Could we make T4 dwelling and summon only please ?

[Nerdfish]

I'd be very much against such a cap because - as mentioned - they tend to take decisions out of your hands. In the worst case scenario - why bother with even researching/building when you can't guarantee a supply that would justify it.

I can only speak for AoW 3, not for planetfall, but T4s are NOT all-conquering; when they are produced/summoned there isn't that much XP to be gained, except on very rich very large maps, and a Champion 7 Troll you nursed right from charming it in turn 10 will beat every T4 you just produced.
Mass-producing T4s in AoW 3 is neither possible nor advisable, since it's much better and practical to mix stacks, especially since MCUs and RG tend to give lower-tier units a lot of oomph - plus, you NEED support units anyway.

If you can mass-produce T4s and spam them all over the place, you are playing with the wrong settings/mods.

I would be very much against any kind of artificial cap. There are enough gameplay mechanisms to limit tier 4 spam without it:

- Upkeep becomes too high.
- Lower tier units can be upgraded or gain experience until they can compete at least to a certain degree.
- Cost can be made expensive enough that you just want a few.
- Tier 4 units get stronger from non-tier 4 units, like the Shrine of Smiting in AoW3.
- Tier 4 units can give an aura bonus to the entire stack that doesn't stack; so after the first every Tier 4 unit wastes it's aura and therefore part of it's power.
- Tier 4 units can be made to fulfill a specific niche, while sucking if you spam them, like transport units in earlier AoWs or a unit that requires setup or protection to work properly.

And I could probably think of a bunch more options.

Jolly, Leyrann, This is a specific problem with higher level AI. Players have enough reasons not to spam T4 Mono-stacks but AI King and Emperor does because they basically don't care about upkeep. This still happens, especially with rogues and warlords. Their army is about 50% T4 and they put their T4 in offensive Mono-stacks. Players would only occasionally face stacks of other things. This happened last weekend with 4 player FFA, medium map (2 layers), emperor difficulty, city founding off, city density low, unifier and seals off.

 

[mr_stibbons]

I think this is more of a problem with AOW3 t4 design than with produceable t4's in general. Both Manticore riders and shadow stalkers are incredibly powerful melee units that fly, which don't really have a counter in tactical combat and are more mobile than the majority of units on the strategic map. They instantly obsolete almost all of the racial t3 units and all the warlord t3 units by being much better in a fight and frequently more mobile. Making full stacks of them as a highly mobile death squad is a pretty obvious and optimal move. Why on earth would you not do that if you had the resources?

Of course, this can apply to many of the non-production t4 units as well. If you could feasibly get multiple stacks of Eldritch horrors or dragons, you would.

The answer is to not make do-anything t4 units with high damage output, survivability and mobility, and especially to be careful about flying t4 units, while designing t3 units with unique abilities that can make a case for themselves against superior stats. Then, regardless of settings mixed armies are useable.

Another consideration about this topic is that there is a default tech victory in the game, which, if balanced properly, should end the game before mass t4 grinds become a problem. I know some people dislike non-conquest victories, but there is a reason they keep getting implemented-to cut the endgame grind short.

 

[Leyrann]

Jolly, Leyrann, This is a specific problem with higher level AI. Players have enough reasons not to spam T4 Mono-stacks but AI King and Emperor does because they basically don't care about upkeep. This still happens, especially with rogues and warlords. Their army is about 50% T4 and they put their T4 in offensive Mono-stacks. Players would only occasionally face stacks of other things. This happened last weekend with 4 player FFA, medium map (2 layers), emperor difficulty, city founding off, city density low, unifier and seals off.

Luckily upkeep is only one of six ways I thought of in about five minutes to mitigate it...

 

[Fluksen]

On T4s - and back on topic - I know this was a thing when AoW3 had just launched.
However we did address this in subsequent patches, so I wonder if this is still a thing that happens in the current game.
Has anyone run into this issue recently? If so, can you tell me a bit about the circumstances (number of turns played, number of players left, are those players humans or AI, etc.)?

