EitB 0011 Wishlist/Discussion

[Yell0w]

Proposal: Governor's Manors

Premise:
To put it simply, the current implementation of Governor's Manors is silly. They are such a vital and powerful part of the civilization's appeal, that the concept of them costing 90h to Decius and 180h to Alexis/Flauros is silly, and makes him by far the most powerful leader of the 3 (in my opinion). I intend to make the cost consistent for each leader so it is removed as a factor.

Proposal:
I have two possibilities I am considering. In either, GMs cease to be a courthouse replacement, and have their cost reduced. In the first, courthouses are removed as buildings for the Calabim, and the cost is reduced to 140h. In the second, the maintenance reduction of GMs is removed entirely, and their cost dropped to 120h. Of the two, I think I prefer the second as it doesn't weaken Decius overmuch.

TLDR:
I am considering the following changes:

• Governor's Manors lose the maintenance reduction.
  
• Governor's Manors are no longer courthouse replacements.
  
• Governor's Manors cost reduced: 180->120h.

As an open question: What, if anything, should be done to increase Decius' viability as a Malakim leader?

I don't consider Decius a more powerful Calabim leader than Flauros, but I know I'm standing alone on this. Alexis however kinda sucks.
I think making GM's no longer be courthouses weakens Decius a lot, though I'd be fine with that.
I think losing the maintenance reduction on GM's weakens Calabim severely. How are you supposed to maintain an empire without courthouses.

[Yell0w]

Ah okay.


Now that you mention it, I think I do like that idea. Cre is quite far removed from Volanna's persona, of course, but then again, the same is true of Averax. Agg/Exp/Bar would leave him very strong in the early game, but he is likely the weakest of the Sheaim with the PG/summoner shifts, so possibly justifiable?
Anyone take issue with that change:
Volanna trait change Agg/Exp->Agg/Cre, Averax trait change Agg/Cre/Bar->Agg/Exp/Bar?

It's just exchanging one top tier trait for another. I don't see why AGG CRE volanna would be that much weaker, well except that she doesn't need CRE at all, so it would be basically a useless trade for her except for the first two cities. I mean you are gonna get FotL 99,9% of the time with elven. So yeah maybe CRE is a fine change. I don't like it flavor wise though. I think the AGG on her is the problem anyways, not the EXP.

[Yell0w]

Regarding mounted units, I think chariots are best left alone. I dislike the idea of nerfing one unit (which nobody seems to think is actually too powerful on its own merits) just to make another look more appealing. My suggestion is to simply give HA units (and UU equivalents) a large bonus against Recon troops. Hunters, Rangers, Assassins and Beastmasters are all fairly common units on the FFH battlefield

Er, they are? I haven't seen assassins rangers and beastmaster for quite some time. Yeah hunters are used but the rest? I saw more HA's than assassins, rangers and beastmasters for sure!

I think Chariots need a nerve, maybe HA's still can get the recon unit buff, but I'd not give them +50% but +25%

[Yell0w]

I am reconsidering my chariot changes, for sure. As well as some of the FB changes, after Bob assured me people do I fact build rangers.

Again: I'd like to see that, I haven't seen rangers a lot. (and I'm exclaiming the volanna games here, cause she could have build what ever she wanted and still won, so yeah rangers are viable for svarts, and thats it.)

As is my wont, here are a couple of other ideas to be thrown out for consideration:
- Hannah is much weaker then Falamar and hasn't been chosen in a long while for it. What do people think about making her Crazy? (Courtesy of Bob)

like

Kuriotate Palace requiring two cities to build? (Courtesy of Gekko)

er why? aren't they strong enough?

- Keelyn probably needs some sort of bone. Whilst the puppet change is being looked at, how about she gets Ingenuity?

I think with the sum change, keelyn is quite good actually, compared to all the other sum leaders she is.

