Some ideas for balancing the game

Farthest Frontier Ideas and Feedback
1

FF is a great game. I’m looking forward to version 1.0

However, there are some issues in the game that should be adjusted a bit. This will increase the appeal of the game.

  1. Forager Shack level 2

At level 1, everything is fine. Productivity is good but the range of activities must be changed frequently, the foragers have to go to far away places and risk facing attacks from wild animals and losing their lives

But level 2 is completely different.
Foragers just need to stay at home but still bring great economic efficiency.
Merchants seem to like ginseng. I often sell 500-1000 ginseng for 5 gold/ginseng to them. The same goes for herbs.
The yield is too high (compared to the area, labor used)
Not affected by disease
Not affected by weather
No need to spend much effort to improve the land (to create fields)
No need to rotate crops
Not affected by fertility
Not attacked by wild animals
…
Completely unreasonable

My suggestion:

  • Reduce the yield of Forager Shack level 2 to half of the current level
  • If possible, do not allow Forager Shack level 2 to produce Berries (that is the responsibility of Arborist Building), if you want Greens, plant cabbage, celery in the fields. If you still want Forager Shack level 2 to grow these things, reduce the yield to 25% of the current level
  1. Heavy Cavalry

The attack power of this type of troop is too great, especially when they have the ability to deal AOE damage.
In the early and mid game, only 8-16 of these cavalry do not need towers and walls because they can easily slaughter 100-200 raiders.

Not only that, although they are heavily equipped, their movement speed is twice as fast as the light cavalry of the raiders.

My suggestion:

  • Reduce the attack power by 30-50% and reduce the movement speed by 50%.
  1. Raider power
    Compared to previous versions, the raiders are too weak.

A player on youtube joked that: maybe the raiders bribed the game developers not to send them to him to slaughter.

My suggestion: Bring the raiders’ power back to the 0.9.2 version

I also want to change the priority of the raiders. I often see raiders desperately slashing at stone walls while my cavalry rushes in to slaughter them. In my opinion, when attacked, the raider will stop slashing walls/structures and attack the player’s troops. If the player’s troops go out of the raider’s damage range, they will turn to attack the structure instead of chasing and being “kited”

Regards!

2

Then there would be no point in getting it
You actually get less stuff with it than a decent area in Lowland Lakes. In Arid Highlands (where the only options are Herbs, Willow, and Berries), it’s your only source of Herbs and Willow other than the trader, and can be an incredibly necessary source for your Preservers.

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3

I once played the Arid Highlands map in version 0.9.2. It was a strange map, there was no lake (even the smallest one), no herbs at all and very little willow (to harvest it you have to go very far). It was a very interesting challenge, I had to import herbs from the merchant. The beginning of the game was really difficult but I overcame it.

In some other seeds of the Arid Highlands map, there were still small lakes (although very far away) but that was still enough for me.

Now, with the appearance of Forager Shack level 2, everything has become too easy with the Arid Highlands map. No need to go kilometers just to get a few dozen herbs, just sit in one place and have an abundant and stable supply.

The biggest challenge of the Arid Highlands map is the difficulty in producing food. Now with Forager Shack level 2, everything becomes meaningless and can be the easiest map.

Each map has its own challenges and advantages. For example:

  • Arid Highlands has a lot of ore: iron, coal, sand and a lot of stone. Mining a lot of these and selling them for food and clay is an effective way to operate.

  • Peaceful Valley and Plains have a lot of clay, fertile land but very few resource ore mines. In the mid and late game I always buy all the ores that the merchant brings at any price.

  • Lake area: very easy to defend because the lakes will create choke points that the raider has to go through. But I really hate this map because my layout requires a large map, and in the game there is no tool to fill the lakes to create building land.

4

You’re getting herbs on your Arid Highlands maps? I don’t think I’ve seen herbs on them ever, but that may be because I only play Vanquisher.
To get Level 2 Forager you have to get to Tier 3 first, and then have bricks and clay to upgrade (all your Clay is from the trader).

At that stage of the game, you’re probably having to make farms far out to get to spots that actually have farming potential, which is a ~30% Fertility Factor. So many more sets of fields far away from the town, Arborists far away from town in the only viable land, dependence on Goat farms. All this so, late into the game, you can struggle to reach 6 months of food so villagers don’t get drunk and get the murder curse (unlike Lowland Lakes, you don’t have a huge excess of spare Labourers once you near 1k pop since so many are in food production).

