Alright! Time to adress the OG old OP civs once at all!

Why? pretty much every game we see with Britons end up with just arbalest, Longbows are pretty obsolete.

No, what civ actually needs this? Britons were created with this on mind and I would rather respect that.

Good for you, the civ is OP on TGs and need a nerf here

Look in the past with other civs (Old Indians, Tatars, Khmer), all of which saw their bonuses shaved, isntead of just removing simply tone down the unfair advantages.

Go and check the Turks WR and Pickrate on closed maps lol, Bohemians got a nerf very specific for Arena, time to do the same for Turks and Poles.
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Of course the point is not to have some unstoppable composition, but to make gunpowder units scale better in the lategame in the way that most unit lines do. Given equivalent resource worth of units, most people would rather have Paladins, HCAs, Siege Onagers, BEs, Arbs, maybe even EAs over handcannons or gunpowder UUs, and it’s not even a close call. There’s plenty of room for small to medium buffs for a lot of gunpowder units before the threat of them becoming some kind of unstoppable unit even appears on the distant horizon.

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mmm That’s the whole point don’t you think? Is Age Of Empires, a game where you should use multiple units to win, not just spam only one thing to win, remember Bulgarian and Cuman players only winning by spamming Konniks and Steppe Lancer at DEs release? and not just here, the same applies to other aoe games (btw I stil have bad memories of the OP Caroleans in AOE 3).

I think you are ignoring that Jannissaries are already pretty much unseen in arabia, and most people will go for cavalry archers because Turks have quite strong ones, here Jannissary lack mbility and isn’t even worth the investment, with the changes people will still go for Jannissaries in Arena and still be an incredibly strong units (in fact still better HP than hand cannoneer), just that Mangonels, xbows and skirmishers now have a chance to fend off them, and now the unit will scale much better with the elite ones will have pretty much everything better than Turkish hand cannoneer, they are now quite obsoleted by the Hindustani hand cannoneers with 2 range, do some justice.

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I am not sure. For example take a close look at Hand Cannoneer, developers buff it since AOC from no need to search the tech; Lords of the West better accuracy; Dawn of the Dukes more HP and projectile speed. I feel like the last two buff are minor buff but reinforce the characteristic of exisitng role of hand cannoneer, which are

  1. extremely good counter of infantry
  2. imp only which may worth rushing for in some situation
  3. ready-to-use and quite good in its role without any upgrade
  4. gold intensive
  5. resource-wise its stat is quite bad compare to its similar unit (archer) which heavy relied on upgrade

Some unit also share this type of characteristic which are

  1. Condottiero (extremely counter gunpowder) similar to champion
  2. Flaming Camel (extremely counter all stable unit) similar to Petard
  3. Thirisadai (extremely counter ship) similar to Galleon

Some unit are somehow share the same characteristic

  1. BBC (extremely counter seige in theory) no similar unit
  2. Cannon Galleon (extremely counter building with long range) no similar unit
  3. Trebuchet (extremely counter building with long range) no similar unit

I name those unit as imp countering unit. Therefore, from what I guess from developer, these unit fit a certain role and they will not do any change that will dramatically change the current state of these unit

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And for Conquistador, Janissary, Organ Gun and Arambai, which are all castle age gunpowder unit, since AOC they are a type of unit that

  1. only good in castle age, but exceptionally good
  2. Almost no counter in castle age
  3. fall off imp very hard
  4. do not counter anything (except they have bonus damage on ram for balancing reason)

This design exist if you look at the AOK originally Janissary, it has bonus damage on infantry but in AOC they become a generally good unit but do not counter stuff, just like Conquistador.

I don’t put Hussite Wagon here because I have no idea what this unit doing.

Therefore, when people ask for buffing Conquistador upgrade or Janissary upgrade so that they can hold the power level of other imp unit, developer will never do that becauase the power spike of this type of unit is part of the design. They can at most receive a very small buff like what they did in Hand Cannoneer.

