Balance Suggestions

Age of Empires: DE I - Discussion
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I don’t see any active thread with clear balance recommendations, so my goal with this thread is to discuss some of the balance issues still in the game. Maybe we should add it to the MS suggestions hub, but personally I find that a pain to use and it is not very user friendly overall.

I should first say that I was part of the council for AoE DE and as a result, many of the balance changes that were introduced are the result of discussions between me plus another fellow AoE 1 veteran and FE. I am pleased with the results and balance has improved a lot since the original and also the UPatch. We knew that balance probably would not be 100 % perfect right away, but we were told to assess the current balance during the remainder of the beta and during the early stages after release and then come together with FE again to make the necessary final adjustments. Sadly, this never happened and I am not sure if this still will happen. So that is why I am writing my suggestions here. So here are my suggestions with possible fixes, taking into account earlier balance discussions on the forums. The idea is to make a definitive list.

Mandatory changes

1. Slingers are too strong
This was already an issue in the original, but with the change from the UPatch (which wasn’t discussed), slingers are way too powerful in the tool and early bronze age. They are very good against archers (and they should), but also do reasonably well against weak melee units (in particular, axemen, chariots and can even defend against small amounts of cavalry, which is not good). If anything. There are a couple of ways to fix this:

  • Decrease slinger base attack to 1 and increase bonus damage to make up for it
  • Increase bonus damage, but lower rate of fire
  • Increase bonus damage, but give them minimum range so they are become very vulnerable to melee units

2. Scythe Chariots too strong
This was already a problem in the original and while they have slightly been nerfed (reduced trample damage area), the effect of this seems to be rather minimal. Currently, Scythe Chariots are a good all round unit and can hold their own against units that they should not be able to win against: Legions and Cataphracts.
Particularly, Egyptian Scythe Chariots are the biggest problem, with their high HP. This bonus could be nerfed, but here the problem is that bronze age chariots are among the weakest units in the game, so also nerfing this unit would cripple Egyptian’s bronze age, which isn’t too powerful. The problem as well is that in the Iron age, Scythe Chariots are pretty much all the Egyptian’s have, because they lack good infantry, siege or horse archers. Elephant archers are nice, but are better at defending than attacking as they are slow. And War elephants have way too many weaknesses if they can’t be upgraded to armored elephants. Nerfing Scythe Chariots doesn’t affect the other civs as much, because they all use Scythe Chariots as a secondary unit. This problem would be much easier if there was a true cheap counter to cavalry (as spearman are in AoE II). Nonetheless, here are a couple of options:

  • Increase upgrade cost significantly (eg: 1200wood, 1200)
  • Reduce attack, armor and/or HP (any combinations of these. e.g. 8 base attack, 0 base armor and 105 base HP. This may not seem like a big change, but it will definitely make a big difference when fighting Legions and Cataphracts.
  • Trample damage reduced, eg: deal only 50%-75% damage to units that are within trample damage range, but not directly attacked.

Less mandatory, then the others, but I still want to address this here:
3. Iron age cavalry still too weak
Heavy cavalry and Cataphracts are still too weak, despite their buffs. Legions will easily overwhelm them, despite the fact they should counter Legions. Nerfing Scythe Chariots further will strengthen the positions of Cataphracts, but not enough. For instance, Catapults can easily destroy a bunch of cataphracts, and since Cataphracts are so gold intensive (80 gold, just as expensive as a catapult), it is difficult to kill Catapults with Cataphracts in a way that is cost effective gold wise, despite the fact that fast units should naturally counter Siege. Here are some possible fixes:

  • Increase speed of Cataphract (e.g. +10 %), so that this unit becomes more desirable. This also makes this unit better against Siege.
  • Decrease the cost of cavalry. 80 gold is actually a really high price for this unit that is at risk by being killed by units that cost much less or don’t cost gold at all
  • Increase bonus damage against infantry significantly
  • Increase base pierce armor
  • Bonus damage against siege

The following suggestions are debatable.

Non mandatory changes

1. Remove Engineering from Assyrians: The Assyrian were given Engineering, because they lack good Iron age units. However, I never really liked this, because it simply makes the Assyrians another Siege heavy civ, of which there are already plenty. Instead, I opt for a cavalry bonus like an HP bonus of up to 25 % or a faster attack rate for the Assyrians to make the game more diverse. As already stated, Iron age Cavalry is underused and currently only 1 civ gets a cavalry bonus (Yamato). Historically this would also be justified as the Assyrians were known for their powerful and well organized cavalry. In general the Assyrians were fierce and exceptionally brutal in their wars.

