EitB v12 Wishlist/Progress

[Mardoc]

• Are the Clan overpowered to an unbalanced degree in the current version of the mod/recent versions of the mod?

Yes, at least with RB-style maps. They do best on big maps, but that's the kind we like to play on.

In your opinion, are there any changes currently needed to the Clan? If so, what are they?

Yes, but I have trouble coming up with specific suggestions. Hard to keep their flavor but still make them balanced.

I'm not sure about these, but I'll brainstorm some possibilities:

• Make Barb hurt more. Maybe -20% to science? Maybe -1 ?
  
• Lose barbarian peace earlier. 50% score lead is basically 'already won', so it's just flavor at that point.
  
• Take away monuments. Barbarians aren't cultured sorts. Lots of small cities seems flavorful to me.
  
• Maybe their workers should cost more? I'd go with small increments here, this could get dangerous. But they don't need (m)any early units, so they should have spare hammers for workers. And then Warrens gives them cheap workers eventually anyway
  
• Give everyone else more boosts
  

Specifically, how do you feel about altering Warrens to give -1 happy?

It's a start. I wouldn't think -2 is unreasonable, even. You're still going to want Warrens absolutely everywhere, and Clan is still going to be one of the strongest civs.

All that said, there's no way to jump straight to balance. Gotta make some incremental changes and see how they play out.

does the later tech baseline negate some of the drawback of Barbarian?

I haven't been watching 39 closely, but yes, of course it does. That said, I don't think I'd change the trait any as a result, just consider banning them on future advanced start games.

[Dreylin]

does the later tech baseline negate some of the drawback of Barbarian?

I haven't been watching 39 closely, but yes, of course it does. That said, I don't think I'd change the trait any as a result, just consider banning them on future advanced start games.

IMO the ideal way to balance would be for the Barbarian player to start with fewer techs than a standard civ on a later era start, to represent a build-up of slower research. However, I suspect that would be prohibitive to code and well as being very difficult to balance...

[Bobchillingworth]

I don't see the need for adjusting Warrens. They aren't brokenly good for Thaw-era starts (which is what the vast majority of games use), because they require an otherwise mostly useless tech, they're very expensive (and you don't get Mining + T0/1 Godking to help out) and the Clan have several basic worker / economic techs they need to procure first. If the Clan are able to survive (and thrive!) to spam them everywhere, well, I don't really see how that's any different from someone like the Hippus reaching a state where they can hire Mounted Mercs constantly. Every decent civ reaches a state where their unique mechanics are providing maximal benefit and they're therefore truly dangerous. The ones who currently don't (cough, Elohim), are the ones who need a bit more boosting done.


Obviously the Discovery era is a whole other game. But balancing civs for specifically for later eras doesn't make any sense to me, no more than balancing them for something like "No Settlers", because those are niche games.

[Ellimist]

I don't deny that the Clan is a powerful civ, but I think people who haven't played them in a pbem tend to overestimate them. It's true that they do very well on very large maps, but most EXP leaders do as well(see 29 for example.)

The Clan is top-tier, for sure, but the solution is to make other civs better instead of making the good civs worse.

[Mardoc]

It's true that they do very well on very large maps, but most EXP leaders do as well(see 29 for example.)

True, I might be attributing something to Warrens that really belongs to Jonas.

[Kragroth]

A) very, very strong boost. Heard of cultist on the lake? Imagine your entire army there, but it doesn't matter if the enemy kills it because they're not really there. You can have units lurking in ocean or coast or mountains (or on the other side of any) with no cost to you - your army can be away doing other things. And that's just the obvious stuff - I can think of 4-5 other ways to exploit it.
B) difficult to code and, IIRC, very resource heavy. This is implemented in Magistermodmod of the modmods I play, and involves a complicated and rather unclear process (IIRC - it's been a while). However, to make it function as it does in base still - permanent summons normally can't move on their first turn - would be a lot of work on my part.

This fails on the first instance, though the second does have some impact.

Tasunke, Ghosts can cast Severed Soul, and Stealth (or whatever its called). They can't cast Escape - where did you get that from?

If I was to boost Sidar, I would do it through moving the severed soul boost to Hunting (from KotE).

Why do Sidar need to wait for any tech? If Svarts can have double move in forest 3/2 Scouts, why can't Sidar scouts go Severed Soul from T0? At least it'd give them something unique.

Yes, Cultists hanging out on lakes are annoying. Drowned hanging out on lakes would be annoying too if they weren't so cost prohibitive. Sidar hanging out on lakes or mountaintops would be situational and Hunting Troops aren't good at sacking cities. At least it would give the Sidar some kind of edge in an area that other civs lack. You want to boost Sidar? This is one way.

By the way, the strength of a civ can be measured by how often they're chosen in a competitive game. The fact that Sidar has been chosen once is telling.

[Qgqqqqq]

...

Why do Sidar need to wait for any tech? If Svarts can have double move in forest 3/2 Scouts, why can't Sidar scouts go Severed Soul from T0? At least it'd give them something unique.

Yes, Cultists hanging out on lakes are annoying. Drowned hanging out on lakes would be annoying too if they weren't so cost prohibitive. Sidar hanging out on lakes or mountaintops would be situational and Hunting Troops aren't good at sacking cities. At least it would give the Sidar some kind of edge in an area that other civs lack. You want to boost Sidar? This is one way.

By the way, the strength of a civ can be measured by how often they're chosen in a competitive game. The fact that Sidar has been chosen once is telling.

Because 4-move scouts from t0 are overpowered in a massive way. That's a civ killed from the fog almost-guaranteed, let alone the cost to workers. Combined with worldspell and it gets even worse.


Annoying is a curious way to describe it. Cultists can move two tiles away from a lake, one if they want to retreat back. What's more, to get on the lake they have to start two tiles away from it (or use roads/haste, but all are very situational). A typical divided soul with one mobility boost can start 5 tiles away, though it leaves them exposed. Or 7 tiles if you pile on haste and mobility 2. Once in there, they can potentially hit tiles 5 tiles away from where they're standing. In all directions. With very little anyone can do about it.

People have argued against allowing cultist on a lake, or trying to limit it considerably. I disagree, because as someone said earlier (in this thread, I believe) they have to get in there first, and that is normally easy to prevent. The Sidar would find that enormously easier, and have enormously more power.


I can think of 4 times the Sidar were chosen just off the top of my head.

[Bobchillingworth]

The Sidar have totally be chosen more than once. Maybe no recently, but not because they're any weaker now than in previous versions.


I think Hunters are a fair bit better then Drown or Cultists for parking in a lake. You can get them earlier, they can move more spaces and they're significantly cheaper than the latter. As for mountains, there really isn't much that can hit units camped on them- that's a big part of why even a single captured Gryphon can be so potent. Having to cover every civil unit within two or three tiles of a mountain as early as T2 is going to be crippling for almost everyone.

[Ellimist]

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."

[Qgqqqqq]

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