 26. They were there for a little while in EitB already and nothing terrible happened. People panicked about it, but Sidar didn't even win in 18 with that and that game was "no settlers."

+1. I never understood the response to XVIII. The game setup was almost completely optimal to showcase the Sidar waning mechanic, and Mardoc/Thoth still didn't quite manage a win... doesn't sound to me like a nerf was in order.

Other thoughts: one trouble with Creative is that it's anti-synergistic with itself. Everybody needs some way of dealing with culture issues: maybe Drama, maybe a religion, maybe the Creative trait, maybe monuments. Monuments are generally regarded as a suboptimal way of going about it, but there's room for it to be a more viable approach if you could get them for half-price. But the way things are now, the only civs that get half-price Monuments are those that don't really need the Monuments to begin with. So there's one "strategy" that doesn't see the light of day. If you're going to tie Creative to another building, maybe you could move the Monument bonus elsewhere? (For flavor I'd say Spiritual, but Spiritual doesn't really need the boost.)

One suggestion: could the Spiritual "free swap" mechanic be broken into two parts? Maybe Spiritual could allow you to swap religions without anarchy, while Creative could allow you to swap civics without anarchy? (In exchange for moving the cheap monuments to Spiritual?)

Another thought: I don't like the Sheaim change that lets them build the planar gate units. The Sheaim need a boost, but I think this one takes away from their unique mechanic. I'd rather see their unique mechanic be made more viable: decrease the cost of Gates, increase the chance of them spawning units, and make it easier for the Sheaim to raise the AC (cheaper Elegy?)
The game is most fun when the "flavorful" options agree with the "effective" options. If I'm playing the Sheaim, I want raising the AC to be a legitimate road to victory. And if I'm playing against the Sheaim, I want to be thinking "uh oh... another Elegy... I'd better do something about that before I'm screwed", not "that guy is wasting hammers on the Elegy? Guess he's not going to be much of a threat".

[Qgqqqqq]

I'd rather see their unique mechanic be made more viable: decrease the cost of Gates, increase the chance of them spawning units, and make it easier for the Sheaim to raise the AC (cheaper Elegy?)

All of these have occurred as well.


I agree CRE needs a boost. My favorite idea so far is giving them cheap Public Baths, though I'm not sure it suffices.

The others:
HK SPI stuff - not going to happen because it's too transformative of the trait as the whole. Also, I agree strongly with Sareln on this matter, that monuments are cheap for CRE so they win wars, but that giving them to any other civ fundamentally undermines the reason CRE gets away with giving so few boosts - that culture is so difficult to acquire.
Giving specialists +1cpt - gives them too much strength vis a vis Cultural Victories; as well as not really addressing the problems - they already win cultural conflicts, and they don't really need specialists by the time it comes up.
Double production of T1 disciple units - powerful, not really synergistic, treading on SPIs toes.

One thought I had was to give a boost with a building (as in BTS CHA) tied to the trait. So -10% maintenance with monument, theatre. Not sure how hard that would be to implement.

Another was to make it so that maintenance is inherently tied to culture, with each pop giving you another -10% (and probably raising the threshold in general) (tbh, it wouldn't have to be maintance. Happiness is probably a better fit). But that's probably too transformative