Balance suggestions for april patch

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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I wasn’t trying to make their weaknesses stronger but make their strengths stronger. Basically try to make them better and keep their theme.

I watched SOTL video about the UT and it seems it changed after 5.3 patch. Originally it was +6 attack to buildings and masonry cut the damage in half which is a really cheap tech compared to Manipur Calvary. Not sure how it fares against the current version. The UT also didn’t apply to castles and towers either. Not sure again about the current version. Basically not worth getting the UT since a cheap tech really minimizes it.

Ok that was 1 pick out of how many civ picks this year in the 2 major tournaments? My point exactly.

Oh also the original civ bonus was infantry +1 attack per age. So they nerfed that. It would make sense to give a bonus for early pressure to weaken your opponent’s eco because the civ struggles with archers so much. The later the game goes and the more archers your opponent masses the worse it gets for the Burmese.

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My suggestions:

  • Byzantines: reduce cost of Logistics and Elite Cataphracts. The cataphracts are not an op unit (countered by knight line and archers + low pierce armor + low HP + lack blast furnace).
  • Japanese: make the Samurai a viable unit. Maybe given a little unique unit armor (like the anti cavalry that the cataphracts have)? Their attack bonus could only be used effectively against ~10 of the 35 civs (good luck using that bonus agains unique archers).
  • Lithuanians: Tower shields giving +1 pierce armor to the pike line is not very useful because they lack plate mail. This tech should be changed.
    Maybe give them infantry plate mail? Or improving the bonus so it could compensate the lack of it.
  • Magyars: for historical accuracy, could they have hand cannoners (like the chinese having block printing) like they used to have in the Black Army?
    Also, don’t know if it could be a little op, but their huszar magyar looks like it could have the 1 range from steppe lancer.
  • Teutons: again, with the TKs. Maybe giving a little more speed to all their infantry with every relic like the lithuanians with their cavalry? Instead of the +1 armor. Or give them +speed and less HP/pierce armor (like the Boyard)
  • Aztecs: jaguar warrior could be a little more cheaper?
  • Indians: Battle Elephants?
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They’re still useful in teamgames against arbalests

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My suggestions:

  1. Reduce to cost of the cataphract elite upgrade, but not logistica (maybe from 1600 food to 1200 food)
  2. Increase the magyar scount cavalry line cost reduction to 20%
  3. Goth - I’ll leave it to FE and the pros
  4. Lithuanians - Tower shields also gives +1 melee armor, cost modified to 450 food 250 gold from 800 food 200 gold
  5. Saracens - Transport ships cost -60%
  6. Nerf the top two water civ: Italians dock technology discount to 30% instead of 50%, viking imperial age warship discount down to 15%
  7. Teutons - increase teutonic knight (not elite) armor by +1, decrease elite upgrade cost by 200 food, decrease (elite) teutonic knight food cost by 10. Increase speed to 7,5 from 7,0.
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Yes but reducing to cost of the elite upgrade in enough in my opinion

Tks need a buff but not something like this, they already have 6 bonuses and this is just a copy of the lithuanian bonus

Saracen camels and mamelukes already pretty good, I think saracens are avarage on land, and sometimes can be really good pick, don’t buff them on land. Instead give then a small bonus on water, since the galley bonus shows that they are intended to be a water civ and in reality they also were. I’d lower the cost of their transportships (read my suggestions) that 75 wood saved for 1 transport can be really useful and opens a potetial threat for the enemy and saracens will be finally a good pick on islands.

Khmers are good right now

Indian elephant archers are really bad and they could get +1 range (since archers need offensive abilities not defensive) but I feel like we should balance it with reducing the HP of both by 30.

Turks really need a small buff but not this one

65 wood instead

Vietnamese are good right now

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46

There’s something people just don’t seem to understand when it comes to buffing the speed of Teutonic Knights. The relevant factor has nothing to do with the percent compared to themselves, it has to do with the percent compared to the archer line.

Archers move at 0.96. Champions with Squires move at 0.99. Teutonic Knights move at 0.7.

