A suggestion for balancing non-TP maps

[ClaiomhSolais]

I was reading the diarouga-Peachrocks discussion on the Beta Trade Route thread where they respectively suggested that churches and native TPs could generate xp, and it occured to me that a good way to combine the two while at the same time avoiding the problem they both entail (that those buildings could also be used on TP maps) would be creating a church upgrade which (costing whatever resources) enabled xp generation for native TPs (maybe even as much xp as a normal TP) while also significantly reducing (or even removing) normal TP's xp generation. So, what do you think about this? Would implementing a brand new technology be going too far?

[ListlessSalmon]

Sounds like a good way to add experience generation for non-TP maps without (substantially) affecting TP maps. But if we're trying to give no-TP maps comparable experience generation options to TP maps would it not be somewhat easier to give them all TPs?

[Peachrocks]

Interesting. Though I've wanted to make a thread on using native TPs as an 'easier' solution to no trade route maps to get this discussed properly I've made too many threads as of late and plan to make more to discuss each individual native group and perhaps another to discuss native buffs in 'general' and any groups that could be/should be exempt from such buffs.

Admittedly, while native TPs and standard TPs do co-exist, my idea was to make any exp producing slightly inferior in addition to not upgrading to stagecoach so you wouldn't take native TPs on normal TP maps if you wanted a TP but the native option and all it's advantages would be available if neccessary. This was also in addition to raising TP costs back to 250w, reverting the last RE patch.

A church tech 'could' work but you'd need alternatives for natives (Asians have monastery) and putting it in the fire pit would be messy. Houses/Teepee maybe? Furthermore, the draw of the TP is behind able to immediately get a return. If you had to jump through two additional hoops to get it, it might not have the desired effect. Not rejecting the idea entirely, just putting forward some things to consider.

[[Armag] diarouga]

I can tell you that you wouldn't ever go for a 250w building (the church) which is worth 70% of a TP on a TP map. Peachrocks just tried to find a random counter argument to get a native buff haha.

[Peachrocks]

I can tell you that you wouldn't ever go for a 250w building (the church) which is worth 70% of a TP on a TP map. Peachrocks just tried to find a random counter argument to get a native buff haha.

You're funny :). I'm glad we can be respectful most of the time though.

As I said there. I've had that idea like way before AS fan patch days since I was never happy with the Ottoman balance in particular. I tried giving them vills through the 'faster vill train time techs' to help on non TP maps (i.e you are investing in villagers directly rather than TPs), didn't really help enough and I'm fairly happy with how the vill techs are now, especially with Tanzimat being moved to age 3 (vill count = 99).

Since native TPs have all the same problems as standard TPs (you don't choose exactly where to build them and they are the exact same building) I believe this may work and I'm curious about it and yes it might help with content redundancy and improve awareness of whether natives are actually bad or underused. More to the point though, having a building that you can place anywhere will either not actually solve the problem, or be used on TP maps as well for that purpose. That was more my point and how Native TPs could be worked in while avoiding that potential issue.

[[Armag] diarouga]

I think you don't really get my point.

That church change would really help on no TP maps (because you don't have other exp options, and shipments are very important early on), and going for it on TP maps would be bad (+50w -30% efficiency is just bad), so it wouldn't solve the issue.

Currently the church is quite useless, so using it for exp production would make sense, that's what Microsoft decided to do for Otto actually. The native TPs however are already useful (they allow you to train units and get some unique techs), so you can't give them that exp bonus on top of that. It would almost be like giving an exp trickle to raxes and stables xD.

[Peachrocks]

In terms of units they aren't useful. Most of them really aren't. You've seen the math on three groups now, surely you must know that by now. Futhermore any native changes I come up with even if they get agreed on won't roll out for ages yet, so a more passive buff might be ideal to assess some things. It's not a rax/stable. It's a misplaced arsenal with cost inefficient units with few exceptions.

Personally I don't have a problem with it but the fact the whole 'its what ES/RE attempted to do for Otto' is kind of why I believe it won't work. Granted that's only 100w but still because it's 'too weak' in my opinion there's no reason not to go ahead with it. Yes I admit it, I'm biased towards natives and anything that's just terrible since I feel the game doesn't reward you enough for having obscure knowledge and huge chunks of the game players can be unaware of. I finally won a game today because of native knowledge out of like the 50 I played since returning and it was Cheyenne's anti horse stuff which I plan on changing anyway.

[[Armag] diarouga]

Yea you're extremely biased toward natives, that's very annoying when we want to discuss balance seriously. You should try to be more objective.
I mean, kaiser or any merc fanboy could claim that mercs aren't viable and that saloon and monastery should give an exp trickle to balance no TP maps, that would be the same. Chrisie could also complain about advanced mills being weak, and thus suggest an exp trickle with that shipment.

