Arcen Games
General Category => Skyward Collapse => Topic started by: x4000 on May 21, 2013, 12:40:43 pm
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The latest! http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Skyward_Collapse_-_Pre-Beta_Release_Notes#Alpha_0.951
1. Score has been toned down for round 1 in general, and been made more sane in a few other ways.
2. Some minor AI improvements and then also switching to an "action points" model rather than just one attack per turn. Balances the combat a lot better in terms of the ratio of combat to the number of actions you're directly taking.
3. Bunch of new player clarity improvements.
4. Some flipping around of siege unit availability and stats to make those feel a bit better.
I have a lot of store/business stuff to do this afternoon, so I won't be doing as many updates as usual. Looks like we're getting low in terms of things that need to happen prior to 1.0 anyhow, but the undo button in particular is something I want to hit before then.
Enjoy!
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I look forward to it. I'll see if I can fit in both a N-N-N* game and a H-H-H game tonight to compare how they feel.
*I'm hereby declaring that this is the convention that everyone will use when discussing difficulty forever. You're welcome.
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It sounds like a "five by five" sort of description, which is kind of what I had in mind, too. After just learning what that meant the other day. ;) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_by_five
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I learned that phrase from Buffy.
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Smiting seems to only cost 1AP now, although it still says 3 required. Edit: Oh I see. Smiting grass is 1AP, buildings is still 3. Bit strange when it tells you that it costs 3 but sometimes it only costs 1, though.
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Smiting seems to only cost 1AP now, although it still says 3 required. Edit: Oh I see. Smiting grass is 1AP, buildings is still 3. Bit strange when it tells you that it costs 3 but sometimes it only costs 1, though.
This is what it says:
"Destroy any single building tile that you control, or any land tile. You cannot smite town centers. When you smite a building, it costs you three action points instead of just one."
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Destroy any single building tile that you control, or any land tile. You cannot smite town centers. When you smite a building, it costs you three action points instead of just one."
Just me being...uh.. derpy then? Disregard!
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Np. ;)
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How does enlightenment work now in regard to all the recent changes? It's a feature I have pretty much not played with at all since many many versions ago.
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How does enlightenment work now in regard to all the recent changes? It's a feature I have pretty much not played with at all since many many versions ago.
Same as always. It's super useful, actually, if you can get it working between two economically-focused towns. Then you have these strongholds that simply can't be torn down.
Incidentally... somehow this never crossed my mind before... once we took out the score stuff, enlightenment became a "you automatically win" condition because those TCs can't be destroyed. That's still the case when the score requirement is turned off.
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Maybe woes that kill towns should be able to kill those if targeted?
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Maybe woes that kill towns should be able to kill those if targeted?
Actually, come to think -- they already will!
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Oh really? They can't be destroyed *at all*?
I always kinda assumed bandits would still give them grief.
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Maybe woes that kill towns should be able to kill those if targeted?
Actually, come to think -- they already will!
I always felt like woes should be "top level".
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Call me crazy, but have monster spawns been disabled or something? Just went through 75 turns and I don't recall a single monster spawning. Which is strange because usually those Dark Elves give me a heap of trouble. Didn't see any Minotaurs either.
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I know keeps don't spawn them anymore.
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Maybe I just got really unlucky, but I would have expected to have seen at least 1 over the duration. Only monsters I saw were the chimeras I created for myself.
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Correct, the keeps don't spawn them, and no bandits spawn except for keeps unless you are playing on a map with a ton of dead forests (then creatures spawn as you'd expect).
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Correct, the keeps don't spawn them, and no bandits spawn except for keeps unless you are playing on a map with a ton of dead forests (then creatures spawn as you'd expect).
I see, so I need a map with dead forests in. Just seemed very strange to go through the Age of Monsters and not see a single monster.
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They were causing so much imbalance and so much distraction from the main red vs blue that I decided to take them out of the keeps. Basically one monster there was worth several regular humans.
As it is, the age of monsters was really about getting into the first gods anyhow. And the monsters are yours for the placing as a major way to affect the game!
