The "Mono Stacking" Problem

[Xerberus]

Yes, exactly.
As I said, I always trust balance consideration of the MP guys - it's the solutions (when simple value changes aren't enough) I may have a problem with. Like in the case of limiting enchantments to three. I have no clue how this is supposed to change things, with the exception that Mythics would fare a lot better (but it still wouldn't change anything about the food chain. And with only 18 units max per battle, you'd still field your favorite T4 - plus a Mythic per stack. I mean, the melee guys can use nearly all enchantments anyway. So this would be for the inclusion of - what? A lone BM or two? A support or two? A lone Zephyr Archer?

If you think about it - if enchantment upkeep would depend on the tier of the unit (price X multiplied with tier) you could basically enchant the hell out of low-tier units, while the higher tiers (and Mythicals as well in that case) would come every expensive, massively enchanted. This way you had a choice depending on your economic ability.

the balance considerations of the few "MP Guys" is mostly skewered because they chase an imaginetary "META" which doesn't exist because the game isn't an online game designed around competitive play, but some people seem to have problem understanding that, some people take more time to integrate facts it seems.

limiting enchantments would be stupid and remove a lot of fun and powerplay you can do, as well as hampering the AI and lessening the diversity of the random encounters. there is literally no benefit to it besides pleasing a handful of MP fanatics which think because they always play a certain cheesy style that it must be OP because they play it and they know it all (hint: they know jack sh*t).

if you want to invest your time and research picking all the different tomes with alle the different enchantments, then its up to you, meanwhile most other people play a certain thematic playstyle and going for different synergestic elements in their build. there is more to the game than some simple weapon enchantments, more diverse units, diverse range of tactical and strategic spells as well as racial transformations. you have so much options already in the game, the current balance is fine. there is such a thing as "balancing a game to death", that is what our friend codyksp wants, he wants to remove 40% of games content lol.

 

[Arcantos_the_Storyteller]

You mean that it becomes a Shield unit? ('cause that will probably change when they will have a proper model for it)

Yes. Exactly.

I have been waiting for this to be addressed every since the Copper Golem was addressed. Don't get me wrong, in my Mythic Summoning Evoler, the Lesser Fire Elements were absolute badasses, but I would much rather pick up the Entwined Thrall to keep my Arcane/Nature theming rather than a sudden splash of chaos/fire.

Ironically, the Wyverns, which I used as my primary front-line for most of the game (Phase Beasts were a kickass replacement, but also very expensive) are now all skirmishers, so I'll end up with a Skrimisher/Skirmisher army. But the Wyverns have cooldowns, while the Entwined Thrall upgrade likely won't.

I still want my evolving archers too. Feuedal has that now, but not as a Magic Origin. Also, not actually Evolving.

Since then we've also gained new issues with Rulers, Governance and the Hero rework.
Some cultures are also still problematic and need to be looked at (Mystic, Dark, Reaver).

I mean, I think we've always had issues with Rulers, and the Hero Rework is fantastic.

Because the most optimal solution (hard limit on enchantment and transformation) is almost universally unpopular outside of maybe some very small min-maxers.

Is it? Is it tho?

I'm hardly a min-maxer in this game. I have a heavy focus on the customization and RP aspect of the game myself. Yet I still believe in and support a hard-limit.

Has there been a survey done on this matter? And there can always be realm traits to undo this change.

 

[Codyksp]

That won't work. Why? Because you have only 18 army slots, but too many troop types.
Polearm, Shield, Shock, Ranged/BM, Support, Mythic, Fighter, Skirmisher. Hero/Leader. The purpose of hard unit counters is to avoid a mono-stacking approach: You have infantry as the basic troop type, but the Cav, that is riders, with or without archers, are wiping the floor with them, so you include Pikemen, and so on. So to not make it a stone scissors paper thing where you have to outguess opponent - and because this is the most difficult approach in terms of getting it together - IDEALLY you have a well-composed army consisting of all troop types. You have ranged troops for softening, you have shocks for attacking ranged, you have Shield, you have Polearm, you have Skirmishers, you have airplanes ... sorry, flying fighters, you have a Mythical, you have leaders.
Which means, the number of units you have for each troop are not big enough.