[Riotcoke]

In terms of units they aren't useful. Most of them really aren't. You've seen the math on three groups now, surely you must know that by now. Futhermore any native changes I come up with even if they get agreed on won't roll out for ages yet, so a more passive buff might be ideal to assess some things. It's not a rax/stable. It's a misplaced arsenal with cost inefficient units with few exceptions.

Personally I don't have a problem with it but the fact the whole 'its what ES/RE attempted to do for Otto' is kind of why I believe it won't work. Granted that's only 100w but still because it's 'too weak' in my opinion there's no reason not to go ahead with it. Yes I admit it, I'm biased towards natives and anything that's just terrible since I feel the game doesn't reward you enough for having obscure knowledge and huge chunks of the game players can be unaware of. I finally won a game today because of native knowledge out of like the 50 I played since returning and it was Cheyenne's anti horse stuff which I plan on changing anyway.

The problem you have is there's not really any interest in changing natives, simply due to the fact that it adds another layer of the game that doesn't need to be changed, they're niche and are meant to be niche. I do sort of agree with rouga here as well, you are heavily biased and a xp/trickle for natives would be silly.

[Peachrocks]

Okay okay. It's just an idea I've had sitting for oh... 10 years and there's no rational reason to reject other than 'I'm biased' which I openly admit to.

However everyone is biased in some capacity though in my case, natives or anything obscure suddenly becoming too strong is the last thing I want. Furthermore im very honest about my bias. Many people aren't honest about theirs.

Also, they aren't niche. They are literally never used, maybe once out of 100 games at extreme best. I mean sure the poll only voted in favour by 65% to 35% which means people aren't all in on wanting it, but there's still some interest in changing it. Not once at the LAN were they used for anything other than canoes. If they are 'niche'. Prove it. That's all I'm saying on the matter now or anywhere else other than my dedicated threads.

[[Armag] diarouga]

I used them every single time when I went for Port water boom on Baja California, and I would use the huron every time on Hudson Bay when going water.
On Iowa, I would use them in 30% of my games to get the bisons also.

They are niche. They're not used because people don't know them (for example, tabben and turk played a 1hour long India mirror in the weekend tour and using the hurons would have been game changing). You just claimed that you won a game thanks to your native knowledge, well it proves that they're good in niche situations. Also they're great in late game.

Anyway, your exp trickle suggestion is irrational.

[Riotcoke]

https://youtu.be/PGs7jjP9_ak Game 4 in that video. You have to remember that Nats take no pop, so are insane when you are at a point when you're likely on 200 pop, the late game upgrades are also very good. The problem i think that you have, after playing you what i would call a decent amount, is that you like to base your strats off of quirky things which is cool of course but the meta is a thing for a reason, if you start buffing nats to the extent where strats that are quirky are viable at a high level consistently that'll just become the meta and become stale. On some maps it's more than viable to nat rush already btw.

[Peachrocks]

I used them every single time when I went for Port water boom on Baja California, and I would use the huron every time on Hudson Bay when going water.
On Iowa, I would use them in 30% of my games to get the bisons also.

They are niche. They're not used because people don't know them (for example, tabben and turk played a 1hour long India mirror in the weekend tour and using the hurons would have been game changing). You just claimed that you won a game thanks to your native knowledge, well it proves that they're good in niche situations. Also they're great in late game.

Anyway, your exp trickle suggestion is irrational.

I really think you've got no idea how bad Navajo units are. Otherwise you wouldn't touch them. It's a waste of resources upgrading them though the gold tech I suppose is okay, but the units are among the worst. Even if you're on the Apache side, investing so much in techs just for 8 units? Doesn't seem worth except in extreme cases but even if it's true how many games is this? I think 1 out of 50 or more accurately 1 out of 100 for such knowledge to be relevant is extremely ridiculous and the knowledge I have that won me a game is something that shouldn't be in the game in the first place (hand cavalry countering other hand cavalry and dragoons).

I'm also not sold on Huron. It's a massive investment but Mantlets in general are tricky, so I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt in that one extreme case if a game goes long enough.

@Riotcoke. How often is this? Seriously. How often. Also how many times do I have to say it? I don't want them to be meta. I just want them to be not 'complete dog poop' and if you can honestly look at the three units (especially Comanche/Seminole) I've brought up in threads and tell me they aren't dog poo you are kidding yourself.

There's plenty of rational towards it because of the comparison of normal TPs but I've said all I'm going to.

[[Armag] diarouga]

Anyway, we're trying to have a serious discussion about balancing the no TP maps (that's actually very important, it could be one of the most important EP change), so please stop spamming with your native lobbying. I've already explained why your suggestion doesn't make sense, and I don't think anyone in this community but you wants native TPs to give an exp trickle.

