Multi is very unbalanced even with mods : Critics and propositions

[Merovech]

I think there is a slight language barrier here (Read: what you have written is ambivalent at best and otherwise nonsensical).

I think that he is saying that he doesn't like how you generalized his proposed changes, instead of explaining why you think each idea is a good one or a bad one. I believe that he is also saying that he would be glad to listen to you if you gave specific advice or criticism.

[Jojo_Fr]

Exact. Thank you.

My english is not good but it is evident.

[Tasunke]

Well. I think as far as cavalry is concerned, either reducing their movement by 1 or creating the spearmen unit is fine, but not both.

Also, removing the mobility promotion would make summons and magic even more powerful imho ... not only would adepts suddenly be as fast as cavalry but also any attacking army would completely die under magical fire. -> In other words, making melee units permanently 1 move would, imho, only strengthen magic. Now, magic in itself is unbalanced ... a more mana based system might be more 'fair' but I have seen Master of Mana and I do not consider it as fun. Perhaps the mana system itself would be fine, but combine it with limited numbers of units and it is just as bad. If MoM did nothing other than make a limited mana system, perhaps it would be an interesting critique/ appraisal of the magic system.

Of course, I don't know how to mod in a mana system, but I am not sure that learning how to do so would be worth my time when there are more simple changes that I could make (like via XML and some limited python).

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as is, without a mana system, magic is quite the conundrum. It would take Dll changes to make Collateral and Buff spells to have limited effect. It would take DLL changes to have tier 1 spells be weaker with adepts and stronger with archmages. Anything to alter the magic system, other than the most basic modification of old spells and basic addition of new spells, would require DLL changes.

Therefore I think addressing other concerns are more critical/ more pressing/ something I can actually accomplish.

I truly do not know how to currently balance the Calabim economy, but ... hmm. Perhaps making it +2 H +25% H would be fine, but it would make the building too static, and not make a lick of difference population wise.

As is, perhaps the +1 unhappy is enough but hmm .... Calabim are definitely a horizontal civ, and Aristo only emphasizes this by decreasing distance maintenance.

Additionally, it is quite rediculous for cottage boosting government civics to be allowed by elven nations. Therefore if I made a generic version of 'sons of junil' it would only destroy the balance changes previously done, at least considering the elves. I am not quite sure how to make it so that elves are not unblanaced without true 'unique civics' functionality.

This would be simple really. If FFH was incorporated with 'Unique civics' functionality, then only that nation's version of the civic could be used by that nation. Such a mod exists for BTS. So there is hope, but as I feel it requires DLL changes, I cannot myself merge it with ETMP.

The way I would do it is that I would possibly replace city states with 'city state democracy'. Bannor would get a unqiue version called Sons of Junil (probaly like it is now), and Elves would get something else called, well perhaps simply 'city states'. Or possibly 'the natural order'. City state democracy would be a cottage based civic, as aristo is farm based, with Sons of Junil beign a bit different perhaps a bit better. The Natural Order however would not further enhance the cottage economy for the elves. Instead they would give some other bonus, like perhaps the less culture but also decreased distance maintenance of basic City States. Would need testing and further thought. After all, perhaps regular City States civic should remain available to all ... but I am not certain of this.

Then for Republic, Elves would likely not enjoy the +1 H bonus (since forests already give that) but would perhaps still enjoy the +1 C bonus. To replace this perhaps Elven Republic's culture bonus would be increased further. Call it 'Ancient Republic'. Sounds cool yes?

One way to balance Lanun would be to have a Unique Lanun version as well which helps out Coves rather than cottages. This would require of the lanun more comittment in order to fully maximize their coves ^_^

of course the lanun version would decrease distance rather than number maintenance, due to having far flung port cities across the extremes of a continent ^_^ (at least hypotehtically/ flavorful speaking), while Bannor get the number of cities reduction due to being a large yet tightly knit nation ... a nation of 'city and cottage' spammers perhaps. With the cottages growing to towns, Bannor lands would resemble something like a large metropolitan area, which would go in hand with Bannor being the 'Imperium' of FFH, having the largest human population. Such a population ruled by a fairly strict adherence to the law.


