Balance Water vs Land

[austere juniper]

I think at this point everyone recognize that water is way op compare to land. I wont go into details but water tech has

Econ
Speed
Free Starfish
Free Ruins
Damage
Units

All under 5 tech. You simply cant do that with land tech. All your units move as fast as rider and you basically getting road for free.

IMO Sea tech should be a progression of land tech not just straight up superior to land tech.

I think it would be better to require land units to turn into specialized boats

Catapult->Bomber
Shield or Sword->Rammer
Archer or Rider-> Scout

This way you need at least some land tech not just an all out rush to water.

[austere juniper]

@brittle thunder do you have any thought on this?

[brittle thunder]

Midjiwan has made it clear that he wants all the naval stuff in the Fishing branch. He is opposed to "spreading it around"

and we're against land units becoming their naval equivalents

As that's a can of worms we don't want to open

[sharp linden]

Also, I am pretty sure the next updates will contain tons of land-based reworks, and new features

[brittle thunder]

We are making adjustments to how land and sea interact

[austere juniper]

ok but as is water is getting too many stuff from 1 big branch

so research is too cheap

[sharp linden]

But water is kinda different from land

[brittle thunder]

We are making adjustments, that I can promise you

[sharp linden]

Having no cities

[brittle thunder]

Like, some pretty sizable ones

[austere juniper]

4 research you get 5 units 3 different econ option and starfish

and free road for all your units

[sharp linden]

But land is still where the main focus is

The cities are there

Your economy is there

So it isnt a one-to-one balancing act

[brittle thunder]

(man, imagine if we gave Aquarion water cities)

[austere juniper]

thats not true. if there is any water and you lose your water boardering cities you are done for @sharp linden

[sharp linden]

They need no sewage system, all goes into the deep

[brittle thunder]

They're fish people, so it's okay

[sharp linden]

Not neccessarily, and the most played map types have minimal amounts of water in bad places

[austere juniper]

what maps are you playing

anything thats no dryland is basically water battle

[sharp linden]

Mainly from dryland to continent

Lakes too?

[austere juniper]

yep

80% of the time

[sharp linden]

We'll see

Dunno about the data

[austere juniper]

you can chose to believe me or not but i got 2000+ games and I play pretty competitively.

lake is my speciality

[sharp linden]

Aight

But zoy did say that they will tune water units and stuff

So it might get better

I am waiting for the land reworks though

That might equalize stuff

[austere juniper]

yea. i hope so. the main problem is for 1 branch they just getting too much stuff

getting 4 water related research is like getting 8 land research

[sharp linden]

I find the hunting branch still the most stacked

And the diplomacy branch is still a weird thing on its own

[austere juniper]

how is hunting most stacked?

you get 1 unit

catapult

and 1 unit archer

[sharp linden]

Huts are good in two ways, forest defense

[austere juniper]

bomber>catapult
Scout>archer

[sharp linden]

But can bomber walk on land?

And the majority of the cities aint waterfront

[austere juniper]

water defend work on ALL water tile were as forest defend only some forest

If you lose your water boardering city you will lose

[sharp linden]

Not that often, I got some neat counterplays against waterhuggers

But whatever, we'll see how it plays out

[amber pike]

The fishing branch might be better split in two. That would be a massive change... But if we're not scattering water related things in other branches

That would allow us to add one or two more ship types (lander, fireship, ..?)
Also to split defense bonus between water and ocean. If we're not adding new water terrain.
To add "buoys" or the like ( https://discord.com/channels/283436219780825088/1166580930761207868)
Piers/jetties. Canals
And of course || ||

[late birch]

me just chilling on android with battleships and whales

btw why the whale look like an atomic bomb

[sharp linden]

Because Kickoo's economic boom thanks to whales before the nerf was nuclear

[late birch]

yooo

bang

nic profile pic

[sharp linden]

Köszi

A tied is az

Now back to english

Before they slap me

[hazy verge]

Like a 6th branch?

[amber pike]

Yeah.
Given how important it is in the game, how much is already in there, and what could be added... Maybe ?

[hazy verge]

What would the t1 tech be? Seperate ports and fishing?