Pic: First time having a game in Arid Highlands that got even near 1k pop (only just reached it, lots of improvements to make it sustainable), 2nd game ever near 1k pop, thanks to the work I’ve done in more recent months starting to calm my extremely disfunctional and aggravated nervous system

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5

If there’s one thing that’s too easy, it’s how nerfed raiding parties are now. I haven’t seen a single catapult since I started playing for the first time since May several weeks ago.

6

I definitely play vanquisher mode. I’ve even asked the devs to increase the difficulty several times because it’s getting easier.

On the Arid Highlands map I played, there’s a very small lake (maybe 5x5) with some herbs and willows around the edge. If you want, I can send you the save file.

The only thing that annoys me about this map is the need to flatten the terrain. It’s very boring even though I have a way to flatten the entire map into a single plane.

I don’t think having to get to tier 3 is a barrier to the problem I’m talking about. I always get to tier 3 very quickly.

For Arid Highlands, my development plan to get to tier 3 is as follows:

  • Take advantage of all wild food sources. I put hunters everywhere where there are deer and wild boars (they are a bit aggressive but they have a lot of meat :D); 2-3 level 1 Forager Shacks are enough for me to harvest all the wild vegetables and fruits around the settlement (I change their harvesting areas every 3-4 months).
  • Quickly start mining gold and iron mines around the house. These are easy to sell and have a high price. The gold I get I buy beans from the merchant - this is very cheap (only 1-2 gold for 1 unit). Trading posts can store products indefinitely without spoiling.
  • Clear 3 9x9 fields to grow beans, radishes, clover. Set up crop rotation to avoid crop diseases
    1 villager only consumes 2 food units per month so I always have a large food reserve (4-6 months depending on the time)
    The only problem is clay, traders don’t always bring cheap clay. Always need to take the opportunity to buy it all if they bring it

…
More about farming

I don’t like it when my farmers have to travel too far, this affects the long-term development of the settlement. I don’t intend to “make a quick buck”, my goal is to make the settlement last 200 years or longer (as long as I have enough patience or the game developer brings enough powerful invaders for me to destroy them)

Therefore, I always choose land near the settlement, regardless of how fertile it is, or I have to level a large area. The long-term future is the ultimate goal.

So how to solve the problem of fertility?

I divided the fields into 2 different areas.

  • Area 1: only plant clover and remove weeds. Set up a grazing area for livestock in this area. Cattle will eat clover, this food source is very large and good for their growth. The waste from livestock will help the fields become fertile.

  • Area 2: conduct crop rotation like other maps. Note: if possible, limit planting crops that reduce soil fertility, the more the better. Other crops bring lower yields but the land of the Arid Highlands map is like that.

When the fields in Area 2 are less fertile, switch the roles of these 2 areas with each other.

NOTE: remember to fence these two areas to prevent livestock from running into the food crop area

You can refer to this player on how to set up the fields.

Also, if you have a large number of livestock, graze them in the fruit growing area to improve the fertility of the soil.

One issue I am researching is whether water sources increase the growth of food crops? I plan to plant trees along the fields, the trees will accumulate water. Will this have a positive or negative impact on food production.

7

Yes, the game developer has reduced the power of the raider. It is very rare to see catapuls appearing. In my opinion, they should increase the number of appearances and increase the HP of the catapul. The HP should be increased by 3 times and the number of catapuls in a raid should be = 5%-10% of the number of raiders.

8

What I’d like is if the Catapults could be marked on the world map and be more obvious to see. It’s easy to miss them.

When they first came out (when raiders almost always just made a beeline to the Town Centre), I would have my cavalry go out and wipe out all the catapults, while my soldiers would sit in their Barracks nearby pelting them with arrows (if able), and then I would bring them out if they got through all the gates.

9

Yes. Raider AI needs improvement.

If possible I would like the devs to change the Raider attack strategy.

They should split into 2 teams.
Half of them should advance around the Rams to try to breach the walls.
Half should defend the Catapul. The Catapul will always prioritize the watchtowers and forts, then the gates. This team will only attack when all of the above targets are destroyed or the 1st team is completely destroyed.

btw: I don’t like the way the Raiders run away. I want them to attack to death except for the ones called “thieves” - they should run away immediately after stealing something

10

If you tweak the custom controls to increase forager outputs you don’t need level two. If you remove deer from the game you have to import hides. Barns don’t produce anything near enough even though cowhide produces three times what a deer could provide. (I’ve worked in a tannery.)

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