some other things about the salteador that helps it cost make sense is:
-speed 4.25. this allows them to run away from most infantry, or pursue many others when winning. they also take mexico’s speed boosts and drummers better than most, for 4.875 speed in age2 max and speed 5 in age3 max. Speed as we see in the berselgari is key in most games but team games can go late where speed is less valuable then hp or range (see cass as example why) so this is better early on.
-tagging units with LOS. in games, especially teams, having LOS really helps the team react properly to surprise falcs, sudden comp switches, or perhaps seeing there is not reinforcements to pursue. This is a subtle but important bonus thats hard to quantify.
-Stealth. This is one of those niche things but hiding while massing, setting up ambushes, and my favorite is once the age3 card kicks in using a “nah brah later” BB to instantly stealth and stop any wind up animations. walk into cannons? nope, see ya. abus mass? later gator. Or my fav: seeing musk or lower range light infantry and stealth then quick fireing and go back into stealth to abuse targeting and getting a free volley off (still gonna eat it if animation finishes tho). This is probably only relevant like 1/25 games but man when it is, its game breaking.
-This is more 2v2 fwiw, but you can get guard for free by combo’ing tabascan seperatists and then artega. just a casual 8 chinaco 1350 res unit guard worth in age4. It can be good in 3v3s but you give up the tastier age3 federal cards; then again just save aretega and get vet tech before sending it.
Of course these all require some thinking to access and its much harder than say dutch or french skirms in teams just “rally point and forget” types of micro. But the utility while not always easy to access, is there and i think people just CBA often to work around the units strengths so call it bad. sure its not an abus or age5 voltigeuir, but its certainly not bad like wakina or long term german skirms either.
edit: dude stealth, with a then ing, is censored? will any mod of this forum ever advocate to the powers that be how really stupid this censor is getting day after day? whatever machine learning program it uses needs to go to school lol
yep, you don’t need to exploit aztecs weaknesses to raiding to beat them anymore. Gotta love the awful game design decision to balance the game for treaty and supremacy at the same time. The gameplay has literally been ruined for the sake of a simplistic and dumbed down, handicapped, training-wheels version of the game that very few people other than new players even care about.
It seems like you need to be a popular streamer if you want to the devs to even begin consider your balance suggestions, as I see their bad and biased suggestions being implemented all the time. IE (aztec nerfs)
Continually nerfing underrepresented civs that nobody is playing at at the highest level, while buffing most popular civs (otto) is a strong indicator of the blatant balance incompetence in AoE3.
Don’t forget that the salteadors have target lock and never lose sight because of their buff. A good micro play can allow you to get your whole army to do a last shot if the enemy manages to retreat, way above their max range.
I think may be their balancing concept is to buff popular civs to make “more people happy” better than real balance.
Obviously Otto is top tier of top tier since remake but never had big nerf like Aztec.
Aztec had the highest win rate across all elo ranges last patch considerably higher than ottoman. Ottoman is most complained about because 1 in 10 games are vs ottoman whilst aztec is much less popular.
So Aztec is strong but much lower pickrate, people don’t like to win in rank? They prefer losing? How come they choose a weaker civ not the strongest.
Last question, do you know that Aztec winrate raised after 8 big nerf patch? (from data I saw), are you going to say please buff them to lower their winrate?
Yes I argued because malta has the lowest win rate in the game, it is far from OP.
Italy also has a mediocre win rate outside of people abusing the free fort bug. Revnak achieved his win streak with italy when architects could build outposts. Outside of that specific build they were not particularly good and now since most recent nerfs italy are very mediocre and he no longer uses them you may have noticed.
Revnak used a broken strategy with a mediocre civ a civ that has since been nerfed into further mediocrity. Italy was never good outside of the FI and now sinc more nerfs the FI itself isn’t particularly good.
Aztec win rate has always been high, like forever since de was released. There are many reasons for that 1 of which is aztec being an aggressive civ that lesser skilled players can’t deal with.
Pick rate doesn’t go hand in hand with win rate. Native civs on the whole are vastly less popular than euro civs despite often being stronger.
A lot of people play their home country as well there are tons of spanish and turkish who almost exclusively play spain and ottoman for example.
but what I get from data Aztec pickrate raised after JPK buffed. LOL! People suddenly love native.
So what are those reasons? are you meaning Dev balancing Aztec completely wrong? Lets revert all Aztec nerf, it didn’t solve the problem, as you said they OP everywhere except the nerfs did before, because their winrate didn’t drop.
THIS is the issue, which doesnt mean its superpowerfull. But this will exists always due to the uniqueness inherent to the civ as there is not artillery or cav
People always try stuff out when there’s been changes in a patch and JPK became a worthwhile unit for the first time ever.
Another reason is lack of game knowledge, people can’t easily identify aztecs units which leads to them making incorrect units to counter them.
Another is the vulnerability of other civs to aztec strategies, the maya rush is strong for example especially if you are a build order bot and can’t adapt your strategies. If you try and manor boom every game or build 5 banks or torp the map etc then you will lose to aztec and many people just mindlessly do the same thing.
Pick rate is also low because people don’t like civs with different mechanics, aztec requires use of the plaza and explorer much more than normal. This is also why almost all natives/africans have very low pick rates despite being good.
It’s an issue that effects many civs, russia/inca/lakota etc all very strong to weaker players because they just can’t handle getting attacked early or they ### # ### riders and ring the town bell idleing 30 vills lol.
In reality if people would just adapt and have specific decks vs aggressive civs then there would be no problem, ship 2 towers or town militia, age up with tower, wall a bit etc all make defending much easier but people wish to just do their manor boom vs aztec the same as they would vs dutch.
Full of subjective imagine, do you know a discussion requires data and fact?
People this action people that action, why are people going to a weak civ? That’s truth. Try to make Aztec unbeatable like first patch Sweden?
Calculations or data from you? No
Winrate figure you insist is also full of lie.
Pick rate doesn’t support you then makes excuse, Malta also low pick rate why do you say UP.
Let’s end.
The game balance is pity with such analysis.
Forever nerfing native unreasonably without any compensation only few people want to pick, still facing large group remaining people complain this and that is good with bottom status.
Some people temporarily tried aztec a bit more after the patch as it got the jaguar buff, new fort card etc. Nothing outside the norm they have probably gone back to other civs now.
Malta has the worst win rate statistics in the game and has for several patches, what lie is there in that? Go check it yourself.
I’m not even sure why you continue arguing at this point? I myself play a lot of aztecs in ranked 1v1 so I know how good they are, I get many more wins with aztec than malta despite malta being my second most played civ after inca. Just denying a civ is good because you main it makes no sense.
Free Food Party Go check on there and change the patch to the previous patch as current patch doesn’t have much data yet and you compare aztec and malta win rates.
Just in case you struggle to do that here is a screenshot of the win rates in order from highest to lowest across elo levels:
Several smurf accounts with less than 60 games each means nothing and won’t have any huge impact on the win rate of over 20k games total. People make smurf accounts with other civs too and do the same thing just playing 1 civ.