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Yes, or course. My suggestions are within the context of the earlier discussion of them falling off in mid-late Imp. (A lot of overlap with the discussion in the “New Universal Techs” thread where I advocated for a tech to buff HCs on civs that don’t already have strong bonuses for them.)

To be clear, I don’t think that a general buff of gunpowder is strictly needed any more than a Longsword or Battle Ele buff, but I think all three of them are worth considering in the interest of expanding the meta, and letting civs play out in more distinctive ways. The gunpowder buff is something that IMO would add to the believability of the game, as it’s the one single development to which you can most attribute the decline of Medieval style warfare.

Yes, but these are considered to be fairly niche units, not particularly useful in a general sense (except perhaps the Thirisidai, but it comes rather late). I suppose you can say it’s a design choice to lump most gunpowder units in there as well, but it’s one that will always feel strange to me.

TBH I don’t regard this idea very highly outside of the general balance of the civ. The other units that share this trait somewhat are usually characterized by being very accessible and being able to mass them early, with the powerspike coming from upgrades (Arb being the best example). Having a unit whose availability and window of opportunity is basically mid Castle to early Imp (and with not much of a powerspike coming from the Elite Upgrade) just feels like suboptimal design, especially if it’s supposed to be the most iconic unit of the civ. I’m even open to the idea of nerfing Conqs in Castle age to justify buffs elsewhere (stronger Elite Conq, and the civ getting some kind of eco buff to play out less as as one-trick pony).

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I know Im talking about arena only, all my points still stand. People wouldnt go for Jannissaries which have only 4 more hp than Bohemian HCs which are better in practically every way.

Im fine with the extra 1 range in imp, but -1 range with nothing in exchamge in castle age is bad. The light cav nerf would already be a big nerf for them

Arambai gunpowder unit?

They can get a cost reduction on upgrade. OG and Conqs 1200 food feels like a joke to me. And Janissary 750 gold for a civ like Turks is also over priced.

And Mangudai and Kipchak upgrade 1100 food, Camel archer 1000 wood make sense? CA type UUs are all powerful and need higher cost to upgrade totally make sense. Castle age version of conqs are clearly best Castle age unit in open map. They shouldn’t be that oppressively strong in imp. Even imp version is underrated, they aren’t just as good as other very good CA type unit like mangudai, camel archer and Turks HCA, but still much better than other type of unit and need least upgrade among CA type units.

For civ like Turks, which have two free important upgrade when reaching imperial age? Even artillery is underpriced for 14 range BBC compared to Houfnice in my opinion, they already have enough strong military in imp and better timing due to free upgrade.

Generally agree, but it should accompany with the reduction of training time of Longbow. currently 18s is too long to substitute arb

Not a fan of it. It makes Chinese just worse Byzantines with don’t have access to good monk, BBC, They don’t have any strong military than generic and also lacking good seige that other military option should be flexible.

Too hard. At least should not nerf more Plumed Archer which is not really common unit to see. Also Eldorado nerf is too hard. Eagle in imp is not a good unit that there is too much counter and gold start to run out.
Mayans don’t excel in late game and Eldorado Eagle is at least their tool.

Agree with first two suggestion, but Janissary with 7 range is just worse Bohemian HC, it should stay as is.

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Yes. Sometimes in-game mechanics treat Arambai as gunpowder units. in wiki:

Arambai belong to the Conquistador unit class, despite not using gunpowder. They do not belong to the cavalry class nor the cavalry archer class, and do not benefit from those upgrades for balancing reasons. Therefore, sometimes in-game mechanics treat Arambai as gunpowder units.

I think developer actually don’t want them to have elite upgrade. Just becauase they are UU they need to be have an upgrade so developer make the upgrade as useless as possible like Incas original team bonus. These type of unit are too strong that can define the civ in castle age but in imp those civ all have other choice which are pretty decent. Spanish Paladin, Turk HCA, Burmese Infantry and light cav, Portuguese Feitoria. By design they works like this: castle age power pike. Developer will buff their castle age form if they are weak in meta when it does not fill the role of being an OP castle age unit. But developer definately will not buff their imp form since they are meant to be falling off.

