I think it makes definitely a difference against the mesos, where the SL are the most oppressive against.
But it also makes them weaker vs camels, which are the biggest counters to mongols anyways… So it’s the question if the targeting is chosen optimally.
I like what ornlu said in his video, that he would prefer the HP bonus hidden behind a tech, that makes also the most sense to me. Cause it would allow a strategic counterplay it form of better timing - especially for these civs that are timing focussed (mesos).
The Donjon is already a stronger tower that functions as a training facility for the UU and spearmen and can be built without villagers. That’s a lot of very strong advantages for the price, its just that towers arent popular.
Why pick the mongols with a 25% bonus? Well, that’s 25% ontop of what is already the fastest food gathering method that gives both more total food by preventing decay and getting it to you faster. It leads to a bigger reward for more skilled players for pushing deer and an indirect wood bonus since it can allow players to reduce the needed amount of farms until after they get horse collar delaying the reseeding, should that be their priority. Other civs have had lower bonuses of slower gathering methods reduced because of the food imbalance, Mongols are the clear standout.
Its like asking “Why would I loan money at a 25% interest rate when I used to be able to get 40%?” They’ll still be using an extremely powerful bonus and probably retain the fastest feudal times.
I’m not a big fan of the new farm placement mechanics. That’s an aspect that is actually somewhat skill-related, and players can improve at; I feel like this addition doesn’t really make the game better, just easier.
Battle Elephants are fundamentally team-based units in tight choke point maps, where you have an influx of trade and a heavy boom going. They are not meant to be used overall in 1v1 games, they are population deficient but costly units.
Many of the elephant based civs have options outside of their elephants in 1v1 games.
Sometime yesterday after posting that, it occurred to me, the devs have recently (last year+ish) been a lot better at smaller incremental changes.
Think back to SL. Admittedly they were busted on release, but the devs destroyed the unit with nerfs. Then overtime the walked back much of those nerfs.
So perhaps the mongol hp bonus is just a first incremental step. I think it’s the combination of mongol early up times, and the 30% hp, mitigating their largest weakness towards archers that really makes mongol SL so good. but this is a step in the right direction. I don’t think it’ll be enough but let’s see where it goes.
AMAZING change! I like to have perfect-looking bases, but have to sacrifice a bit of speed to do so. Now I can at least have perfect farms. If only it worked on houses…
PUP no longer available (possibly because it didn’t have any of the changes in the patch notes). Maybe it will come back soon?
Skill-related, as in pros are worse at it because they decide to sacrifice ideal farm placement for speed. It’s something that’s in AoE4, and is one of the advantages Age4 has over Age2.
You need to get into post imp for all that jazz, and mongols have nothing besides the hunt bonus to carry to that. Having strong units means nothing if you can ’ t even reach them.
That sayd, i would be ok with a skight nerf to their hunt, but i would not go further then 33% faster from the current 40%
It’s not stronger tho. It only has more HP, no more damage, and cost much more. Comparing the cost, is actually not stronger at all.
It also require villager to build the first, and trains an expensive UU, and if you want to do a pure donjon rush you would need a ton of every res to do donjon + serjeants, which simply is not possible. Infact, every pro players basically avoids sicilians like plague cause they have no wincon or window of advantage.
If they costed even 25 Stone less (so 50W, supposing the PUP cost, and 150S) it would be decent enough as a special tower
All but Dravidians BE will outrun all Xbow. So get ready for some Khmer, Burmese and Bengalis BE in TG.
Same. And I hate PUP changes.
Maybe a flat 15%. Or maybe even reducing the stone discount bonus to 10% as towers are being buffed in the patch.
Disadvantages
you have to wait till Castle Age.
You still need stable for Bloodlines, Husbandry and maybe even for LC.
1 stable + 4 houses take the same time to build a Krepost. Add #1 and this is not looking worthwhile to even consider 1 Krepost Konnik = 2 Stable Knight.
Will change absolutely nothing.
Yeah and that won’t work until BE is as good as either Knight or Camel or SL.
For real. A new map with 1 extra deer means instant Mongol domination with 75% W/R. This civ single handedly ruined maps like Valley and Scandinavia (Yes both maps have fish but nothing come close to Mongols). Then buff Nomads is some way to compensate that I guess.
Nah. I’d rather prefer 135 seconds and keep the current 90 seconds after the bonus. My suggestions on Sicilians is like this-
Donjons lose their Barracks abilities but is considered as a Feudal building and Feudal building only to unlock Castle Age. As well as gives +5 pop space.
Farm upgrades 125% more effective → Farms provide +50/+150/+250 food in Feudal/Castle/Imperial age.
Land military units take 33% less bonus damage → Cavalries take 50% less bonus damage.
Thumb Ring added in the tech tree.
Hauberk effect change from +1/+2 armor → +3/+1 armor.
Kind of an odd way to say “Krepost builds in 150s while 4 houses and 2 stables builds in 200s,” no?
You’ll absolutely want a stable in feudal age anyway, give the bulgarian tech tree. So that’s not a downside, it just lets you produce light cavalry without any opportunity cost, if you need to deal with monks.
Ah yes, because historically battle elephants have NEVER been overpowered or been nerfed.
Well, another option could be something like “Researching light cavalry grants +30% hp to the scout line and steppe line”.
It makes sense because steppe lancers are light/medium cavalry irl. Besides, it wouldn’t be the first time a bonus works like this, a tech granting a secondary effect, as there are precedents in aztecs and bohemians.
The point is there should be a delay and they should pay for it.
A much needed change. 0.88 was such a random number and it didn’t make sense that EAs were faster than their melee counterparts.
Ohhh heck no.
This is not the change they need for a stronger Castle Age. It’s bad enough that they don’t have access to Thumb Ring, but getting rid of this too guts their EAs too hard. Why not keep PT and put the 100% accuracy into Paiks instead.
That’s good. But buffing them to the point that they have same HP as Mongols will keep them as OP as of right now. How you want to buff them?
The best and perhaps the only solution. Unfortunately that won’t happen.
Otto micro, Otto macro, Otto everything. I dislike this because this will only mean 13 different bugs. So why add features that only 1% people asked to add?
Elephants are fine. Most of players are not good enough to convert elephants cost effictively. When Ennemy coming with 20 - 30 elephants, not fact that you are prepared to convert that much.