You could have a combat naval branch and a general naval branch

[late birch]

kinda cool

[hazy verge]

Like starfish fish aquatism ocean movement and aqua farms on one branch

And then ports and units on the other

[abstract tree]

What would happen if naval units loose like 1/3 of combat power and hp compared to land units? They would still be game deciding, because its not really about land vs water but about who takes the water first and controls who else can get on the water. This has to do with the water line and ports making it very predictable when and where opponents can enter the sea. In Addition to that, its a huge investment to get on the sea if the opponents navy is already close to your waterline. At this point the game is basically over and it has nothing to do with the exact naval units.

Maybe reducing the econ from water branch would help, getting everybody on the water faster definitly didnt, because it feels mandatory to get on the water asap

[brittle thunder]

We are looking into this

And hope the next patch helps fix things

[thorn junco]

That would be pretty cool, and a buff for aquarion.

[empty linden]

Love to hear it, honestly naval, should be a naval thing, and you can see it in mostly if not all civ games. There are still a lot of land tech where you guys can add units in the future. Good to hear this response

[austere juniper]

@brittle thunder not goonna lie it seems like he put alot of constraint on the game design for no good reason.

is there reason for keep it in 1 branch? navy combat is literally half the game

just like some other changes where made it clear that he wont consider. not anything back by reasons, just something he doesnt want to do

[spare harbor]

I made my own post on this as well I very much agree my thoughts are on the post. Ps if this link doesn’t take you to the post, search for balance out the sea by Gabitron https://discord.com/channels/283436219780825088/1163671853689212928

[amber pike]

Well... While I respect your view, and even suggested myself that the naval branch could be split in two... I'm not entirely sure it would be better for the game (sure hope they will alpha-test it though 😠 ). And V100 was a pretty big improvement on that subject. Ports are not nearly as good without fish... And that's it ? Real change though.
Not enough Imo, but we're heading in the right direction.
(Anyhow : #1168241235492876469 )

[austere juniper]

@amber pike I am referring to those comments seems like they are setting hard boundaries when it is not necessary

[amber pike]

Yeah...

I sure hope they try these things in alpha before discarding them for cryptic reasons 😔

Like land units could have naval specialities without being too similar, and probably be cool...

Or mid-techs like mining or farming could grant buffs...

Really something I love, as a basic idea.

So yeah again, let's hope they tried it at least a tiny bit.
@brittle thunder ... If I may ask ? 🥺

[brittle thunder]

No

[hazy shell]

I feel like what y'all are requesting would just make naval too similar to land which makes the question "what's the point". I'm more than willing to say "multiple naval branches seems like an interesting idea", but the idea of just dumping naval stuff around the other branches just doesn't sound agreeable

[amber pike]

In what way would, for example, putting naval defense in smithery make these two branches any more similar ?
Or, you, know, the infinity of other ideas we could conceive.
Forestry granting a discount on ships.
Free spirit enhancing your navy's scouting abilities (or just disband working with ship cost).
Etc etc

[honest jungle]

Forestry discount on ships makes so much sense.

And forestry isn't the powerhouse it was before either.

[hazy shell]

Let's give a simple counterargument: houses pre beta. They only ever benefits ports, so you need to cross branches just to benefit. The problem is that the game is done in such a way where it's difficult to just buy up multiple branches. This is intentional to allow some level of diversity of tactics and not have every game devolve into tier 3 unit soup (as swordsmen+cata+knight is pretty much the strongest land combo). This means for houses, you only really get a few options

1. Make the mechanic only passable and accept that no one will actually use it (see burn forest). Imo the best solution usually but this just wouldn't do well if you want it to be a major mechanic
2. Make the mechanic horribly op (the option Midjiwan seems to have gone with for houses). Now you have a crisis because now players are incentived to play extremely stall heavy just to auto win games, which makes everything else worse
3. Make crossing branches easier. Which, again, makes tier 3 soup strategies more viable and threatens to make the game more boring

It comes to a point where you have to ask "why is this here? Does it actually do anything?"

[amber pike]

Tier-3 seems alright to me, for longer games. Makes philosophy more relevant too.
In shorter ones you still have to take decisions. Unlike with CH, yeah.
CH are bad because they are so strong, but the fact they're not in the naval branch is pretty cool imo.