Buffing them to 0.75 isn’t gonna do anything. Neither will buffing them to 0.8, or even 0.85, since they’re still gonna get kited by archers effectively, while Champions will be able to catch them, and they’re still gonna get squashed by siege, while Champions are cheap enough and fast enough to at least attempt to counter them.

All buffing their speed will do is make them overpowered against the things they currently already counter - melee units - while leaving them just as ineffective against ranged units and siege.

Speed buffs are not the solution. Neither is additional pierce armor, for the exact same reasons. The reason giving pierce armor to champions was relevant was because they have the speed to catch up to things in the first place. If they’re just going to soak up endless arrows anyway, no amount of pierce armor will save them. Even Huskarls are fast, despite their massive pierce armor. Of course, you could make them fast AND tanky to both pierce and melee, but at that point you might as well just give them health regen and change their name to ‘William Wallace’.

What they truly need is a way to force the enemy player to stop ignoring them. At least by drawing the enemy’s attention they can serve a modicum of purpose, as compared to right now where they can be safely ignored basically forever. The easiest way to do that would be a massive building damage bonus. At present, two champions do significantly more damage to buildings than a single teutonic knight. Giving TKs something like +10 building damage would at least make them threatening and give them a reason to exist.

Personally, I think it’s a boring and uninspired solution, but it would solve their problem, unlike all these other suggestions going around. A far more interesting solution would be letting them build towers, but assuming that’s not possible, this would at least work.

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Remove Byzantine Paladins. They make no sense.

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TKs are warrior Monks, just let them benefit from Fervour and Sanctity. Problem solved.

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Sareacens: camels have +1/+2 attack in castle/imperial age. (that, or camels have +10 hp, but I preffer the first option).

If they’re going to buff their camels, make it in imperial only, they still have FU knights in castle age

Goths: good luck balancing this. They need some buff. Again

Revert the infantry bonus to the 35% feudal, revise the boar bonus to something useful and I guess give them thumb ring for castle age crossbows

Khmer: lose crop rotation, or maybe handcart

Why? First of all hand cart is essential, you can’t just remove it from civs. Khmer I feel now are in a good position, I’d remove arbalester if they need a nerf at all.

Mongols:hunt bonus reduced to 30%

Nope, its their only economic bonus. Nerf it too much and they become a mediocre civ with a very expensive late game comp

Persians: kamandaran archers cost 60 wood 20 food

Nah 60 wood is already a lot, I’d increase the cost of the tech itself to 600f 600g

Rattan archers gains bonus against chu ko ku and kipchak

why specifically against those units? rattan archer already beats both of them 1v1. Also this is hard to implement as you’ll have to invent a new armor class for chuks and kipchaks.

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FU means Fully Upgraded, which would mean they have Paladin with Bloodlines, Husbandry, Platemail Armour and Blast Furnace.
Please do not use FU improperly, or else it loses all meaning.

I disagree on Thumb Ring, Goths are supposed to have bad Archers as a tradeoff for having Hand Cannoneers.

Even the Kamandaran tech is already overly expensive. Persian Crossbows are not hard to deal with all, and much easier to counter than Malay Trash-Handed Swordsmen.

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I do know what it means, it is just you who doesn’t seem to understnd how op teutonic knights would become at 0,9 speed . 0,75 speed would be the perfect value, a bit faster than now. Please don’t judge others’ knowledge just because you have a very radical sense of balance and think that everyone should have the same opinions about the same thing. 0,75 speed will be enough for teutonic knights

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Nope, they are currently even weak versus melee units since they just cannot force a battle. With 0,75 speed they will be much better versus other infantry units and somewhat better versus cavalry. This speed buff is not against archers

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No, that’d mean FU paladin. I also said castle age specifically

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I still don’t think its enough of a speed buff to help them. They’d still be slower than a war elephant

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I didn’t look into Voobly tournaments. And there was that team game tournament where Viper picked Burmese.