[Peachrocks]

Anyway, we're trying to have a serious discussion about balancing the no TP maps (that's actually very important, it could be one of the most important EP change), so please stop spamming with your native lobbying. I've already explained why your suggestion doesn't make sense, and I don't think anyone in this community but you wants native TPs to give an exp trickle.

Fair. Though I think it's extreme to say nobody but me :).

[ClaiomhSolais]

I can tell you that you wouldn't ever go for a 250w building (the church) which is worth 70% of a TP on a TP map. Peachrocks just tried to find a random counter argument to get a native buff haha.

Well, I chose native TPs for this idea because they have the same characteristics that make standard TPs interesting (they are sometimes located in unsafe places and have to be contested), but another option would be that this tech I proposed costed 150w and affected the church itself. This way, churches would still cost 100w (even if their other techs and units are not very useful, I think it's better not to discourage players from researching/training them any further, if possible) and we would avoid any risks of causing troubles for TP maps (just in case, even though I agree that a 250w church wouldn't be worth it -until very late game, at least-).

[Riotcoke]

I'd say 1/10 tournament games, you'd have to ask someone like Brook who's more into stats, late game however they're much more common as the ups and units are just more useful. Some units might be shit, navajo is entirely shit i agree, but seminole for example have good upgrades, where the units themselves don't have to be particularly decent. I think a problem you have is that you're trying to play the game with the sole intention to actually use these units as the main units in your fights, which simply wasn't the design of native units and if it were to become viable to use nats only it'd likely be bad for the health of the game overall, balance being effected e.g If brit got a good skirm unit they can rely on from natives. I do agree that some slight buffs to natives would be nice, but shoehorning people to use them because you like it isn't good for balance unfortunately.

[Kawapasaka]

I'd say 1/10 tournament games, you'd have to ask someone like Brook who's more into stats, late game however they're much more common as the ups and units are just more useful. Some units might be shit, navajo is entirely shit i agree, but seminole for example have good upgrades, where the units themselves don't have to be particularly decent. I think a problem you have is that you're trying to play the game with the sole intention to actually use these units as the main units in your fights, which simply wasn't the design of native units and if it were to become viable to use nats only it'd likely be bad for the health of the game overall, balance being effected e.g If brit got a good skirm unit they can rely on from natives. I do agree that some slight buffs to natives would be nice, but shoehorning people to use them because you like it isn't good for balance unfortunately.

Native TPs are also partly underused simply because of lack of knowledge of the impact of the techs/units. For example that Tabben/Turk game that went for like 2 hours in the last weekend tour - by a certain point in the game grabbing one of the nat posts should've been a no-brainer. Especially for the big button which would've been a great stalemate breaker especially in a MU as retarded as a late-game India mirror.

[Goodspeed]

I actually really like the idea of adding an XP trickle to native TPs and ITT have seen no good arguments against it. For the record, "you're biased and irrational" doesn't count as an argument. Can we focus on the change itself and not on the person suggesting it?

[Kawapasaka]

I actually really like the idea of adding an XP trickle to native TPs and ITT have seen no good arguments against it

Depending on size of the trickle it poses the question: Why have no-TP maps?
Finding a balance between the trickle being useless and no-TP maps being useless sounds difficult.

[Riotcoke]

I actually really like the idea of adding an XP trickle to native TPs and ITT have seen no good arguments against it. For the record, "you're biased and irrational" doesn't count as an argument. Can we focus on the change itself and not on the person suggesting it?

Because the Peachrocks wants to buff both nats and give the native tp as xp trickle as he's relatively biased towards nats.

[Garja]

It is not necessary for balance.

[Astaroth]

Why not just give a tech in the church that grants an xp trickle, with the tech being affordable, but still so expensive that it isn't really viable on TP maps, while being an option on no TP maps?

E.g. 200w for an xp trickle worth 50 % of an average TP. Including the church (which most civs would otherwise not build), you would spend 300w on half a TP, making the xp trickle 3x as expensive as a TP. Obviously you would have the advantage of it not being nearly as vulnurable.

The numbers could be tweaked a bit, with the trickle being worth 75 % of a TP or so.

[[Armag] diarouga]

I actually really like the idea of adding an XP trickle to native TPs and ITT have seen no good arguments against it. For the record, "you're biased and irrational" doesn't count as an argument. Can we focus on the change itself and not on the person suggesting it?

It's absurd because the native TPs are not useless.
They're not used because 200w is a huge investment early on, but with a significant exp trickle, taking them and getting the techs would be a must. It would also make the game less competitive as some civs would take all the native TPs (because they're faster) and get a big advantage.

[Goodspeed]

It doesn't have to be a big number. And if any native tribe would become OP as a result, just nerf it