So that won't work.

Then the design is flawed at the core. Something something 8 unit armies from Age of Wonders 1 and 2 would apply here.
If we had 24 army slots and 9 unit types with Mythic, 2x9=18. Leaving room for 3 Heroes and 3 more units on top of that.

Alas, Triumph will refuse to ever add larger armies back to the game. They will tell you it makes combat too slow or something.
So now the question remains. How do you fix unit counters? Well, you could start with reducing the amount of classes in the game.

Mythic, Skirmisher and Fighter all serve no true purpose in the grand scheme of class design. They're mono stack units at their core.
Shield, Ranged, Support, Shock, Mage, Polearm should be enough actually. I even question the existence of Battle Mage honestly.
Pushing this idea even further, I would suggest removing classes entirely and going back to free-form unit design instead.
This type of design worked well in the first 2 games and to a degree was still present in AoW III and Planetfall. Working just fine.

However, none of this applies to the current game. So how do we fix Age of Wonders 4 then?

I mean, I think we've always had issues with Rulers, and the Hero Rework is fantastic.

It is better than the old system, for sure. But the 7 classes aren't all equal unfortunately.

Where Warrior/Mage/Ritualist are all good, the other 4 classes are just found lacking.
They lack in power/effectiveness, which kills their fantasy because they just fall flat in the end.

 

[Xerberus]

Then the design is flawed at the core. Something something 8 unit armies from Age of Wonders 1 and 2 would apply here.
If we had 24 army slots and 9 unit types with Mythic, 2x9=18. Leaving room for 3 Heroes and 3 more units on top of that.

Alas, Triumph will refuse to ever add larger armies back to the game. They will tell you it makes combat too slow or something.
So now the question remains. How do you fix unit counters? Well, you could start with reducing the amount of classes in the game.

Mythic, Skirmisher and Fighter all serve no true purpose in the grand scheme of class design. They're mono stack units at their core.
Shield, Ranged, Support, Shock, Mage, Polearm should be enough actually. I even question the existence of Battle Mage honestly.
Pushing this idea even further, I would suggest removing classes entirely and going back to free-form unit design instead.
This type of design worked well in the first 2 games and to a degree was still present in AoW III and Planetfall. Working just fine.

However, none of this applies to the current game. So how do we fix Age of Wonders 4 then?

is this your "Keeping core design and tweaking numbers" again?

"mythic, skirmisher and figher all serve no true purpose" ... wtf?! you might lack the understanding to see their purpose, you just blindly ask for removal of core game content. they aren't "mono stack units", there isn't any mono stack unit in the game, everything is designed around a diverse army composition, only because you try and force certain playstyles on yourself doesn't mean thats what their design is or what they are good for. mythic units are mostly designed around being one or max 2 in a stack, supporting the stack, adding some unique aura and unique mechanic to the army and some particular tasks they can do. skirmisher are your classic assasin units, having high damage and being squishy, but the slippery trait allowing them to move out of melee engagement without opportunity attacks. fighter are your repeatable attack units and more flexible frontline fighters compared to their more specialised shield, polearm and shock unit brothers.

"i even question the existence of battle mage honestly" <-- dude, you really want only 3 unit types in the game? maybe create your own simple game only yourself like to play. might be perfect for you, nothing complex or fancy or anybody would ever want to touch, only for you to play around and your "competitive multiplayer friends".

battle mages have a) ranged magical damage vs ranged physical dmg, thus countering high physical defenses and they also have either ranged dmg or utility spells. ranged physical units mainly are there for ranged high (physical) point damage.

you write pages upon pages of what should all be removed from the game, yet you have ZERO (0!!) understanding of the most simple game mechanics, i really start to doubt if you really want to play the game at all, seeing that it has too much content for you taste it seems. something like chess but only with pawns might be your alley, i think dame was a good game.

 

[Arcantos_the_Storyteller]

... Fighter units are important, especially for animals and the like, because they aren't always shock units, but they certainly aren't shield units or polearms users, are they?

