Actual Balance Changes

Did someone say: Relics!
-Random forum Lith Paladin

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Ok, I was disappointed by the last monthly (april) patch, but this one left me almost depressed.
The balance changes aren’t that big of a deal, when you look at the past one, they thought of something out of the ordinary for kmer, teutons, tartars and goths, they invented new bonus. Now the buff on EA is good, they are strongher now, but they haven’t changed, and what we asked was a change for this unit.

Now, a week ago I made some pools regarding this upgrade:

Now, those days don’t have any statistic relevance (the sample is too small) and I’m the first to admit that I could have them better structured.
Still, they show something, with the exception of the changes to the EA, the partecipant were completly unable to anticipate the changes to the game, nor the changes in the may update reflect the preferences of the partecipants.
This show a tendence to a discrepancy between the perception of balance by the fanbase and the devs, either the fans here on the forum aren’t capable of understand the reasoning behind the balance changes, or the devs don’t pay attention to what we discuss here.

The devs pay attention, but like in all competitive games, will only implement changes we propose, if they have no effect on the highest level of play.

Then, we don’t understand how patches work, since we weren’t able to predict any of this changes.

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I agree with this general idea. Some people make money from the game, so balancing strong civs has to be handled carefully. However they nerf Aztecs and leave Turks as they are. Also Chinese and Mayans get some modifications.

Maybe we are more willing for balancing weak civs like Turks, Portuguese, Italians, Koreans. Here the focus is more on high level civs.

However this patch sounds me as a bug fix one, even the main balance changes seem to fix a mechanic, more than changing civs.

I cannot figure out how many work the devs have done in bug fixing. So maybe this time we got a patch which looks the worst one, but they spent a lot of energy. Maybe next time a lot of issues will be already fixed and they can focus on balancing as we would like

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Great patch as usual as a whole! :slightly_smiling_face:

But I’m not sure why the Cumans were nerfed (again)…
(The loss of supplies makes their infantry even more average).

In my opinion, they should instead be buffed!

The Malay were at the bottom of all civs. (cf. https://aoestats.io/) because of a bug. The now three last civs. are two (very) strong naval civs. and… the Cumans. Who arguably have the worst options on the water of all 35 civs. And who don’t even have walls on land. Their siege is average at best, lacking SE, BBC & heavy scorpion. Their infantry is now also average at best. They lack arbalest too. Their monks are not usuable, lacking redemption in Castle Age and then all techs related to them in imperial. They just have (gold-intensive) cavalry left.

The Cumans are now as predictable as the Goths, only other civ. without walls. At least in the long run, Cumans should therefore be unstoppable for most civs. like Goths. Their cavalry will be absolutely top-tier right?

Weakest Camel rider in the game, weakest Steppe Lancer in the game, no lasting bonus for the knight-line until imp. (where it’s a slight one), no bracer for the cav. archers and now even the elephant archer, a walking keep, has a smaller reload time then the kipchak!

As of today, the Cumans are already worse-off and statistically lose at all stages of a game, from early game to super-late-game (cf. https://aoestats.io/civ/Cumans/RM_1v1). And with the current nerf, it’s about to get even worse. The playrate online is understandly also already dropping.

The Cumans are the only civ. to lack bracer despite having an archer UU. In my opinion, it’s to fix that anomaly (cf. The Cuman Kipchak - An Analysis). They are so far away from being top-tier, that I don’t see how bracer could suddenly make them OP.

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Cumans have both Paladins, early Capped Rams and 2 Cav Archer variants, so it is not like thety would ever go for Militia line units anyway.

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Now sort by 1650+ elo and look at where cumans winrate is

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Also interesting to note that Mongols now no longer have a FU non-siege unit with supplies removed

100% true. they need an buff. kipshaks need 1 dmg more. it is stupid to cut them something off. they are weak.

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Cumans have Paladins. You do not want to see a civ with FU Paladins and a great Cav Archer UU.

ooh i got a great idea for a civ.

they get fully upgraded paladins.
they get fully upgraded cav archers.
they get a castle age ut that makes cav archers and knights produce 20% faster.
they get an imp age ut that makes cav archers and knights get +20 hp and +1/2 armor.

(in case anyone missed it, this is CLEARLY sarcasm).

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The Nightmare civ, a civ to beat all other civs, without contest.

Gimme… ■■■■, this would be so much fun :smiley:

right up until you have to face it.

I think the aztec nerf was pretty unnecessary, but it’s no big deal since they were already an amazing civ

Longer time for el dorado is a great nerf though, makes hard switches into eagles for mayans less deadly and gives the non mayan player to transition themselves

On that note, though, I’m not a fan of Mayans losing supplies at all
If you’re Mayans in a situation where you need to make swordsmen (like vs other eagles, saw a game where malian champskarls + siege just overran and forced mayans to tech into 2hs which isnt ideal but archers werent working for him ) , it’s bad enough that you dont get champion - they definitely don’t need to be dragged down by that as well

As for portuguese, nah they really don’t need a buff. Maybe a small economy bonus for early game land eco, but they have one of the most unbreakable post imps in the game. Ask anyone who’s had to push feitoria + arqebus bbt turtle. They’re amazing on closed maps like arena and water maps. Just because they’re not as fast as other civs on arabia doesnt mean they need a buff, and they are definitely not a one trick pony, their tech tree is wide open.

