#Cymanti -still- can't compete against markets in end game.

89 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

reef wren
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While there's been a lot of changes in the beta, fundamentally it all adds up to the same fundamental issues cymanti has faced in being under powered in end-games against other tribes with market or sanctuary powered economy.

Let's look at Cymanti's end game economy from the perspective of two map types:

On Dryland 400,

In non-beta/current version, it's been fairly balanced up until markets, at which point opponents economy can 2x cymanti's in the span of a couple turns, and past that point there's no more balance.

Does the beta address this? not really, It's very difficult to create fungi on dryland, you have to strategically poison and kill enemies in just the right places surrounding a clathrus, or explode doomuxes (not a realistic strategy). Even -if- your enemy didn't just avoid certain tiles surrounding your clathrus -- it still takes several turns to build up an economy equivalent to markets.

On pangea 400 / more generally water based maps.

In non-beta, Today Cymanti is actually somewhat playable against other tribes with markets, I wouldn't say it's balanced, but it's at least playable for a win, you're able to get that 2x economy via clathrus/trade tech , by creating clathrus and algae (cost 5 stars to gain +1spt), but it takes several turns to build up enough capital to be able to buy enough algae to be equivalent to a market powered economy , so it's slightly off balance but playable (i.e. 2x your economy in several turns, instead of a couple turns).

Does the beta address this? not really, its actually worse, instead of algae costing 5 stars to gain +1 spt, in the beta, the cheapest option is the boomchi, (which costs: 10 stars to gain +1 spt (boomchi + fungi) , and 1 unit production tempo and 2 turns to create the algae + fungi , the only buff is extra 3 population from the fungi which takes 4 turns to materialize).

If you were to bulk analyze all polytopia games cym vs tribes-with-markets on Pangae 400, you would find markets are way more frequently used than clathrus.... and this is in the non-beta... why? because markets are better.... Now you're proposing in the beta for it to cost 10 stars to gain +1spt, instead of 5 stars to gain +1 spt... (as well as markets costing 5s, and clathrus 8s)

This is broken.

BONUS: On Early game economy thoughts

Early game economy compared to Imperius is horrible. Imperius can capture & level a city to 2, using 4 stars (2 fruit), on the same turn, adding +3 spt \w WS, and that compounds over time.
Even in non-beta, the only way Cymanti could accomplish this with default tech is with 10 stars (2 fungi). In beta, it's just impossible to compete with Imperius early game eco.
I ran several experiments in massive infinity dryland single player, and Cymanti can barely manage 20spt by turn 10 in the beta. Other top tier tribes can get up to 40spt by turn 10.
IMO the issue other tribes have with cymanti early game power, is mostly surrounding the power & mobility of boosted centipedes, and the range of the hexapod. The beta goes way too far in nerfing the economy. If you compare tribes merely SPT by turn 10 on infinity massive dryland, Cymanti is not an outlier... its relatively balanced in that dimension.

livid kayak
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it is very hard to get as much income from clathrus as base tribes can from markets for sure

somber coral
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In the current version, I don't believe Cymanti is supposed to compete with Imperius' econ at all. Cymanti having an econ comparable with turn 0 tribes in the first place was a problem, especially since Cymanti's super unit could contribute to combat several turns before any giant could on account of it's move speed, dash, and boost. Better compare it to non-t0 tribes.

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Agree that clathrus income is not good enough

reef wren
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@somber coral i think they should just nerf the centipede instead, thats the root problem here.

somber coral
reef wren
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They are if you grow long tails

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On Nerfing Centipedes & Hex
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I would reduce movement from 2 to 1 for centipedes

hexapods & centipedes and other units have their attack damage scaled based on how far they moved prior to an attack, and for hexapods their boosted movement set to maximum of 4 instead of 3. That would solve issues with riders and archers with roads.