I could potentially see folding the Skirmisher and Fighter classes together, so that the Skirmishers with cooldown carrying ranged attacks are Fighters, while the Skirmishers without cooldown carrying ranged attacks are considered archers that have some melee capability. But overall, I'm not entirely sure how popular this might be, or how favourably it might impact the balance of the game.

Mythics though, are something I agree can be removed entirely. They don't contribute anything to the game, and just crushed by T4s with or even potentially T3s with proper enchantments and support. So, between eliminating Mythics and breaking Skirmishers apart into archers and fighters, I do believe we should be capable of making the strengths and weaknesses of each unit type stronger and more defined.

Assuming, of course, that this is the route taken to address the balance issues and mono-stacking issue.

 

[Xerberus]

I'm sure they're aware. There could be all kinds of reasons to remain silent on the topic.
Jordi has posted in this thread somewhere, you can filter the thread for dev posts.

In short. He agreed on rebalancing the Empire Tree and the Tomes.
He said "maybe" for Form Traits and Society Traits (which they've done a bit).
And disagreed on Structures, SPIs, Magic Materials and Ancient Wonders.

He did not reply to the mono stacking / enchantment problem at the time.
As well as ignored my concern about unit class counters not being functional.

Since then we've also gained new issues with Rulers, Governance and the Hero rework.
Some cultures are also still problematic and need to be looked at (Mystic, Dark, Reaver).

the game doesn't have any hard counters, what you have in the game are so called soft counters. the game isn't designeda round one type of unit completely deleting another unit types value. a counter here only works against unit A when you bring a unit of similiar strong and counter to the table, it doesn't mean a T1 Pikeman can kill a Mythic large unit because it has bonus damage against large units. it only means it gets bonuses against this unit type and with enough inherent strength will be able to kill it more easily than without those advantages.

the only more hard counter-type gameplay in this game is ranged vs melee, which disables ranged attacks if they are in melee range, that is one of the few hard counters in the game.

 

[Xerberus]

... Fighter units are important, especially for animals and the like, because they aren't always shock units, but they certainly aren't shield units or polearms users, are they?

I could potentially see folding the Skirmisher and Fighter classes together, so that the Skirmishers with cooldown carrying ranged attacks are Fighters, while the Skirmishers without cooldown carrying ranged attacks are considered archers that have some melee capability. But overall, I'm not entirely sure how popular this might be, or how favourably it might impact the balance of the game.

Mythics though, are something I agree can be removed entirely. They don't contribute anything to the game, and just crushed by T4s with or even potentially T3s with proper enchantments and support. So, between eliminating Mythics and breaking Skirmishers apart into archers and fighters, I do believe we should be capable of making the strengths and weaknesses of each unit type stronger and more defined.

Assuming, of course, that this is the route taken to address the balance issues and mono-stacking issue.

wrong, mythics have simliar roles like the mythic-like units in planetfall, there have more of a supporting role. you aren't supposed to have a stack full of mythic units, they need support to shine but can become strong with the right combination of units.

skirmishers also have an important hybrid role of dancing between melee and ranged, meanwhile being one of the squishiest unit types.

the units already have heavily pronounced strength and weaknesses, just because you might not be able to see those doesn't mean they aren't inherent to the unit.

it takes some time and understanding to see those things, but thats why this is a strategy game and not a quick arena shooter.

 

[Xerberus]

So, back to this thread. Since at least it's more civil over here than that other dark place .

We have 7 people on this page alone who all agree there is a problem (well, multiple problems).
And throughout the insane 63 pages we've all given our opinions and possible solutions.
While we can't quite agree on what to do, we all agree that the game needs to be changed.

My question is. Why the developer silence on this topic? Do they agree? Do they not agree?
I'd like to a least know whether or not we're posting in vain. It's been a year since I posted this.
We've had 3 more DLCs/updates in the meantime, but none of them have addressed the issue.

I am curious if the community is wasting their breath here.

