Balance Wish List Post-PUP

A lot of the changes in today’s patch sound great. I thought I would compile a personal wish list for future balance changes and hopefully spark some discussion. For these balance suggestions I tried to keep changes small and incremental when possible while emphasizing civ uniqueness. Some civs I didn’t mention could probably use small changes too but I could not think of anything so I left them off. Hopefully these don’t make me sound as crazy as some of the balance changes posted to this discussion board 11

General Changes:

Watch Towers hit points from 700 → 870 in feudal age (still 1020 in castle)

Reason: I think the huge nerf to watch tower hit points in feudal was a mistake. Instead of nerfing walls 500 times we should try partially reverting the feudal tower nerf. Tower play in feudal enables aggressive options against wallers. Players should learn how to handle towers rather than nerfing them.

This has the added benefit of improving the viability of Incas and Koreans since they are geared towards trush strategies.

Bulgarians:

(Elite) Konnik reload time from 2.4 → 2.3

Blacksmith research speed bonus from 80% → 66%

Reason: Konnik attack rate was over-nerfed numerous patches ago. Blacksmith buff partially reverted to avoid making the civ overwhelming.

Burgundians:

Flemish Revolution effect changed to Flemish Militia can now be created at Town Centers. No longer has the Ragnarok effect to transform villagers

Flemish Revolution cost from 1200f/650g → 400f/400g

Flemish Militia build time from 14 seconds → 9 seconds

Flemish Militia speed from 0.9 → 1.0

Burgundian Vineyards cost from 400f/300g → 400f/300w

Reason: Flemish Revolution is an abomination and impossible to balance in a way that won’t create frustrating gameplay. Now all it does is enable FM to be built at town centers. In exchange its cost is slashed and FM are buffed. Burgundian Vineyards is changed because currently it takes ages to pay off since it costs 300 gold to make you slowly generate gold.

Celts:

Siege weapon attack rate from 25% → 20/25% in castle/imperial age

Elite Woad Raider has 0 → 1 melee armor

Strongholds now also increases the fire rate of town centers by 25%

Reason: Reducing the cheese power of Celts in castle age with all-in pushes but giving them a little bit of love in imperial age in return. Stronghold change doesn’t really do anything but I figure it might as well apply to TC attack rate too.

Chinese:

Technology cost reduction from 10/15/20% → 5/10/15% in feudal/castle/imperial

Reason: Chinese identity is a strong tech tree and bonus villagers at the start of the game. Nerfing the technology cost reduction seems most logical to preserve identity while making it a little more difficult for them to tech switch in the late game.

Ethiopians:

Halberdier upgrade is now 20% cheaper

Royal Heirs now makes Shotels create 50% faster and other castle units create 25% faster

Reason: Ethiopians seem to be struggling. Even though they are valued by pros their winrate is lower than might be expected. While getting free Halberdiers back would be too strong, a small reduction for the upgrade could be fair. Royal Heirs is another area that could be buffed.

Franks:

Cavalry hit point bonus from 20% → 10/20% in feudal/castle age

Reason: Franks still seem op according to the data. I think this change is best to trim their scout power in the feudal age without nerfing their knight play that they are known for.

Goths:

Gain access to the Plate Barding Armor technology

Reason: Goths are a bit one-dimensional. I think getting access to this upgrade would be a good change to give the Goths a little more variety in the imperial age beyond infantry flood.

Huns:

Atheism cost from 500f/500g to 400f/350g

Reason: Huns don’t need any significant buffs but in its current state Atheism is nearly unusable because you must pay roughly 18 minutes’ worth of relic gold to reduce the rate that your opponents’ relics produce gold. It just takes too long to have any benefit to justify.

Italians:

Advancing to the next age cost reduction from 15% → 20%

University technology cost reduction from 33% → 45%
(Dock reduction remains at 33% or could be lowered, not sure)

Fishing Ship cost reduction from 15% → 10/12.5/15% in dark/feudal/castle

Elite Genoese Crossbowmen bonus damage vs. cavalry reduced from 7 → 6

EGC base damage increased from 6 → 7

Reason: Italians are sad on land maps and dominant on water. I want to redistribute their power so they are a little less oppressive on water in exchange for greater viability on land maps.

