Reformulation of some upgrades.

[borg-]

I have noticed that a lot of technologies are not being used by most players.

I will put some of them here, and propose some changes, I would like to count on everyone's help.

THE LOOM: + 50% life for womans, cost 250 food. The aim is to make women less vulnerable, especially to early attacks such as romans rush cav. With 250 food you make 5 women, i think it expensive for the beginning of the game.

Changes: cost 100 food and 30% increase life. And maybe new tech in p2, 200 metal and increase armor in 2 or 3. This would make it more viable in the beginning of the game and making the game a little more balanced mainly against cav rush.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Garden: Increase 20% houses capacity populational, cost 500 wood, 100 stone. Not bad, but would only be useful when you have a fair amount of houses. At that moment you probably already have a good economy, being able to build new ccs, castles and others, which also give capacity, making it a little useless.

Changes: I no have much ideas, but maybe lower the price for 400 wood and 0 stone.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Servants: +15%/15%/50% speed in collect stones. cost 200/250/1000 food, metal 50/50/150 and 150 stone(last). For me it should cost wood and not food like the others.

Changes: Same cost, but change food for wood. Our maybe, change values to 5%/5%/25% and gain 3/3/10 soldiers - mercs.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I particularly do not like upgrades that improve something and draw on others, example:

Infantry recruit: All infantry -10% time of training, but -5% in life. cost 100 food.

Changes: -10% time of training, no changes in life. cost 300 food.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Only four at the moment, but I will put some others that I think need changes.

So guys, what do you think? xD

tnx.

Edited February 6, 2017 by borg-

[LordGood]

I do find some of these vanilla technology decisions odd. Many minor techs are too expensive carry a  hefty malus, on the flipside 'Will to fight' is an absurd jump in stats with no tactical or strategic value other than 'buy it first'

I like your changes borg, I hope you do consider more technologies!

[borg-]

Tnx LordGood!!!

In the next days I will put the rest.

[sphyrth]

I use the Home Gardens upgrade. And by my estimates, the upgrade is worth it by the time your population is 90-100 (meaning 7 to 8 houses that provide 10 pop each). That is IF you don't prefer using houses as a makeshift wall.

[Feldfeld]

I agree to change all the techs except servants.

I use sometimes servants, and making this tech cost wood would make it more expensive.

When you get to age 3, if you plan to fight with infantry, you need to use infantry armour tech, they cost 1000 wood each. But you also need the eco techs, including wood, and metal if you have more metal mines that you can access. They also cost 1000 wood each. So I don't understand why you suggest the stone tech should cost wood.

[fatherbushido]

@borg-: some (mainly civ specific) techs are intended to be self balancing. In first design, mainly all techs were of this kind. I am for keeping stuff like

"All infantry -10% time of training, but -5% in life" (when the pair makes sense).

@LordGood'Will to fight' is imo a big tech for end game wich will make you weak during some mins (time to stack ress and produce it). Researching it is a big investment with a good reward.

I agree that some techs are a bit too expensive, one simple thing could be to recuce some cost ress and increase research time. The techs pointed out by borg (but also some techs like colonization for cart,...)

[Grugnas]

11 hours ago, borg- said:

THE LOOM: + 50% life for womans, cost 250 food. The aim is to make women less vulnerable, especially to early attacks such as romans rush cav. With 250 food you make 5 women, i think it expensive for the beginning of the game.

 

Changes: cost 100 food and 30% increase life. And maybe new tech in p2, 200 metal and increase armor in 2 or 3. This would make it more viable in the beginning of the game and making the game a little more balanced mainly against cav rush.

I often use that tech, expecially after using "Wicker Baskets" tech for fruit gathering rate, it comes in handy when rushed by Roman or Macedonian cavalry in phase 1, honestly I like that as it is now.

 

Quote

 

Garden: Increase 20% houses capacity populational, cost 500 wood, 100 stone. Not bad, but would only be useful when you have a fair amount of houses. At that moment you probably already have a good economy, being able to build new ccs, castles and others, which also give capacity, making it a little useless.

Changes: I no have much ideas, but maybe lower the price for 400 wood and 0 stone.

 

This is a quite expensive tech, maybe 400 wood instead of 500 wood is fair since most of the times, when unlocked, it will grant something like 20 - 30 population (450 wood for 3 houses)  even if the bonus increases constantly more houses you have

 

Quote

 

Infantry recruit: All infantry -10% time of training, but -5% in life. cost 100 food.

Changes: -10% time of training, no changes in life. cost 300 food.

