Beating the Dead Horse. Lets talk game design, TAR units, and "Definitive"

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
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I write this post out of love for the game and the community, and I hope it’s well-received.

Player counts in aoe3 are currently dwindling, and while many may blame it on aoe4, I’m not so sure aoe4 is the cause. I’m not playing either game atm. AoE4 doesn’t have the same personalized feel that aoe3 has, but aoe3 has gone off the rails with some of the new content, and I believe that many players are repelled by their inability to recognize a game they’ve played for more than 15 years.

tldr; DE devs have strayed too far from much of aoe3’s core unit-design philosophies, and they should make adjustments accordingly if they really wish for this game to be a definitive version of the beloved AoE3.
Unfortunate design choices: ambiguous unit qualities and stats, blatant disregard for the core unit typing and counter system, and convolution without cause.

Here is aoe3’s counter system in a nutshell graphic.
image

credit unknown

I stole this from someone on the forums a few months ago, but I don’t remember who or where, so thanks to that person for the graphic. I did make a change: Heavy infantry’s counter to Ranged cavalry is a dotted line, because muskets only just trade well with goons, and it’s rare for goons to actually get caught in melee by infantry. Ranged cavalry’s counter to artillery is also be dotted, b/c it’s not a very hard counter, and it usually requires a very large mass of ranged cav to effectively pick off cannons.

Generally, each unit counters 2 different unit types, and is countered by 2 different unit types (2:2). At most, legacy civs only ever included one unit that might throw a wrench in this system, and the draw-backs were clear.

  • Spanish: Lancers also counter HI (3:2)
  • Aztec: JPK also counter HI (~3:2)
  • Lakota: Rifle Rider also counters HI, but they include a heavy cavalry tag, so ranged cavalry now counter them. (3:3). Lakota also has Tokala Soldiers that act like lancers to a lesser extent, but they’re hard to train.
  • Indian: Urumi is by far the weirdest unit in the game before DE, being a non-heavy melee infantry that deals splashing ranged damage. One might argue that they counter other non-heavy infantry b/c they perform so well. (3:2 or 2:2). Very notable that these units can only be shipped and not trained.
  • Japanese: Yabusame replace the dotted line with a bold line, at the cost of being less affective against cav (2:~2).

Some notable design choices made by legacy devs that you’ll notice sliding in DE:

  • units never totally defy this system. that is, they only ever add counter arrows. Never is an arrow removed.
  • No unit that adds a counter arrow is available in the Commerce age.
  • Every unit that adds an arrow is weaker in one of their typical match-ups. Lancers are weak to cav; JPK are worse against cav than is typical for HI; Rifle riders are straight countered by goons; Urumi usually can’t catch ranged cav, nor can they poke cav; Yabusame don’t deal with cav as well as goon counterparts, and are more vulnerable in melee than is typical.
  • No civilization had more than one of these units.
With DE came the carolean; one rule-breaking unit took 10 months to balance.

With DE civs, the carolean was the problem child for a while.
At first, they could directly counter non-heavy infantry by simply switching into melee mode. They also had a multiplier against ranged cav, giving them 3 bold arrows (3:2)! Only JPK had (kind of) done this before, and they were premium garbage units stat-wise. Not surprisingly, this was extremely broken! So they were given the charge ability, which is just clunky enough that people could beat caroleans with ranged infantry again. Then they were still too strong, having a ranged multiplier against ranged cav, so that had to be taken away as well. Then with Svea lifegard, caroleans became tanky enough that they were no longer countered by non-heavy infantry (2:1). Now with some additional tuning, the new, more balanced caroleans counter cav, and only sometimes counter non-heavy infantry, and never really counter ranged cav better than trading well. (~2:2) Balancing one unit who tried to break to rules took something like 10 months.

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But that’s in the past, so let’s talk about the African Royals.

I’m going to try to hit every rule-breaking unit. I’m using info from the wiki which is known to have some errors, so lemme know if anything’s wrong.