This is just one game, playing Kickoo, and keeping up the pressure was the way to go here. But even on archi I find it sad to play 20 turns and rely entirely on 4 techs.

[hazy shell]

The fact that they aren't in the naval branch imo is part of the problem. It's why Midjiwan has to keep justify buffing them when 1 spt per port is genuinely already strong enough

[sinful cobalt]

It isnt 1 spt per port now

[amber pike]

I would have agreed to CH being 1 per port, and still in trade 🤷‍♂️

[amber pike]

That's markets

[hazy shell]

Yeah, because Midjiwan wants to push the tier 3 building gimmick and because people kept claiming 1 spt per port wasn't good enough for a tier 3 building on an irrelevant tech

[hazy shell]

Tbh, I don't think this is significantly different in land games. Maybe you're reliant on 6 techs, but not much more than that. And again, if the concern is there isn't enough naval stuff, splitting it to a second naval branch imo would be healthier than dumping naval stuff over other branches. Are you *really* going to get Smithery for water defense or would it just be a random easter egg. And if you really are going to Smithery for water defense... Maybe the problem is the water defense is too strong?

Also, you do still have incentive to get defenders in this screenshot

[sinful cobalt]

I dont think you can do this well with the water farm nerfs now

[honest jungle]

Maybe the problem with water defense is that it's in the same branch as all the units that benefit from it. And that makes it strong. Forest defense is okay because it's not that important on archers and pretty much irrelevant on catapults.

I don't think we want a game where you can just buy one branch and have all you need.

Other branches complement each others, and mostly interact through their units. Naval can't have that obviously.

And of course random naval elements on the other branches would just be out of place.

But your land fighting style is dependent on what techs you happen to have, which are partly dependent on what resources you had. Naval could be influenced by that so that your naval fighting style depends on what you have in the rest of the game too.

More then just unit hp.

Like, say forest defense bonus was replaced by a ranged unit boost. You'd have effects on naval combat style without it being out of place.

[amber pike]

Yeah, defenders. But nothing else, really.
Imo the point of having stuff scattered around is to have more than one reason to research things. Like archers are ok, but archery is a lot more desirable when your daggers can use the defense bonus.
Strategy is good, but it's better when you can both send peace and put defenders in ships than when only one of these are available.
etc
It doesn't really matter that burn forest isn't as important as knights : You can still weight than in when deciding if you want the tech or not (although I'm 99% certain you're gonna argue otherwise).

[hazy shell]

The problem with water defense is that it's a massive boost to a large amount of unit all at once with no extra cost. This is different from forest defense in that forest locations is less controllable and the units that benefits the most from forest defense aren't as common. And tbh, there is an argument to be made that it could be poor design in its own right by being too similar to the benefits mountains give. In this vein, plains defense would be beyond broken primarily because flat land is everywhere and you could chop for even more of it

If you move water defense, you'll likely make the gimmick worthless. And if it doesn't, then it admits that the water defense was far too strong and all you've done is slap a bandaid on it and pretended to solve the issue

[hazy shell]

Sure, you can make an argument that naval mechanics is too insular, but then the core issue is a lack of naval mechanics, not that necessarily that naval doesn't work with other branches

[honest jungle]

The issue is land has it's whole ecosystem scattered across 4 branches, and naval, being completely isolated, needs a whole ecosystem in only 1 branch.

And I agree that water shouldn't be just blue land (forests are almost the same as land (especially with cutting, growing and roads), mountains are a slightly more weird land, but they're still land and water shouldn't be the same). But making it completely autonomous is just too excessive.

[hazy shell]

Outside of units, pretty much every branch except the Riding branch is also solely isolated

[honest jungle]

Yeah, outside of units.

[hazy shell]

Diplomacy kinda broke the rules of what a branch was supposed to do in this regard

There's an illusion of an ecosystem because land games have more than 1 resource you need, but even on archi, Organization or Hunting isn't bad for upgrading cities

And if you want to argue about the use case of units, I've multiple times suggested there should be a way to have units be able to land and attack

[rancid otter]

I don't like the current water defense because of how general it is. Every single ship just benefits from it. I'd much rather see it be limited to certain tiles that you have to play around

[hazy shell]

I don't think having these secondary reasons outside of niche cases (like Philosophy or Roads) is necessarily good for the game. I don't think cross branches gameplay would be necessarily positive for the game as a whole

[honest jungle]

That I partly agree about. Some units don't revolve around attacking. But I've suggested unit dependent or water unit dependent effects upon landing which would, among other things, encourage moving the fight back to land.