Giving EGC +1 base damage would be a big change but I don’t agree with people in other threads who want to give them range because that would make them far too powerful compared to Arbalests. My main issue with EGC is that 1000f/800g for only +5 hp and +2 damage against cavalry does not seem justified for the high upgrade cost.

Japanese:

Elite Samurai attack reload from 1.9 → 1.8

Elite Samurai speed from 1.0 → 1.05

Reason: The latest samurai buffs for castle age are good but there is still little reason to produce Samurai in imperial age given Supplies makes Japanese Champions more efficient and Samurai require castles. I think there should be more incentive to consider Samurai over Champions. Reducing their food cost would also be acceptable to compete with Supplies but I want to be a bit more creative rather than just suggest cost reduction for every UU.

Mayans:

Archer discount from 10/20/30% → 10/15/20% in feudal/castle/imperial

Reason: Probably not too controversial of a change. Mayan archer discount is extremely high compared to all other civilization discounts. It’s possible Mayans could use another small nerf somewhere but I would rather be cautious with these suggestions rather than rush to over-nerf or over-buff every civ.

Mongols:

Nomads effect changed to lost buildings do not decrease population space (instead of just houses)

Reason: This unique tech is mostly useless. I think if it were extended to town centers and castles as well it could have the potential to perhaps be researched more than 0% of games

Portuguese:

Unit gold cost reduction from 20% → 25%

Technology research speed from 30% → 50%

Ship bonus hit points from 10% → 5/10% in feudal/castle

Feitoria cost from 250g/250s → 350g/350s and population cost from 20 → 30

Feitoria resource generation from 1.6f/1.0w/0.7g/0.3s → 2.4f/1.5w/1.05g/0.45/s

Feitoria now has a maximum build limit of 1 at a time

Elite Organ Gun hit points from 70 → 75 and attack from 20 → 22

Reason: Portuguese are similar to Italians in that they can be oppressive on water maps but totally mediocre on land. Thus, they should receive buffs for land viability in exchange for losing some strength on water.

The main issue with Portuguese on water maps is that feitorias trivialize wood limits and can win games by attrition which is not satisfying for either player. To solve this, I suggest enforcing a build limit on feitorias in exchange for making the 1 feitoria slightly more efficient. Portuguese still have their infinite resource flow but this should make it more difficult for Portuguese to just automatically win water maps like islands after throwing up 2-3+ feitorias.

Saracens:

Return the civ bonus of Cavalry Archers deal +4 damage to buildings

Madrasah changed from 33% refund on monk death → monks cost 33% less gold

(Elite) Mameluke build time from 23 seconds → 21 seconds

Reason: Saracens are pretty good so they don’t need much of anything. Madrasah desperately needs a change as it is nearly useless in a real game because it only helps if you are losing monks, which is a bad thing. This change should not be a massive buff to Saracens but perhaps can enable more imperial monk play. Likewise, the cavalry archer building damage barely counts as a buff. I just think it should be re-added to the civ because the devs removed it for the foot archer bonus but then never added it back after reverting the foot archer bonus.

Sicilians:

Serjeant cost from 60f/35g → 55f/30g

First Crusade effect changed to Serjeants can now construct military production buildings (excluding Castles)

First Crusade cost from 300f/600g → 350f/350g

Hauberk effect from +1/+2 armor → +1/+1 armor

Hauberk cost from 500f/400 g → 400f/400g

Donjon hit points from 1000/1500/2250 → 1000/1750/2500 in feudal/castle/imperial

Donjon attack from 5 to 5/6/7 in feudal/castle/imperial

Reason: The Sicilian UTs are the main issue with the civ. First Crusade is frustrating to play against. While not turbo OP anymore, I think it would be healthier for the game to change it. The cost of Serjeants is reduced in compensation and now the unique tech emphasizes the niche of Serjeants to be front-line builders.

Hauberk is problematic in 1v1 games because it makes their cavalier even better than FU paladins against Arbalests and of course paladins are difficult to obtain in 1v1 games already. I don’t think there’s a way it can stay at +2 pierce armor.