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anyways, civics aside, If a spearman unit is created, there will be no reason to reduce cavalry speed in FFH (imho)

additionally, if there was a guardsman unit created, there would be no reason to remove the Sidar's magical invisibility.

Personally I think @ Metamagic 2 there should be an enhanced Floating Eye available that can see Invisible_Land.



in BTS, it is essentially only the economy that matters. That and sheer number of units. While these things definitely help in FFH, it is not always quite that simple. There are so many moving parts, that sometimes you just have to choose one OP thing and hope that it will secure you a victory before the other person manages to counter it.

The downside to this is that, in certain situations, certain civs shine better than others. My mod partially addreses this by making water less situationally lanun dependent. After all, in the land of Aristograrian, a 1 food coast is totally worthless. 2 food coast however ... that is a 100% initial increase, which makes water actually worth fighting for. In 99% of my base FFH2 games, I simply let the Lanun/ OO following nation have the coast because I have no need for it (other than perhaps routes).

Now though? Perhaps it is worth trying to contest the OO for the oceans

Anyways, that is perhaps the purpose of my mod. To make balance changes which also manage to make the game more interesting. After all, it is Sid Meier himself that said the best part of Civ IV changes was to introduce 'interesting choices' to the player. Some things of FFH, like making ocean the sole domain for Lanun/ OO, were not very interesting. Therefore I nerfed Tsunami and made coastline more egalitarian. Lanun still have sole ownership of coves though ... and coves are now more interesting militarily. (higher levels give much defense and healing to stationed boats).


Therefore I am not sure that changing Cavalry from 3 move to 2 move would necessarily be the wisest choice, at least not for the purposes of FFH asymmetry (especially considering implications ... such as an immediate demand to also remove the mobility 1 promotion for all units, and the implications of removing mobility 1, such as making magic relatively much stronger, while it is already quite strong.)

[Jojo_Fr]

Well. I think as far as cavalry is concerned, either reducing their movement by 1 or creating the spearmen unit is fine, but not both.

No, because by principe, a fast unit should have a counter, by promotion or by special anti units. Every game function with unit and anti unit, FFH2 should work like that.

Dont use promotion because you can promote when you want, when you see the army of the ennemy. Which is too easy. Just using the same graphid of the spadassin/axis should be good. The power of unit should be egal to the axis, but : Anti Cav +300 %, but have combat strenght -50 %. On a axis solider with copper, it makes 2.5 of power, but 300 % vs cav mean power of 7.5, which is good.


About the speed, the principe is : Speed 2 maximum to all land unit except certains rares world or national units (like the the hero hippus).

With speed 2, with a road movement on neutral land and fast move (you move at 00:00 of the turn timer), you can make four squares speed, which is vastely enought.

About that, i think the haste should not be able to work on the unit who have already 2 speed. But it is probably difficult to programm that, so no changement neded.

Also, removing the mobility promotion would make summons and magic even more powerful imho ... not only would adepts suddenly be as fast as cavalry but also any attacking army would completely die under magical fire.

Spells can be nerfed easily is needed. For exemple, fireball can do only 50 % of collateral damages, dont kill, etc.

And adept myst be sticked to move 1 (except haste).

Or haste can become a spell which give 2 movement, but the next turn give zero movement (tired units).

Anything to alter the magic system, other than the most basic modification of old spells and basic addition of new spells, would require DLL changes.

Ok.

Therefore I think addressing other concerns are more critical/ more pressing/ something I can actually accomplish.

I truly do not know how to currently balance the Calabim economy, but ... hmm. Perhaps making it +2 H +25% H would be fine, but it would make the building too static, and not make a lick of difference population wise.

It is not easy to say if Calabim are overpowered because compared to elves they are weaker in my experience (Elves + 1 hammer per squares with forest, +1 food after Leaves taked, and +1 happyness and more with the Leaves special doctrines).

There is people who have nothing, ilke the Illians, and versus calabim, or elves, they are weak.

What i want to say is : nerfing calabim is ok but it should be better, for those who ll continue to play FFH2 (which i am not sure), to supress the bigests overpowerd things, before changing things like that.

I think that +0.5 per unhappyness should be good.

Sounds cool yes?