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As it is, the age of monsters was really about getting into the first gods anyhow. And the monsters are yours for the placing as a major way to affect the game!
OK, I really just highlighted it in case it was indicative of a bug. Shame not to see monsters running around. It would be great if you could make it so that at least one or two spawn during the age of monsters, although that's probably not worth the programming effort, I guess. I was probably just unlucky with my map, too. No biggie.
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Frome someone who.has never played.the.age.of monsters...
What if the first.monster each side places in this age.was free?
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All that nice monsters....
Quite often they don't feel like ones. I seen them dead before they even move quite often.
You can use them to wreak havoc outside of battlefields - but if you want help with defense be prepared to place them in larger quantities. When you have lvl 3 armies mythological units are not so awesome. They might take 1-2 enemies with them or die without making a dent.
Not sure if this is a balance concern or not.
Edit:
After that new AP change Lithovoloi became killing machines. They are cheaper than Sfendonitai, have more health and attack 3 times per turn (AP per attack 3 with 7 moves.. something is amiss here too). And they are easiest unit to produce for Greek.
Edit 2:
Bandit archer refused to step off fortress before shooting. He had at least forest tile and woodcutter tile to go to. Will try to get save with this behavior.
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Playing through the new patch now.. anyone else have comments on the resource availability now?
http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=11617 (http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=11617)
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in general that AP change messed up balance heavily.
Some units suddenly gained ability to attack three times per turn. This mostly affects archers and siege units.
Is that drastic change intended?
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in general that AP change messed up balance heavily.
Some units suddenly gained ability to attack three times per turn. This mostly affects archers and siege units.
Is that drastic change intended?
Oh you bet. I knew it was going to be changing stuff heavily. It's also situational, because it depends on if they have to close distance or not. And a melee unit with a fast speed sitting next to a target is going to beat on it repeatedly the next turn. That's more or less the idea.
I wouldn't say that messed up balance per se, just that the balance is completely different now. It's also more in the vein of what a lot of you had been suggesting, too.
Because it's so different, that was one thing I wanted to get in before the press and other players started learning the game; otherwise that was going to be a nasty shock (as with you),
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Look what you have done, Mr. Developer. The Norse doesn't deserve such a beating - but the bandit keeps keep spawning next to and in their towns. ;)
I don't mind the new AP balance, I think. I don't know what this actually means for Singastein and God rampages (the ones that say multiple attacks per turn). I could do with some text somewhere that tells us # APs required to attack.
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I could do with some text somewhere that tells us # APs required to attack.
Right there in the tooltip for every unit. ;) Generally the AP cost is 3. If some units are OP with that, it's easy to change the AP up and down on a per-unit basis.
The Singastein and so forth reduce the AP cost to 1, which is the same as before. So not much changes there.
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If current balance is intended... then I'm sorry it's weird.
You have handful of units that are uber - like nothing else is worth building (maybe sieges). Lithovoloi would count here. Same with Akontistai.
Bandits have their unique Hippo-Toxote. This one went now into area denial death field unit. Especially when standing in forest.
Basically if you have anything other than plains melee needs to be very lucky to approach and attack or they will get brutally shot. All "heavier" melee that can move few tiles (or 1 in rough terrain) is simply an archery target. Or bandit food for Hippo-Toxotes :D
And after all of that.. you hit neat edge of civilization and you have bandit country with loss because of score counter. Or city death due to aforementioned bandits.
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Okay, I should have been more clear: the current mechanics of the balance are correct, and in general the amount of turns that units can attack with are intended. But I didn't mean to imply that every aspect of the balance is going to be perfect or something. Obviously this is a big shift, so the AP costs of some of the units will probably need adjustment. I will look specifically at the ranged units, which seem to be your main issue right now -- that about sum it up?
