August PUP

[M00Z1LLA]

There are way too many nerfs to the Ethiopians here.

• Javelin Rider: Hitpoints reduced to 180 (from 190)

I think it would have been much better to just nerf their range instead of health. It would fit logically and would make them easier to catch and more prone to bunch up in large numbers.

• Desert Archer: Adjusted as follows
  • Now occupies 3 population space (up from 2)
  • Heavy infantry multiplier reduced to 1.75X (from 2X)
• Desert Warrior: Now occupies 3 population space (up from 2)

If the target is some early outlaw strategies then this is reasonable. However, there really needs to be a focus on making non-African outlaws actually viable.

CARDS

• Zebenyas (III): Siege armor improvement reduced to +5% (from +10%); hitpoint improvement reduced to 10% (from 15%).
• Loyal Warriors (I): Moved to the Fortress Age.

Nerfing the siege armour by 5% seems unnecessary and excessive. The health reduction is enough of a nerf and a 5% resistance seems too small to even bother with.

Loyal Warriors (-15% native/outlaw/merc cost) becomes nearly useless if it’s moved to the Fortress Age. Natives other than the ones you age up with are basically too expensive to bother with without that card. Outlaws are obsolete by age 3 so along with the other nerfs they’ll be largely ignored (leaving no consistent viable light infantry or heavy cavalry option). All it’s good for in 1v1 would be reducing the cost of some of the age 4 cards.

Loyal Warriors should stay in age 1 or 2, but only reduce gold and influence costs. That would make it a little less lucrative for outlaws but overall still viable. Natives and mercs could also be affected by the War Camp upgrades instead of just shadow techs.

Once they nerf all the cheese strategies, there need to be some buffs to compensate.

• Ethiopia needs a real heavy cavalry unit. Oromos massively underperform against everything heavy cavalry is supposed to take care of and are overly expensive to be a generalist unit. Some changes like this would be a good start to making them not suck:

Ethiopians are over nerffed, I have some suggestions to fix them

The problem with Oromos is that from range they don’t really counter anything that heavy cavalry is supposed to. Their RoF is 4 at max range and everything heavy cavalry counters has ranged resistance so their damage output at range is less than 30% of what they can do in melee. Against anything other than heavy infantry you’ll want them in melee mode and it’s quite tedious to constantly switch them over. Even in melee, I’m not sure if they’re strong enough to justify the cost. To make them use…

• The transition to cannons is unduly costly. The European Cannons tech should be scrapped, and the cannons should be shipped just like how Basilica units are. Some reductions to their influence cost could also help greatly. A tech like “Domestic Manufacturing” that shifts some of the cost to wood (~400 influence and 100 wood) would also be very helpful.