Donjons buffed to compensate for the UT nerfs. They are a little on the weak side after feudal age anyway as they cost significantly more than generic towers but have equivalent hit points

Spanish:

Villager construction bonus from 30% → 50%

Construction bonus for town centers and watch towers reduced from 30% → 20% (like Wonders)

Missionaries gain +1 range in imperial age

Inquisition also grants +1 range to Missionaries in addition to its previous effect

Reason: Spanish struggle greatly on open maps because their feudal/early castle transition is so weak with no crossbow to transition to. Increasing the construction speed seems like the easiest way to make their feudal age slightly less pitiful without introducing new civ bonuses. In exchange, their town center production speed is nerfed to help reduce their dominance on Nomad maps.

Missionaries also get a bit of love to make them less useless. With these changes Missionaries can reach 9 range in imperial like generic monks so perhaps we could them used more than 0% of the time.

Turks:

Elite Janissaries hit points from 40 → 45 and accuracy from 65% → 70%

Reason: Castle age Janissaries are beastly but in imperial age the Elite Janissary is overshadowed after the last round of Hand Cannoneer buffs. I think this change is fair to give Turks a reason to still consider upgrading and building Janissaries instead of HC in imperial.

4 Likes

Didn’t read the rest, because this change is so good already 11. If Spanish and Teutons would be a busted Trushing civ again with stronger Feudal Towers, then nerf those civs instead of the whole strategy, like what happened with Koreans and Incas.

Too many changes at once.

I like the tower change thought.

I disagree with all your infstry UU buffs after not even waiting to see the effects of the buffs from today’s patch.

Your change for Chinese just makes them not good for pros anymore and they already suck for average plebs. It’s the wrong approach.
Instead there start needs to be made less extreme, to reduce the performance difference between pros and plebs. Give them +50 food back and one less starting vill. This will lover the chance for idle tc for noobs and nerf pros St the same time that can already pull of perfect Chinese starts.

Konniks are already very strong pop efficient, no need for attacks peed, if buffed then give them lower food cost. I am not convinced they need that. Bulgarians are a but busted right now.

Flemish Revolution could be reworked to work like tartars sheep bonus to spawn 2 Flemish militia per tc and also for future new build TC.

First crusade should be changed to spawn serjeant a from castles and donjons instead in a Similiar fashion, 4 per castle, 2 per donjon,also future new buildings.also means you can’t 5 tc boom into 35 serjeant, instead castle dropping and towers with the UU are encouraged.

This way both techs are not one time effects only, but also don’t have those insane power spikes in fitting for aoe2

Portuguese suck and need buffs: can train 2/4/6 militia for free after reaching feudal/castle/imperial age (comparable to Ethiopian bonus resources)

IF you limit feitorias to 1, then you could atleast make them more pop efficient to allow ports to atleast have an actual late game eco bonus in a normal game before wood runs out. 10 pop cost but with the current rates, That would be great and about equal efficiency to villagers.

2 Likes

No Bulgarians don’t need the team bonus nerfed, but only tthe Elite Konnik needs the ROF reduced and that’s it.
Rest of the changes seems ok but Sicilians yes or yes need to lose bloodlines

And any buff won’t make Chinese more playable for 1k player or better, better left them as the hardest to domain but rewarding for doing that, also they need a nerf on the cheaper techs yes, one less villager won’t nerf thme, Mayans have 150F at start and one extra vill, still an insane civ in 2k.

I think Towers need a huge buff in castle age and Imperial age, i’ve never seen anyone make them after Feudal age.

1 Like

late game towering is a skill but towers in imp die to imperial units pretty hard if they are missing even 1 upgrade. Castle Age towering is rare though.

I like it.

Elite konnik are already very strong, and if possible it is the unit to go for in many cases instead of cavalier don’t see why it need a buff at least on elite version, regular konnik maybe ? but don’t think that’s necessary.

Flemish revolution need to go away, i agree, however, 9 seconds seems to being too fast to produce flemish militia even from tc, current production time is fine.
I like the cost change to Burgundian Vineyards.

I like the tc change on stronghold tech, and reducing siege bonus of celts (i would like to see however composation on castle age where celts is under average, even currently on open map) but +1 melee on elite woad raider is not needed to me as it improve imperial age where celts already excel except vs gunpowder composition where this changes don’t help.

Agree completely.

I don’t think that’s necessary especially where ethiopians is already very good on tg as flank for royal heirs (it also make weird conflit with berbers ut) halb discount is not necessary but why not.

