Class Balancing

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BB - Bronzebeard
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Re: Class Balancing

Post by BB - Bronzebeard » Mon Jun 22, 2020 9:50 pm

RR - Exalted Voice wrote:
Mon Jun 22, 2020 6:52 pm
Landed Guilder (or Fighter/Thief) > Unlanded Thief/Priest > Unlanded Priest or Guilder > Landed Wizard > Landed Priest > Landed Paladin/Ranger > Landed Fighter > Unlanded Wizard > Unlanded Fighter/Ranger/Paladin

My totally fair assessment of game mechanics on what is worth playing in our start from scratch/near nothing games. Thieves have set up cost (creating those trade routes) - but no long term action drain and make significantly more gold than fighters. And the small difference between in WP is actually missing the point. You have a Fighter LT who can do much of your training anyway. Regent (single class)-Warriors are pretty trash. Wizards are very good early and then become kind of meaningless later but if they are landed at least there is no significant action-drain to being a wizard. Their spells don't scale very well in larger games except Gold Rush becoming a really good spell. And Priests can generally dispel their effects - Priests are better. Priests have significant action-cost to be efficient. Eg. Bless Land / Rule Province / Maintain Armies. It is detrimental to efficient priesting to rule provinces (you cannot Population Growth as efficiently).
While I might quibble about some of the placements on the order it seems reasonable but would not be my order of preference. However, the classes do not need to be balanced. D&D classes were never balanced and even the latest editions, which tried to do so did not succeed well. The better question is are the various classes being played and based on the last couple of games, all of the landed classes mentioned have been played in each of them. While some/most of the unlanded classes weren't played that isn't suprising with both the game setups and the fact that Birthright is focused on landed regents. I don't really see a need to adjust classes if people are choosing to play all of them.
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Re: Class Balancing

Post by TH - The Hunt » Mon Jun 22, 2020 10:16 pm

Huh. I'd rank unlanded wizard above landed wizard. Having land is just a painful complication to a wizard (unless they're a fighter/wizard). And I'd rank guilder (landed or not) below all the other classes due to the complexity of playing one, and the lack of special advantages with spells and armies. Though, that's nice when you don't want the same responsibility... or when you want to avoid looking like a threat despite your domain power. Guilders can get much more GB and RP income before eyebrows start to rise about them.

Comparing priests and wizards just seems too much apples-to-oranges, whichever one of the two you don't have is the one that's better to have. I think the reason why the regents with the highest bloodline scores tend to be priests is because other players are more likely to show deference to them than to rogues and wizards.

Re: Level caps, I don't think PCs are getting that powerful as-is.
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HaQ - Hakim al-Qadr
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Re: Class Balancing

Post by HaQ - Hakim al-Qadr » Tue Jun 30, 2020 1:39 pm

Landed Wizards are a little (in my mind) better because it gives them a steady income without requiring anything from them. Wizards and Thieves have minimal turn over turn action-requirements which in my mind makes them the best landed rulers - they can splurge on the 4x Rule Province each summer. Fighters need to amass armies which takes actions to replenish/build. Summer is the best time to fight. It is a tension for action economy. A Landed-Guilder could pay the Fighter to amass a large army and take the summer ruling up while sending the Fighter off to raid/invade/disrupt the neighbour who is trying to rule their provinces. It is more action-efficient.

Priests need to Bless/Pop Growth pretty much every turn they need to cast at least 1 bless and every summer should cast 4 population growths. Priests are the worst/least efficient landed rulers.