Feel free to suggest stuff that you think might be good for this list. Or whether you agree or not. I probably forgot some stuff as well so feel free to point that out.

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I would argue that i find persians Elephants nerf (movement speed) a bit too strong too. Elephant is a really strong unit but that have also have strong counter, movement speed made them more powerfull against siege which i believe really lack now.

And also compared to other elphant civ they don’t have much of support unit. (though they have engineering on catapults which isn’t a bad deal).

I agree on Cav and it’s sad, i have in mind a 1v1 post iron DM where i used them as yamato to try counter catapults, but just ended going centurion instead which with a bit of army control did a better job (the damage done by hit was important a deal breaker).

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Very good suggestions.

In the case of the Slingers, it seems to me that the best option is to give a minimum rank.

Scythe are not that strong really, they have little attack and little armor. The best suggestion for this unit seems to me to reduce the damage by trampling.

I totally agree on the next point, the cavalry costs too much. Not only Iron, I think that since the bronze cavalry should have something more attack. Maybe a 9/12/15 could work better. The phalanx, although very slow, costs 40 G and has an attack of 17/20/30 the gap is very large.

Assyrians with cavalry bonus, it would be great.

We hope these suggestions are carried out. Thanks for sharing.

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Slinger

After Rise of Rome came out people complained how Bowmen become useless in Tool Age due to strong Slingers.
Making Slingers to be purely Bowmen counters in Tool Age would retain the uselessness of Bowmen while ensuring that Slingers couldn’t be used to to fight against Axemen.
Any attempt to use Bowmen would be still be countered by changing Axemens to Slingers, mining stone can be done much faster than building the Archery Ranges ensuring that Axemen would be the only usable unit in Tool Age.

What i tested and found much better way was to reduce the effectiveness of Slingers towards Bowmen making it possible to fight with Bowmen against a player who changed from Axemen to Slingers too late. (also nerfing the Slinger slightly.)

Bowmen
Armor Stone defense & archers: -2 → -1

Slinger
Training time: 24s → 30s
Stone cost: 10 → 20/25

Stone Mining
Food cost: 100 → 120
Stone cost: 50 → 80

Scythe Chariot

Increase upgrade cost significantly (eg: 1200wood, 1200)

What do you want to achieve with this?
How i see this, is that it only makes it riskier to go for the SC but the problem of having trash unit that competes with late game gold cost units would not disappear (That is the biggest problem that people have with SC).
Even though in competitive games risk vs reward can be made right with upgrade cost change, it would not work in casual games because of how much easier it is to lessen up in tempo without getting punished.

  • Reduce attack, armor and/or HP (any combinations of these. e.g. 8 base attack, 0 base armor and 105 base HP. This may not seem like a big change, but it will definitely make a big difference when fighting Legions and Cataphracts.
  • Trample damage reduced, eg: deal only 50%-75% damage to units that are within trample damage range, but not directly attacked.

These type of changes is the one that is needed.
Having changes that effects front line VS SC fight is the best way to go even if it might not be the best way for competitive games it will be best thing for the casual games. Mindless SC spammig is the most annoying strategy to play against.

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@pate623
You have a valid point, and you are right. I have considered similar options multiple times, it is indeed a problem that slingers can be trained from the barracks and bowmen can not, hence is is much easier to get slingers quickly. The problem with your suggestion is that slingers have become more prominent in the bronze age as Chariot Archer counters, which is a good thing. If you increase the stone cost, you would pretty much undo this effect as they simply become too expensive (stone is the second most precious resource). I don’t think that under any circumstance it is a good idea to weaken the slinger’s position as a cheap archer counter in the bronze age, which increasing the cost of slingers (but also stone mining upgrade), as well as the training time, does. You would also need to decrease the slinger bonus against composite archers, otherwise it would be very strange and confusing. This would strengthen Composite archers, an already powerful unit in the bronze age.

I think the best option would be to move the slinger from the Barracks to the Archery Range, in combination with the slinger nerfs that I mentioned.

But let’s assume that’s not going to happen, then I still believe that nerfing the slinger against melee is currently a good option. It might make the axemen slightly more powerful, but I would not exaggerate this. Keep in mind that you can defend from axemen pretty easily simply by making walls. Slingers remain useful to take down walls, towers and buildings. I predict Bowmen will become slightly more useful, but indeed, the fact that you have to make an archery range remains a problem. It’s not perfect, but it at least limits slinger dominance in tool age. Other measures can be taken as well, such as decreasing bowmen training time.