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I had looked at the siege units in depth with the shift to AP, but not the archery or barracks. The mythological needed a buff anyhow, so it's good they now have it. Anyway, the changes coming up:
* Some rebalance to archery range units:
** Toxotes: AP attack cost 3 -> 5
** Akontistai: AP attack cost 3 -> 7
** Lithovoloi: AP attack cost 3 -> 7
** Norse Archer: AP attack power down (but still same AP attack cost)
** Axe Thrower: AP attack cost 3 -> 4
** Longbowman: AP attack cost 3 -> 2
** Hippo Toxotes: AP attack cost 3 -> 7
* Some rebalance to barracks units:
** Peltast bacon cost increased 30%.
** Prodromos: AP attack cost 3 -> 5
** Huscarl: AP attack cost 3 -> 6
** Marauder: AP attack cost 3 -> 5
The great thing about the AP system is that it can be tuned, whereas the other system really couldn't be in terms of number of attacks; it was super binary. So I'm quite happy with the new system, even if it's going to take some fiddling to get things ideal with it balance-wise. I hate doing that sort of thing in the 11th hour, but it's better than switching to an AP system when non-alpha players have to relearn it.
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I wouldn't quite call this on the 11th hour :) Still a full day before the big show.
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Yeah... so long as you guys beat on it lots and we actually find the balance issues, that's one thing. But there's only so much time in the day for all of us, etc, and it's not like it's your job or something. And the press have it in their hands (some of them), so I want to make a good impression there. I get the impression the balance isn't so off as to be bewildering to someone new, but it's certainly not preferred when it's like that.
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Yup, I have 24 hours available to do pretty much whatever (no job, should explain the odd hours I'm online). Heh, my life is all kinds of mess. Anywho. I'm actually about to fire this last set of changes up and see what I see.
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I hope this isn't too much of a nerf. I really liked how fast things were getting burned down left and right, it actually made me worried that things could get out of hand if I wasn't careful.
EDIT: Ah I see siege units were untouched, so that's probably OK.
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Thanks Cinth -- although, very sorry to hear about the circumstances there. :(
@Mick: yeah, I'm not really trying to nerf things, but if melee become useless that's a third of our units pointless. And with things skewed a bit more toward mythological, I think that's good. Also, movement speed bonuses are now AP bonuses, which means that giving a boost of that sort to a unit makes them really supercharged.
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I love how the first woe lined up for this next match is Inside Job... Greeks are already going to get messed with hard and right off the bat :)
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How does enlightenment work now in regard to all the recent changes? It's a feature I have pretty much not played with at all since many many versions ago.
Same as always. It's super useful, actually, if you can get it working between two economically-focused towns. Then you have these strongholds that simply can't be torn down.
Incidentally... somehow this never crossed my mind before... once we took out the score stuff, enlightenment became a "you automatically win" condition because those TCs can't be destroyed. That's still the case when the score requirement is turned off.
Wait, isnt this a bad thing though? As I understand it, in a non-score-gated game, once you hit enlightenment.... the game is basically over, you've won, and the remaining turns become pointless. Even in a score-gated game you could then take actions without much risk, spamming units and tokens everywhere for points.
That's how it seems to me at least, based on my understanding of it. Though I've not messed with this mechanic at all.
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That is until Edge of Civ or Ultima hits your "enlightened" town.
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How does enlightenment work now in regard to all the recent changes? It's a feature I have pretty much not played with at all since many many versions ago.
Same as always. It's super useful, actually, if you can get it working between two economically-focused towns. Then you have these strongholds that simply can't be torn down.
Incidentally... somehow this never crossed my mind before... once we took out the score stuff, enlightenment became a "you automatically win" condition because those TCs can't be destroyed. That's still the case when the score requirement is turned off.
Wait, isnt this a bad thing though? As I understand it, in a non-score-gated game, once you hit enlightenment.... the game is basically over, you've won, and the remaining turns become pointless. Even in a score-gated game you could then take actions without much risk, spamming units and tokens everywhere for points.
That's how it seems to me at least, based on my understanding of it. Though I've not messed with this mechanic at all.
Yes, that is basically an accurate summation. And I do agree that's bad. However:
1. I view the non-score-gated games as being a bit of a sandbox mode at this point. To SOME extent.
2. Enlightenment is hard to reach. Really REALLY hard. So if you can pull it off, you probably deserve the victory. Even there, how well you win is a challenge. Reasons diplomacy is hard:
- Diplomats are expensive, and have to walk through the war zone to do their work.
