Saturday, June 4, 2016

Game Balance

The thing is, there's never been a proper discussion about balance in the mod. Sure, some people left balance related messages here and there, I also went and took balance ideas from other mods, the Fan Patch, the ESOC patch, that huge balancing thread on the Heaven forum, because let's be honest, you would be mad to ignore them. But some of those ideas didn't fit with my mod, for example I still ended up balancing the Dutch how I thought fit for the mod.

But is my way really better? This is what we need to discuss. I have a friend who helps me out with balancing but he has many ideas and, the truth is that an entire game cannot be balanced by just one man, as different people have different opinions about what is fair and balanced and what is not.

So, in the hope that people will be interested in helping out, I made a special thread on the mod's forum. Please go there and leave your opinion if you want the mod to be as balanced as possible.

http://impmod.freeforums.org/post677.html

50 comments:

  1. Hm...fuck. I sincerely wish to help you with this, but I am the type of RTS player that despises multiplayer and balancing against AI is like bleeding a stone. Sorry.

    If this can help you in any way, I suggest to hook up with actual multiplayer community of the mod (via Steam or however those weidos play) and hear them out - they probably have more balance ideas than the dribble anyone that plays only against AI can say.

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  2. I think , nothing seems unbalanced my friend :D

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  3. Iroquois... and their weak units... or strong units who require wood.

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    Replies
    1. Iroquois are great as it is. Good units and eco.

      Delete
  4. Yes i agree, iroquis have weak units, especially infantry... but this is not a flaw of the mod, i think it is a flaw of the game itself, they are (IMHO naturally) the worts civilization in the game.

    I think that American civ should not have the possibility of having three working factories, what do you guys think?

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    Replies
    1. The Iroquois are a great civ, man.

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    2. I have added a new economic card for Iroquois called Trade Act, tell me if it improves their economy.

      Delete
  5. Can we have a building that produce wood too?

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  6. Hey Mandos, this is related to the patcher:

    I got the following error "subjacent connection is closed: unnexpected error in receiving", it is not the literal text since it shows in my local language and i had to translate, but yeah.

    I am installing in a integrity file verified version from steam, that is how steam reinstall games without having to redownload them all over again, but i still get the problem (AOE 3 Complete edition, btw). I believe it might not count as a clean install?

    Anyway, installing manually from the rar works for me as it did for v5.4, but i have issues downloading v6.0P from github due to their self signed signature, the download simply stops midway. Tried some fixes, but didn't help.

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    Replies
    1. Github doesn't work? No problem, download from Google Drive.
      https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BxZxW4IntQ3cNGx5Wk1mYXdHVUE&usp=sharing

      Bum, solved.

      Delete
  7. Hey man, I'm back! Haven't reported in, in a while, but the game hasn't been forgotten. I hope you're still at it too.

    My 2 cents, in regards to the game balance questions in your forum's thread are:

    I think the fencible are fine, I agree that the “Dutch east india company" card should indeed be -20%, the Boyars card is fine (the Russian shouldn't even be focused on infantry; the card isn't OP), both the German “long range infantry hitpoints” and “Lippizaner cavalry” are good as it is (in regard to the latter, the German also have Cavalry Combat, Cavalry Hitpoints, and Cavalry Attack; all that together plus “Lippizaner cavalry” gives Uhlans +45% HP and Attack), I think Japanese "Sword Saint" is fine as it is, but I'm not totally certain (also, here's an interesting thread about it http://forum.agecommunity.com/forums/thread/583341.aspx), and I disagree with the remaining 6 proposed changes, as I think they're unecessary and trying to change what is fine (the Japanese are a very good civ, but I don't think these exact changes are the best to counteract that (not that it needs to be counteractrd in first place)).

    If I have any ideas or find any bugs I'll be sure to let you know. Keep up the great work!

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  8. Oh, and I have a recommendation. You may disagree, but I think it would be cool to make this the default values (or even higher; I put 50 for each nowadays) in the next versions of your download (to help those that don't know how to change it): 25, 25, 25 (the rest is the same.

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    1. Uh, for some reason some characters disappeared. What I meant was to attribute 25 as the value of level, skillpoints, and numpropunlocksearned, in the savegamm city files. I just think it's weird to have the city in level 25 with just the 2 skillpoints you put. One added bonus, besides the obvious fun factor, is that with more skills unlocked we can discover any potencial higher-level bugs way faster.

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    2. So, here's why I left it like that. I thought, since I made it start from level 25 and many cards are already unlocked, I wanted to make up for the will to level up by making players want to level up for unlocking homecity customizations.

      If that makes any sense...