==============================================
About Scythe Chariot:

@pate623 said:

Scythe Chariot

Increase upgrade cost significantly (eg: 1200wood, 1200)

What do you want to achieve with this?
How i see this, is that it only makes it riskier to go for the SC but the problem of having trash unit that competes with late game gold cost units would not disappear (That is the biggest problem that people have with SC).
Even though in competitive games risk vs reward can be made right with upgrade cost change, it would not work in casual games because of how much easier it is to lessen up in tempo without getting punished.

This change alone won’t do very much indeed. It makes up for the fact that scythe chariots don’t cost any gold. Plus it makes the upgrade cost to be more in line with other upgrades: To upgrade from hoplite to Centurion for instance you have to first upgrade to phalanx (300f, 100g) and then to Centurion (1800f, 700g), making for a total upgrade cost of 2100f and 800g, which is 2900 in total resources. Not to mention that each hoplite cost 40 gold as well. The same applies to legions and Cataphracts, which all cost gold. Scythe Chariot upgrade is only 800g and 1200w. Which makes for 2000 resources in total. And while wood is more valuable than food, Scythe Chariots don’t cost any gold.

  • Reduce attack, armor and/or HP (any combinations of these. e.g. 8 base attack, 0 base armor and 105 base HP. This may not seem like a big change, but it will definitely make a big difference when fighting Legions and Cataphracts.
  • Trample damage reduced, eg: deal only 50%-75% damage to units that are within trample damage range, but not directly attacked.

These type of changes is the one that is needed.
Having changes that effects front line VS SC fight is the best way to go even if it might not be the best way for competitive games it will be best thing for the casual games. Mindless SC spammig is the most annoying strategy to play against.

It will make a difference in competitive games for sure. Currently you can beat an army of Cataphracts with Scythe Chariots or legions, which is nuts of course, regardless of the skill level of the game.

The only thing that we should be careful about it that Scythe Chariots remain useful enough as counters to Catapults and Helepoli.

@kinzo said:
I would argue that i find persians Elephants nerf (movement speed) a bit too strong too. Elephant is a really strong unit but that have also have strong counter, movement speed made them more powerfull against siege which i believe really lack now.

And also compared to other elphant civ they don’t have much of support unit. (though they have engineering on catapults which isn’t a bad deal).

I agree on Cav and it’s sad, i have in mind a 1v1 post iron DM where i used them as yamato to try counter catapults, but just ended going centurion instead which with a bit of army control did a better job (the damage done by hit was important a deal breaker).

Persian Elephants used to be a big problem. This civ was basically banned from DM, beause no civ could match Persian elephants. Keep in mind that Persian now gets wheel, which is huge. Persian also gets fully upgraded Legions and Cataphracts. Nonetheless, maybe elephants could be made slightly faster. I think they used to be 60 % faster.

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Guys, before talk of balance, we need someone that invest delevoper resourcers on game… and this is what this game havent…

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As @Marra333 states, given the developers have moved to AOK DE this discussion could be rather academic. These are my views however:-

Slingers - Increase stone cost to 20 stone. Bowmen cost 20 wood, I see no reason why slingers shouldn’t cost 20 stone, particularly given players get free starting stone just sitting there. Barracks get built in Stone Age so increasing the stone cost will make it harder to spam and get stone mining and wall all at the same time. Failing that, move stone mining to Bronze Age as it is the three damage stacking at range which is the problem and makes them a better option than bowmen.

Cataphracts - switch the gold upgrade cost to wood, similarly switch the heavy cavalry upgrade cost from gold to wood. Give Cataphracts a small trample radius. High gold cost units shouldn’t require upgrade costs that also cost lots of gold.

Scythes - Reverse the following DE change:-

Coinage – gold mining productivity (extra yield) reduced to +10% (previously +25%), gathering speed and carry capacity remain the same.

This is an indirect buff to the Scythe civs and makes attrition wins more likely.

If you let an Egyptian get to Iron for Scythes and haven’t walled that’s really your problem but could scale the HP bonus back to 25%.

If you let a Macedonian get Phalanxes with aristocracy and tower shield you are in trouble, if you allow a Choson to get Legions you are in trouble. No different to Eygpt.