You can make the argument that a wizard could - if unlanded - be employed to plague a whole bunch of people over a summer. And I agree. They could. Which is why I think the most logical landed class in our version of the game is the Thief/Guilder player. It is a weird argument - I am basically saying because how we have structured actions in the game - and how pretty terrible espionage is to be honest - compared to realm spells/amassing armies - their lack of versatility beyond throwing money at everything - makes them the logical landed regent...
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Re: Class Balancing

Post by TH - The Hunt » Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:26 pm

That's assuming the regents care more about the effectiveness of a hypothetical 'team' they're part of than about their own domain strength. I think it's more important for a landed regent to be able to maintain control of their lands than to be able to use their actions efficiently, in practice. Anything else requires being surrounded by a very unusual cast of characters. I think that's why we don't see guilder-empires often, haha.
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Re: Class Balancing

Post by HaQ - Hakim al-Qadr » Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:36 pm

Is that a challenge? :twisted:
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Re: Class Balancing

Post by TH - The Hunt » Tue Jun 30, 2020 7:42 pm

Literally!

My first draft for Areida was a half-Brecht guilder, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to play a demipaladin after qualifying for it.
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Re: Class Balancing

Post by SG - Sigrun Godefroy » Sat Jul 04, 2020 11:14 am

So i will say that i didn't play a straight wizard, but a fighter wizard, annnnnd i made no money unless i asked the guilder ortemples for loans, I couldn't maintain an army nor could i really build buildings , this is despite dunscaith being one of the largest provinces in the game... I was really destitute and poor.

the former game I played a straight fighter had one of the largest realms... and was still destitute and poor and couldn't raise an army with out the guilders giving me money and temples, which they never did. This is while running each province in each game on high taxes that could generate money. I don't think i took dunscaith off high taxes all game long and still barely made money.

Trade routes make money based off the amount of trade traveling into a province, but none of this wealth goes to the person who collects the taxes which pretty much means there's tarrif free trade, what i'd propose is that a high law province could siphon off more of the trade from the provinces, of course if you own the law holdings and the guilds it wouldn't effect you, but it would balance things out between the law and the guilds a bit.

I imagine the law holdings to be like the nobility class, there should be some way of either making more money off them, or on the guilds/temples that actually makes the law feel impactful, it would make the law holders feel like the reigning nobles and kings able to tax money from those who are subject in their realm
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Re: Class Balancing

Post by SG - Sigrun Godefroy » Sat Jul 04, 2020 11:18 am

Objectively, why would you ever choose a fighter over anything else, yes you might not be able to train troops as efficiently, but a fighter LT would solve that issue, this game as far as i've been able to tell is who can generate the most money and maintain the largest armies. unless a fighter wins a war or get's a good treaty/partners to support them, then really they are up the fcreek with out the paddle.
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CIC - Duke Cicero
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Re: Class Balancing

Post by CIC - Duke Cicero » Sat Jul 04, 2020 11:24 am

IT, that basically comes down to norms. It's an option to tax trade routes. In the last game, some of mine were taxed. This game, I don't think any were. I only really had trade routes in provinces where I was the state guilder and a valued (ish?) member of the team, and I made financial contributions in other ways, especially as time went on. The last few turns I was asking every turn what projects the team needed money for and handing it out like candy, no loans just grants. Some of my guild holdings were taxed, too, but not all.

If nobody is taxing trade routes, you might be the jerk for imposing one, and a guilder might take their business elsewhere. But you could probably still find a guilder willing to run one for you even taxed heavily, as long as they have reason to believe the realm is stable and the trade route isn't going to get cut. Things like, *ahem,* bridges getting destroyed make guilders nervous.

I guess the TL;DR is if you're not getting cash from your guilders and temples, you should be getting in-kind services, and if you're getting neither, you should replace them.
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Re: Class Balancing

Post by CIC - Duke Cicero » Sat Jul 04, 2020 11:25 am

IT - Inari Tali-Ilhanta wrote:
Sat Jul 04, 2020 11:18 am
Objectively, why would you ever choose a fighter over anything else, yes you might not be able to train troops as efficiently, but a fighter LT would solve that issue, this game as far as i've been able to tell is who can generate the most money and maintain the largest armies. unless a fighter wins a war or get's a good treaty/partners to support them, then really they are up the fcreek with out the paddle.
On that note I thought it was asked previously whther LTs could use their own TP for train actions and the answer was no ...
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