 

I kinda agree with that, because If you refer to the Persian Barrack, I'd say to ulteriorly decrease the time of training to -20% because having units with lower hp means that they will die faster and you'll need to replace them, by the way -10% time on infantry is tricky because saying that all infantry train faster of 10% means that you'll be able to train infantry in 9 seconds instead of 10 seconds. If you take for example a ranged unit in phase 3 has 66 health and most of the units will deal more than 6 hp point damage in 1 second, so, basically the training time / hp cost ratio is not worth it, considering that even Champions will "benefit" of that tech.

Also I'd like to point out at Fertility Festival that it is not so useful for civs with houses that grant 10 population because they will need half number of houses than civs like Celtic, mauryans and iberians. Something like an halved price for those 10 pop houses could totally balance that gap.

Healer techs from the temple are too costly considering that healer are already expensive by themself (250 food cost is maybe too high)

Carthaginian "Colonization" tech could cost same resources as the Persian Architecture tech.    "200 wood and 200 stone" for a relevant tech vs "500 wpod and 500 metal" for -25% build time.

[borg-]

8 hours ago, Feldfeld said:

I agree to change all the techs except servants.

I use sometimes servants, and making this tech cost wood would make it more expensive.

When you get to age 3, if you plan to fight with infantry, you need to use infantry armour tech, they cost 1000 wood each. But you also need the eco techs, including wood, and metal if you have more metal mines that you can access. They also cost 1000 wood each. So I don't understand why you suggest the stone tech should cost wood.

I like your point of view, it's easier to search for any of the other upgrades, and that's one point I'd like to make a bit more difficult, where you should choose more carefully.

Edited February 6, 2017 by borg-

[borg-]

6 hours ago, fatherbushido said:

@borg-: some (mainly civ specific) techs are intended to be self balancing. In first design, mainly all techs were of this kind. I am for keeping stuff like

"All infantry -10% time of training, but -5% in life" (when the pair makes sense).

@LordGood'Will to fight' is imo a big tech for end game wich will make you weak during some mins (time to stack ress and produce it). Researching it is a big investment with a good reward.

I agree that some techs are a bit too expensive, one simple thing could be to recuce some cost ress and increase research time. The techs pointed out by borg (but also some techs like colonization for cart,...)

I end up leaving many upgrades out of the fact that they always leave a weaker side, especially infantry upgrades.

I'd really like to see upgrades that help you 100%

[borg-]

3 hours ago, Grugnas said:

I often use that tech, expecially after using "Wicker Baskets" tech for fruit gathering rate, it comes in handy when rushed by Roman or Macedonian cavalry in phase 1, honestly I like that as it is now.

 

This is a quite expensive tech, maybe 400 wood instead of 500 wood is fair since most of the times, when unlocked, it will grant something like 20 - 30 population (450 wood for 3 houses)  even if the bonus increases constantly more houses you have

 

I kinda agree with that, because If you refer to the Persian Barrack, I'd say to ulteriorly decrease the time of training to -20% because having units with lower hp means that they will die faster and you'll need to replace them, by the way -10% time on infantry is tricky because saying that all infantry train faster of 10% means that you'll be able to train infantry in 9 seconds instead of 10 seconds. If you take for example a ranged unit in phase 3 has 66 health and most of the units will deal more than 6 hp point damage in 1 second, so, basically the training time / hp cost ratio is not worth it, considering that even Champions will "benefit" of that tech.

Also I'd like to point out at Fertility Festival that it is not so useful for civs with houses that grant 10 population because they will need half number of houses than civs like Celtic, mauryans and iberians. Something like an halved price for those 10 pop houses could totally balance that gap.

Healer techs from the temple are too costly considering that healer are already expensive by themself (250 food cost is maybe too high)

Carthaginian "Colonization" tech could cost same resources as the Persian Architecture tech.    "200 wood and 200 stone" for a relevant tech vs "500 wpod and 500 metal" for -25% build time.

Today I will bring more ideas about other upgrades that I see needing reformulation. tnx

[Feldfeld]

1 hour ago, borg- said:

I like your point of view, it's easier to search for any of the other upgrades, and that's one point I'd like to make a bit more difficult, where you should choose more carefully.

This is interesting, I said that because you said in top of your first post that you'll speak about underused upgrades but finally this is a thread about balancing all the tech.

This is interesting indeed to make the player have to make a choice about whether upgrades he will choose ... because to me in the current state it is not difficult, I always make wood upgrade, and I make stone/metal if I have at least 1 additionnal stone/metal mine. So as stone tech would cost wood, maybe i can't choose all tech even if i'm interested in them ...

Then maybe we have to discuss why a player would choose this stone tech instead of metal/wood/armour ...

Certainly not to make the first fortress, you need it quickly so you make it before having the tech, exchanging ressources in market if necessary. So to my mind it would be to mass slingers or make a lot of towers.... This tech might become underused..