[...] they put their T4 in offensive Mono-stacks. Players would only occasionally face stacks of other things. This happened last weekend with 4 player FFA, medium map (2 layers)

Hmm @sikbok there you have your recent issue... But I must say I haven't had an issue with the AI spamming T4 but then I play multiplayer mostly so I wouldn't know. @Nerdfish do you play the patched up version I thought one of the patches included something like "AI will not build monostacks ever".

[...] produceable t4's in general. Both Manticore riders and shadow stalkers are incredibly powerful melee units that fly [...]

I just have to clarify your statement here: Shadow stalkers are T3 not T4 and they float and don't fly, still they are extremely powerful (especially with dark pact) but are countered by fire and spirit damage. Rogue is the only class without a dedicated T4 unit. But I agree with your mobility statements it's like the strongest "mass producable unit" (manticore rider) also happens to be one of the fastest (32 mp, flying), can effectively migitate the upkeep cap by the "inspire loyalty" spell and it's counters (shadow stalker and phalanx) are only available to opponent rogues or warlords with the phalanxes being considerably slower than the manticores. So yeah I hope Planetfall T4s will not be "mass producable" but feel more special and the strongest unit should probably not also be among the fastest units in game. Having said this I think those "problems" only occur in very long matches and I certainly haven't stumbled upon them much against AI since they patched the monostack issue.

 

[Bob5]

I haven't really seen AIs spam T4s much. Rogues do tend to spam Shadow Stalkers late-game a bit, and I've seen Warlords still spam Manticore riders. To be fair, I also kind of forced that Warlord to spam Manticores as I was very much ahead in Seal charges and was across the water from them with Entangling Walls cities. Manticore Rider spam was by far the best thing he could have done in that situation. In a way I don't think it's too much of an issue, the AI tends to be weaker in tactical battles compared to humans (which is a bit more pronounced in siege battles and large-scale battles). If it doesn't have the power advantage with higher tier units it can't be competitive anymore. There are other ways to deal with Manticores besides Shadow Stalkers and Phalanx. Theocrats have the Slayer's Doubt spell, which admittedly only targets one at a time, but once hit it essentially shuts them down and opens them up to being kited. Archdruids can often Entangle them with their Shaman and have the Revive Instinct spell to slow them down. Sorcerers can often try to stun them or spam Phantasm Warriors. Static Electricity is also a spell they really don't like. Eldritch Horrors have a good matchup as they can cause Manticores to get panicked. Necromancers can use Reapers to panic them and Reapers don't go down easily to Manticores either. Necromancers can also come with Ghoul Curses to get Manticore riders of their own.

As for Shadow Stalkers, they're T3, not T4. They're still scary in their own right, especially in late-game when the AI gets Dark Pact, but they do have some significant weaknesses that the AI doesn't always account for. Bane of the Unnatural from the Creation Mastery is essentially Shadow Stalker's worst nightmare, with it active even Archers can bring down a Shadow Stalker in 3 to 4 hits.

 

[BloodyBattleBrain]

Back on topic, I believe that the mod system is designed to make t1 and t2 units more viable into the end game, a little bit like Starcraft I think, where marines are still useful in end game.

I think the core complaint of the OP is having mono stacks, and there are many ways to encourage diverse force composition.

For example, I was thinking about flying units in the new game. We know they have true flying, meaning melee units can't touch them, so there's at least 1 unit (Kir'ko infantry) that's hard countered in a way that doesn't happen in AoW3.

So, how do you balance all flying stacks?Flying by definition means better mobility, and all flying stacks were an issue in AoW3 too (although they tended to be either expensive or fairly weak, like Exalted or Succubi.)

How do you avoid players just making all flying stacks?

I know as Theocrat one of my goals is to get a 6 stack of Exalted and just cause havok .