I can’t find that in the changelog. It looks like it’s as always been +1 from Feudal.

Like +1 on Men-at-arms? Free Double-bit axe?

Burmese skirms are as effective as Celts/Franks vs archers. If you don’t like that you’ve got arrow-resistant elephants, Onager, BBC and Siege engineers.

While they are not that different from the Champion, you can be just fine with a Samurai army unlike say, a TK army.

But Lithuanian aren’t meant to have FU trash (it’s a Spanish signature) They are already way above-average in that domain, and are one of the civ with the widest tech trees while having a significant early-game eco bonus unlike other versatile civs like Portuguese. They are fine.

They are already the only civ blessed with both FU arbs and FU Paladins. No idea if you could squeeze HC in and keeo them balanced (even tho that would be super cool)

They are already cost-effective at what they are supposed to do (killing infantry)

Their scout rush is already good enough, and they also got +1 free attack.

The Italian change I get it, but why nerf Vikings? They already have a rough time in feudal because of the lack of fire galleys, and the lack of Shipwright means they can’t produce their boats faster so they need something to compensate.

Without Arbs the Khmer tech tree becomes super awkward again and that would definitely be a huge hit for the civ.

I don’t know for Kipchaks but Chu Ko NU are cost-effective against Rattans, which is a bit embarassing for the theme of Vietnamese 11

They do this all the time (for instance removing the ship armor class from fishing ship and replacing it with a fishing ship armor class so that they are less susceptible to fire galleys)

For what it does it’s almost a gift.

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Rattan don’t win agains chu ko nus. Units that shots several arrows beat them, and they are supposed to counter all archers

You mean, they become not the best civ in the game, with the best imperial age composition and a new option for castle age?

Saracens are awazing in imperial age, they struggle in castle, and it’s really difficult to transition to their ideal late game unit (Mameluke - heavy camel), since it’s senseless to go for knights if you can’t upgrade them. Buffing camel line would solve this

And no, khmer and persians are not fine. Khmer eco in late game is insane, allowing an endless spamm of the best BE of the game. Nerfing their food economy is necessary

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Without Arbs the Khmer tech tree becomes super awkward again and that would definitely be a huge hit for the civ.

awkward how? they already don’t get thumb ring so they’re clearly not supposed to be an archer civ. Scorps, hand canoneers or skirms can deal with the halb issue

I don’t know for Kipchaks but Chu Ko NU are cost-effective against Rattans, which is a bit embarassing for the theme of Vietnamese 11

I’m not so sure about that but I wouldn’t be surprised, I mean Chuks are so inexplicably cheap and easy to produce and yet they’re so strong. But its important to note that chuks have lower range and their extra arrows don’t always land on a target as small as rattans

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Nothing is FU by the Castle Age, FU means it has all generic upgrades that are available on the shared Tech Tree.

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You remember the first half of NAC3? On islands everyone picked vikings and the first Italian pick was quite surprising. Now that the Italians are figured out everyone picked them on islands. The thing I worry about is if Italians get nerfed everyone will pick vikings again. I really want to see atleast 5 civs shining on water. As you said I don’t think that vikings need a nerf early game but their late game needs. The warship discount and dock discount is basicly a shipwright for free. They also have the viking longboats which are superior in the late game.

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Rattan don’t win agains chu ko nus. Units that shots several arrows beat them, and they are supposed to counter all archers

I tested them in the editor and they do, they easily win with around 17-20HP left, those extra arrows rarely hit for a target as small as rattan. And obviously they lose against elephant archers and war wagons, try not to read too deep in tooltips. You don’t send samurai against mangudai expecting positive results do you?

You mean, they become not the best civ in the game, with the best imperial age composition and a new option for castle age?

They were never the best civ in the game, the imperial comp costs a lot of resources including stone mining for castles. The “new option for castle age” is a still a bad unit that looks cool. A lot of news civs can beat mongols late game (see berbers and Magyars) they’re not as good as they used to be. They’re also terrible when the gold runs out. The hunting bonus into fast scouts is essential identity.

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