For a forum that prides itself on trying new things, for the love of all that is novel and interesting, please can we have a new QotM? - Krill

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EitB Strategy Discussion/FAQ Thread

Over the past 6 months we've had a bit of an influx of new players. This is fantastic, and something I'd hoped resuming the development of EitB would do, and will continue to do so.

It has, however, led to a bit of tension in the setup threads, because of the differing meta of other sites clashing with the established meta of RB.

Thus, I thought this might be a more productive venue to discuss the general views on certain settings, strategies, and so on, to minimize the drama of those threads. It should also be able to serve as a general Q and A thread about strategies or changes to the mod, which would otherwise clutter the main threads, or if anyone has any possible rebalancing proposals that they're not sure enough on to bring up in the main thread.

Do remember, however, to spoil any references to, or discussion of ongoing games.

I'll look to post some stuff tomorrow, but basically just go for it. smile
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.

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In general, I think what new games need is for someone (almost invariably the game proposer) to take a strong hand in establishing baseline, core settings for the game (ie: late era start, no settlers, special stating units- anything that determines the fundamental nature of the PBEM).


After that, the same person should post a list of settings for everyone else to vote on, with the exception of those they are leaving for the map maker to determine (such as potentially world wrap and difficulty level).


This is essentially how I run my games- I come up with a concept & associated pitch, gather a group of players and then copy-paste in a list of map settings for everyone to reach a consensus on. I've never had any problem with it. But there does need to be someone willing to prod the other players into providing all the essentials, such as votes, email addresses, playing windows, and then tabulate that data for the map maker. You should never force the map maker to take the lead in organizing your own game.
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I agree there. Otherwise the debates and discussion can get out of hand.

However...that's the point of this thread. To give a venue for those debates where anyone can feel open to contribute, and where said debate isn't slowing away or distracting from a game that people want to start.
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.

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So one thing that's come up a lot recently is barbarians. IMO, barbarians are integral to the gamestate of FFH/EitB, and the game is built around them to such a degree that playing a game which does not include them is tantamount to playing a variant on its own.

EitB 38 SPOILERS:

See, for example, the very different build/strategy our team was able to play there, with our entire side of the map explored quickly, no garrison at home until size 4/5, and Kurios building Granaries. Also, the Clan building far more goblins because of their cheaper pricetag.

All of this created a gamestate that looked and felt entirely different from a "normal" barbs game (even for a BAR civ), something which I didn't even properly consider before the game began.

Not only this, but I believe that the inclusion of barbarians is something that is beneficial to the balance of the game, especially in a FFA as opposed to a duel.

I would firstly point out that a distinction needs to be made between barbs and lairs. Lairs are a contentious issue on this forum, and not one that I think has a right/wrong side, so to speak - I hold a position, as do others, but I don't think the opposing position is wrong. For this reason IMO lairs need changes to be integrated/developed, (which is currently under review) whilst barbs do not.

Let's look, then, at what barbs do.

Barbarians begin to appear ~t5, as animals. Animals are basically just normal barbarians, except they are passive, never entering your borders or besieging your cities, but attacking anyone wandering the wilds. They have a more variable strength range than the normal barbs, going from slightly weaker (wolves) to significantly stronger (hill giants), but never scaling by game speed - they are a significant threat to explorers early on, but become less and less of a one as time goes on (there are certain rituals that alter this, but they never come into play so, IMO, they're not relevant here).

A little while later (dependant on difficulty, but I believe once there are 1.5x as many cities on a landmass as there are players) "normal" barbarians start to come into play, in the form of orc warriors, but slowly increasing in strength as the game techs on. These "normal" units are the ones that invade your borders, and the ones the Clan, Charadon and Furia are at peace with. Eventually, they will found cities, which produce kill-teams to strike at players.

Now let's look at what mechanics involve barbarians explicitly:

- Subdue Animal(/beast), a promotion pretty much solely used versus barbarian animals. Losing this is a formidable nerf for the hunting/recon line, who can usually take advantage of this to capture a number of animals for cheap culture, happy and (in the case of Spiders/Scorpions) free silk and the valuable PB promotion. Even more importantly is the use of the military applications of these animals - especially Spiders and Griffons, whose Animal Invisibility and flying respectively, as well as high combat strength, makes them useful far into the late game of FFH.