Shotel Warrior, Ethiopian

This is an Ethiopian default-trainable coyote man with a multiplier against ALL infantry. My only question is “why?” It’s a small enough multiplier that they won’t ever beat HI or trade effectively against them, so why mess with the rules? Seems like this multiplier only serves to obscure the unit. Some might think it’ll effectively counter HI, and others might see the unit as something other than a coyote-runner-type at first glance. Would be better to include a penalty to HI for clarity’s sake.

Somali Darood Militia, available to Ethiopia

while 30% resist vs. Ranged and Siege is not totally redundant, it’s also not particularly useful, and again serves to obscure the unit’s primary functionality. 30% siege resist might look like a good thing, but the reality is that falconets will still 1-shot darood militia. ̶N̶o̶t̶ ̶o̶n̶l̶y̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶f̶a̶l̶c̶s̶ ̶s̶t̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶a̶l̶w̶a̶y̶s̶ ̶1̶-̶s̶h̶o̶t̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶o̶v̶e̶r̶k̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶f̶a̶c̶t̶o̶r̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶̶r̶e̶d̶u̶c̶e̶d̶̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶1̶6̶0̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶7̶0̶,̶ ̶m̶e̶a̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶̶̶9̶0̶ ̶̶m̶o̶r̶e̶̶̶̶ ̶d̶a̶m̶a̶g̶e̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶d̶i̶s̶t̶r̶i̶b̶u̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶m̶o̶n̶g̶ ̶n̶e̶a̶r̶b̶y̶ ̶u̶n̶i̶t̶s̶ ̶d̶o̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶w̶a̶y̶ ̶d̶a̶m̶a̶g̶e̶ ̶c̶a̶p̶s̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶k̶.̶ ̶T̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶r̶e̶s̶i̶s̶t̶a̶n̶c̶e̶ ̶m̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶a̶c̶t̶u̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶m̶a̶k̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶m̶ ̶p̶e̶r̶f̶o̶r̶m̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶s̶e̶ ̶a̶g̶a̶i̶n̶s̶t̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶o̶n̶s̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶h̶i̶g̶h̶ ̶m̶u̶l̶t̶i̶p̶l̶i̶e̶r̶s̶,̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶I̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶n̶’̶t̶ ̶t̶e̶s̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶f̶i̶r̶m̶.̶

This unit attempts to create a dotted line toward countering cannons, but the reality is that no skirmisher will or should ever perform well against cannons, and players should not be led to believe that this one can.

Sudanese Dervish, available to Ethiopia, Commerce Age

Sudanese Dervish is a non-heavy infantry unit that deals melee damage from 14 range. This melee damage acts as a hidden multiplier against non-heavy infantry, cannons, and cavalry-- all units this unit type shouldn’t counter.
Their displayed multipliers look like this:

×2.0 vs. Light cavalry and Eagle Runner Knights
×1.75 vs. Heavy infantry
×0.50 vs. Cavalry and shock infantry

But if they were to deal the same amount of damage that they do using a ranged attack (based on resistances for typical units of these types, i.e. musk, huss, goon, skirm, falc), their multipliers would look like this:

[x2 * 1.25 * 0.5 = ] x1.25 vs. Light Cavalry
[x1.75 * 0.8 = ] x1.4 vs. Heavy Infantry
[x0.5 * 1.25 = ] x0.625 vs. Cavalry
x4 vs. cannons.
x1.42 vs. skirm-type infantry.

(4:2 including light cav) So why does this unit counter so many things? Based on the fact that this is a native unit with no specific purpose, I think the devs wanted to do something cool, but they did it without regard for fundamental boundaries placed on each unit type. Unfortunately, it’s not just a native because Ethiopia can train Dervishes in every game if they so choose. As a result, we have a unit that players can’t easily understand how to counter and whose balance is largely unknown.