Amazing dock, full barracks except squires which is irrelevant, amazing monks that are also cheaper (so they have no trouble at all going pike siege monk push), full upgrades on cavalier and light cav line, one of the few civs that gets fu arbalest and skirmisher and amazing gunpowder+stable options (italians are the other, could mention byzantines if you look past their lack of bloodlines) (skirmisher+hand can is a very strong combo against civs with better range). Their champions are cheaper than normal champions with the gold discount + after supplies, but with the option of organ guns, xbows, and hand cannons why would you need them
So you have a civ that can

Feudal:

  • Scout rush
  • Archer rush
  • Maa towers

Castle:

  • Pike siege monk push
  • Knight rush
  • Fc xbows (Their gold discount helps all archer strategies here)
  • Cav archers (they get bloodlines, thumb ring, all archer armor and range upgrades, and a gold discount. The fact that they don’t get heavy cavalry archer is irrelevant in the castle age)
  • Unique Unit/Organ Gun rush (these things are hard to kill once they start getting en masse. Pikes +Organ guns push can be very hard to stop, it’s one of my favorite arena strats to do)

Then here’s some shout outs for some closed map play

  • Fast imp into arbalest
  • Fast imp into gunpowder
  • Fast imp into feitorias and turtle (an amazing arena strategy in certain civ matchups, I’ve personally lost to it a few times even when I recognized it was happening)

And do I need to even talk about them on water? Consider how long Islands games can taper on to the point where it becomes an issue of who has enough wood left when they are one of the few civs that can make something that provides them an infinite cache of resources with their feitorias (the other being malay fish traps)

Italians and Turks are similar that they don’t have a strong economy bonus but have good options, except Turks are actually amazing on arabia as well once you get used to playing them. Great stable, great cav archers and xbow, castle age options are wide open and the transition to imp is it’s own power spike with elite janissaries, free hussar and fully upgraded heavy cav archer with sipahi, as well as artillery bbt and heavy camel/cavalier.
Portuguese and Turks don’t need that much of a buff, if they even do. I think it balances out that their lategame options are very effective but their early game lacks in economy. But something like the Vietnamese bonus could fit portuguese - something that’s small but effective.

Ports Stables is not good at all, no Hussar or Paladin.

If anything, Ports have a terrible winrate because the games do not really make itb to Imp, and what they really need is the Gold discount buffed a bit.

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I guess its good enough for castle age with cheaper knights

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In my book of silly ideas for Civs I have for Portuguese:

  • 50% longer lasting berries which fits the theme of Port wine, delays their farming on land and can help on water when having lost water. But its not that huge that Portuguese become A-tier on Arabia immediately.

  • And Cavaldagas: Light Cavalry has +5 attack against Cavalry replacing their Carracks-UT

which improves their Light Cavalry in a way that they are stronger than generic Hussars. And I think it really fits the Portuguese theme of being explorers that strove through the deserts of Africa with their Light Cav. And they faced a lot of mounted units if we look at the identity of neighboring civs: Berbers, Spanish, Franks, Malians. And it also makes them more versitale in feudal age where going scouts would be a waste since they are not supported by the gold discount nor any other eco bonus.

Two questions needed to be solved regarding that change though:

  1. What happens with carracks. Does it fall under the table entirely, will it become a free bonus next to the 10%HP or will it replace the 10% HP. However, I personally think that civs that lack identity on land or are not smooth and dont reach their goal on open land maps should not have a Water-only UT. I think you can serve both identities without a Water UT.

  2. Malians should lose the effect of Farimba on their Light Cav then to remove overlap because Farimba even though being a much more expensive Imperial tech is far better than what I proposed for Portuguese. Especially if we look at the name of Farimba which where military commanders who are more likely to be gold-units, and it fits the general gold theme of Malians. And I dont like that Malians Light Cavs are so strong to raid then. On the other hand would Malians need ofc some compensations and some tweaks as well since their goal on Arabia would be to be S-Tier there again, for my perception as they are not really good on closed maps due to lacking late game and missing galleons also hurt on water maps. So giving Gold shaft mining back and improve Gbetos a bit would be a way to go.

Just my two cents, maybe they are some inspiration for ideas yourself :slight_smile:

Port Wine was not a big export in the Middle Ages, and is a Napoleonic Era phenomenon.

Carracks is more useful for a Water civ, not to mention that Ports already have good Halbs, and they were never known for Cavalry. Historically, Portugal had some of the worst Cavalry traditions in the whole world, they should have only had basic Scouts and Knights if the game followed History, but still have the Bloodlines and Husbandry upgrades because of the Spanish Horse imports.

And when I mean bad Cavalry, I mean REALLY BAD Cavalry. It was something a nation backed up towards the sea, without a lot of agricultural outcome, and basically a strip of land; could muster.

This is what Malians do with Farimba.

Portugal never explored the deserts of Africa with Light Cavalry, ever.
We stuck to teh coastline in every situation, and always fared terribly when away from the Sea or large rivers.
Brazil is as huge and stretches so inland as it does, because of teh Amazon.
Without Water, we legitimately sucked at expanding.

With Pike & Shotte, not by trying to get better horsemen than them. Ports were also great fortification builders, and installed Casemattes (predecessors to the Bunker) in areas of interest. Port warfare was about setting up killing fields in defensible positions, not about having glorious Cavalry charges.

Port Scout Rush is good ebnough, and they can go Archers or M@A quite easily.

Why? Malians are not OP, nor a difficult to balance civ. they are quite balanced as it is.

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