[honest jungle]

Well I have to disagree with that. I like secondary reasons; you wont go and purchase two techs just for it, but if you happen to have the tech around it's a nice bonus. Should be the same with water IMO.

But then it's just opinions about what makes the game fun so there's not much to argue anymore.

[honest jungle]

Forest, and even more so mountain defense are nice because you're sacrificing movement opportunities for that defense bonus.

[honest jungle]

Do you mean embassies not being related to plains? Because literacy already kinda did that, and riding branch has always been a collection of not always completely unrelated stuff. Forestry is the only really coherent tech.

[hazy shell]

Literacy is fine as a one off thing. Imo it shouldn't be a consistent thing across branches. There's a reason one of my main suggestions is swapping Riding and Free Spirit, and the swapping Riding with Strategy and Chivalry and Diplomacy. Having one miscellaneous branch is fine

[honest jungle]

If you want each branch to have it's own theme, then what's wrong about keeping ranged units all in hunting and locking scout and bomber to range one until archery or maths are researched?

That'd be consistent and give your land fighting style some influence over your water fighting style.

[hazy shell]

Because now you have useless units that needs extra techs. Why get 2 techs just to unlock scouts as a viable unit when rammers are just better and requires less techs? Again, you're arguing for players to have a soup of multiple techs which is best case completely unviable (there's people who basically refuse to buy Organization citing the cost when tier 1 techs aren't even that expensive) and is worst case leading to the game becoming overly simplified

[honest jungle]

Well then you'd have some rammer restriction too, obviously.

[hazy shell]

And if you suggest also nerfing rammers until you get, Idk, Mining, now every naval unit stinks and naval is unfun because it costs a billion techs

Land gameplay doesn't cost a billion techs

[honest jungle]

I mean, water is more miscellaneous then riding currently. You have water, connection, range, alternate star sources all in one branch. It makes sense to restrict it a bit.

[hazy shell]

Then split it into multiple trees. Don't drag other trees along with it and give out a bunch of pool noodles pretending they're units

[honest jungle]

But you could have weaker rammers which would still be good against weaker scouts which would still be good against weaker bombers which would still be good against weaker rammers and if you happen to have the right land techs that's better, but you can still use them a bit without them.

[honest jungle]

You don't win a land fight with only four techs.

[honest jungle]

Mijiwan is against multiple water trees, which is kinda sad but also understandable.

There is a need for a water-specific update. If that doesn't show how water's isolated situation is an issue I don't know what could.

[hazy shell]

Scouts are just archers with more movement. How do you reasonably nerf scouts without making them just unappealing to use? 2 damage melee naval units likely also isn't worthwhile and questions why you ever chose to play archi in the first place. How do you reasonably nerf rammers without making them unappealing to use?

Riders are pretty crazy units. I have zero want to nerf them directly. I think everyone says riders needs a nerf doesn't know what they're talking about. I think archers are extremely toxic units that are annoying to deal with. I have zero want to nerf them. I think knights should have their 15 hp again. Maybe just remove their ability to promote

Land units are appealing to use and don't have random techs they need to be usable. You don't get multiple techs for you to just play land warfare. You get multiple techs to enhance your already strong tools and make them easier to afford

What you're suggesting for naval units would just make them slow and boring and make you question why there's even a naval branch in the first place when you still need the rest of the tech tree anyways. If you want to split bonuses, them maybe they should actually be bonuses and not just "this unit is now actually playable"

[hazy shell]

Again, I want to stress that you don't get a bunch of techs for land fights to enable units or anything like that. You get a bunch of techs to upgrade your land and to unlock units. That screenshot 100% can minimum justify getting defenders and likely got a spawn win if they could do well with only 4 techs. And the real issue is almost solely that defenders are the only units worth going after in most naval situations

You 100% can play land games without going for multiple techs, and you almost have to plan for getting the least amount of techs necessary

[honest jungle]

Well I'm totally on board for just small bonuses, as long as water isn't on it's own.