Disagree, franks is a hard civ to balance as it is a very one dimensional civ and by nerfing their only real option you nerfing it strongly, issue is in team game only, you are nerfing it in 1v1 as well where there are good but not top tier civ especially vs ca or some infantry civ like vikings or celts.

Agree, i would also remove completly the boar bonus which is a nuisance and even free loom with something like hunt decay 50% slowest ?

I agree.

Genoese are already very strong and water play is one of the best possible this changes will also heavily buff water play espacially fi fast fire ship, i however like the fishing ship changes.

I would prefer a cost changes but that’s is fine also.

I fully agree.

Yes, why not i like it.

About feitoria changes, i don’t know at all ?
About the rest i agree with ship hp being nerfed and tech researched faster and even elite organ buff but i don’t with the gold cost reduction which is already very high.

For madrasah, i like the change i would even extend it to tech as well
For ca bonus i dislike because that is very annoying to see archers destroy building very easily and it promote a lot to go all in all the time with the market bonus. i would even remove the crossbows bonus and change it completly
Mameluke is already very strong when you have ressources to make it but it’s very expensive, it need gold cost reduction like 85 => 75

I like hauberk changes.
The new effect on first crusade can be very interesting !
serjeant is very very good currently and its easier to mass than most other unique unit don’t need any buff on it.

I like it.

Accuracy is enough if anything done, hc is easier to mass but weaker it is very similar with arba vs longbow brits where the longbow is really better but it’s very hard to get compared to arba.

1 Like

Genoese are already very strong and water play is one of the best possible this changes will also heavily buff water play espacially fi fast fire ship, i however like the fishing ship changes.

You may be right about GC. I would be open to other changes I just think 1000 f 800 g for the elite upgrade to only give +5 hp and +2 damage against Cavalry is hard to justify. I don’t want to give them range because that makes them too versatile. I think reducing the elite cost and no other changes would be acceptable though.

As for buffing their water play how do you figure? I only suggest increasing the university discount, not the dock discount. I could even see the dock discount being lowered to say 25% to help smooth the Italians out between water and land tbh. Unless you are just talking about the additional 5% discount on aging up.

Yep gives them range is the worst possible changes for me, i think that is fine currently there is a lot of uu which don’t get many changes once in elite like arambai, conquistadors, ballista elephant etc, but reducing cost could be a thing.

Well, the additional 5% discount on age but also the university bonus which is important in water map for many things like ballistics / chemistry(especially combined with bbc / canoon galleon discount) or masonry / architecture which is usefull to defend land, but also guard tower / keep tech which is usefull a lot in water map to help galleon fight in quite late game on neutral islands on northen isles or islands for example.
This discount is huge in style of map where you don’t really make economy and get the fastest possible castle / imp timing.

I don’t know if I have ever seen towers on water map matches but I suppose you are correct that buffing the university could have unintended consequences for water maps still.

I’m not sure what else to change for Italians though. Maybe someone else has better suggestions for them. I’m just tired of seeing “GC need +1 range” and “Italians need Siege Engineers” though 11

Yes, i agree :wink: that’s a tough civ to balance on both water and land map, i think your fishing ship changes is a good changes to nerf water on water map(i would even completly remove it i think) but they will still be below average on land map :stuck_out_tongue:
I think italians need a slight military bonus on early games on archers ?, they get a lot of discount which help them a lot in early game but only generic army until post imp.
I however think that they are already a lot of archers civs which get differents bonus directly on it so im not sure.

Not only this but also increase to 33% or even 50% maybe.

Perhaps gain the basic stone wall too. Remove the hussars if necessary.

Perhaps just make it do not cost gold, like 500f500w whatever.

In my opinion, the Kataparuto is the real problem. An mostly infrequent and useless UT which bases on 0% truth. I would like to give them the bombard cannons in exchange of it and then create a new one to buff the samurai, for example named “Bushido” and +2 pierce armor.

Not bad. Although I would support that just reach the max cap directly and maybe cost more if necessary.

probably a meaningless change. Similar to Orthodoxy and Inquisition, people mostly never willing to try them since they affect monks only.

The core problem is they can not carry the relic rather than the range since they are faster and stronger. I had suggested that they become able to carry the relic but their basic speed have to be as slow as regular monks while they are carrying.

Besides them, the Orthodoxy, Inquisition, Cuman mercenaries and flaming camels need some ideas too.