One way to balance Lanun would be to have a Unique Lanun version as well which helps out Coves rather than cottages. This would require of the lanun more comittment in order to fully maximize their coves ^_^

of course the lanun version would decrease distance rather than number maintenance, due to having far flung port cities across the extremes of a continent ^_^ (at least hypotehtically/ flavorful speaking), while Bannor get the number of cities reduction due to being a large yet tightly knit nation ... a nation of 'city and cottage' spammers perhaps. With the cottages growing to towns, Bannor lands would resemble something like a large metropolitan area, which would go in hand with Bannor being the 'Imperium' of FFH, having the largest human population. Such a population ruled by a fairly strict adherence to the law.

I have not enought experience of Lanun and Bannor to give a stong opinion. Lanyn looks to me they have a too big economic bonus, "Pirate Cove" should not produce so much gold. But is it no very usefull to say that.

additionally, if there was a guardsman unit created, there would be no reason to remove the Sidar's magical invisibility.

You need to be able to detect ennemy intrusion in your land. 2 ghouls can take a city with warrior in defense, 6 can take with 2 atchers in defense. And, you need to be able to protect you vs assassin attack your stack. If not, you loose your adepts ore more.

The assassin stay important because you cant know how much assassin the ennemy will have. So if he have plenty of assassin he can kill the few guards and ruin your adept/mages.

Personally I think @ Metamagic 2 there should be an enhanced Floating Eye available that can see Invisible_Land.

It comes too late. Plenty of civ have not Sorcery. At least if you want and I think you like, real invisibile assassins (who i dont like at all because you can scout ennemy land which is anti game), just blocl them to take a city, they ll can just kill unit inside but not take the city.

Therefore I am not sure that changing Cavalry from 3 move to 2 move would necessarily be the wisest choice, at least not for the purposes of FFH asymmetry (especially considering implications ... such as an immediate demand to also remove the mobility 1 promotion for all units, and the implications of removing mobility 1, such as making magic relatively much stronger, while it is already quite strong.)

If you dont want remove movement 3 for cavalery, you should give +1 movement with road, won with cartographie or construction. (and +1 with engineering). But it is not the better choice, which is to have movement 2 for cav.

[Tasunke]

hmm. so 6 ghosts can take a city with 2 archers.

that is 90 hammers worth of archers vs 720 hammers worth of ghosts.

and 2 ghosts can take a city defended with a warrior?

that is a 25 hammer warrior vs 240 hammers worth of ghosts.


---> Somehow I am not certain how this is overpowered ^_^

especially if archers become more accessible due to my proposed changes

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I think just simply adding spearmen would do wonders for the Cavalry meta.

Same with guardsmen for Assassin types.

Unit proposals (first of all, +300% vs cavalry? That sounds a bit extreme don't you think? )

Spearman. Requires Hunting (a tier1 tech in my mod), and a training yard. 4 str, +100% vs mounted, +50% vs animal +50% vs beast. 120 hammers, iweapontier2 (can use bronze and iron). Requires a training yard (which requires no tech at all). Possibly gaining extra city defense, or, perhaps more appropriately, gains the defender promotion .... fortified spears become quite excellent on the map -> Still good as a mobile defensive force, but somewhat better if static. Possibly -50% vs melee but uncertain ... heavy cost would be enough of a balance. This would make a spear 8 str vs mounted. Better than a 1 for 1 trade with a horse archer, and even better verses Horseman (but of course vastly more expensive). The bonus vs animals and beasts is somewhat helpful, and is also flavorful. Too expensive to build as soon as it comes online unless nothing else to do (high difficulty low research high hammers). Still, with defensive promotion, makes guarding your cities vs the hippus at least a grasping possibility.

Perhaps tweaks could be made.

as far as Guardsman ... probably @Philosophy tech, requires Barracks (which requires Training Yard), and at 120 hammers. Perhaps 4 str and +100% vs assassins, with guardsman promotion

[Kiech]

Spearman

I miss them too...I have been thinking: unlock spearmen with hunting and a training yard, make them 3/3 that can use bronze/iron for 60h and give them 50% v horses. Upgrade to pikemen who are available after Smelting 5/5 +100 v horses and all weapon types, and finally harbinger 8/8 unlocked with mithril working, national unit/upgrade only +100 v horses, homeland-like promotion, all weapon types.