- When diplomats die in general, or buildings die in that town, enlightenment drops.
- For every embassy on the map, the bandit spawn rate goes up by 1x the number of embassies. And you need a minimum of two embassies to do diplomacy at all. That's a 3x bandit spawn rate right there.
- You can only have one diplomat per embassy, so if you want to hurry the process along you're going to be flooded with bandits.
3. Yay, you reached enlightenment! Let's say. Woes can still affect the towns in question, even destroying them.
So while I agree the "you 'automatically' win with enlightenment" thing is less than ideal, I am not too fussed about it in the short term because I think it's super hard to do on any difficulty of substance. So I don't think it's too exploitable, and in my opinion really is almost like an alternate victory condition. A really, really hard one. If someone figures out how to exploit it, then obviously changes will be made. But I've not had anyone do that yet, not even remotely.
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Then maybe the golden fleece needs to be looked at? 50% enlightenment on use? That either needs to be borderline crazy expensive and only usable once per game (I know Posieden is a major god). If enlightenment should be a suitably difficult task, then this token is an extreme shortcut.
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Very good point. This should do it:
* The Golden Fleece now only grants 20 enlightenment to every town, not 50 like it was before.
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I think I'll swap over and do a sandbox.
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Talaria and Chariot mention movement points still.
Gulltopper might need a quick review. Doubled AP might be a bit much (can't see cost in sandbox).
Singasteinn: Spending movement points per attack? AP per attack.
That's what I could see in the tokens
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Very good point. This should do it:
* The Golden Fleece now only grants 20 enlightenment to every town, not 50 like it was before.
Last time I tried it, it would not actually give any enlightenment points over 50...almost like it was setting the number instead of adding it. However, that was in the 0.8 era...
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* Fixed several remaining references to movement points.
Thanks!
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How does enlightenment work now in regard to all the recent changes? It's a feature I have pretty much not played with at all since many many versions ago.
Same as always. It's super useful, actually, if you can get it working between two economically-focused towns. Then you have these strongholds that simply can't be torn down.
Incidentally... somehow this never crossed my mind before... once we took out the score stuff, enlightenment became a "you automatically win" condition because those TCs can't be destroyed. That's still the case when the score requirement is turned off.
Wait, isnt this a bad thing though? As I understand it, in a non-score-gated game, once you hit enlightenment.... the game is basically over, you've won, and the remaining turns become pointless. Even in a score-gated game you could then take actions without much risk, spamming units and tokens everywhere for points.
That's how it seems to me at least, based on my understanding of it. Though I've not messed with this mechanic at all.
Yes, that is basically an accurate summation. And I do agree that's bad. However:
1. I view the non-score-gated games as being a bit of a sandbox mode at this point. To SOME extent.
2. Enlightenment is hard to reach. Really REALLY hard. So if you can pull it off, you probably deserve the victory. Even there, how well you win is a challenge. Reasons diplomacy is hard:
- Diplomats are expensive, and have to walk through the war zone to do their work.
- When diplomats die in general, or buildings die in that town, enlightenment drops.
- For every embassy on the map, the bandit spawn rate goes up by 1x the number of embassies. And you need a minimum of two embassies to do diplomacy at all. That's a 3x bandit spawn rate right there.
- You can only have one diplomat per embassy, so if you want to hurry the process along you're going to be flooded with bandits.
3. Yay, you reached enlightenment! Let's say. Woes can still affect the towns in question, even destroying them.
So while I agree the "you 'automatically' win with enlightenment" thing is less than ideal, I am not too fussed about it in the short term because I think it's super hard to do on any difficulty of substance. So I don't think it's too exploitable, and in my opinion really is almost like an alternate victory condition. A really, really hard one. If someone figures out how to exploit it, then obviously changes will be made. But I've not had anyone do that yet, not even remotely.
hmm, interesting. A bit more to it than I thought.
All of that in mind, I think I'll experiment with that a bit and see how it is, go into a game with that as the primary goal, and then probably post the results.