- The Luchuirp, now that their Mud Golems have had a price boost, need a bit of a buff. How about changing one of their (useless) Golem buildings to add commando? (Bob)

Don't like that, the problem with Luchuirp is that Golems suck. You are always better off building bronze warriors and moving on to chariots, always! if anything Golems need a buff, though the true strength of the Luchuirp is the worker replacement, it makes them the india of ffh. I think they were on my picklist the last 5 games, just not at the top cause they are boring, very strong, but boring.

- The Favored promo given by Spiritual currently offers the same xp benefit as Potency (30). The plan was for it to be 20, and given SPI strength, I think I will revise it down.

Yes please.

[Yell0w]

On mechanics stuff re:Rivanna, I'd advise leaving her at Org/Sum at least to see what players can do with her given the new boost to Summoner.

On making early Slavery more important, closer to BtS: Please no. This would impact so many areas of game balance, I couldn't list them all, and this isn't a mod that should strive to resemble BtS in the first place; I can think of no reason to do this and countless reasons not to.

In fact I started playing FFH cause I was bored about how BtS gameplay felt like 90% of it was getting the most out of slavery. Let's not make FFH into a game where there is one true answer.

On making early chops more important, closer to BtS: If elves in general need nerfing, this is an indirect way to do it, but the impact on other aspects of the game, again, would be enormous.

I don't think elves are too strong, svartalfar are strong, but the other elves not so much. Somehow I'm not happy with archery: if you get it you get 50% on chops, but also the ability to build Lumbermills. Now if you any civ, you don't want the tech just for the chops, it's not worth it. You'll usually research it late as an pre req, and not cause you actually want the tech. Also, if you need the hammers, you'll most likely end up building Lumbermills and not choping. If you are elves, you want archery for your hero, but not for chops, and not for lumbermills either, cause you can just build mines into forest hill tiles, and you surely don't lack production, and why build the one improvement that everyone can build into forests, when your civ flavour is that you can build anything into a forest, you basically throwing away free hammers by building lumbermills. And it's not an alternative to Mining, since you need BW sooner or later, and you'd like to see copper. So it is just a stupid tech as it is right now
I'd suggest that archery gets a cost reduction, though it probably deserves a rework, maybe another place in the tree.

[Yell0w]

I actually have played multiplayer FFH2 (EITB, even) just not on this site - it was a game I won against some friends on another forum as Mahala with a massive aristofarm economy feeding beastman -> battlemaster and scout -> chariot upgrades. (I actually did expect that argument, just not so late in the conversation - to say that people at RB are welcoming and considerate of outsiders in any way shape or form would be an extreme irony)

I felt warmly welcomed when I first started to play here, I was a noob and instead of hate I got advice.

I'm aware that aristofarms are not the be-all, end-all of FFH2 economies, but I actually did take a survey of all the currently running EITB games on this site, and, at least for the ones that actually reported, every empire was blanked in farms around T80-T100 or so. Even with some other civ-specific options out there, aristofarms are still the de-facto economy in the mid game, without even mentioning the pre-education Agrarianism-only period.

Yes, EitB is too farm heavy, I agree, but I don't see how slavery or chopping will change that, it'll just add another thing "you have to do" instead of seeing farms everywhere, you'll see farms everywhere and have everyone whipping and chopping.
I think on the long run, Aristocracy and farms need to be reworked, but I've got no ideas whatsoever how to do that without changing the game completely.

That said, I completely agree with your comment about the early techs being a part of this problem. If you can't even build a mine until like T60 (on normal speed), well, that doesn't give you many options as to what your worker is going to do. My proposed solution on the other site was to completely cut the first row of techs, essentially giving them to every civ, make the second row half price of what they are now, and the third row 2/3 cost. I didn't mention it here because I thought it would be completely dismissed out of hand. But, if someone else as the same idea...

DISMISSED


Nah, the problem with this is that you'd have to rebalance 95% of the civs and the tech tree. Again, on the long run I think farms should be tweaked, and I think I'm not the only one. Also I'd be interested in a PBEM where you start with all worker techs, though a lot of civs would be considerably weaker to play.