[Serdoa]

Well, I still think that this is not balancing FFH2 (or EitB) but just nerfing everything that is fun into the ground to make a game that is similar to BTS. I also think that some, if not most, of those ideas stem from the fact that you can lose against them without much chance to counter in a MP-game which is played simultaneous and with a quick timer. And that is not how most of the games here are played. We either play PBEM or PB with a 24h time and a rule against double-moves (=moving last in one turn and first in the next to basically double the movement of your troops before your opponent can react).

So with that out of the way, I now could start with explaining my thoughts on some of those ideas. But while I wrote that I realized that my idea of a MP-game and that of the OP is so vastly different that we could as well talk about different games. Therefore I'll save his and mine time and stop posting here.

[Jojo_Fr]

hmm. so 6 ghosts can take a city with 2 archers.

that is 90 hammers worth of archers vs 720 hammers worth of ghosts.

If you loose your capital like this, you'll change of mind. It is far better to loose all this hammer if you raze the capital, the center of production of the ennemy.

Takind city in Civ nearly always need to sacrifice some units, unless you have high tech units domination.

The most important is that the fact you can't predict where stealth units will strike. You can't know where put your units. You can't know where hidde your adept. You are juste at the mercy of all. And that has nonsense. It is the kind of "no predictable and no defense tactic" which must be suppressed in a decent and fair multiplayer competition.

It is like the Raider trait : No defense vs this. You can juste pray that the ennemy will not take any your city (movement 4 or 5 with Hippus = at least 8 squares so at last 3 of your city can be attacked in ONE turn).

I think just simply adding spearmen would do wonders for the Cavalry meta.

Same with guardsmen for Assassin types.

Unit proposals (first of all, +300% vs cavalry? That sounds a bit extreme don't you think? )

Speamen will be useless versus any other units than mounted units. I rewrite it here : It is an axis unit which a special promotion, which give -50 % of strenght and +300 % vs Cavalery. It does on strenght 4 : 4-2 = 2. But 2x3=6. Strenght 6 vs cav who have 4 is not so much at all. (With copper they are better). And their cost must be the same as Axes I think due to the downgrading of their power.

Why should I dont propose a unit like the spearman who have +100 % vs cavalery ? Because in BtS the main land unit is axis, which have strenght 5 but +50 % vs close combat units. It does 7.5. But in FFH2 there is no specialised unit vs close combat units, so we need to design a unit which have less base force than axis, but enought vs cavelery.

The pikeman is not necessary, 7.5 of strenght, and more with Iron, is suffisant to counter the cavalery.

Your spearman unit is far too expansive. The cavalery cost 40 hammer, why the anti cavalery should cost so much ? With my anti cavalery which is good it is you cannot build them too much because if the ennemy swith to land unit, you ll have unit with 2.5 of power.

But your idea is good nevertheless, but I dont like the idea of spearman who can guards vs assassin because it means every body will produce this units, which will give two defensive power. It is too strong.

Guardsman : Assassins.
Spearman : Mounted units.
Adept : Anti stealh units (dont forget you need them at all point of your frontiers or in all of your city to be able to see at 2 squares the stealth ! In fact, it is not easy at all to dot it. And same if you see them, it can be too late).

For the recon unit, as they ll have a lowered defense of 1, a bad city attack (and defense) and as they cant pillage, I think we dont need anti unit at this point.

[gtAngel]

Overall I disagree with how you think this needs to be balanced. For most of your concepts you aren't keeping the differences that make units/mechanics/civs unique, and you're just trying to bring everything closer mechanically so that nothing has an advantage over anything else. You keep saying that all these mechanics are overpowered and don't have counters, but I think you're just missing the point of having unique mechanics in the first place. Instead of removing or nerfing mechanics I would rather see other mechanics strengthened or counters added to the game.

1. The super speed of fast units and the divine Raider trait

In this section your point is basically "moving fast is strong, only some units / civs can move fast, so this is broken." I strongly disagree, and feel you are overlooking the things that keep this balanced.

