Quote:Auric does require Archery Ranges.
No. One of the "perks" of Javelin throwers is that they don't require archery ranges. Which basically only applies to Auric...
|
FfH Paring Questions
|
Mist Wrote:Huh? Do you know how hard is it to A Javelin rush is 80b cheaper than a Sons of Asena rush. Without copper hooked up the standard Javelin Thrower (4/4,1fs +25% hill and city defense) is already stronger than a Son of Asena (4/4) on both attack and defense. They're a niche unit (early non-melee rush for the Dovelio, cheap defense for Auric) but I don't see any demonstrated need for a buff on this unit. As to the difficulty of getting the cash to upgrade/timing the rush, FFHPBEM II Spoiler:
Re Azoth's points on bronze warriors earlier:
I've kind of befuddled the argument with some of the things I said, so I'm going to start again to try and be clear. Here's what I think bronze warriors are good for: * Rush defense, when in a hurry. * Barbarian control. * City garrison. * Bronze-warrior rush, in the right situation (pre-built warriors, opponent has no copper, and opponent is close). Here's what they're not good for: * Making up the bulk of your ongoing defence force. * Being used as any sort of attack force that has to travel a long distance, or at a time when better units are available. * Being used in defence once better units have been available for long enough for the relevant buildings to have been built. So, on the whole, once better units are properly available, I think bronze warriors gradually become obsolete. This is why I don't see them as a big problem. Before then, and in particular during the time in between researching bronzeworking and building both training grounds and significant numbers of axemen, they are a useful tool for defence against barbarians and rushes. There's a number of relevant rushes: * Clan worldspell and/or wolf-rider (as upgraded from goblins) rush * Illian Priest of Winter rush * Pre-bronze warrior rush from anyone, but particularly making use of the Doviello's Lucian. * Hippus horsemen rush. * Maybe Pyre zombie rush, though they shouldn't be much faster than ordinary axes (they require no building though). All of these have roughly the sort of timing where bronze warriors could often help, but axemen would be simply too slow. I'm not saying whether the game particularly needs this rush defence, although all those rushes are quite powerful even with the existance of bronze warriors. The point is mostly that it's a big balance change to take them out and one with hard-to-calculate repurcussions. I agree there's a lot of early military strength tied up in bronzeworking, but honestly it's not any worse in that regard than the tech of the same name in ordinary BTS. One tech for early military still leaves options of developing the economy first or not (unlike BTS bronze which is key to both). The only thing I'd consider is that maybe it's worth speeding up the availability of the first horse unit to open up an alternative, particular for those with horses but no copper. But there's consequences to that too.
Ok, bringing up a new topic. A real hole in FFH multiplayer at the moment is the wealth of single-player focused mechanics. Which is to say tricks that only work on the AI. Some obviously so, others a little indirectly. If this is to be a multiplayer oriented modmod, then it's worth thinking about these. Here's my list of things which just don't work as intended in a multiplayer setting.
* The spell "Trust". Similarly AI modifiers from good & evil, entropy & death mana, and some events. Nothing really unexpected here, it really just means that spirit mana is a little weak in multiplayer. The rest is not so different from the fact that humans don't care about religion in ordinary BTS multiplayer. In other words, these things were only ever really there for AIs and single player in the first place so it doesn't matter so much that they're missing. It at best just means that if you simplify the magic spheres, "Trust" is the first candidate for the chopping block. * The spell "Peace", as used by Corlindale and any unit at Seven Pines. While this will stop the AI from warring with you for at least some stretch of time, humans can simply immediately redeclare. So other than a couple of extremely narrow use cases in combination with the remaining things in this list, the spell doesn't really do much. This is actually the easiest of all to fix though. What it should do is create 10 turn unbreakable peace treaties between all players. This is exactly the sort of thing the UN and AP resolutions do, and they definately have their uses in multiplayer as a result. In fact that's also what the manual says it does. * Hidden Nationality. As used by a variety of units, abilities and the Svartalfar worldspell, Ok it has some uses don't get me wrong, but it's certainly very rare that the nationality of these units is genuinely "hidden". Not saying it doesn't have any use, just that it doesn't always entirely work as intended. * Loki's "Disrupt" ability. You can use it to poach AI cities, and while it annoys them once you've done it, the AI won't declare war to prevent it from happening in the first place. The trouble with it in multiplayer is basically that you can't use it on civs you are at war with, and you won't stay at peace for long with civs you use it on. I'm not saying there's no situation where it could get used, just that for the most part it doesn't really work in multiplayer. Loki himself still has a lot of other uses though so it's not such a big deal that one of his abilities is difficult to make