Sorry for the wall of text, but I've just today had the muse and time to go over this thread and had to reply to multiple suggestions etc.

[Yell0w]

Hello Qqqqqq,

Thank you very much for your work.

- I would like to play much more balanced games and for that I got some propositions. I know some could be difficult to code, or a codder could just be not interested by working in this direction. But I writte these propositions here clearly because I guess they could largely improve the popularity and the pleasure of FFH2 in multiplayer.

- I played some multiplayer games on ladder level of Beyond the Sword, and some multiplayer games with Fall From Heaven 2 into all his mods (Master of Mana, Erebus on the Balance and ExtraModmod).

- Here are the critics and propositions. They are valid for Erebus in the Balance or FFH2 Extra Modmod, cause they are not so much differents : Link.


I would like modestely please you say here what you think about these critics and propositions. And please pardon my harsh style, wich is mainly due to my bad usage of the english.

The first thing I've got to say is: if you play EitB via Pitboss, meaning not via PBEM you'll have multiple problems, the whole magic system won't work, and double moves will break the game. I don't think there is a work around, without fundamentally changing the game. Most problems you mention stem from not playing via PBEM.

[Qgqqqqq]

Thanks for all the feedback Yell0w! I'll try to reply to it all shortly.

[Qgqqqqq]

I think if you want to balance lairs, the best way to start would be to delay some of the game-changing lair-exploring events

Yeah... I don't see the units as a problem. The problem I see is that some players are like: well I'll pop that as soon as I can, and if I get a big bad, meh, I'll lose the game but I haven't invested much so far, so who cares? And if I get a big good result I'll have a huge advantage.

While other players don't want to spend weeks sandboxing their start and then lose to a big bad or lose due to someone else getting a big good.
Getting the dwarf vs lizzard event for example can win you a game easily.

Lairs are hard. And probably the biggest reason for that is the different attitudes people have to them. If they were stripped of the BigBad/BigGood hits altogether, that would reduce their game-changing abilities either way...but how much do we want to remove the randomness of lairs?

1) I think Keelyn is a little too weak now.

I think she's just fine now to be honest.

I think even with SUM boosts, she's a long way from being a viable alternative to Perpy. That's why I think something small like ING would be worthwhile.

3) I like the idea of Overcouncil/Undercouncil being available to Agnostic civs, but I don't like putting them at Trade. Etc.

I rarely see anyone going for over or undercouncil anways, why make it even harder to get there?

Really? UC/OC are greatly boosted in EitB. If people aren't going for them it's only because they require going a little out of your way on religious techs. If they were at Trade, people are going to go for them no question, and probably also at any-other research-anyway tech. I don't see this as nessecarily a problem, but I'm not going to make it too easy for them.

4) Fawn nerf hurts all elves rather than Volanna specifically. Etc.

It does hurt all elves, but the unit was simply too strong, it doesn't fix the Volanna problem though. I'd hate to change her traits, since the combination is so nice to play, but I don't see another way either, though I'd rather remove AGG than EXP

Given that Volanna's flavor is AGG, I intend to keep that first and foremost. I like AGG/CRE, and I disagree that it only applies to two cities or so. Not needing to spread FoL extensively or rely on it is an advantage (and if you get FoL with only two cities...wow). And IMO EXP is far more powerful then CRE, certainly for the early game.

Thanks for the currency point.

6) Druids seem underpowered for non-Dwarven civs now. Which maybe brings Commune with Nature in balance with other prereqs for Divine Essence (Righteousness, Malevolent Designs, Theology), none of which seems like a particularly good deal. I'd suggest a big price cut for all of these techs (bringing them in line with Arcane Lore).

I get your point, I rarely research those techs, on the other hand, you can get quite some free techs following those paths, so I think it's fine as it is, with the exception of Commune with Nature, which should get a slight cost reduction.

Care to explain what you mean by getting free techs? If you mean Grimorie et al, then I don't think that's a reason to base costs around.

