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Post by lorddragon on Jul 31, 2006 18:23:03 GMT -5
Personally both the immortal and the war chariot are a bit overpowered now. They were already really good, now they are nuts, lol.
I am also running a few tests on catapults now, to see how they have changed, will let you know when I have something solid. I do know they won't hurt units that are around 50% or so life, but I forget if they did that before or not.
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Post by lorddragon on Jul 30, 2006 1:36:49 GMT -5
I just find it odd that they boosted the chariots without considering the impact it would have on war chariots and immortals. Both of those were already considered among the best UU, now that they have +100% to axes they are freaking insane, lol.
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Post by lorddragon on Dec 21, 2006 15:17:52 GMT -5
The semi official word is that since this doesn't really impact single player, we are not getting any changes.
I had another thought for catapults too, give them a bombard ability to damage stacks from range, the traditional use. And the range this was available at depends on where the catapult is. If it is in a small city, it gets 2 squares, a medium, 4 , a big 5 or 6. So the bigger the city the longer you can bombard incoming forces if you have a catapult or 2. Just a thought, lol.
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Post by lorddragon on Dec 20, 2006 20:28:09 GMT -5
Yeah, conquistadors probably do need a MINOR nerf, that change from 50% to 25% would work, they still get defensive bonuses, so still insanely powerful.
Another issue is that ivory tends to cluster, and often very few players have it. Without ivory defending against conquistadors is a losing proposition. Really they are one of if not the most overpowered unit right now. Its just that the time periods usually played, for instance ancient and classical, rarely have knights for long unless there is a pure techer. And in later matches you can get guns and rifles quickly to kind of counter.
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Post by lorddragon on Dec 19, 2006 16:15:30 GMT -5
Yes, the elephant cata stack is particularly lethal. While elephants don't get defensive bonuses, with the current state of fortified towns vs catapults it doesn't really matter. And even without defensive bonuses there are no units that can take out that group other than more elephants. It kind of defeats the purpose.
I don't think the developers care anymore quite frankly, which is a pity. I don't think it would be that hard to rectify the situation. Here are a few changes just off the top of my head.
Catapults - Give them a strength of 1 so they can't go toe to toe with other units. Give them a 2.5 multiplier for bombard damage when they attack, and do their damage over 12 units instead of 6. This means that they die very easily on the attack, but are still devastating to big groups. This restores them to valuable support and anti stack units, while making them very vulnerable and useless against raids and such, as they should be.
Elephants - Drop str to 7. Thats it, lol. With the easily available anti melee upgrade as the second upgrade they are still dangerous and useful, just not the end all be all unit they seem to be now. It also makes them a slighty weaker knight counter, which seems right.
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Post by lorddragon on Dec 18, 2006 22:43:21 GMT -5
DrShot, I was not referring to any particular build up that could have been prevented. My post was simply about how catapults, and other artillery units, are overpowered in the overall game balance. They should be support units, not the main part of your army.
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Post by lorddragon on Dec 18, 2006 20:44:57 GMT -5
DrShot, with all due respect, saying "don't let someone build something" is not a solution, lol. As for units that get 50% vs cats, the problem is this does nothing to prevent catapults splash damage. Catapults do exactly the same splash damage when attacking regardless of the unit they actually fight(tested many, many times). And units with +50% to catapults aren't much use on the offensive, because they fight the defensive units protecting the cats, not the catapults themselves.
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Post by lorddragon on Dec 18, 2006 17:44:02 GMT -5
Hi, been away from the game for awhile, and have been reintroduced to one of my pet peeves. Catapults.
The idea is good, anti stack weapon, etc etc. But it seems like the game boils down to who has the most of these 90% of the time. I mean an attack stack is usually 3/4 catapults!!
Does this strike anyone else as stupid? That a support weapon, catapults, tends to make up most of our armies on both offense and defense. There is no counter unit, units that get +50% to catapults might do better themselves, but it doesn't lessen their splash damage in the slightest.
I have requested the devs balance these guys many times, but they seem to ignore me, so I am just going to add one final plea. Give us a REAL catapult counter, a unit that counter splash, or something. Or reduce their effectiveness in large numbers. Right now the only way to stop them is to cata first, which is just another part of the problem. Another thought I had is to make catas do ONLY splash damage, they can die in combat but are incapable of actually killing a unit, or even harming it outside of the splash it does.
Just my little rant of the day, LordDragon
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Post by lorddragon on Jan 21, 2006 0:15:36 GMT -5
One thing I would like to add, if you can't choke or get a clean kill using this strat, if he is fighting you somewhat successfully, back off.
If you keep sending units as fast as you can make, he will counter in all likelyhood. The end result is that both civs become crippled from the early war. You might come out ahead of him on points, but probably not, and everyone else will beat you anyways.