A̶k̶a̶n̶ ̶A̶n̶k̶o̶b̶i̶a̶,̶ ̶a̶v̶a̶i̶l̶a̶b̶l̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶H̶a̶u̶s̶a̶,̶ ̶C̶o̶m̶m̶e̶r̶c̶e̶ ̶A̶g̶e̶

T̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶p̶r̶e̶m̶i̶u̶m̶ ̶"̶M̶u̶s̶k̶e̶t̶e̶e̶r̶"̶ ̶b̶r̶e̶a̶k̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶m̶o̶s̶t̶ ̶f̶u̶n̶d̶a̶m̶e̶n̶t̶a̶l̶ ̶r̶u̶l̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶n̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶s̶y̶s̶t̶e̶m̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶r̶e̶m̶o̶v̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶a̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶n̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶a̶r̶r̶o̶w̶.̶ ̶T̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶m̶u̶s̶k̶e̶t̶e̶e̶r̶ ̶h̶a̶s̶ ̶n̶o̶ ̶H̶e̶a̶v̶y̶ ̶I̶n̶f̶a̶n̶t̶r̶y̶ ̶t̶a̶g̶,̶ ̶m̶e̶a̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶s̶k̶i̶r̶m̶i̶s̶h̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶d̶o̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶ ̶m̶u̶l̶t̶i̶p̶l̶i̶e̶r̶ ̶a̶g̶a̶i̶n̶s̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶m̶ ̶(̶2̶:̶1̶)̶.̶ ̶I̶t̶ ̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶w̶i̶s̶e̶ ̶b̶e̶h̶a̶v̶e̶s̶ ̶e̶x̶a̶c̶t̶l̶y̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶m̶u̶s̶k̶e̶t̶e̶e̶r̶ ̶d̶o̶e̶s̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶m̶u̶l̶t̶i̶p̶l̶i̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶a̶g̶a̶i̶n̶s̶t̶ ̶c̶a̶v̶a̶l̶r̶y̶,̶ ̶m̶e̶l̶e̶e̶ ̶r̶e̶s̶i̶s̶t̶a̶n̶c̶e̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶h̶i̶g̶h̶ ̶H̶P̶.̶ ̶C̶a̶n̶n̶o̶n̶s̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶o̶n̶l̶y̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶n̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶u̶n̶i̶t̶,̶ ̶a̶l̶t̶h̶o̶u̶g̶h̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶b̶a̶b̶l̶y̶ ̶t̶r̶a̶d̶e̶s̶ ̶p̶o̶o̶r̶l̶y̶ ̶a̶g̶a̶i̶n̶s̶t̶ ̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶m̶u̶s̶k̶e̶t̶e̶e̶r̶s̶.̶ ̶C̶i̶v̶s̶ ̶w̶h̶o̶ ̶d̶o̶n̶’̶t̶ ̶g̶e̶t̶ ̶m̶u̶s̶k̶e̶t̶e̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶l̶u̶c̶k̶.̶ ̶I̶f̶ ̶I̶ ̶w̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶c̶h̶a̶r̶g̶e̶ ̶I̶ ̶w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶a̶d̶d̶ ̶a̶ ̶H̶e̶a̶v̶y̶ ̶i̶n̶f̶a̶n̶t̶r̶y̶ ̶t̶a̶g̶ ̶o̶r̶ ̶r̶e̶m̶o̶v̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶i̶r̶ ̶m̶u̶l̶t̶i̶p̶l̶i̶e̶r̶ ̶a̶g̶a̶i̶n̶s̶t̶ ̶c̶a̶v̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶a̶d̶j̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶i̶r̶ ̶d̶a̶m̶a̶g̶e̶ ̶a̶c̶c̶o̶r̶d̶i̶n̶g̶l̶y̶.̶

Berber Camel Rider, available to Hausa, Commerce Age

This is a melee Light Cavalry unit with decent melee attack, and melee resistance. Essentially, it’s a light cavalry unit with an arrow pointing back at non-heavy infantry (3:2). There’s no real downside to this unit other than it’s training limit.

Yoruba Oso Legionary, available to Hausa

Here’s a musketeer with ranged resistance. .3 RR on caroleans was too much, but I’m sure .25 RR is fine on these guys. (2: ~1). while ranged infantry will probably still trade well against them, I wouldn’t call ranged infantry a counter to Oso Legionaries until CIR is researched late in the game.