      Delete
  9. I discovered something minor. In the Italian tech tree, in the pilgrims skill, it says it delivers 3 pilgrims (and even shows that number in the pic), but the name of the skill is "Team 4 Pilgrims".

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  10. Don't want to be here spamming, but two more things for now.
    First of all, I absolutely love the Italian voices. Second, in the Imperial Age Political Party screen (at least, when playing as the Italians) the decription is cut off.

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  11. Did the final version of the the imporvement mod 6 already release or is this still the prototype? :)

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    Replies
    1. No, the full, official release of version 6 is not out, I am still using the patcher to work on the mod and prepare it for the installer release.

      Delete
  12. Avast is annoyingly reporting the patcher as a virus
    52.27.117.62/AoE3ImpModPatcher.exe

    Had to disable it to play

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    Replies
    1. God fucking damn it.

      I thought... we fixed it, but apparently this will always keep happening.

      The patcher is not a virus, I would never do such a thing to my community, but because of the way the patcher works, some antiviruses find it as malware.

      Maybe we will try again to fix this problem but no promises.

      Delete
  13. Any news, Mandos? It's rare to see something posted here anyore, like those old changelogs.

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    Replies
    1. Wut. What do you want me to say? LoL.
      Yes, I am currently working on the AI and the Swedish.
      That's all for now. Just look in the top right corner of the blog for when updates are leased with the patcher (like the latest one yesterday...) and enjoy the mod.

      Delete
    2. Oh... usually I don't miss any new updates, but this time I did, ahah. Nice to see everything is still up and running. I'm now installing the new version, and I'll test it later. Just the deck increase alone already seems cool.

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    3. 2 things so far:

      .I installed and the card limit is still at 25. I even tried, just to test, putting the city level at 100, and still, the limit stays at 25 cards.

      .In USA's home city Laclede's Landing, the card Outlaw Band, which sends 10 Desperados and 10 Gunslingers for 1000 gold, in its pic has the number 19.

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    4. You don't just put HC level... More deck space is unlocked according to the XP you have, and so if you wanna cheat you also have to put in a lot of XP.

      And you also need to reset your deck, take everything out and then put it back in and it will work.
      That's why I recommend people should start over after every big update, so they don't encounter bugs for which you only need to start from the beginning to fix.

      Delete
    5. Yes, I did what you said. HC level and XP points, reseting the deck, taking everything out and then putting it back in.

      Also, to update the version, I installed by first unnistalling and then installing the new patch.

      It still doesn't work. Do you know how to fix this?

      Delete
    6. Yeah, it might be my fault. I might have forgotten to upload a file. Wait until next update and try again.

      Delete
    7. Try again now. I also updated the AI, it should be better now, play better cards, maybe be more aggressive and it also builds walls again. But it is less likely to chose to build walls and if it does then it will do it from age 3 and beyond, not earlier.

      Delete
    8. Awesome! Should I unnistall and install everything again?

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    9. Nah, just update the mod as it is. And just to be sure create new homecities for the deck increase.

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    10. Thanks for the info, everything is working now. Only one very small detail: the 5 rangers in age 3 card, for some reason, can't be enabled, for the Americans.

      Delete
    11. Also, that Outlaw Band American's card still has the number 19.

      Delete
  14. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  15. Hey Mandos, first fo all thanks for this great mod. I got a question thou:
    Italians and swedish ai don't build houses. Is it a known bug?

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    Replies
    1. They don't? Oh... I thought I would be getting AI without adding the Italians, Americans and Swedish in the AI but I was wrong. I will do it later today.

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    2. I made a quick update now and fixed the problem. Enjoy.

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    3. Thanks for the quick update, working fine now.

      Delete
  16. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  17. I found a problem in the civilizations of Italians, Americans and Swedes, only the settlers have no voice, the other units are well. or is my problem? thanks, you do an excellent job.

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    1. Only Swedish have no sounds at the moment (work in progress), Italians and Americans do have sounds.

      Make sure you have the Warchief expansion content working in Asian Dynasties, check if you can create an Aztec civ for example.

      Delete
  18. the population has no limits , with Spain you might have 600 units using a shipment of the metropolis . it's a mistake?

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  19. Also with german you can have over 700 with card that changees house capacity to 30+immigrants (100)

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    Replies
    1. I thought you guys wanted more pop... XD

      Yes, currently population is unlimited, so abuse it while you can.

      I will make a blog post to discuss some ideas and I will need help from you guys.

      Delete
    2. the population is well unlimited, but what I say is that some nations may have 600 or 700 as Spain and Germany ; and others reach only 350 of the population

      Delete

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