Balancing a new Civilization

[balduin]

The first step in creating a new civilization is to create a unit, building and technology roaster. This roaster is also called civilization tree. The following link points to an example roaster for the Spartans: https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/Civ%3A_Spartans

The remaining question however is: how to balance the resource costs, life points, attack and defense points of units and buildings? Is this just made by try and error or is there any method to calculate all those factors?

[Lion.Kanzen]

@elexis are you trying create a mod or something?

[Grugnas]

I guess you can take as reference point the stats from any already existing civ. Notice that Celtic tribes and hellenic civs have a particular bonus/malus on buildings healthpoint, so i'd rather look at the other civs.

Any unit has the same stats independently from the civ and any civ has access to the same technologies unless some technologies which are a civ peculiarity (f.e. sword master for iberians and mauryans only, colonization for carthage, another technology i can't remember the name for Persians,   and from alpha 22 rank upgrade for mercenary units )

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Most units and buildings use the standard health, armor, attack stats from common parent templates. For example, a spearman from one civ tends to have the same stats as a spearman from another civ; a blacksmith has the same health and cost from one civ to the next. There are exceptions of course! And those exceptions are what give the civs their flavor. But in general, if you make their buildings stronger, you should balance that somehow, probably with cost and build time. Same with exceptional units.

 

But for overall civ strength, you can't know that, usually, until after many many multiplayer games between your new civ and the others. Then you can buff or nerf according to that data.

Edited July 15, 2017 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[balduin]

@wowgetoffyourcellphone thanks for the helpful insights.

[Stan`]

There is also a python script in the source who generate stats and graphs so you can have a better idea on how units react to each other though the best way is still to try.

[balduin]

@stanislas69 that is nice. What is the name of or the link to that file?

[Stan`]

Sure.

https://trac.wildfiregames.com/browser/ps/trunk/source/tools/templatesanalyzer

I'm not sure its mod compatible. Pretty sure it isn't actually but I don't have time to fix it right now.