There’s two ways to implement this

(method1)
literally attack scales down based on how much prior movement

(assume boosted hex)
2 movement prior = 3.5 boosted attack
3 movement prior = 2.5 boosted attack
4 movement prior = 1.5 boosted attack

(numbers may need tuning)

(method2) “STIM” stimulant
Same effect but accomplished by unit looses hit points when moving large distances

(assume boosted hex)
movement by 2 = looses 0hp
movement by 3 = looses 2hp
movement by 4 = looses 4hp

with hexapod boosted attack = 3.5

(numbers may need tuning)

This nerf’s cymanti early game but has less of an effect in end game due to mycel.

somber coral
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In an equal late game situation, you really shouldn't be getting any centipedes with long tails

reef wren
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i do in my end games, unless ur talking cymanti mirror then fine i agree

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sorry i dont follow, its not my play style perhaps

somber coral
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I mean a good opponent should not be allowing you to get centipedes with more than 1 or 2 segments

reef wren
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its unavoidable , knight chains typically end deep inside cymanti’s border growth cities

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centipede just eats the knights

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thats the simple explanation

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i played a game with arvis i can send if u want that has long tails

somber coral
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sure

reef wren
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ill send twitch link too

somber coral
reef wren
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if ur segments have defense bonuses then no, knights cant destroy the tail so easily

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in late end game u get spiritualism and grow forest under segments

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daggers also feed it yup

somber coral
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I don't realyl see the point in long tails in the backline, since they aren't really vulnerable there and it just means it takes longer to deploy them to the front. But it is some really nice gameplay. Love the effectiveness of kitons in that match

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I do slightly question oumaji's lack of ranged units. Turn 30 he ends with 111 stars and no catapults/archers/bombers in sight

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Ok, and then on turn 31 he buys them...

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@reef wren What sort of nerf would you see as fitting for a Centipede? I still don't really see them as a problem later on in the game, and nerfing them too much would remove some of the uniqueness. They are persistent, but can crumble if not supported or if faced with enough ranged damage and/or knights

reef wren
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@somber coral scroll up, i explain above "On Nerfing Centipedes & Hex"

somber coral
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And I already consider Cymanti's late game to be too weak. You held up remarkably well in that game but ended up losing even with your city advantage and the pressure you had for such a big part of the game

reef wren
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I think it's a mistake for cymanti stars-per-turn to deviate from other top tier tribes like imperius just because they have stronger units, you're going to unbalance the game in other ways. Basically every tribe should be roughly equivalent in stars-per-turn in massive infinity games.

Instead just make the units roughly equivalent, so the economies can stay roughly equivalent.

somber coral
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Centipede with only 1 movement? Won't that make it pretty much impossible to engage with them later on?

somber coral
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So I think clathrus needs some more work

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But I don't think Cymanti should have ever been close to a turn 0 tribe in early econ, since it's power is supposed to lie elsewhere (in its unique units).

reef wren
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That's basically my opening statement in this thread.

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They still didn't fix cym late game, there's no answer to markets.

somber coral
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Turn 0 tribes were so far ahead of other tribes purely because of econ, so it stands to reason that giving any special tribe a similar econ also puts them far ahead regardless of what other interesting stuff they have

reef wren
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The game with arvis sort of worked because it was pangae and i got clathrus and algae, but on dryland, he would have demolished me.

somber coral
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What are your thoughts on the new doomux btw?

reef wren
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I like it ! i think that should stick

somber coral
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It is amazing imo, but also probably just a little bit too strong

reef wren
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could be yah. that's once again a scenario where if a unit is too strong, nerf the unit, don't damage cym late game economy because doomuxes are too strong.

somber coral
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But I really like the double-strike principle on Cymanti. Not full persist, but some way to attack harder and to strike a bit deeper into the enemy backlines

reef wren
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remove 0.5 attack or something.. i dunno, there's a million things you can do to nerf the unit. but keep the SPT roughly the same across all tribes into late game.