use of. His "Entertain" ability is similarly difficult to use to steal cash, but given that it provides happiness it can at least still be used at home or even rented out to allies. * Giddeon's "Impersonate Leader" ability. This is a bit controvertial. I include it here because many people vote to ban it, and that is a clear sign that something isn't right. Personally I actually think it's fine the way it is. We had a big discussion about this in the tech thread for FFHPBEM3. It's very difficult to set up a situation where it can be used, but it has the potential to completely turn the game and even wipe out an entire civilisation. However, it can be seen coming, and can be avoided simply by declaring war, so it generally requires a vicious backstab to be used at all. On the whole, I personally wouldn't change it, but I thought it worth bringing up. * Kidnap/Steal. It's the same sort of problems as the last two really, people just aren't going to put up with that kind of garbage the way the AIs do. Can't use it in war time, and can't stay at peace while using it. These are all I can think of at the moment, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were more. With all of them, it's not so much a matter of not working at all, just being significantly less effective against humans than AI, which leaves the abilities somewhat crippled and impacts the game balance to some extent. They don't really need removing, but what would be interesting is to find ways to make them still really work effectively in multiplayer. PS two pre-written posts that I've been working on for a while. I didn't write this whole thing in less than a minute after the last 
Here's a small sampling of changes that I've been up to the last few days. This list is not inclusive.
Here is build0002. I need you to check out the Order/Esus and see how they feel. Also note how the religious units stack up against the rest of the tree. Try out the leaders, and try and break things. Let me know how they break with screenshots if possible as well as words. Esus is the religion of BigGold.
If you see something wrong in documentation (Civilopedia/Mouseover) make a post and note that as well. If you are struck with a muse and want to write some flavor text for anything missing it, or think you can do better than what's there, post your submission and what it's for/replacing and I'll add it in if I like it. :neenernee Also, thanks to Bob for being a great soundingboard on various ideas. I know the undercouncil civic seems to come from left field, but I wanted to put something in (even if unbalanced) to go with the overcouncil effect and didn't feel like doing another XML tag this weekend. [SIZE='7'][color='blue']Download Link[/color][/SIZE] [SIZE='5']Installation Instructions:[/SIZE] Create a copy of your FfH Mod Directory. Copy the files/folders you find in Build0002 (python, XML, CvGameCoreDLL.dll) into the copy's assets folder. [SIZE='5']Build0002 Changelog:[/SIZE]
Undercouncil change makes it ridiculously more powerful than Overcouncil. It also comes in far too early for an unlimited specialist civic.
Quote:Basium: Gain Immortal Promotion after killing a unit with Fire I So.. Firebows and Adepts? Why? Surely Entropy or Death casters would be the preferred target? Something I really liked from one of the modmods. Basium would prevent evil units he killed from becoming manes. Quote:Stygian Guard: +2 Unholy and +1 Base strength to give total Strength 10. So do they no longer get metal promotions? Quote:Mistform: Change AI to Animal so that it acts like a super spider and not as a choker. I quite like that as a solution to the issue of popping them from lairs... but what effect would it have on AI summoners using mistforms? A fairly niche case, but one that should probably be accounted for. Quote:Paramander: +1 Str (to match strength of mithril soldier of Kilmorphs) total 8 Coupled with the move to Arete, it seems a rather early spot to be putting a base strength 8 unit. Quote:Confessor: Gains Pillar of Fire Uh.. any fluff justification for that one? Surely it should be an Empyrean priest spell rather than an order priest spell. And if it is going to be an Order priest spell they should lose Bless, which is a very worthwhile spell on its own. Quote: Esus Spread: Spreading Esus when Esus is state religion gives gold = to 50 * population of the city Sounds like a really bad idea. Imagine you're playing a spiritual leader, and you've got ten cities, each with an average population of ten. A well off mid-game empire. Not too crazy. You spread Esus to all of your cities, costing 1000 gold, and gain 5000 gold in return. Net profit, 4000 gold. You switch religions to Order, and Inquisition away all of the Esus worshippers. After the minimum amount of time, you switch back to Esus and raise another 4000 gold. Sure, it requires quite a bit of set up. (For maximum speed you'd want 10 order confessors, 10 units capable of spreading Esus). But that is a crazy return of assets. If you could get 4000 gold every 10 turns at a pretty early point in the game, you would be mad not to do it. 50 times population is *way* too high a figure. Making it 20 times population seems a lot more reasonable, making the spread free for size 5 and higher cities. Even 20times may be open to some abuse if someone pushes for very high population cities. (15 size 20 cities would only get a return of 4000 though, so it really is much more reasonable even in extreme cases). Quote: Hyborem: Gain Aggressive, lose Spiritual. Sum/Agg/Barb I dislike these changes. I think everything else looks quite good.