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OK if it is academic lets talk…
Slinger are a little strong but… they are strong if u mass it, and axemen are more quickly then slinger to go out, if u attack before he mass slinger i dont know if he can survive well , btw the 20 stone can be a solution.
Scythes in terms of cost efficency are a way better then cavarly cause cav are gold dependant. In team game this is a big problem … but i have no idea if is better give bonus to cav unit or low the scythes stat/cost.
For macedonia phalanxes , i think is not a DM so, u should organize your game to slow the macedonian like choson. These 2 civ in bronze are not really good like some other , they have only cav and they are both gold dependant. U should attack them to slow economy and dont left them untouched and boomed, is the same with persian armored elephant… This is a problem of tactics not of unit… also grece phalax are so really strong cause they run like a ■■■■ and u cant kill them with priest.
In water map also minoan bronze , if mass xbow are near to be unstoppable…
BTw i think some adjustement can be good but i think that the people in team game, where often u play with no communication , is the problem that give a big advantage of certain civ…

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All my SC complaints and balance suggestions disappeared because they decided to close down the Beta section without prior notice.

But it was basically what Hellstriker summed up about it.

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@“Mystic Taboo” said:
As @Marra333 states, given the developers have moved to AOK DE this discussion could be rather academic. These are my views however:-

Slingers - Increase stone cost to 20 stone. Bowmen cost 20 wood, I see no reason why slingers shouldn’t cost 20 stone, particularly given players get free starting stone just sitting there. Barracks get built in Stone Age so increasing the stone cost will make it harder to spam and get stone mining and wall all at the same time. Failing that, move stone mining to Bronze Age as it is the three damage stacking at range which is the problem and makes them a better option than bowmen.

Cataphracts - switch the gold upgrade cost to wood, similarly switch the heavy cavalry upgrade cost from gold to wood. Give Cataphracts a small trample radius. High gold cost units shouldn’t require upgrade costs that also cost lots of gold.

Scythes - Reverse the following DE change:-

Coinage – gold mining productivity (extra yield) reduced to +10% (previously +25%), gathering speed and carry capacity remain the same.

This is an indirect buff to the Scythe civs and makes attrition wins more likely.

If you let an Egyptian get to Iron for Scythes and haven’t walled that’s really your problem but could scale the HP bonus back to 25%.

If you let a Macedonian get Phalanxes with aristocracy and tower shield you are in trouble, if you allow a Choson to get Legions you are in trouble. No different to Eygpt.

Well, 10 stone makes sense to me, considering stone is much, much more valuable than wood.

The problem with Scythes is that they are expendable, even more so than legions. You can just keep them coming almost forever and losing them is not really that much of a problem, because you simply make more. It’s very frustrating if are using Cataphracts that cost a crapton of gold to fight an even battle against Egy Scythes and get nowhere untill your gold runs out, at which point it’s all over. Even if you are going for legions, which are also expandable, you will have a difficult time against Egy scythes. Unless you are Choson of course.

The coinage thing was put in because not getting it was a serious disadvantage in especially DM. Civs like Sumerian really suffered from this. So we simply decided to go give it to all the civs.

I think the problem with the cataphract has more to do with the actual unit cost than the upgrade cost. 80 gold is a lot of gold for just 1 unit. Even in the bronze age this is a problem, considering you risk getting rekt by mass chariot archer and compies. However, in the bronze age, Cavalry still has some uses. They prevail against small armies of archers, can be effective against slingers, stone throwers can’t really hit them and they are a good choice for quickly putting down villagers. In the Iron age however, the competition almost makes them obsolete. Catapults are suddenly a problem because of damage area, the catapult player can easily take down a couple of Cataphracts before they are destroyed and practically loses nothing, because cataphracts are just as expensive, gold wise. Cataphracts are weak against Scythes and are supposed to be strong against legions, but can’t really match with their low cost and fast creation time. They are also weak against Helepoli and engaging an army of horse archers is also risky. Unless you are Yamato, Cataphracts really have no purpose on the iron age battlefield. Cataphracts don’t really excel in anything, except in draining your gold supply very fast. Either the gold cost of this unit has to go down (e.g. 50 gold per unit) so they become more expendable, or they need a serious buff, which gives them a clear purpose.

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I think the cavalry should be more powerful and not lower the cost. An expensive but efficient unit.
The cost of the Slinger is fine. The real problem is Stone Mining. A good idea would be that this improvement only increases the range and not the attack, so that it keeps hitting 2 infantry and horses.