Unlike unit like Mangudai which define Mongols that their Hussar and Siege work best with Mangudai. And Mongols does not have anything can fill the role of Mangudai in late game (weak pike and weak Arbalester)

imo, as long as this type of civ design exist developer will not changed it. Or they abendon the whole design of Spanish, Turks and Portuguese. If they really do so, after the adjustment of the power level and flated their power spike:

  1. Spanish will lose paladin, and Spanish will like another Mongols but play Conquistador + BBC
  2. Turks will lose Bloodline and it will like another Bohemians that its Janissary can kill paladin
  3. Portuguese will lose the gold discount bonus. It will like above Turks but with a bit tankiness

I do not think the Britons change could work without radically changing their balance in 1v1. I get that you want Longbows to see more play and recommend that you make another thread for this. They are not overpowered in 1v1 as they are, even if they are versatile in the number of maps where they perform and are excellent on them. I respect that you are trying to make this a viable Castle Age transition by retaining their range advantage in Castle.

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If you reduce their range the unit will become pretty useless as you can just counter them with mangos.

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And at the same time will do better vs mangos because of the 17 attack, mangos have 7 PA so still 10 damage per shot.

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Jannis will eat mango shots even if they kill mango fast. They don’t have much hp and are too slow to dodge after shooting so against 3 mangos you’ll basically lose your units. And that’s all you want against this type of aggression. As long as you keep janni number low you can boom behind and then win from there.

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Yes for all.

I’m not asking to make them stronger, at least not directly. They become weaker compared to almost all other units. Their upgrade cost should not be that high.

Yes because they lack even more important upgrade.

I fully agree with this one. Wood cost should be increased. I think I said the same back when the change was made.

11

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Facing teams of Britons, Mayans, and Franks all the time makes teamgame arabia unfun imo. I think nerfing these civs would help.

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They have a unique archer unit with extra arrows that takes down rams and cavalry. Has siege, tech discounts and a 1.5-2 vill lead over other civs. All these are huge. There’s no need for a civ with good eco, tech tree to have all important upgrades in all departments. The versatility is the reason why they’re referred to as one of the “OG old OP” civs and are NOT balanced. The whole point of this thread is to address the civs with very strong eco and military and which have remained top tier on a wide variety of settings for decades. So being this way is not an identity that a civ should retain.

8 is more than a mangonel and nearly impossible to defend against on closed maps. So 7 is perfectly fine for such a strong gunpowder unit.

Not a bad civ but its now subpar to these OG OP civs now.

ya should have been no extra range in castle age instead. those xbows are extremely hard to deal with.

Maybe resources don’t last longer? Ideally speaking bonus shaving is the right thing. Aztecs production rate, Khmer, Slavs farming rates, old Indians shore fish rate, Italians dock tech discount, Vikings dock discount all of these got a % reduction. That’s the proper way to balance, the civ continues to have a special type of advantage but its not too much to give them an unfair advantage.

I would even add Berbers to your list. Many people don’t realize how the +10% speed on Berbers vills is so strong eco bonus. It is exactly like having wheelbarrow for free starting in dark (except the +3 carry capacity). You can also add Cumans of course with the 2nd TC.

I never said +40 is not a LOT.
My point is not to drastically weaken a civilization’s main strategy all at once.
Try, see, try, see.

In my original post, I described it this way.

The point is, this eliminates the competition with Crossbow, so the balancing work would be easier — just tweak Longbow’s stats and the effect of Yeomen, there is no need to keep the extra range bonus.
I stated “balancing should be easier” mean there would still balancing work, never said that having the “current Longbow” into the archery range would be balanced.
Read carefully.

The Chinese are destined to be versatile, since 1997.
First, they must be versatile, which distinguishes them from other civilizations, and then discuss whether they need good economics or particular military characteristics.
Some people always emphasize the Chinese excessively good economy and UU, however instead of trying to weaken economy and UU, they want to strip them of their most important identity, turning the civ from OP but interesting to still OP but dull.

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