3-4 vocal people talking in circles over several pages in a forum aren't equal several hundred thousand players, don't overestimate the value of your "feedback". the dev have a pretty good clue what and how to balance. they have already created several succesful games in the series and have a bunch of experienced developers and game designers which have done the math and played the game as much as we do.

good devs read comments and think about them but decide for themselves what is worth implementing. just because some rando on the forum cries about removing mythic units or "omg only fabled hunters OP OP hue hue" doesn't mean that they will act as such (thankfully!!!). only unexperienced indie devs change their game after every forum post and wonder why their mishmash of a monster doesn't appeal to the broader audience.

if none of your issues are adressed it might also mean that those aren't an issue or an important enough issue to adress. just because your opinion is that xyz should be changed or removed doesn't mean that it will. it is highly UNLIKELY that they will remove the mythic units or any other of the dlc features for that. it will simply NOT happen!!!

what you seem to want is another completely different game, so why not go make it!

 

[Xerberus]

The real problem with enchantment stacking is that there are no opportunity cost. I mean, the difference in upkeep between a T2 and a T3 is significant. But a +2 damage enchantment is not.
If a strategy is effective and cheap it has to be nerfed in some way - not killed.

there is a big opportunity cost, you have to specifically pick those tomes and pick other tomes and / or affinity boosting picks to get to those.

 

[Codyksp]

they need support to shine but can become strong with the right combination of units.

Multiplayer games. Human vs Human only. Manual combat only. Mixed armies are only a hinderance in this game.
I can pull up about 30 more images like these if you want, even with equal army tiers if you so prefer.

I am merely responding to the "Mythic units need support" comment, which is clearly not the case.

Obviously I can see that the units are of a higher tier than their opponents. But they are always mono stacked like this.
The notion that you wouldn't want to stack multiple Ironclads, Balors, Reapers or Umbral Mistresses has no support.

 

[Xerberus]

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Obviously I can see that the units are of a higher tier than their opponents. But they are always mono stacked like this.
The notion that you wouldn't want to stack multiple Ironclads, Balors, Reapers or Umbral Mistresses has no support.

there are several problems with your example which isn't at all representative, first and foremost nobody knows how you played the battle (manual or auto), nobody knows the enchantments or spells used / available. it seems obvious that your opponent is a player, i don't know what if manual / auto, and certain units are strong / weak against others, tactical spells also play are role as well as autocombat AI when you autoplayed the game, seeing no "watch replay" it might be manual in which case you might just outcheesed / out smarted him.

but also looking on your and his unit composition, not only do you have EVERY TIME much higher tiered units, you also have much higher leveled HEROES!!!! i am not even able to assume which tomes and spells you and your opponents have and how good you or your opponent is at the game. i mean in the first picture your opponent has a scout in his army! staying with the first pic, your opponent mostly has tier 3 ranged units, meanwhile you have tier 4 ironclad ranged units which all have AoE attacks...do i have to say more?

those pictures say jack about balance, there is too much stuff going on to analyse it, if you would've played a battle with one army or 1-6 units with equal units on the other side without using spells and maybe even without enchantments at first, then we could talk but there are too many moving parts here to analyse it. and even then, you showed me in every picture that you have much higher tiered units AND heroes...the winner was clear from the start.

some units like the reaper are indeed strong on their own, but they cost a fortune to summon, a fortune to keep and require a very specific tome path. their weakness is fire and spirit damage, your enemy isn't countering anything. a group of reaper vs some balors and other fiend or fire based units would be helpful, the pyre templar would be the natural enemy of those reapers.

what i mean with the game not emphasizing mono stacks is that you have different types of units with strength and weaknesses you can abuse. ranged units have strong dps but low defenses and get their attack disabled when engaged in melee. melee units cannot reach ranged units if they stand behind strong frontline units.
if your reaper fought against units with similiar tier and their army consisting of a strong shield / polearm frontline and simliar strong mages behind them, all maybe also using the terrain to funnel your reapers, you would have a much easier time and didn't need the power of all those reapers.

you also show me a super lategame stack where you have so much economic power that you can just brute force your victory with the strongest units for a given task.