somber coral
reef wren
somber coral
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So far my favorite version of markets is one that I think Justeeni coined, where market cost scales very aggressively with number of markets already built. And I mean very aggressively. Something like 0 stars for the first market, 8 for the second, 16 for the third, and so on. This very quickly ramps up while at the same time allowing small players to use markets as a catchup mechanic

reef wren
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They really should just try to think of an cymanti analog to every ability... that's the only practical way to balance things.

somber coral
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Very similar to how embassies currently scale, but more aggressive (btw embassies should scale more aggressively as well)

reef wren
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For cymanti you could do a 'viral' thing, where if units are adjacent, the poison is contagious. maybe it takes a turn.

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but something roughly on par with knight, that forces units to be spread out.

somber coral
# reef wren They really should just try to think of an cymanti analog to every ability... th...

Not necessarily ability, but function yes. On that note, Cymanti needs some archer alternative that actually works. Since we just talked about double-strike, I actually think it would work perfectly on a phychi. A phychi that can attack twice instead of once might actually be worth buying, and could be used to deal chip damage to giants. It also allows for more tactical poison usage if you split up the attacks

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Might need to lose surprise so that it doesn't wreck archers and scouts. And maybe go up to 4 stars (although that is debatable). But it would make the phychi actually useful

reef wren
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the 'STIM' ability explained above -sort- helps a bit with hexpods countering archers, it's more of a 'rough equivalence' to roads. But yah, you still need a slight buff to phychi so they work as a 'rough equivalence' to archers.

somber coral
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I'll think a bit more on the STIM. It sounds somewhat clunky andn unintuitive, but I could warm up to it

reef wren
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nods

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It's as complex as roads are IMO

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at least objectively... but roads are intuitive because we all know how to drive a car... and can reason by analogy to something in the real world.

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so maybe 'STIM' even if it's objectively the same level of complexity, is less intuitive.

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Roads are not that easy... the 0.5 movement points, and how it rounds up, how different terrain affects them, etc etc.

somber coral
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Yeah many people still don't know hot it works

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I remember about a year ago in advanced strategy I was explaining to 2 people how roads worked, and they both had their own separate theory on the mechanics.

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Thing is, their theory also worked perfectly. Until I brought out boosted knights and/or interrupted roads

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So people can just in general develop a feeling for roads

reef wren
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nods , yup, if you don't learn about the actual mechanic from a YouTube video or some formal explanation, its not that easy to figure out - exactly.

stuck tiger
humble nimbus
# somber coral

yea doomux with explo after attack feels like a +40% strenght buff to this unit so this will completely change the end game; I'd even say it would probably be worth to use if new doomux cost 12s

livid kayak
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or you could nerf doomux damage by a little (to 3.5) or health (to 15?) or movement (to 2?)

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I like the idea of balancing it around 8

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8* to match knight

humble nimbus
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also i dont think it should match knight in any way, it should both be very strong expensive units but with different use case

livid kayak
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cym needs the same kind of use case, which is to help clear out big groups of rider/archer in the late game, which I think the current doomux does

humble nimbus
livid kayak
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I agree

leaden field
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I feel like some of the argument is "cymanti is worse than a top tier", but I feel like this should be the goal - special tribes should not be top tier

reef wren
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the only valid goal is ‘balance’ , thats even in the code to access the beta

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the very existence of tiers is a failure of midjiwan to achieve balance

void ivy
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With that being said, cymanti is definitely an outlier and definitely needs a buff

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and markets need a nerf

reef wren
cosmic saddle
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But that means chess is only perfectly balanced when played flawlessly by robots

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Also you can draw in chess but you can't in Polytopia

humble nimbus
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i think cym in released version is all good but it just gets too much stuff too fast, thats why i propose to just have 6star funghi cost but keep it as it was and keep old hex: this way cym is still v.strong but has less units and slower snowball;

humble nimbus
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funghi as base tech is the most efficient cost wise to get pop and thats what makes cym so broken + so many spores