So, in Planetfall, why not make flying units unable to capture sectors?

It's a bit harsh, a bit arbitrary, but this would make sure players woukd always need marines.

Sinilar thinking coukd be applied to T4 units.

You could:

1. Make them require lots of resources/upkeep
2. Make them require a special resource
3. Have a long tech requirement
4. Give them a distinct weakness and strength (air galley were flying and ranged, but could be brought down by a few archers)
5. Make them mechanically unable to be stacked (I *think* the classic air galley was like this.)
6. Boost their synergy with lower tier units (Shrines power up off devout , but aren't devout themselves, which makes the best Theocrat army actually 5 Exalted and a Shrine)
7. Production/resource overflow to encouragelower tier unit production. In AoW3, no matter how high your production, and I've seen cities with 100 plus hammers, you can produce precisely one unit max per turn. That means my choice in a 100 hammer town comes down to a t4 in 3 turns or a t3 and a half in 3 turns. If it was more like 1 T4 unit OR 6 t1 units, that would be a game changer.

The core issue though is that you only have 6 units in an army, and assuming the basic adjacent hex system hasn't been changed, you'll have 4 armies against 3, or 3 against 4, in any serious battle.

In other words space is at a huge premium.

IF the adjacent hex rule is expanded (as I would like it to be) to include 2 or 3 extra hexes, OR armies exert a zone of control, area determined by army size (larger army = larger zone of control) then you have incentives to have larger armies, which would therefore, with some economic tweaks, mean more lower tier armies.

I would be very much against any kind of artificial cap. There are enough gameplay mechanisms to limit tier 4 spam without it:

- Upkeep becomes too high.
- Lower tier units can be upgraded or gain experience until they can compete at least to a certain degree.
- Cost can be made expensive enough that you just want a few.
- Tier 4 units get stronger from non-tier 4 units, like the Shrine of Smiting in AoW3.
- Tier 4 units can give an aura bonus to the entire stack that doesn't stack; so after the first every Tier 4 unit wastes it's aura and therefore part of it's power.
- Tier 4 units can be made to fulfill a specific niche, while sucking if you spam them, like transport units in earlier AoWs or a unit that requires setup or protection to work properly.

And I could probably think of a bunch more options.

Luckily upkeep is only one of six ways I thought of in about five minutes to mitigate it...

Seems obvious no one but JJ read what I wrote else we wouldn't be repeating it...


Anyway, I do think the T4 "problem" as such comes down to late/end game grind/settings, and it's interesting that with the seals victory, t4 "spam" is never an issue iirc.

I'm a fan of fewer battles in a game, but have them more decisive.

That's probably one of the reasons I like the proposed/implemented free garrison defence.

 

[BloodyBattleBrain]

Ideally, but this is likely far too fiddly for most people/this game series, I'd like a more in-depth supply/logistics modelling system.


By which I mean thingsnlike food ,fuel and munitions are things that need to be produced and used.

It's not turn based but Company of Heroes had fuel and ammo in sectors that needed to be captured and connected to be of use, so in that respect (sectors need to be captured and connected) Planetfall promises to be similar, so in theory fuel, munitions (and food) could work.


Done well it could also pace gameplay and provide a clever player a way to win without directly fighting (aka be a Rogue) because in AoW3 sooner or later you need to attack cities.

It also limits the direct power of a t4 unit simply because they can't be everywhere all the time, or require considerable logistics etc to support.

A real life analogy, simplified, is the German Tiger tank of World War 2. Incredible machine(tier 5!), could handle 2 T34 (Soviet) tanks easily, or 3 Shermans.(both tier 3 or 3.5 lol)

Problem for the Germans was that the Soviets were pumping out something like 5 T34s for every Tiger.

And the US alone was doing something similar.

