[Balance] Some changes I'd wish to see

Seems fine. But I believe Incas is a well balanced civ. Eagles and kamayuk are great addition to an infantry civ. They are like meso version of Byz.

How about bonus dmg against pikes? Pike+xbows seems strong against burmese. Anyway, burmese should have some way to deal with archers.

Sounds interesting.

They will be still overshadowed by trash 2HS. I have wondered how interesting would be if Malay have karambit purely cost gold and karambit can become ‘cheap’ in Castle age. Playing UU instead of archers sounds more fun.

Viet already has conscription. This UT may be underused.

Only MA, base atk and projectile speed are left untouched by bonus of other archer civs. Among 3, MA is a reasonable one. But Pavise should be kept. Pavise is good in xbow vs xbow. The imperial UT should be replaced instead.

The amount may need to be tuned down? I appreaciate that it can help pushing organ guns instead of knight/xbow.

Until Steppe lancers is fixed, losing knights should not be considered.

But in this way, I believe longbow is still a late game transition for Britons instead of strategic choice between xbow/longbow in castle/ early imperial.

As long as you don’t have 2HS + forced levy, karambits are always the better choice, and even after it they still have movement speed + overkill shenanigans going for them.

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vs scout cav, knights or cavaliers its barely better than the Vietnamese hp bonus

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It’s also not enough to survive a head on direct hit from a Mangonel at same elevation unlike 7 HP.

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True.
But you cant be this versatile while lacking the Cavalry component, so I’d say- the worse version of Byz. And that’s why they need something extra.

Arambai were bad vs. Pikes even when they were “OP”, they were always ineffective against overly cheap units. But maybe an additional bonus would help in this regard.
And yeah, they need more than just this “fix”.

Perfect suggestion Sir.
@PlumpDucklin Had a similar idea.
This would definitely be the way to go.

Infantry that cost only Gold makes so much sense at advancing through the ages, just like Eagles. Goes well with Malay bonus, and overall Infantry units really enjoy Imp techs, even more than Cavalry.

Yeah, maybe.

I mean, we already have Vietnamese and their Rattan. I find the +1 pierce armor a little too minor and too late to be meaningful. I’d rather go Imp and tech into Bracer+BBC (which fits Italians tech-tree+ bonuses) rather than build a Castle and further over-invest in Castle Age.

Perhaps. Portuguese currently are indeed Xbows+Knights+3TC playstyle, the most boring one to watch.
It used to be one of my favorite civs back when Unique Units were viable in Castle Age.

100% True.

Both SL and BE. Two units that desperately need to be fixed/redesigned/reworked, in order for us to properly address and balance the civs who have them.

Yes, it’s a “late game” transition. (I’d even reduce the training time of Longbows a little.)
However, define late-game. This version of Longbows is viable on late Castle Age, unlike the previous one.
So the transition is no longer Post-Imp fantasy territories, no longer a luxurious unit, but a viable one, extra range and 7 damage requires no Bracer to fully function, even against Imp units. It just takes the courage to make a decision to switch.
Nerfing their generic Archers would definitely take the Britons out of their comfort zone. (while also buffing their economy)

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Hear me out guys. It doesn’t suppose to redefine their Archers as an unique unit, nor to perform as a powerspike. Italians have enough “gimmicks” and strengths going for them in Castle Age and especially Imperial.

It’s designed to elegantly support their overly generic Feudal Age, where Italians are actually even worse than Poruguese ironically. Having no bonuses but those 60 food they saved going Feudal.
Having 1 extra melee armor on both Skirms and Archers (on top of the first Archer armor which is standard) is dramatic. Scouts can get exhausted fighting mass Skirms/Archers.
From 5 damage of the Scout which is basic, Forging is rare due to its high cost and low effectiveness, they tend to go for the armor tech instead. It goes down to 3. Even against Skirmishers which they counter effortlessly.

I’d arguably make it +2 melee armor, flat, just in Feudal, rather than +3 in total / +1 per Age.

What do you think?

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I like it, dont worry. I just dont think it is that good, just okay

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Like @TungstenBoar said I’m agreeing and arguing against the claim that it’s too strong.