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Post by lorddragon on Dec 16, 2005 5:44:24 GMT -5
I had no copper or horses this last game. There was iron but I had to go WAY out of my way to get it. Very annoying situation. My neighbor had copper right next to his city, lol. He messed me up, but I fended him off with the iron grab. HOWEVER, my neighbor was an incompetent. If he had been skilled I would have been dead, period. As it was it screwed up my game, only came in 4th of 8, pfft.
I would really like to see some kind of balanced resource option for all maps, sometimes being royally resource screwed is just no fun.
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Post by lorddragon on Nov 9, 2005 8:25:35 GMT -5
Hmm, you do have a point about financial needing to be leveraged. If you don't build cottages to increase the gold a square produces to 2 it doesn't come into play, absent water tiles. Every good player does this to some extent, but noobs may not. Hadn't thought about that.
However, I still feel that organized is rather weak. I have NEVER had an empire that saves more money with organized, or can research faster. Civics just don't cost that much, even the high upkeep ones, 90% of the time.
On the other hand, I will admit that the cheap courthouses and lighthouses are better than the cheap banks:)
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Post by lorddragon on Nov 7, 2005 7:08:11 GMT -5
Excellent article, but there was one ongoing misconception. Civics does NOT reduce maintenance fees, it only reduces the amount your civics cost you. And yes, I have tested this using custom maps, with identical city layouts the maintenance fees are always the same, whether you have the civic trait or not.
Financial is really better than civics when it comes to cash, for 2 reasons.
1) Civics never really saves you much, even with 10+ cities and running some high upkeep civs, it very rarely saves as much as 20 gold per turn, and most of the game it saves 1/10th of that.
2) Financial gives extra money to your base commerce, speeding your research rate. So if you are running 100% with financial and 100% with another trait, you are researching faster with financial, all else being equal, AND you can afford to do it.
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Post by lorddragon on Mar 10, 2006 22:23:55 GMT -5
LeExp is going to be able to play after all. However he was not listed in the original TX/SC roster, as he was not expected to be able to.
Will he still be able to participate, his clan, SC was listed, and he has been a member since the week it was founded.
LordDragon Seventh Circle Clan Leader
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Post by lorddragon on Mar 10, 2006 21:52:27 GMT -5
Well, I ran a few tests, and with the right settings and low sea level it is usually ok. However with random/random as we are using it does sometimes do some weird nuts. Like having 2 of the hubs directly connected, lol.
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Post by lorddragon on Mar 10, 2006 17:37:01 GMT -5
One question I had, with no prequalifier, and 12 total clans (well 13, SC and TX are paired) are we still going to do a standard sized hub? I have played Hub a lot and with more than 8 it gets really twitchy. With 12 I have no idea what the hell it would do.
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Post by lorddragon on Jan 24, 2006 6:54:33 GMT -5
Yes, this would prove exactly nothing. And I didn't say that Financial would always outpoint Ghandi, I said that it has the advantage when it comes to tech.
But there are no "best" civs. There are civs that are better suited to some situations, and there are people that can do brilliantly with civs I quite frankly despise (Die Saladin, Die!!!)
Also, one trend I have noticed on the ladder is people tend to copy the civs of those that win. I have often seen people switching civs to match the one used by the winner of the prior match. I wonder if those civs are innately superior, or if people just associate them with being superior because the guy using it won.
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Post by lorddragon on Jan 23, 2006 0:21:52 GMT -5
I have to disagree MrG. By early tech you are referring to the Oracle I assume? Its the only real tech oracle for some time.
Financial is actually MORE powerful in the early game than the late game. Your initial cottage, by a river for the sake of argument, gives most civs 2 gold. It gives a financial civic 3. That is a 50% increase. That is freaking huge. When I am not a financial civ, in random games mainly, I notice a massive difference in my teching. And yes that includes playing India. And lets not even mention using water squares, 50% more commerce the whole game.
Also, relying on certain wonders to let you win is a mistake. No matter how good you are, someone who wants wonders can and will beat you to them sometimes, if only because they get the stone or marble or whatever.
I like to think I speak with some authority on this, I am generally considered one of the best techers around, despite my other glaring flaws, lol.
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Post by lorddragon on Jan 22, 2006 5:21:13 GMT -5
I might note that I was only down by 50 pts when my modem burned out, and had been gaining rapidly for the last 20 turns or so. And I was freaking Washington, lol.
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Post by lorddragon on Jan 22, 2006 3:35:59 GMT -5
I don't know about India being insanely more powerful, lol. Althought the fast worker chop to make more fast workers to chop is pretty bad, lol.
Even in games with excellent people, on the same map, I have never seen everyone pick the same civ. There are often duplicates, but people have different preferences depending on play style.
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Post by lorddragon on Jan 20, 2006 22:41:17 GMT -5
LordDragon will handle it for TX, on Saturday.
At least the first round, heh. Depends how awake I am:) 4am is a god awful time.
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