With the Pillar of Fire change, it should probably be given to the Prior instead, and have its damage cap restorted to its previous level. Quoth the Civilopedia Luonnotar entry:
Quote:But blasphemy is enough for The Order, and they rounded up those they could find (the Luonnotar kept their membership secret). They were chained in the city plaza and told to repent for their blasphemy, to repent of their claims that the gods weren't real gods. The Luonnotar refused so the Order Prior called down a pillar of fire to destroy them. The pillar scorched the stone of the plaza, burnt off the chains but left the Luonnotar unhurt. Selrahc's suggestions for Basium make sense. I was also chatting with Selrahc regarding the Calabim a couple days ago, and we thought that it isn't necessarily the Calabim as a civ which is overpowered, but rather the excessive synergy that Flauros has with them. Replacing his Financial with Expansive would leave him as a still excellent leader with great synergy, but not overpowered economically. I like the Esus extra gold mechanics- as I told Sareln in some of my conversations with him, it will make the religion much more attractive for the Khazad (especially when combined with the now exclusive Dwarven Shadows), giving them something to run besides the Runes. The situation that Selrahc describes would indeed be badly unbalanced, however, and so I support his suggested adjustment. Selrahc Wrote:Undercouncil change makes it ridiculously more powerful than Overcouncil. It also comes in far too early for an unlimited specialist civic. Agreed, I threw this in at the last minute because I wasn't able to get the undercouncil mechanic that I wanted working. Knock off the unlimited specialist tic? In the future, I hope to make it so that Undercouncil gives a bonus to Neutral/Evil temples and Overcouncil gives a bonus to Good/Neutral Temples. Selrahc Wrote:So.. Firebows and Adepts? Why? I was going off of the flavor text under Basium, where he kills two possible recruits who show off a fire spell. I could add Death and Entropy to that as well. Added to list. I like the mane suppression. I'll add that to the list. Selrahc Wrote:So do they no longer get metal promotions? Right now yes. Due to oversight. No longer. Added to List. Selrahc Wrote:I quite like that as a solution to the issue of popping them from lairs... but what effect would it have on AI summoners using mistforms? A fairly niche case, but one that should probably be accounted for. I can make a doubled-version of the mistform. The summon would keep the normal AI and the event would pop the animal AI one. Added to the list. Selrahc Wrote:Coupled with the move to Arete, it seems a rather early spot to be putting a base strength 8 unit. Crusaders are Str. 7 with Bless to give them Str. 8 out of the gate. Perhaps push the Paramander down to Str 6/8 - Make the paramanders rock-hard defenders. Selrahc Wrote:Uh.. any fluff justification for that one? Surely it should be an Empyrean priest spell rather than an order priest spell. The quote for Pillar of Fire is an order quote iirc. Mostly to debuff chalid, especially since he already has crown of brilliance. I'll move it to the order high priest and buff it up to 30 dmg / 50 cap. Added to List. Selrahc Wrote:Sounds like a really bad idea. 'Gratz you broke it. I'll push it down to 20 gp / pop point. Added to List. Selrahc Wrote:I dislike these [Hyborem/Falamar] changes. Those two are from Bob's mega-post on leaders here. Give me some arguments please. Selrahc Wrote:I think everything else looks quite good. Thanks. |