First off, mounted units are naturally weaker than non-mounted units in direct combat, and aside from centaurs cannot get defensive bonuses. Furthermore, the mounted units require a secondary building to create and their own tech path, so focusing on mounted units comes at a very large opportunity cost. Even the raider trait comes at the disadvantage of another trait, and while strong is still limited by available roads. I would argue that the best defense against this trait would be to introduce a mechanic where you can pillage your own roads.

When it comes to counters, the counters are all of the things that can nullify this advantage: Stop them from moving with magic, position yourself so that they cannot threaten you without endangering their units, or attack them and force them to defend their own territory. It's the same as harassment units in a game like Starcraft - they are extremely strong on offense, but on defense they have always been weak, and if you cannot get value from them they become worse than direct combat units. All it takes it strategy to overcome this advantage. Look up how pros deal with Mutalisk harass in starcraft - the general response is "prepare beforehand, survive the initial harass, and then attack, knowing that they cannot afford a base race against your superior units.

2. The magic hidding

This is another mechanic where you entire reasoning is effectively "being invisible is strong, and not everything beats it." Once again, I feel like you miss the point. Very few units can actually be invisible. I think it's only Ghosts, Rathus Denmora, Shadows, and Nox Noctis protected units. There might be one or two others I forgot, but the point is that these are niche units that have significant tech investment, or at the very least come with considerable downsides.

Once again, the counterplay to these units is to nullify their advantage by playing around it. Against Ghosts and Rathus, don't let them sit in your territory - force them to defend, or reveal them, or make sure they aren't safe to attack (if I remember correctly, they cannot hide after attacking, so they have at least one turn of visibility in between strikes.)

Also, consider that all of these units are extremely weak in a direct engagement most of the time. Melee line units are strictly better when it comes to stack versus stack combat, and against cities these invisible assassins hit effectively like kittens. These units excel at fighting an enemy who is hiding in his base, so any time you are allowing this to happen the enemy is winning. These units suck at fighting someone on equal ground, so force fights. Attack the enemy, or simply pressure them, and force these units who suck at direct combat into direct combat.

As for specific counters, consider marksmen, adepts with metamagic, and Empyrean units if these are too much of an issue for you. All of these units can remove invisibility.

If you really feel this is an overpowered mechanic, I would suggest adding easier access to defensive truesight, but any type of offensive truesight really needs to be something you work for. Perhaps add on to optics or another tech a building that gives truesight around a city. This way you would have an answer for this harass, but it still requires an investment. It would simply destroy these mechanics if there was an easy answer that had little to no investment.

3. The Kuriotates

Oh man, centaurs OP. Except I haven't seen Kurio's winning every single game they're in, and it's not like the Kurio's don't have downsides (limited cities = limited production and limites their viable tech choices.) You need to have some more data than "man I think this is super OP" to really justify any sort of mechanic changes or nerfs. I don't even understand what you want here either.

4. The attack spells

Yes, ubiquitous collateral damage is super strong. That's why everyone can get a unit called a "catapult" that does ubiquitous collateral for very little tech investment, especially considering that construction is an amazing tech in general. If you want better collateral you invest in it, and yes, it ends up being strong. This alone doesn't make it overpowered though - it's not as if collateral is so good that there is never any reason to ever build anything else. Sure, you always need collateral, but the game has always been balanced around this, and so it's designed that a mundane army can compete with an arcane or religious army. Trying to remove this army is like trying to remove supply limits from a real time strategy game (another SC2 reference.) It's just a mechanic that's in the game, and removing it serves no purpose except to limit your options.

If you really feel like collateral is too strong, then come up for counterplay. Once example already in the game is multiple movement units - these allow you to keep the majority of your army from eating the entire splash damage. Once the damage is done you converge and, because your units are stronger in direct engagement than squishy wizards, you clean up. If you want another mechanic you might want to include some kind of magical defense unit that absorbs the brunt of magical attacks. Once again, however, it can't be something that completely negates the advantages of going a more magical strategy nor can it be something that it negligible to get. It has to be something that keeps you in the game, but not something that invalidates other strategies.