[honest jungle]

Yes but you don't play your games buy buying just one branch. And you do have to think and plan to minimize the amount of techs you're buying, that's the nice part. With naval you're just buying all the naval techs and that's all.

[hazy shell]

There was, and debatably still is, an incentive to just get the whole Hunting tree and barely go out of it for roads. 2 star huts plus chopping meant giants were incredibly easy to get, both archers and catas are absolutely stellar units, players overrate forest defense, and even grow forest can cut off opposing riders and knights. This isn't too much different from the current naval situation

[honest jungle]

Here's a less excessive example.
Scout and bomber's range of 2 is obtained through hunting (and archery for the sake of Hoodrick). Bomber's range of three is obtained through forestry. Scout and rammer's thrid movement is obtained through riding. Port's connections are obtained through roads (maybe you could reduce port cost to 5 stars). Scout and rammer's dash is obtained through org. Bomber's splash is obtained through climbing. Scout defense bonus is in diplo, bomber defense bonus is in maths, rammer defense bonus is in smithery. If you have no land techs you get a 2 movement weak no dash melee unit with extra vision, a 2 movement high attack melee unit and another of the same but that one moves upon killing. You happen to have hunting, suddenly scout and bomber are more viable. You buy org and your scout and rammer become dangerous. You needed the hunting tech, your 3-range bomber without splash will still be quite useful. You didn't go all the way to forestry but you have climbing, your bombers are relevant even with only 2 range. That allows for some tech optimization yet you don't need all of them to use naval units.
Of course it has to be reasonable, but some dependence would make it all more interesting.

[honest jungle]

I don't think anyone was happy with the hunting-only situation. But just out of curiosity, was grow forest ever actively used that way?

[olive depot]

Yep

[hazy shell]

So...

Scouts and especially rammers are useless until you get Organization, and rammers really needs their third movement. Also, removing the connection until Roads nerfs ports extremely hard. So, to use rammers you need 3 tier 1s (you still need Sailing) and 2 tier 2s, and you still can barely actually fight against land units, so need Fishing for ocean movement and either bombers or scouts. Let's compare:

The strategy I like to subscribe to on drylands is a heavily aggressive archer spam. It needs a good melee unit to capture cities, roads for movement, and maybe techs for pop for giants. So, let's see, minimum 2 tier 2s, probably a third one for pop, and maybe 3 tier 1s, probably even less. You're talking about a more expensive unit in a limited play space needing we many techs as a strategy built around a tier 2 unit being spammed. It's worse than that, because you need just those techs for rammers to even be usable in the first place and you'd need more techs to get an advantage (Strategy for 15 hp, Hunting for scouts/rammers, Forestry and Navigation to use bombers) while for the archer strategy you really don't need too much more techs unless the game goes late. That just makes naval expensive for no reason and require significantly more techs than just basic land strategies. That's just tedious, not fun or interesting. And it, again, encourages more soup-like strategies

[hazy shell]

Yes. Hell, in the season 6 PC semi finals, there was a game more or less reliant on using grow forest this way. Also the Elyrion stalemate is reliant on doing this, and I've occasionally seen grow forest used this way outside of high profile games. Using grow forest like this might genuinely be underrated

[hazy verge]

6 techs? Riding, roads, 2-3 eco techs, military techs, and miscellaneous techs.

[hazy verge]

Are you trying to argue that 4 is the only number below 1000000000?

[hazy shell]

Riding, roads, 2-3 eco techs, and then seriously how many other techs are you getting before turn 25? Catas? Diplomacy? You aren't getting too much more than your base 5

[hazy verge]

You dont win games with only riders

Remember, this is post beta

You might need more eco techs on some tribes

Miscellaneous techs are things like climbing that is just good to have

Or philosophy for aimo

[hazy shell]

No, but you can get pretty far. Again, before the ultra late game, how much more do you really need? If anything, the only amount more you're getting is just maybe a 4th eco tech

[hazy verge]

Not with the roads nerf

Riders lose to giants more now

Since you dont expand fast enough

[hazy shell]