An example of the former can be seen in EitB31, where the Luchuirp team used an early hunting to capture a large number of bears, which they used as cheap culture (+happy boost) for all cities. This is particularly relevant because this was a team which had no normal incentive to go this route.

- Barbarian teams, explicitly the Clan, Infernal, Furia the Mad, Averax the Cambion and Charadon, who all get a pretty clear nerf out of this.

- The Clan are shafted in particular, because they also lose their Goblin -> Wolf Rider mechanic.

- The AC is hit quite hard. I don't recall whether or not the Horsemen still appear, but the loss of the Demonic Champions and the later effects definitely lose out. This is another nerf for the BAR teams, an even larger one for the Sheiam in general, as well as a general one for those who have a better time surviving the apocalypse (Basium, Luchuirp, Elohim and so on).

That's just the obvious stuff, however. Losing barbarians also has a ton of follow-on effects which substantially alter the balance of the game.

- Some traits are nerfed, and some are boosted. AGG, CHA and, to a lessor extent, RAI are substantially nerfed as they lose a lot of their utility in a) fighting back the early pressure of barbs and b) being able to make use of the extra promotions generated from this. Others, especially the economic traits of FIN, CRE, EXP & IND recieve a boost by having less "distractions" - but above all the passive xp traits of SPI/ARC/ORG.

- Loss of Subdue Animal is another blow to CHA/AGG, which each find it substantially easier to get.

- Early military is much, much less important. Where normally a warrior is an early build, and several are generally needed before even the first settler, here you can manage without a single warrior. That's just the very early impacts, but it continues to have a profound effect for scores and scores of turns, with just that much less militarization, to the point where the "farmers gambit" becomes that much more important.

This is all a substantial change in the very focus of the game - as Bob once put it to me, "In BTS you build your army to defend your cities, in FFH you build your cities to help you make your army." (Horribly mangled, I'm sure.)

- As a result of the above, early game military techs/resources (bronze) are that much less valuable.

- Scouting is much more survivable/easy. Where normally the wilds of FFH are incredibly inhospitable, with the brief window in the first dozen turns often being the most scouting one is able to do for a long time, in a no-barbs game there is little-to-no opposition to ones scouting, something which a) changes the atmosphere considerably and b) means revealing territory is that much easier.

- The sea is also that much more hospitable.

- Experience is significantly harder to get.

This nerfs the Sidar massively, as they can normally can use barbarians to get wanes in the mid-game - without barbs they are a win-more mechanic, which would rarely come to play before the game is decided.

It also makes other units which require a xp level to get much harder - vamparism, mages, High Priests, Aeron's Chosen, and so on.

Conversely, the Luchuirp and their experience-less golems are greatly boosted by having their major disadvantage largely detracted from.

- Recon is significantly nerfed (as mentioned earlier) because of the absence of animals. This hits Sidar, Svartalfar, in particular, and Ljolsofar to a lessor extent.

- Teams with bonii to exploration - Dwarves, Elves, Sidar - are nerfed.

- Basium/Brigit have a harder time restoring immortality.


That's all that leaps to mind, but the list goes on and on. The TL;DR of it all is that No Barbarians is very much not the default setting to go on - the changes resultant are major and have massive effects on the atmosphere and balance of the game, enough so that to have that setting on is effectively imposing a variant on the game, on the same scale as Last Days or Barbarian World, and only a step below starting an era in or playing with No Settlers. It's not a bad setting, but it is a transformative one.
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.

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From the other thread:

(January 22nd, 2015, 01:35)Ellimist Wrote: The deepening doesn't need to be nerfed, btw. Right now it has an effect that is basically equivalent to Blight.

I respectfully disagree.

Deepening lasts a lot longer. I don't think I've ever seen blight unhealth greater than -20, and the effects wear off with time. I find that city population usually stabilizes after ~5 turns. Whereas the deepening takes away half your hammers and food for what is effectively the remainder of the game. Blight hits hardest in your biggest cities, and maybe not at all in the new ones that are still trying to grow, while the deepening hits empire wide. Blight hits everyone, while the Illians shrug off most or all of the effects from the deepening.