 

[Jolly Joker]

Then the design is flawed at the core. Something something 8 unit armies from Age of Wonders 1 and 2 would apply here.
If we had 24 army slots and 9 unit types with Mythic, 2x9=18. Leaving room for 3 Heroes and 3 more units on top of that.

Alas, Triumph will refuse to ever add larger armies back to the game. They will tell you it makes combat too slow or something.
So now the question remains. How do you fix unit counters? Well, you could start with reducing the amount of classes in the game.

Mythic, Skirmisher and Fighter all serve no true purpose in the grand scheme of class design. They're mono stack units at their core.
Shield, Ranged, Support, Shock, Mage, Polearm should be enough actually. I even question the existence of Battle Mage honestly.
Pushing this idea even further, I would suggest removing classes entirely and going back to free-form unit design instead.
This type of design worked well in the first 2 games and to a degree was still present in AoW III and Planetfall. Working just fine.

However, none of this applies to the current game. So how do we fix Age of Wonders 4 then?


It is better than the old system, for sure. But the 7 classes aren't all equal unfortunately.

Where Warrior/Mage/Ritualist are all good, the other 4 classes are just found lacking.
They lack in power/effectiveness, which kills their fantasy because they just fall flat in the end.

Well. I consider "Support" units redundant. The offensive part is Battle Mage, the support part is Hero/Spellcasting/Mythical. So Support class for me has no merits.
Skirmisher is a harrassment class, which should slow down (Snow Spirit), Taunt, and so on, destabilize formations. Notoriously hard to grasp by everyone, except, of course faster units, mainly Cavalry/Shock, but also by
Fighter, which are - for me Flyers (Spiders are fine as well). Which are not good in this game. Even Panzer General managed to give Flyers their own level, so that you can have flyers in the same hex. Also - and we had that in the franchise - flyers shouldn't be attackable for strict melees (Shield/Pole/Shock). But vulnerable vs. ranged.
The rest is clear. And, yes, 8 units per stack was better.

For the game at hand I think that your idea to sort enchantments into thematical groups and allow only one per group on any given unit is pretty good. It makes optimizing a lot more complex. Also certain unit classes might not be eligible for certain enchantment groups. For example, I don't see any sense in giving Supports any damage-increasing enchantment (I mentioned I find them redundant), but if they are supposed to be their own class (in AoW 3 BM and Support were still one unit) then they should concentrate on Support, not on their ranged attack

 

[Codyksp]

Well. I consider "Support" units redundant. The offensive part is Battle Mage, the support part is Hero/Spellcasting/Mythical. So Support class for me has no merits.
Skirmisher is a harrassment class, which should slow down (Snow Spirit), Taunt, and so on, destabilize formations. Notoriously hard to grasp by everyone, except, of course faster units, mainly Cavalry/Shock, but also by
Fighter, which are - for me Flyers (Spiders are fine as well). Which are not good in this game. Even Panzer General managed to give Flyers their own level, so that you can have flyers in the same hex. Also - and we had that in the franchise - flyers shouldn't be attackable for strict melees (Shield/Pole/Shock). But vulnerable vs. ranged.
The rest is clear. And, yes, 8 units per stack was better.

Sadly Triumph couldn't implement "true flying" they said they tried and it just never felt right or fair in this game.
Skirmishers currently have no clear weakness, they used to be squishier (at the levels of a Ranged unit) in the past.

But that's not their issue really, their issue is that they can obtain tons of enchantments (they're tagged everywhere).
By having the enchantment group limits you wouldn't be able to have more than 1 of each group on such units.
So units who are able to "double dip "like Skirmishers can't just grab every enchantment under the sun to stack.

For the game at hand I think that your idea to sort enchantments into thematical groups and allow only one per group on any given unit is pretty good. It makes optimizing a lot more complex. Also certain unit classes might not be eligible for certain enchantment groups. For example, I don't see any sense in giving Supports any damage-increasing enchantment (I mentioned I find them redundant), but if they are supposed to be their own class (in AoW 3 BM and Support were still one unit) then they should concentrate on Support, not on their ranged attack

I think it is the most achievable form that theoretically allows for more than 3 but still has a soft cap eventually.
Personally, I have no issues with Support units being able to obtain "Magic" type enchantments for their attacks.
What I would preferably like to see is some defensive enchantments for Ranged and Battle Mage, as they have none.