As for other utility spells, they also have defenses in reach. Something like slow might seem strong, but having multiple movement units (mobility promotion, haste spell, naturally high movement) keeps your army going, having strong positioning allows you to catch these squishy casters out in the open, assassins can be used to target down these units first, and your own spellcasters can grab dispel magic to negate this.

5. The assassin faculty

Once again, you're just pointing out strong mechanics and saying "IMBA IMBA," without considering your options and the cost the enemy puts into this mechanic. Assassins are weaker than regular combat units, have incredible weaknesses when attacking cities, can be countered with the guardsman promotion, can be countered with the guardsman units, can be somewhat countered with stoneskin, and have a considering tech and building investment (hunting->poisons(expensive tech)->hunting lodge.)

6. The dived soul of the sidars

Yeah divide soul is strong, so are vampires, so are pirate coves, so is the elohim world spell, so are the amurite mages, so are perpentach's freaks/traits, so are varn's traits and world spell, welcome to a game where not every single civilization plays the exact same. Quit whining that different things are different.

7. The power of recon units

THEY SUCK AGAINST DIRECT COMBAT UNITS, DO FUCK ALL AGAINST CITIES, AND REQUIRE THEIR OWN TECH. STOP WHINING THAT UNITS DESIGNED FOR A SPECIFIC NICHE ARE GOOD IN THAT SPECIFIC NICHE AND LEARN SOME COUNTERPLAY.

So now, looking at your specific answers:

1. No no no no no. Keep these mechanics as they are. As I pointed out, these units have drawbacks. Let them keep their niche.

2. Yes, let's completely neuter the idea of magical invisibility by allowing anyone with adepts to completely ignore this mechanic. Good idea! (Hint: sarcasm)

3. Why? I still don't see any evidence this is OP.

4. Fireballs shouldn't be able to pillage, I agree. Otherwise I think you're not considering that magic is designed to work best on huge numbers of units. There's no reason to change this mechanic, especially considering spell failure and spell resistance are things.

5. So assassins aren't supposed to exist, got it. Any other units you think shouldn't exist? Maybe I should have an "arrowcatcher" that does +100% against archers and is available at Bronze Working or maybe Hunting. Surely that that's a good idea! (Hint: more sarcasm)

6. This isn't a balance change, it's a design change. There's no reason to do this.

7. "I don't like that people still build recon units, can we do something about it?"

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Okay, I apologize a bit for my tone throughout. I meant to start by being respectful and just keeping this purely a reasoned debate, but as I continued to read I just got angrier and angrier. Almost all of your ideas lack any sort of balance reasoning behind them and are solely changes to mechanics you simply don't like. A lot of your ideas don't seem very thought out and are very overboard, while others are simply design changes without any balance purpose.

For the most part I just don't think any of these ideas are that great and that they mostly miss the point. It feels like you just want to play Beyond the Sword with elves, which is fine, but Fall From Heaven is designed around asymmetric balance at it's heart and these suggestions are trying to kill that. This system of counters and homogenous design works when everyone has access to the same tools and mechanics without too much investment, but in a system where every civilization works differently and the tech tree is very commital you simply can't allow counters like this to exist. A mounted unit has to be good enough to dedicate yourself to building. If the enemy can instantly respond by creating a unit that is better in every way (a spearman) you need to be able to instantly switch to something else. In BTS you can do this, because you unlock everything at around the same time. In FFH2 you cannot do this, so instead you need a system of soft counters and strategic options instead. If mounted units are proving too strong make stronger defensive units, a promotion that defends against them slightly better, or just buff other mechanics to make them on par.

[gtAngel]

I would like to add that I mean none of this as a personal attack on you by the way. I do come off as a bit of an asshole, and I would probably edit a lot of my post if I was feeling less lazy and depressed (unfortunately I am feeling very lazy and depressed right now), but really do take this the right way. I really appreciate you and everyone else giving their input, even when you disagree with me completely. It's not worth staying silent just because you might be wrong, or because other people might think you're wrong, as giving this kind of input and sparking this kind of discussion is what can improve the game, your understanding of the game and game design, and other people's understanding of the game and game design. So please don't think I dislike you, think too little of you, or are mad at you. I tear into your ideas because design is something I really enjoy discussions and tearing into, and I really enjoy the kind of debate and thoughts that can come through with that.