I've read that there is a bug in the implementation of the deepening, and its effects are much more widespread than intended.
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Vis a vis The Deepening, I was under the impression that it was supposed to hit 25%, rather than 75% of tiles. I don't know where I came across that, however.
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.

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So far, we haven't seen the Illians actually win any games after using the Deepening. I know it hits pretty hard, but it can definitely be managed.

What does the code actually look like? How long does thawing generally take?
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FFH-20: Jonas Endain of the Clan of Embers
EITB Pitboss 1: Clan/Elohim/Calabim with Mardoc and Thoth



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Here's the section in CvEventManager:

Code:
        if iProjectType == gc.getInfoTypeForString('PROJECT_THE_DEEPENING'):
            iDesert = gc.getInfoTypeForString('TERRAIN_DESERT')
            iGrass = gc.getInfoTypeForString('TERRAIN_GRASS')
            iMarsh = gc.getInfoTypeForString('TERRAIN_MARSH')
            iPlains = gc.getInfoTypeForString('TERRAIN_PLAINS')
            iSnow = gc.getInfoTypeForString('TERRAIN_SNOW')
            iTundra = gc.getInfoTypeForString('TERRAIN_TUNDRA')
            iBlizzard = gc.getInfoTypeForString('FEATURE_BLIZZARD')
            iTimer = 40 + (CyGame().getGameSpeedType() * 20)
            for i in range (CyMap().numPlots()):
                pPlot = CyMap().plotByIndex(i)
                bValid = False
                if pPlot.isWater() == False:
                    if CyGame().getSorenRandNum(100, "The Deepening") < 25:
                        iTerrain = pPlot.getTerrainType()
                        chance = CyGame().getSorenRandNum(100, "Bob")
                        if iTerrain == iSnow:
                            bValid = True
                        if iTerrain == iTundra:
                            pPlot.setTempTerrainType(iSnow, CyGame().getSorenRandNum(iTimer, "Bob") + 10)
                            bValid = True
                        if iTerrain == iGrass or iTerrain == iMarsh:
                            if chance < 40:
                                pPlot.setTempTerrainType(iSnow, CyGame().getSorenRandNum(iTimer, "Bob") + 10)
                            else:
                                pPlot.setTempTerrainType(iTundra, CyGame().getSorenRandNum(iTimer, "Bob") + 10)
                            bValid = True
                        if iTerrain == iPlains:
                            if chance < 60:
                                pPlot.setTempTerrainType(iSnow, CyGame().getSorenRandNum(iTimer, "Bob") + 10)
                            else:
                                pPlot.setTempTerrainType(iTundra, CyGame().getSorenRandNum(iTimer, "Bob") + 10)
                            bValid = True
                        if iTerrain == iDesert:
                            if chance < 10:
                                pPlot.setTempTerrainType(iSnow, CyGame().getSorenRandNum(iTimer, "Bob") + 10)
                            elif chance < 30:
                                pPlot.setTempTerrainType(iTundra, CyGame().getSorenRandNum(iTimer, "Bob") + 10)
                            else:
                                pPlot.setTempTerrainType(iPlains, CyGame().getSorenRandNum(iTimer, "Bob") + 10)
                        if bValid:
                            if CyGame().getSorenRandNum(750, "The Deepening") < 25:
                                pPlot.setFeatureType(iBlizzard,-1)

Which presumably means 60t at normal speed, or 53t at quick. I haven't analysed it closely, though, and I would've presumed that there was a random element to it. Fake-edit: ah there is, though I'm not sure how to interpret that.
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.

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Lairs are imho addressed quite well in the latest ExtraModmod versions (starting with 3.0 iirc)

Due to code which comes from BarbsPlus ... which changes the way in which lairs give exploration results. It also slightly changes lair unit spawning.
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And which alters the way barbarians are treated in a very fundamental way. I *might* add in the code (probably as an game option), but I'm going to wait for the code of Barbs+ to be tested more before considering merging it in.
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.

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