Avoxel once commented something similar, which I posted previously. With a limit of 1 per "type" of enchantment.

 

[seperamos]

Perhaps MP needs a different type of win condition than magic, expansion, or conquest.

It may be possible to better balance multiplayer with a specific win condition that limits the amount of tomes, enchants, cities, or units that can be gained. I'm just throwing darts at the wall here, there could be limitations set specifically for multiplayer and not single player.

 

[Mr_Dias]

What I'd like to see with current system (so no Planetfall-like slots limitation and no 8-unit armies) is
1. to make enchantments have increased upkeep for each enchantment
So, e.g., Ranged with Fiery Arrows + Shield with Scorching Blades is less mana upkeep than 2 same tier Skirmishers with both
2. to have PF-like tier scaling, so having a T4 Skirmisher with rainbow enchantments is still possible but mana upkeep for enchantments themselves (without unit own upkeep) is like 2-2.5 times the T1

On point that it just makes you keep enchantments precast and only apply them before battle - it's very easy to reapply the same PF logic of 1-turn unpreparedness after getting enchanted.

 

[Kitschy]

So, back to this thread. Since at least it's more civil over here than that other dark place .

We have 7 people on this page alone who all agree there is a problem (well, multiple problems).
And throughout the insane 63 pages we've all given our opinions and possible solutions.
While we can't quite agree on what to do, we all agree that the game needs to be changed.

My question is. Why the developer silence on this topic? Do they agree? Do they not agree?
I'd like to a least know whether or not we're posting in vain. It's been a year since I posted this.
We've had 3 more DLCs/updates in the meantime, but none of them have addressed the issue.

I am curious if the community is wasting their breath here.

Realistically that it will happen during remainder of SP2 is most unlikely. It is a substantial change that would need iterating on and there have their plate full with other things that need changes too, like cultures for example plus there is not much time left before the AP DLC. (give or take around 3 months)
So all and all what most likely to happen in foreseeable future is Dark and High will get a culture revamp, mb we will get a new or reworked class or two, Giants will get adjusted so they aren't this dominant and then there will be small tweaks here or there be it tomes or whatever.

Yes. Exactly.

I have been waiting for this to be addressed every since the Copper Golem was addressed. Don't get me wrong, in my Mythic Summoning Evoler, the Lesser Fire Elements were absolute badasses, but I would much rather pick up the Entwined Thrall to keep my Arcane/Nature theming rather than a sudden splash of chaos/fire.

Ironically, the Wyverns, which I used as my primary front-line for most of the game (Phase Beasts were a kickass replacement, but also very expensive) are now all skirmishers, so I'll end up with a Skrimisher/Skirmisher army. But the Wyverns have cooldowns, while the Entwined Thrall upgrade likely won't.

I still want my evolving archers too. Feuedal has that now, but not as a Magic Origin. Also, not actually Evolving.

I get ya. Atm you can go with little lizards, they evolve without losing their class and benefit from Druid ambition + Pack Leader. (not really Arcane but very Nature-y, so there is that)

I mean, I think we've always had issues with Rulers, and the Hero Rework is fantastic.

Peeps still want more classes so their playstyle is included in the new system.

 

[Codyksp]

Realistically that it will happen during remainder of SP2 is most unlikely. It is a substantial change that would need iterating on and there have their plate full with other things that need changes too, like cultures for example plus there is not much time left before the AP DLC. (give or take around 3 months)
So all and all what most likely to happen in foreseeable future is Dark and High will get a culture revamp, mb we will get a new or reworked class or two, Giants will get adjusted so they aren't this dominant and then there will be small tweaks here or there be it tomes or whatever.

I would assume these things are all going to moved to SP3 or "The Final Update" if they decide against a SP3.