For orthodoxy I’m not really sure what can be done. You could increase the armor further, but the core issue is that armor isn’t very helpful when the hit points are so low. And giving them more hit points infringes on Aztec’s bonus.

For Cuman Mercenaries the best suggestion I’ve heard is that instead of 10 free Kipchaks it permanently unlocks Kipchaks for allies albeit at 2x gold cost (60 wood 70 gold). The cost could be tinkered with if any combinations are too powerful like with Mongols or Magyars for example.

Other than that it’s hard to imagine what do with these UTs without completely replacing them with different ideas.

As for Flaming Camels they are an april fools unit so I’m not sure if they were intended to ever be particularly viable. Maybe they should just remove them 11

Why unlocking kipchaks for allies in imperial age would be OP is beyond me. It’s TG so the cheaper gold cost doesn’t matter as much and every civ that would have better kipchaks than Cumans already have good HCA which are better to mass in imp TG. I don’t even think they would be meta if unlocked at the normal cost but at least they would be fun to mess around with.

Ig making flaming camels being available without the need to research timurid siegecraft would be fine.

I am sure 75% accuracy like HC got is fair for Elite Janissaries instead of 70%. HC has many benefits now that Elite Janissaries do not provide.

Ok, that seems pretty decent. Towers have taken some pretty big hits, so giving them some more HP in Feudal seems alright.

Konniks are really pop efficient, and Bulgarians have stirrups to improve attack rate already, I don’t really support this change.

Yes, but I’m not sure that I agree with the FR changes.

All sounds good.

I reckon that might weaken them too much. Increase the Chu Ko Nu gold cost by 5 though.

Don’t Shotels create 100% faster with Royal Heirs? The rest of it kind of seems too close to the Berber bonus. I agree with the thing about Halberdier, but maybe buff it to 40% cheaper or something.

Yes, agreed.

Nah, Goths are meant to be one dimensional. Why would anyone want to play cavalry with them?

Atheisms so bad I don’t see why not do this.

I agree with changing the age cost, and maybe the university techs as well. Using decimal values for the fishing ships is kind of weird though. Maybe 5%/10%/15% in Dark/Feudal/Castle. Changing the EGC damage like that is going to make it too good, considering how it shreds cav and infantry, and has a lot of armor, so it’s also decent against other archers. Maybe change Condottiero to give it a wider window of attack?

I would rather just give both Samurai, or possibly just the elite +1 PA. In addition to this, they could gain a new unique mechanic that gives them +2 or +3 attack when they are the only unit on your team targeting a particular enemy.

Yes, definitely agree with this. Maybe make the Plumed Archer slightly cheaper to compensate.

Sure, people probably still won’t use it, but at least it might be alright.

I think that I agree with everything except hard capping the Feitoria to one at a time, it’s just not really an AoE2 mechanic. Maybe if ships had significant bonus damage against it that could be good. The true best counter though is monks. :joy:

Ok.

I agree with changing the Serjeant cost, although I might be more inclined to do 60F 25G instead. The first crusade idea is quite interesting, but it could be overpowered, maybe if it lets Serjeants construct siege units in the field? It could also spawn 3 serjeants per TC as well, keeping the max of 5 TCs. I agree with the changes to Donjons, but not those to Hauberk. If you are changing first crusade, that’s already an indirect nerf to they knight line. I also think that letting serjeants fire extra arrows in Donjons could be good, probably if they counted for the same as a villager.

Really not sure how the Spanish should be changed. I agree that they need changes, but I don’t think these ones.

Yes. This seems decent.

1 Like

Perhaps not give +3/+3 armor only for monks but also for villagers and trade carts.

I had suggested that it would automatically spawn about 8 elite Kipchaks per existing and constructed later allies’ castle.

Make them cheaper and trainable without the UT limit maybe.

Towers should make more damage. Guard tower should shot scorpions bolts and keep HC bullets

They are already insanely cost effective as is. You know why people don’t like them? Because they are suicide units.

Mostly good ideas.
For Sicilians you forgot to remove the 100% faster castles, which is at least as bad for the game as first crusade.
And Spanish shouldn’t get 50% faster castles either. I see that they need a bit better early game. Just give them anything like a little building discount. But then the devs are crying because some other civ - that otherwise has little in common with Spanish - has a too similar eco bonus