I maintain that having rollover production would have changed this balance/use equation significantly in AoW3, because it's not just how much you can pack into one space (aka stack limit-btw unit size and stack capacity has never been touched in AoW3, I.e.have more smaller units in a stack or fewer larger units) but how fast they come out .

If it was actually realistic to pump out 6 Pikes in the same time as 1 Manticore, well then 6 Mantciors or 36 Pikes is a much more interesting matchup.

 

[Nerdfish]

BattleBrain: "Late game" Shermans were considerably upgraded and it wouldn't take 4 of them to take on one Tiger 1, that was something of a myth because tank tend to operate in platoons, so Shermans were never deployed in anything less than a platoon of 4.
Back on topic. as for modeling logistics, it would indeed help unless T4 units flies. in that case it might make the situation worse, because T4 can fly somewhere, take a sector, then immediately fly back to nearest depot, repair and rearm, then fly somewhere else before equivalent T3 can finish resupplying. Devs need to be careful if there are anything like T4 heavy gunships, especially in a game without static AA emplacement.

 

[mr_stibbons]

I just have to clarify your statement here: Shadow stalkers are T3 not T4 and they float and don't fly, still they are extremely powerful (especially with dark pact) but are countered by fire and spirit damage. Rogue is the only class without a dedicated T4 unit. But I agree with your mobility statements it's like the strongest "mass producable unit" (manticore rider) also happens to be one of the fastest (32 mp, flying), can effectively migitate the upkeep cap by the "inspire loyalty" spell and it's counters (shadow stalker and phalanx) are only available to opponent rogues or warlords with the phalanxes being considerably slower than the manticores. So yeah I hope Planetfall T4s will not be "mass producable" but feel more special and the strongest unit should probably not also be among the fastest units in game. Having said this I think those "problems" only occur in very long matches and I certainly haven't stumbled upon them much against AI since they patched the monostack issue.

While shadow stalkers aren't technically t4, as the highest tech rogue unit, and as a unit that tends to get spammed late game, they deserve to be discussed in this thread. The fact that they are only paying t3 upkeep and infrastructure costs, while being noticeably more powerful than other t3 units is probably a large part of the problem. Rogue also doesn't have many options for late game units-succubi aren't really front line units, while most racial t3 units are just worse than stalkers.

I think the problem isn't that t4 units that can be made out of any city-it's that Shadow Stalkers and Manticore Riders interact with their respective classes in such a way that mass producing only them is a dominant option late game. The AOW3 model for t4 units will probably work if the t4 and t3 lineups are designed such that a t4 doesn't obsolete all the t3 units available, and if the dev's keep a close eye on abilities that reduce upkeep costs.

 

[Jolly Joker]

Ok, let me repeat this for the last time:

There is no T4 spamming problem, not on King and Emperor either. True, the AI has the economy to do it, but: it is hindered, because there is a percentage limit of what the AI can build, and the default is 20 %. That means, the AI cannot have more than 20 % of its whole army in one specific troop. So when the AI has 80 units when it starts producing Manticore Riders it can spam 20 of them (and even put it in 3 stacks), BUT THAT'S IT! After that it has to build OTHER units, say, Warbreeds, and once the INITIAL building is over (that is, a new unit is researched, and after that it is "spammed" until the percentage limit is reached), a unit cannot be spammed AT ALL anymore, because the AI will reach the building limit again. Only if it loses significant amounts of a unit, it can start spamming again.

And, guys, when you play on Emperor it SHOULD be difficult, and it isn't difficult when the AI tries to get you with T1s. Try playing with Beacons, say, 3, so that the AI won't simply outproduce you, and then play with, like -500 Empire Happiness, because every opponent lit a beacon.

*I* actually find that the AI is CRIPPLED by the 20 % and modded it up to 26 %

@ BBB

The best tank in WWII was in fact the T34 - except for the fact they didn't have crew radio! That was the decisive disadvantage because they had no good way to coordinate movements of turret and tank.