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How exactly?
We need to open a discussion about these two units
Two great units on paper never seen in the game
Even the mythological unit that is the Celtic Paladin is more used than the previous two

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11 Duuuuudee…will result in huge chaos in TGs and passive maps.

Ya this is actually a good change.

I think problem is their gold cost. Units are not worth 15 gold per unit. 15 or 20 gold per pop should be fine.

Please tell me that this overrides the default extra range, tc discount and faster range bonuses.

Other than the Britons ones which I’m not sure whether you’re implying an addition of these bonuses or these are the new set of only civ bonuses, the rest of it look really great and would provide for some great gameplay.

Especially love the Franks, Mayans, Incas, Italians archery range changes.

I like the concept but maybe this should be a bit lower like 75f, 100w

11

Battle Elephant- In my opinion there two problems with this unit:

  1. Cost per value in early Castle Age is just completely off. Food is too precious at this stage, you rather just make Knights who do roughly the same just better.
  2. Map, current Arabia generation doesnt allow immobile compositions, or pretty much anything but Crossbow (and sometimes Knight) and its best counter- Skirmisher. At the past we have much more options, including the famous Pikes push of MBL, and some UU legit strats by Viper who no longer does it.
    Even Hoang goes for Archers these days, many times, like 50% of the time.
    BE cant handle the “openness” of the Arabia we got. Players are busy defending their base and babysitting their own woodline rather than establishing a forward position which suits BE.

I’d just rescale the stats of BE and Elite BE. 3 pierce armor from the get go (no reason for this slow clumsy unit to scale like a Paladin). And fix Arabia a little. (just like they’re trying to do recently in the TL and TR tournaments)

Steppe Lancer- Much harder to balance/ bring to viability, since it barely has a justified strategic role in the game, it’s somewhere between Knight and a Light Cav (which all SL civs have fully upgraded). Knight is stronger against Archers (which are meta) and more efficient food-per-value, and Light Cav is just cheaper and Trash enough to careless about its cost the longer the game goes.
Identity crisis, SL needs a much serious change.
I’d rework it’s price and stats:

  1. One option: 80w 40g, reprice. Rather than food cost, gives them a whole new strategic dimension.
  2. More damage output (especially useful to maintain a lead) yet higher price.
  3. Much lower food cost, slightly more gold cost.
  4. Melee armor buff.

Perhaps some of these SL need their Knight-line to be removed (mostly Tatars) in order to maximize SL viability. And this way adjust more easily their stats.

It deserves, as you said, a discussion :slight_smile:

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It’s the least important change there :slight_smile:

Two other previous comments actually suggested (very reasonably) the other way around, they worth too much food per value. Which I find brilliant.
They should indeed cost perhaps just gold, istead of 25f 15g, 35g and that’s it.

Britons still have their TC bonus, however, they lose they free range bonus.
Elite Longbows will have the same 12 range.

I’m down to any number, I didn’t go deep into these numbers, perhaps gold and food instead, I’m not sure.
100f 100w Sounds fair. (not a fan of 75, I like round numbers which are more intuitively digested by the player)

How is that convenient? I think it’s actually the opposite which is why I came up with the idea at that point. The upgrade cost would be very high. Not necessarily the same as paladin but at least like imp camel (1k food 500 gold).

This would change britons in that they need to decide to either go for the traditional early imp arb push with relatively fast imp time (the archer civ meta) but have arbs with only one extra range but no thumb ring. Or go for a prolonged castle age play with 4 tc boom to be able to afford the expensive longbow upgrade but sacrifice early imp potential.

The way I see it this reduces the early imp endless range arb push that makes britons so tough the deal with (especially in tgs and a bit more defensive maps) while preserving and probably even enhancing their post imp (which btw makes them different from other archer civs).

And while I don’t really think a lot of the old civs need rework besides some minor tweaks or maybe bonus redistribution I do think britons are badly designed and people just accepted it because it has been there since like forever. Maybe there better approaches than mine idk, but I think it would render them pretty unique and more interesting than current britons while less abusable.

