And I fancy playing either Decados or the Hazat.
However, we should probably allow the fifth player to choose first, since we actually want to increase the odds of attracting somebody.
Sounds sensible. Simpler and harder to abuse.
I'd like to discuss the balancing issues found during the course of the previous game. Those would require changing the unit.dat file, but it's nothing hard. Striking a sensible balance in unit cost/abilities might be harder.
Here's what I've found that I think needs changing (Gollor mentioned some of those already in the PM discussion):
1. all warships should have their cargo space removed. This is almost entirely to stop the AI from using their warships as transports, which during the last game resulted in me capturing all of the League battle fleet, the Eye capturing Church's Phlogiston, as well as the Garrison capturing a symbiot spore ship, and rebels on Chernobog capturing a grappler. This made the war with the League a joke.
Those specialised Lekaf and Hearth frigates could be left with cargo space, but while giving them some modest air and direct defences, to make their capture less trivial.
I'm not sure if it'll solve the issue completely, but surely it can't make it worse.
edit: here's another problem I've just found, turns out lander units are vulnerable to land-based attacks even when fighting in space. Why is that an issue? Because units with psych combat loaded onto carriers can fight in space, and if they've got e.g. direct attack as well, they'll use it to shoot down lander units, before the space combat phases even begin. Makes for a really weird combat. Similarly, the old space bombers with land-based direct attack could fire on landers in space using their land-based attacks. If we were to give all landers land-based combat capabilities, they'll use those in space to shoot at other landers.
I don't know what is a sensible solution here, though, so maybe we'll just leave the landers as they are and accept that the church will lose a few hearth frigates?
2. continuing with the issue of fighting the League, their units absolutely need some form of air attack capability. With League fleet gone, I've captured virtually the whole planet with a handful of fighter planes (to rout the stacks) paired with even fewer regular units (to capture them). Something like 80% of League army, including the stuff that it uses for invasions, is composed of a mix of wolfen tanks, howler artilery, and muster sentries. None of those have air attack capability, so a single fighter can rout them. Disbanding such captured stacks nets huge amounts of gems and metal, and the same stacks can be used to kill the rare stacks with golems, behemoths, and other anti-air units.
My proposed solution here would be to give muster sentries at least a 1/10 air attack. Maybe as high as 2/20 to match what the regular infantry unit has. This will force the players to use actual armies to fight the League, as even one 1/10 unit in a stack of 20 can neutralise a few planes.
3. All space units must be able to be destroyed, which means adding some attack to spaceports, including the special league ones.
4. Unit cost/effectiveness balancing
Most important changes:
-Genetically engineered assassins, the first obvious culprit. I think their niche should be that of a combat unit that is better than a Spy or a Slayer, and either worse or on par with House Van Gelder, to be used in Byzantium-specific covert attack. As they were, they were good enough to dominate any other unit in-game.
In their Byzantium-combatant role they should not be overpowered either. I'd change the hover movement type to foot, and remove air attack. Armour seems too high too.
Technology requirements might need some tweaking.
-Cyber Vorox; their cost of 75 food and 5(!) wetware for what is one of the best land combat units in game makes building them en-masse a no brainer. A similar in power Cyber Warrior costs 100 wetware, and the only advantage over Cyber Vorox is having air attack.
I'd change the resource requirements to 1/2 or 3/4 of what a Cyber Warrior costs. Alternatively, bring the CW cost down, so that they're maybe 25 wetware for CV and 50 for CW.
-Marauders; if we leave them without air attack, every drop they make will be a suicide mission, as the following turn they'll be routed (to be later captured) by a single fighter plane. Also, a single plane in the target stack makes them completely unable to capture the target.
Less-important changes.
-House Van Gelder Spy; this is a minor change, but I don't see how a spy can shoot down planes. I'd remove air attack.
-Ven Lohji Priest (Obun); the issue with this unit is that it costs 75 food only, takes one turn to build in churches after discovering Meditation (iirc), and gives 300 gold per turn in addition to being a fine psy unit. This makes the Churches mass-produce those to the exclusion of anything else. To make them on-par with similar money-producing combat units available from Palaces I'd make them take 2 turns and cost 3-5 gems. That's still a good deal, but not as much so as to flood the map with them.
-Legion of St Ognor; almost no difference from other combat units available from the Palace, and extra 100 metal cost means nobody will ever build those. I'd increase their armour to 60-65, and/or give them a minor air attack capability. That should make them cost effective.
-House Trusnikron Raiders; they're just splendid all-around, aren't they? Maybe a little less camo, spot and/or agility would be sensible (say, 8 everywhere)? I think we've all built almost exclusively those in the last game.
-Muster Mercs; since the sister League unit of Muster Sentry would get air attack, I'd give them some too.
-Space fighter/bomber; I see Vertab changed the 'lander' movement type of bombers to space in his latest release, no doubt having seen first hand that it made them a cheap, accessible, and better version of Marauders. However, there's still little reason to build fighters over bombers.
In Nova, fighters were significantly harder to hit, but also less hard-hitting (but in the same combat phase). You'd use them as agility-based padding for your main fleet, and use bombers do dish out damage.
Here, they're almost identical, with the major difference being that the bombers shoot in the Direct Space phase, making them much, much more likely to be able to survive to actually fire, while having the same padding ability.
-Muster Bounty Hunter; of the bazillion of fun-looking mercenary units to choose from, only a few make actual sense on the cost/efficiency basis. There's almost no reason at all to hire Muster Mercs (esp. if left without air attack), Aragon Martyrs, Vitra's Warriors, The Dispossesed, Vorox Guard, Hironem Warrior Caste, and (somewhat less so) Ascorbite Drone, the Nung of Midian and Shantor Cav., as Muster Bounty Hunters are much more efficient for their cost. The last three units can find their niche (due to psych attack, high armour and extra 2 movement points respectively), but even that's stretching it when you consider that the bounty hunters cost only 2 gems.
Perhaps something as simple as removing air attack from the unit would suffice to alleviate this issue.
Tell me what you think about those changes, and add your own observations to the list.
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Topic: EOTFS: Emperor Wars Mod 2nd Game - Game Over. (Read 58593 times)