The issue is broader then that, I think. With chariots requiring trade again, I like the balance with copper weapons - chariots require less tech investment, but workshops are more expensive, and they have worse defensive strength and a slew of little effects (withdraw chance, immunity to first strikes, an extra first strike and so on) which bias towards the more expensive/dedicated line of Horse Archers.
The issue arises post-iron weapons, in my opinion, where chariots are boosted to 7/5 and become superior to the more expensively invested, best mounted Tier 3 unit - and in this mod iron weapons are quite easy to come by, with our small games making getting the mines or Mercurians easier, and the Mercurians line improved also as well as the Smelting->IW path being considerably boosted also. In comparison, Stirrups->Warhorses is a very uninteresting line, and gives T3 units that aren't even the best mounted out there.

Thus, I think we want to nerf chariots a little so that they fulfill a slightly different role. I'm thinking take them down to 2 moves but perhaps adding a first strike. The 5-move plus heavy idea is intriguing, but I worry it would make them far too powerful on roads/for defence. As well as this, I will almost certainly remove the ability to use mithril weapons, to help champions out a little. (Incidentally, for some reason axes can use mithril weapons. I thought this was changed and will be removing it, unless anyone has any arguments for it?)

axe nerve is good.
I don't think chariots should have mithril weapons removed from them, they are shitty for defending anyways, and if they are two movers they'll be a worse choice than champions if they can't have mithril.

I've come around to this.

Possible. Trade certainly has a lot - possibly too much - going for it at the moment, and the religious line is very strong. Don't look forward for having to figure out how to arrange the tech tree, though - maybe just make them require Philosophy as well?

as stated before, I don't see either over- or undercouncil used a lot anyways, so why make it weaker?

I see philosophy as a very bare-bones nerf. It is a very early gateway tech to the religious line, after all. I have decided against bringing back those techs, however.

There are going to need to be some serious changes here, for sure.
I think, for a start, I'm going to make Feral Bond an alternative prerequisite (as a prereq on its own, not with priesthood). I understand that Sareln wanted to reduce the cross-pollination of the tech tree that was rife in the base game, but a) Feral Bond is weak currently, as is a lot of that end of the tree, b) it fits very well and c) it offers a route without going down the spiritual end of the tree, which is currently quite strong and doesn't need the boost. I think I will also reduce Feral Bond's cost to 1000b (same as stirrups) and reduce rangers cost to 120h (from 150h). Phew, little sidetracked here. Anyway, any disagreements?

No disagreements, though I'd need to test this.

Regarding mounted units, I think chariots are best left alone. I dislike the idea of nerfing one unit (which nobody seems to think is actually too powerful on its own merits) just to make another look more appealing. My suggestion is to simply give HA units (and UU equivalents) a large bonus against Recon troops. Hunters, Rangers, Assassins and Beastmasters are all fairly common units on the FFH battlefield

Er, they are? I haven't seen assassins rangers and beastmaster for quite some time. Yeah hunters are used but the rest? I saw more HA's than assassins, rangers and beastmasters for sure!

I think Chariots need a nerve, maybe HA's still can get the recon unit buff, but I'd not give them +50% but +25%

I am reconsidering my chariot changes, for sure. As well as some of the FB changes, after Bob assured me people do I fact build rangers.

Again: I'd like to see that, I haven't seen rangers a lot. (and I'm exclaiming the volanna games here, cause she could have build what ever she wanted and still won, so yeah rangers are viable for svarts, and thats it.)

Honestly, I'd like to see you two debate it out on how much rangers are used, as it will have a big effect on whether I need to buff FB/rangers and how the HA/chariot changes pan out. Personally, I'm unsure.