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I don’t want to use too many quotes as then we get massive threads but @AKC_HellStriker.

‘Well, 10 stone makes sense to me, considering stone is much, much more valuable than wood’

It depends on the context when assessing value and the context we are dealing with is slingers in Tool not Iron. In terms of villager seconds 20 stone, particularly as the slinger rusher will prioritise stone mining will collect quicker than 20 wood because the walk from wood to storage pit is usually longer than mine to storage pit. The relative scarcity of stone to wood is irrelevant even into Iron Age.

The starting wood you get has to be used on economy. The starting stone you get just sits there. So relatively as you get a free bank of stone to start with is it really true, in context of addressing early slinger power, to state that stone is more valuable than wood, I suggest not.

'The coinage thing was put in because not getting it was a serious disadvantage in especially DM. Civs like Sumerian really suffered from this. So we simply decided to go give it to all the civs.:

The indirect buff to scythes to which I was referring was not making coinage universal but the scaling back off the +25% bonus to 10%. Less gold to harvest obviously benefits scythes.

‘I think the problem with the cataphract has more to do with the actual unit cost than the upgrade cost’

I agree hence why I stated giving cataphracts trample. The gold saved from the upgrade can be used to buy more before you run out of gold.

In reality lots of civs get scythes of their own or some kind of bonus which means the game should end before the enemy gets Scythes or an iron age unit that will kill them.

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@“Mystic Taboo” said:
I don’t want to use too many quotes as then we get massive threads but @AKC_HellStriker.

‘Well, 10 stone makes sense to me, considering stone is much, much more valuable than wood’

It depends on the context when assessing value and the context we are dealing with is slingers in Tool not Iron. In terms of villager seconds 20 stone, particularly as the slinger rusher will prioritise stone mining will collect quicker than 20 wood because the walk from wood to storage pit is usually longer than mine to storage pit. The relative scarcity of stone to wood is irrelevant even into Iron Age.

The starting wood you get has to be used on economy. The starting stone you get just sits there. So relatively as you get a free bank of stone to start with is it really true, in context of addressing early slinger power, to state that stone is more valuable than wood, I suggest not.

'The coinage thing was put in because not getting it was a serious disadvantage in especially DM. Civs like Sumerian really suffered from this. So we simply decided to go give it to all the civs.:

The indirect buff to scythes to which I was referring was not making coinage universal but the scaling back off the +25% bonus to 10%. Less gold to harvest obviously benefits scythes.

‘I think the problem with the cataphract has more to do with the actual unit cost than the upgrade cost’

I agree hence why I stated giving cataphracts trample. The gold saved from the upgrade can be used to buy more before you run out of gold.

In reality lots of civs get scythes of their own or some kind of bonus which means the game should end before the enemy gets Scythes or an iron age unit that will kill them.

In terms of resource value one also has to consider that wood is easier accessible. If your stone miners are under attack than your stone income is seriously crippled as finding a new stone source might be difficult. On the contrary, if your forest is under attack, then it is relatively easy to move your villagers to another forest. You could potentially move your villagers to the other side of the map and find a new forest as forests are evenly distributed over the entire map.

We’re not only talking about slinger rushing here, though. Slingers have become a more effective tool as a cheap unit to fight Chariot archers in the bronze age, something that was a problem before. If the stone cost is doubled, you will not only have less stone available later on in the game, but as a direct consequence it also makes it harder to quickly mobilize slingers in case of incoming bronze age archers (chariot archers in particular).

The way I see it slingers should be able to easily take down pre iron age archery, while they should in turn be very vulnerable to any melee unit (axemen incuded). I don’t really see how an increased stone cost solves this problem.

Maybe your vision differs in this? We should agree first on the slingers’ exact purpose in the game before we can argue about solutions.

About the Coinage thing: one thing I should mention is that there is more gold available on the maps in DE when compared to the classic. Not only are there more “free” gold mines distributed over the map, but each gold mine also has more gold tiles on them. So in reality, even though Coinage was reduced, there is more gold available in general.

Giving Cataphracts trample is a nice idea, but not sure how it would really fit into the game. Especially since Cataphracts visually don’t look very different from (heavy) cavalry. I mean, elephants are just huge and scythe chariots are massive 2 horse carts with blades attached to the wheels, so it makes sense that these units do damage to adjacent units.

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