 

[Thrake]

1. Boost their synergy with lower tier units (Shrines power up off devout , but aren't devout themselves, which makes the best Theocrat army actually 5 Exalted and a Shrine)
2. Production/resource overflow to encouragelower tier unit production. In AoW3, no matter how high your production, and I've seen cities with 100 plus hammers, you can produce precisely one unit max per turn. That means my choice in a 100 hammer town comes down to a t4 in 3 turns or a t3 and a half in 3 turns. If it was more like 1 T4 unit OR 6 t1 units, that would be a game changer.

That look like the best way to balance it out to me. Alternatively, low tiers could be given more support abilities that are not necessarily useful against low tiers but become relevant against high tiers. Think of pikes for exemple, they are mostly good against cavalry or flyers which are tier 2 or 3, or even 4. Early game I would commonly deal with roaming skeletal dragons with T1 pikemen, just outnumbering them (would sacrify something to drain their action points and then pierce their defense with flank and pike bonus, so next turn they can't attack and I drain again their AP and repeat until victory). Of course sort of buff/debuff can work too.

Personnaly in AOW3 I was mostly ignoring low tiers because if I can produce 1 T1 a turn or 1 T3 as long as I have the economy to support the T3, it's a no-brainer, and the fact that T1 end up dying in 1 hit (or a gold or hero T1 might survive just 1 hit) so even if it has cool abilities through medals it's only realistic to keep alive those I leveled early game, afterwards they just die before leveling so they never reach a point where they get useful abilities.

 

[sikbok]

Analyzing the screenshots we have seen I assumed the last "resource" was a T4 cap "resource". Ref:

Speculating now but I imagine the resource being from left to right: Energy, Ore, Research, Influence, Morale/Happiness, Operation/Command points, Tier 4 cap.

For starters, your speculation is a bit off. However, we do have a 'fancy resource' somewhere there in the top bar that does something close to what we are discussing : D>
Calling the fancy resource 'Tier 4 cap' doesn't really do it justice though. First of all, the resource is used for high level units - not just T4s - in the current setup. In addition, Planetfall has unit mods which can be applied to all sorts of units. That - together with production rollover - will change the power balance between tiers quite a lot.

And to address some of the comments about T4 design. We've learned from AoW3 and took an angle for Planetfall that should resolve some if the issues noted in this discussion.

Players have enough reasons not to spam T4 Mono-stacks but AI King and Emperor does because they basically don't care about upkeep. This still happens, especially with rogues and warlords. Their army is about 50% T4 and they put their T4 in offensive Mono-stacks. Players would only occasionally face stacks of other things. This happened last weekend with 4 player FFA, medium map (2 layers), emperor difficulty, city founding off, city density low, unifier and seals off.

Hmm @sikbok there you have your recent issue... But I must say I haven't had an issue with the AI spamming T4 but then I play multiplayer mostly so I wouldn't know. @Nerdfish do you play the patched up version I thought one of the patches included something like "AI will not build monostacks ever".

So, from this I take the issue is not T4 production but mono-stacking. Given the classes this happens for - Rogue (Shadow Stalker) and Warlord (Manticore) - I'd assume this is an emergent behavior of how the AI plans its missions and moves units around. Given the movement types - both non-walkers - they'll likely get clumped together naturally.

Do wonder nerdfish, how many turns in did this issue occur for you? The 50% T4 sounds on the high side. It might be due to unit retention and T4 being more survivable. It might also be due to a few cities with very high production, which is where the question about turn count comes in.

 

[BloodyBattleBrain]

BattleBrain: "Late game" Shermans were considerably upgraded and it wouldn't take 4 of them to take on one Tiger 1, that was something of a myth because tank tend to operate in platoons, so Shermans were never deployed in anything less than a platoon of 4..

I thought I'd caveated my statement enough by saying it was a simplification. I don't wan to digfress into the relative merits/myths of WW2 tanks, suffice to say my understanding is that the Tiger Tank was really something special, but required too many finely engineered parts (at a time when the manufacturing hubs of Germany were being bombed) whereas the other mentioned Tanks were pretty simple machines.