I'd argue even with the road nerf. Archers still exists and I'd argue what I layed out up there (Archery, Riding, Roads, 3-4 eco techs) is still 100% viable before the ultra late game

It's only ultra late game where things change. But that's true with current naval too (markets, defenders, tier 3 buildings for markets)

[hazy verge]

Btw you need hunting to buy archery

[hazy shell]

Also, hut nerf means less giants as quickly

[hazy verge]

So that's 7 minimum

[hazy verge]

Barely less

Giants have always been cost efficient

Even compared to riders

They just are too slow

[hazy shell]

6 minimum. Counting Hunting in with the 3-4 eco techs

[hazy verge]

Not all tribes go hunting for eco

And you possibly need chiv and free spirit or climbing

[hazy shell]

That's why it's 3-4 for most tribes for eco techs

[hazy shell]

Chivalry is late game only for archer spam, Climbing... Sure I guess. The point is still the same. It's not *that* much more techs than current naval

[hazy verge]

I prefer the tech branches seperate rather than buffing each other

Besides maybe t1 techs

[hazy shell]

Current naval still has incentive to consider Hunting/Organization. Landing on mountains imo is underrated. Defenders is still better for naval

[hazy shell]

Read my arguments, and you'll see I agree. That's kinda my point though. Most strategies don't need that many techs to work off each other prior to the ultra late game

[hazy verge]

👍

[hazy shell]

I mean, Xin-Xi is like Mining, Smithery, then you choice of 3-5 eco techs before late game. They barely even go for roads, even before the nerf

Ai-Mo is almost solely an exception because of how insane Philosophy is (hot take: the game would be broken if Philosophy was actually a major part of the meta)

Oumaji is Riding, Roads, Organization, and Farming solely until late game (not even 5 techs unless you get Climbing)

[honest jungle]

If there were any others I'd know about them by now. I have a master's degree in mathematics and the only numbers I ever encountered in exercises were 0, 1 and 2, as well as the occasional 3, -1 and -2. I'm not even sure 4 really exists actually.

[amber pike]

Wow wow wow. I knew you were basically high as a kite, but I forgot you were in favour of 15hp knights.
How do the heck would you justify reverting that very blessed change ?

[hazy shell]

Knights was barely that impactful prior to chopping being moved to Free Spirit. Most of the concern of knights arose from that. Well

1. Chopping is no longer on Free Spirit and is nerfed. Sure, you can argue hut nerf still means early giants are less common, which is the whole thing holding knights back, but I don't think it's that big an issue regardless. If anything, I think during that period of time was just a massive lack of adaptation
2. Roads are nerfed
3. Knights being worse means archer spam goes far more unchecked than it should imo
4. I'm also suggesting removing its ability to promote, which is probably the real issue. If it lost the ability to promote, you still wouldn't get a free attack at the end of a chain without knights dying so easily or being chain fodder for enemy knights

[amber pike]

The big issue is not the ability to promote, but to survive a knight hit.
Knights are perfectly useful pre-beta, and regularly used.
And post beta they suffer from reduced eco more than roads nerf in particular. With Free Spirit being completely useless it was already a big investment to get knights. But roads being nerfed don't impact knights all that much because of the above : You don't get these squishy 8 stars units early on.
If you think archer spam is an issue, then Free spirit should be improved, or knights made even weaker, but cheaper.

[hazy shell]

Knights chaining other knights is not that big a deal. It's extremely toxic imo post nerf (it discourages knights further), but it's never a major part of its perception. The main things knights lost with the hp nerf is the ability to survive a final attack and it's survivability vs swordsmen, catas, riders, and archers. Considering it's designed specifically to avoid cata spam (it literally got persist in the same update that nerfed catas to their current stats), it probably isn't healthy that it dies this easily to cata spam, especially since gameplay before FS chopping showed you could already wall out knights fairly well

On the flip side, doing a ton of damage, hitting a giant, and still ending on a 20 hp knight is just a little too strong. I'm more than willing to admit that the free promote is a pretty big problem

Really, free heals in general is extremely strong. The free heal from baby dragons to fire dragons is secretly one of the most busted things in the game

[quartz current]

Shhhh we don't talk about the baby dragon heal