So I agree that Commune with Nature, Righteousness, Malevolent Designs, Theology and Rage all could do with a price cut (sidebar: maybe Paladins go to Righteousness and Eidilons to Rage?). How about 65% of their current price? (CwN/Rage:6800->4420 Theo:7600->4940 MD/Right:7400->4810). Divine Essence could maybe also do with a bit of a cut, to be more in line with SoW. (maybe 9600->9000 SoW is 8800) What do people think about these changes? I'm a little wary of strengthening this area any more then it has already been done so, and also about being too liberal with tech prices.

I think those prices are fine as is, most of those techs can be bulbed. Commune of Nature needs a price reduction.

Do you mean straight out bulbing or oracling? Because I don't see either of those as good arguments - bulbing is only 1000b, and oracling requires a lot of effort and can only be done 1-2 times.

Also, quickly: Why do Marksmen require level 6 to upgrade to them? They aren't that good and given only longbows can upgrade to them, it seems excessive. Unless I get a good reason I'll make them buildable with Precision and Archery Range as prereqs.

As far as I know almost all units with lvl 6 can upgrade to Marksmen, and by the time you reach this tech you'll have a couple of them.

The only other unit that I can find that can upgrade to them is an assassin, which I don't think is enough to require a level requirement for a unit that I don't think we have ever seen in a game here. I don't see why they should be harder to acquire then Beastmasters.

TLDR: I am considering the following changes:

(list)

I said it before but don't make chariots lose mithril weapons.
Feral Bond shouldn't lead to divine essence. I think Animal mastery could lead to Commune with nature. Meaning if you discovered Animal mastery you can research Commune with Nature without having Priesthood, Hidden Paths, Arete or Fanaticism

I meant Feral Bond leads to Commune with Nature. I stand by that (it would be alternative to Arete, Fanaticism or Hidden Paths, but would require Priesthood). I don't think its sensible to require Animal Mastery, another Tier 4 tech.

Proposal: Governor's Manors
Etc.

I don't consider Decius a more powerful Calabim leader than Flauros, but I know I'm standing alone on this. Alexis however kinda sucks.
I think making GM's no longer be courthouses weakens Decius a lot, though I'd be fine with that.
I think losing the maintenance reduction on GM's weakens Calabim severely. How are you supposed to maintain an empire without courthouses.

Why would you ever go Flauros over Decius? I've seen that a lot recently, and never understood it.
Making them no longer courthouses and stripping the maintenance reduction means they can build courthouses as well as Governer Manors.

As is my wont, here are a couple of other ideas to be thrown out for consideration:
- Hannah is much weaker then Falamar and hasn't been chosen in a long while for it. What do people think about making her Crazy? (Courtesy of Bob)

like

Kuriotate Palace requiring two cities to build? (Courtesy of Gekko)

er why? aren't they strong enough?

It means they can build a palace at a realistic time. Sometimes they never go for a fourth city.

- Keelyn probably needs some sort of bone. Whilst the puppet change is being looked at, how about she gets Ingenuity?

I think with the sum change, keelyn is quite good actually, compared to all the other sum leaders she is.

But she needs to be comparable to Perpy. And I don't feel she is at this stage.

- The Luchuirp, now that their Mud Golems have had a price boost, need a bit of a buff. How about changing one of their (useless) Golem buildings to add commando? (Bob)

Don't like that, the problem with Luchuirp is that Golems suck. You are always better off building bronze warriors and moving on to chariots, always! if anything Golems need a buff, though the true strength of the Luchuirp is the worker replacement, it makes them the india of ffh. I think they were on my picklist the last 5 games, just not at the top cause they are boring, very strong, but boring.

I agree, golems need a big buff. Without the worker boost they're one of the worst civs in the game, and I'm trying to work out how to change that.

On making early chops more important, closer to BtS: If elves in general need nerfing, this is an indirect way to do it, but the impact on other aspects of the game, again, would be enormous.