Point was to illustrate how mass production (production rollover in AoW) could be better than specialized/powerful single units. Also, as a side note, I think production rollover would have benefited Goblins massively.

The reason I mention it (and I wasn't clear in my earlier post, apologies) is because I *think* production rollover is in Planetfall. If that is the case...



CANCEL: "I think" and replace with "Sikbok just confirmed it in the preceding post!"

Ok, let me repeat this for the last time:

There is no T4 spamming problem, not on King and Emperor either. True, the AI has the economy to do it, but: it is hindered, because there is a percentage limit of what the AI can build, and the default is 20 %. That means, the AI cannot have more than 20 % of its whole army in one specific troop. So when the AI has 80 units when it starts producing Manticore Riders it can spam 20 of them (and even put it in 3 stacks), BUT THAT'S IT! After that it has to build OTHER units, say, Warbreeds, and once the INITIAL building is over (that is, a new unit is researched, and after that it is "spammed" until the percentage limit is reached), a unit cannot be spammed AT ALL anymore, because the AI will reach the building limit again. Only if it loses significant amounts of a unit, it can start spamming again.

And, guys, when you play on Emperor it SHOULD be difficult, and it isn't difficult when the AI tries to get you with T1s. Try playing with Beacons, say, 3, so that the AI won't simply outproduce you, and then play with, like -500 Empire Happiness, because every opponent lit a beacon.

*I* actually find that the AI is CRIPPLED by the 20 % and modded it up to 26 %

@ BBB

The best tank in WWII was in fact the T34 - except for the fact they didn't have crew radio! That was the decisive disadvantage because they had no good way to coordinate movements of turret and tank.

I am still flying the flag for the Tiger and Centurion

JJ, if the AI has 100 units and "only" 20 of those are Manticore Riders, well that still works out as a form of spam because your battles are limited to 42 units max.


And the AI will frequently have ore than that...and if you have 7 AI....


Maybe spam is the wrong word. Like I said earlier, the core issue/problem/challenge is having an end game that is fun.

In AoW3, large + map settings, the relative size/importance of battles goes down while the unit count goes way up and the result is a bit of a grind where the player faces off against the same units again and again....or at least seems to.


In my single player games, I knock out the first AI about turn 30 give or take, and there are a few small battles and one big battle at the throne. Big here means using most of my armies.

AI number 2 might have 4 big battles....


AI number 7...might have 4 big battles per turn for 20 turns.


Perception is key here.

 

[BloodyBattleBrain]

I'm going to digress slightly, because I don;t think it's worth a new thread, but flying units merit a discussion imho.

because T4 can fly somewhere, take a sector, then immediately fly back to nearest depot, repair and rearm, then fly somewhere else before equivalent T3 can finish resupplying. Devs need to be careful if there are anything like T4 heavy gunships, especially in a game without static AA emplacement.

This post made me think a little.

What if:

1. flying units can't capture anything? It might be too harsh a restriction, but I'd posit the following real life analogy/example: Modern fighter jets are incredible machines, yet generally have limited range and can't capture any ground.
2. Capturing a sector requires 2-3 turns. Company of Heroes/Dawn of War have an advantage here in that real time means a few seconds to de/cap the point.
3. Static map defences. We know for sure there's at least one upgrade that increases sensors for the sector, and I think it increases base defence for the sector, so it wouldn't be much of a stretch to have a static emplacement that fires. IN AoW1 there was a spell (Watcher iirc?) that created a watchtower equivalent basically, so conceptually it could work. Infact, you could theme a faction around static defences (*cough* Dwarves/DVAR)
4. In the example given, of a t4 flier raiding and returning...well then why not have the player attack the logistics base? If it is something like an airfield, seems like a fairly easy thing to target.