 

[Jolly Joker]

Cody and the MP guys are WAY more qualified to talk about "balance" than the SP guys - of which I am one. That's an undisputable fact, although it may be difficult to fathom for the ego of some people here who think they know better, even though they only face the AI.

The truth is, that BALANCE can come into play only, when the players fighting against each other have equal skill and don't follow a program like the AI. Even better, if a game is balanced that way, you can see where the AI is failing. Real balance isn't detremental to the playing eyxperience because if everything is indeed well balanced you can try anything you like, the only condition being that it synergizes with each other.

I didn't buy SP 2. I found the Reavers DLC pretty lacking and disappointing - which hasn't changed a lot. Instead of getting fancy imba stuff (which of course the rever culture was not in danger to deliver) I would have MUCH preferred to get existing things sorted first.

No offense to anyone, but my impression is that TS wanted to make a game appealing to more casual gamers - who, in my experience youldn't care less about balance. That ploy seems to have worked well in terms of revenue, and fair f..s for that, well deserved, TS, looking at their track record. Bottom line is, TS should work on balance with the input of the MP - but solutions of bigger problems than simple number-correcting - like mono-stacking, should be made with a view on not taking away anything from the SP experience AND with a view on doability (which only Triumph can tell).

It doesn't help rage-posting to counter Cody. He knows what he's talking about and he should be supported.
We just got a threaad closed and I can only hope anything going further is going to the right address here.

 

[seperamos]

Cody and the MP guys are WAY more qualified to talk about "balance" than the SP guys - of which I am one. That's an undisputable fact, although it may be difficult to fathom for the ego of some people here who think they know better, even though they only face the AI.

The truth is, that BALANCE can come into play only, when the players fighting against each other have equal skill and don't follow a program like the AI. Even better, if a game is balanced that way, you can see where the AI is failing. Real balance isn't detremental to the playing eyxperience because if everything is indeed well balanced you can try anything you like, the only condition being that it synergizes with each other.

I didn't buy SP 2. I found the Reavers DLC pretty lacking and disappointing - which hasn't changed a lot. Instead of getting fancy imba stuff (which of course the rever culture was not in danger to deliver) I would have MUCH preferred to get existing things sorted first.

No offense to anyone, but my impression is that TS wanted to make a game appealing to more casual gamers - who, in my experience youldn't care less about balance. That ploy seems to have worked well in terms of revenue, and fair f..s for that, well deserved, TS, looking at their track record. Bottom line is, TS should work on balance with the input of the MP - but solutions of bigger problems than simple number-correcting - like mono-stacking, should be made with a view on not taking away anything from the SP experience AND with a view on doability (which only Triumph can tell).

It doesn't help rage-posting to counter Cody. He knows what he's talking about and he should be supported.
We just got a threaad closed and I can only hope anything going further is going to the right address here.

Asymmetrical balance means pros and cons. It means some rulers will be stronger at certain areas than others. Starcraft, although not turn based, is the best example of asymmetrical balance solutions. Parallel balance, however, is going to destroy this game.

So if you dont want parallel balance, then what is the framework the MP crowd is using to determine changes MUST be made? This game was not built with competitive multiplayer in mind, it cant be esports unless there is a multiplayer specific win condition. First to t5 tome, first to build a certain amount of cities, first to control all gold wonders of the map...when did these forums become a multiplayer only section??

So i strongly disagree that multiplayers are the only ones who should have a say. Most people did not buy this game for the lackluster multiplayer, but for single player strategic customization and related rpg experiences. I will happily vote on a poll that will determine that for a fact.

 

[Jolly Joker]

I have no idea what you are talking about. To me it looks like we have a different understanding what "balance" means, because [adjective] balance is still BALANCE. It is no [adjective ] balance when one option is always stronger, no matter what.
But what's more - this game isn't THAT asymmetrical, due to the high customization., the module-like game structure. You can balance module by module.

And ... this is again this misconception: I quote:
but solutions of bigger problems than simple number-correcting - like mono-stacking, should be made with a view on not taking away anything from the SP experience AND with a view on doability (which only Triumph can tell).
What is your problem with that?