I don't think elves are too strong, svartalfar are strong, but the other elves not so much. Somehow I'm not happy with archery: if you get it you get 50% on chops, but also the ability to build Lumbermills. Now if you any civ, you don't want the tech just for the chops, it's not worth it. You'll usually research it late as an pre req, and not cause you actually want the tech. Also, if you need the hammers, you'll most likely end up building Lumbermills and not choping. If you are elves, you want archery for your hero, but not for chops, and not for lumbermills either, cause you can just build mines into forest hill tiles, and you surely don't lack production, and why build the one improvement that everyone can build into forests, when your civ flavour is that you can build anything into a forest, you basically throwing away free hammers by building lumbermills. And it's not an alternative to Mining, since you need BW sooner or later, and you'd like to see copper. So it is just a stupid tech as it is right now
I'd suggest that archery gets a cost reduction, though it probably deserves a rework, maybe another place in the tree.

I could definitely see archery getting a tech slash. I don't know how I'd rework it though.
Speaking of: does DEX need a rework? Would +2 attack strength even be unreasonable? Hmm, maybe it could grant free Mobility to archery units, a la ARC?

(I actually did expect that argument, just not so late in the conversation - to say that people at RB are welcoming and considerate of outsiders in any way shape or form would be an extreme irony)

I felt warmly welcomed when I first started to play here, I was a noob and instead of hate I got advice.

I would like to think that the FFH community at least is like this

Yes, EitB is too farm heavy, I agree, but I don't see how slavery or chopping will change that, it'll just add another thing "you have to do" instead of seeing farms everywhere, you'll see farms everywhere and have everyone whipping and chopping.
I think on the long run, Aristocracy and farms need to be reworked, but I've got no ideas whatsoever how to do that without changing the game completely.

Agreed. What if agrarianism gave -20% hammers, or -20% military production or something?

My proposed solution on the other site was to completely cut the first row of techs, essentially giving them to every civ, make the second row half price of what they are now, and the third row 2/3 cost. I didn't mention it here because I thought it would be completely dismissed out of hand. But, if someone else as the same idea...

DISMISSED


Nah, the problem with this is that you'd have to rebalance 95% of the civs and the tech tree. Again, on the long run I think farms should be tweaked, and I think I'm not the only one. Also I'd be interested in a PBEM where you start with all worker techs, though a lot of civs would be considerably weaker to play.

Sorry for the wall of text, but I've just today had the muse and time to go over this thread and had to reply to multiple suggestions etc.

I agree with that 100% - its above my stress level for sure! Wouldn't a PBEM starting with worker techs just be pretty much like playing a Discovery-era game? Mind you, I would sign up for that, if it was proposed.
Thanks so much for the comprehensive reply, Yell0w! One of my worries is that I'm making changes arbitrarily because they simply don't have enough input into them because of how few people reply to this, so it is a big confidence boost to all of my changes whenever someone replies. So thanks!
I deleted some comments to prevent this post from being exorbitantly long, but I appreciated all the feedback.

[Bobchillingworth]

Because I'm an idiot, I went ahead and (briefly) glanced through every completed FFH game to see if post-hunters recon units appeared:


PBEM I: Selrahc used Rangers. (Illians)

PBEM II: Uberfish used Rangers. (Ljo) Ilios might have as well?

PBEM III: WarriorKnight used Rangers and Devouts. (Elohim) Others might have as well.

PBEM IV: Game abandoned too early.

PBEM V: Iskender used Ghosts. (Sidar)

PBEM VI: None used, although I don't think anyone even advanced far enough in tech due to the barren map.

PBEM VII: Rawking used Assassins. (Hippus)

PBEM VIII: None used.

PBEM IX: Game ended too early.

PBEM X: Mardoc / Thoth used Assassins and Chanters. (Lanun and Amurites)

PBEM XI: Thoth used Assassins. (Grigori)




Okay, at this point this list is becoming too much of a chore to write. Point is, like 50% of the games where at least a couple people had T3 units saw post-Hunters recon units show up. The No Settlers game had two players with Rangers and Beastmasters (and at one point four with the techs!) I've lurked or played in every FFH PBEM since I founded the RB FFH community, and I assure you that people do in fact use recon units.