Yeah no. Not even close. I cant even remember the last time i saw celt paladins. And i can remember seeing elephants recently, especially in rage forest 3

It was a joke
But I really think that in 1v1 you can go for palas playing as Celts no in some situations
Elephants only if you are Malay

I think some people have mentioned some pros doing Burmese oddly enough. I think they said survivalist did it since the last buff.

I’ve done it a few times with Burmese against 3 TC boomers. But I play a lot of off meta so know it’s not an indicator.

Is it though? How? The opponent could spend that huge cost of the castle + pavise on ballistics or faster imperial for example which are both massively more meaningful.

Definitely agree silk roads should change. Any TG only or water only tech should all change.

I know it’s random, but on top of the Italian civ bonus of +1/1 for condos. What about +2/4/6 (feudal/castle/imp) damage Vs archers for infantry, remove champ. It’s not meant to be super useful, mainly to give condos more use.

That’s a terrible suggestion. For the kind of stats Karambits have, 35 gold is just ridiculous waste of resources for 40 hp units.

Dude you gave all the lecture about Sicilians being a bad design because of Hauberk and then you suggest a civ with 35% faster shepherds, 20% faster ranges and 50% tc discount. You said its hard to stop Sicilians, a civ with zero eco bonus from booming. Just think about the kind of builds Britons will potentially have early and mid games. 9 min feudal into straight archers with super early fletching, pre-mill 2 militia drush into 10 min archers, regular drush into sub 16 min fc, 14 min range+monastery+3 tc arena builds.
Agree that you’ve given longbows a purpose and toned-down early imp extra range abuse but most of the games will never get there. The eco will be insanely powerful and with the timing lead, Britons will just end their opponent much earlier. Only the top most tier civs like Mayans, Hindustanis will even be able to put up a fight, the rest will just die. If the huntable-herdable extra food is removed, even Mayans won’t be able to handle.
This is just orders of magnitude more OP than Hauberk. Without thinking about what happens at min 40 after all upgrades have somehow magically been done, think about the steps getting there and the kind of impact 35% faster shepherds and cheaper tcs have. Super strong bonuses throughout the game is the worst possible design

I felt that getting 200+ resources means its castles effectively are under 450 resources. But the idea is good.

4v4 BF tournament. Pretty much the only place you will see a lot of elephants.

The problem with over exaggerating like this is it actually detracts from your argument.

Britons will go from +25% to +35% on 800 food (-rot)

Mongols currently have +40% on minimum 700f (-rot) + how ever many deer you push

So somehow Britons with faster sheep and faster ranges ONLY, but no extra range on xbows and no TR(making them terrible for an archer civ) and no other bonus, suddenly are the worst design everrrrrr snaps fingers yas queen

Somehow you think Britons will be in a better position than having 11 range arbs!?!!?

That should be 25g. But 35g is interesting.

So clearly an eagle warrior is a waste of Res then 50g for at most 60hp(generic)… I’ll let the community know to stop training them.

Do you also think things like double gold comps aren’t viable? Or a civ’s access to trash determines how good it is? Or lack therefore makes it bad?

Portuguese a 20% gold discount on everything FOR FREE from the start of the game.

Gurj have to BUY an expensive UT from an expensive castle to get a food discount.

The difference between slavs being broken is 5% on food

Meanwhile bohemians have more than 40% higher gold income than most civs in castle age and they’re one of the worst civs on open maps.same for Turks at 20%.

And people still think gold is the only limiting factor on how good a unit is? Like how long until this archaic mindset is gone?

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For Brit how bout a compromise? No bonus range on Xbow but thumb ring yes but doesn’t effect Longbow accuracy

Imperial Arbalester can work, it’s much better than what we’re having now, that’s for sure.

Exactly.

I agree, Britons are oppressive in such a poor way, it’s quite funny, it’s beyond a discussion about just balance, I dont think it’ll be changed though, people get too attached.

So yeah, your change is decent, my change is decent, none really does the job perfectly, it needs more than just a tweak when it comes to Britons. Though as you said, most of the old civs require just a little tweak.

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