However, we do have a 'fancy resource' somewhere there in the top bar that does something close to what we are discussing : D>
Calling the fancy resource 'Tier 4 cap' doesn't really do it justice though. First of all, the resource is used for high level units - not just T4s - in the current setup

So, a softcap on higher tier units is already in. And, now that i think about it, the underlying idea behind different resources/logistics was basically to have a soft cap.

That - together with production rollover - will change the power balance between tiers quite a lot.

PRODUCTION


ROLLOVER.

This and the sectors represent TWO major mechanical changes to the game. So much so that at this point I don't think we really have enough information to discuss T4 in the new game.

So, I'm excited to see how the following work in practice:

• Destructible terrain
• Units mods
• Production rollover
• Sectors
• Elevation in combat

 

[Nerdfish]

I will have to check my saved files for the time the T4 stacks happens. Of the top of my head I'd say 50-100 turns.
On flying Unit, I'd suggest them behave like like air units in Civ. Fliers can only be stationed on a carrier or a structure. Fliers will participate in all battles within their "combat radius" around the carrier. However, if the carrier is destroyed or if the sector is captured, Fliers will automatically re-base to the nearest sector with an airfield and take severe damage if this is outside of their normal rage. This way fliers will have the logistics of slow ground and naval units.

 

[Leyrann]

I will have to check my saved files for the time the T4 stacks happens. Of the top of my head I'd say 50-100 turns.
On flying Unit, I'd suggest them behave like like air units in Civ. Fliers can only be stationed on a carrier or a structure. Fliers will participate in all battles within their "combat radius" around the carrier. However, if the carrier is destroyed or if the sector is captured, Fliers will automatically re-base to the nearest sector with an airfield and take severe damage if this is outside of their normal rage. This way fliers will have the logistics of slow ground and naval units.

Please not. A system like this is already awkward enough in Civilization, let alone in a game with separate tactical combat.

 

[Nerdfish]

Please not. A system like this is already awkward enough in Civilization, let alone in a game with separate tactical combat.

It would not change the behavior of the unit in tactical combat at all. It only reduce mobility of fliers on the strategic layer which can only be a good thing.

 

[Leyrann]

It would not change the behavior of the unit in tactical combat at all. It only reduce mobility of fliers on the strategic layer which can only be a good thing.

Except they're not part of a stack.

...oh, that might be a bit of a problem, wouldn't you say?

 

[Jolly Joker]

Anyway, I do think the T4 "problem" as such comes down to late/end game grind/settings, and it's interesting that with the seals victory, t4 "spam" is never an issue iirc.

There are a couple of problems with Seals, though (sadly, because I like the mechanic as well): for one thing, the player will take seals much earlier than the AI; for another, if you forego seals as a player, the AI will eventually take seals, but guard them with their best forces, basically paralyzing the AI.
For the late game grind ... I think it's in the nature of things, when you play against 7 opponents. If things go too smooth, invariably everyone will complain about the silly AI that makes the game a cakewalk, and cakewalks are no fun in the longer run. If it's not a cakewalk, and the AI gives you a thorough run for your money, it becomes a grind because one or two are difficult, but the others will just need a repeat of what you did.

That means, invariably, if you don't want a grind, play a smaller map against less opponents, otherwise you'll have to dig deep and fight a lot of lengthier battles. That's in the nature of things.

I think, the Beacons are actually a pretty good VC, if you really want to suffer. On Emperor, against 7 opponents you will see your happiness plummet into the abyss of rebeling cities. If you make it, like, 3 Beacons you'll need to accumulate enough RG points for THREE races, and while your starting race will have a high enough happiness to overcome that, your follow-ups will really be hard-hit.

 

[Gloweye]

@BBB, the first thing I asked after the opening ceremony was production/research rollover, and it was confirmed already. we KNEW we had it in the back.

And I think it will supremely contribute to reduced T4 effectiveness.