Yoruba Eso Rider, available to Hausa

Here’s a Naginata-type cavalry unit, except with 7.5 speed (faster than a goon) and 50% RR. He apparently attacks faster and faster as he loses HP, until his RoF eventually doubles. With resistance and speed like this, I’m not too sure goons really counter these guys (2:1).

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The following units are needlessly convoluted and should be simplified:

Shotel Warrior

With a 1.25 RoF, I have to use a calculator to understand this unit’s power level relative to other units. This is what I mean by “convolution without cause.” There is no reason this unit can’t be a 1.5 RoF unit that deals 15.6 damage instead of 1.25 RoF and 13 damage.

Uniform RoF across units exists for readability. Expert aoe3 players can’t look at this unit’s stats for the first time and understand how strong it is. That’s a needless problem.

Lifidi Knight

IDK how many times this has to be said across every forum, but having both
15% resist vs. Melee &
30% resist vs. Ranged
is redundant, totally unnecessary, and offers no strategic value.
Lifidi Knights have 430 / .85 = 505.8 melee HP and 430 / .7 = 614.3 ranged HP.
This is all but equivalent to ~505 HP with 18% RR.
For the sake of maintaining consistency with the rest of the game (which is important), 500 HP with 20% RR would be a LOT cleaner.

Sudanese Dervish

Again, attack speed is just all over the place. starts at 2.5, and apparently scales up to 1 RoF making this unit confusing from start to finish. I can only say 2.5 RoF deals 20% more damage than 3 RoF, and 1 RoF deals 200% more damage than 3 RoF. so their attack power is everywhere between 20% and 200% higher than an experienced player’s intuition for the displayed number would lead them to believe. Pretty wild.

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Don’t have time to get into mercs unfortunately.

Is it any surprise that this expansion has been polarizing? With new factions that have so many units that challenge the game’s fundamental systems, can we really call this the “Definitive” edition of the game when half of the players who stuck around for 15 years have abandoned the latest iteration? My suggestion is to rework these units within the confines of the original counter system, and adhere to the design choices of the legacy developers. The last two major tournaments (perhaps the last two aoe3 tournaments ever) banned African civs. Now there are no more tournaments being planned. Left as it is, The African Royals will be known as the expansion that definitively ended competitive AoE3.

EDIT: @M00Z1LLA pointed out that the wiki has some bad info, as expected. so I’m crossing out the section on Akan Ankobia.
Also crossed out the part about falcs dealing even more dmg against siege resist because it might not be true.

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I hate to agree, but the African Royals added unnecessary problems. AoE3 is already incredibly difficult to balance, and likely the most difficult of the Age franchise to balance, period.

Considering what is available to them, the African Royals shouldn’t be much different in terms of raw power than the TAD or European civs. Both of the civs could have a special unit with extras, it would not be too difficult to balance with 2 unique units to the expansion.

Right now, however, they suffer from the problem of their units being way too cost-effective. There’s no effective weakness to many of their units, and they’re too strong across all periods of the game.

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The imbalance of civilizations and new units is practically inevitable in RTS. Also with the complexity of AOE-3 it is more difficult.

“10 months balancing sweden”. SC-2 took almost a decade to balance and it is only 3 facsions and 2 resource with symmetric maps.

There are some “strange” units that break with the trend of “this unit is strong against this and weak against this”, but it is not necessarily against the essence of the AOE-3 philosophy. In fact I think it fits perfectly because the asymmetry and diversity of AOE-3 is what makes it special.

As for tournaments, it is obvious that they did not introduce African civilizations being so recent.

People who leave the game I think they do not support the game enough and I think that instead of abandoning it they should start discussing it in the forums and looking for a solution just like you do.

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I can agree with most of this, but I still don’t think the number of new added by TAR was necessary. There’s too much going on that isn’t tied to a player-controlled mechanic - many of the new happenings are simply stat differences rather than player-controlled mechanics, which makes them unfun to play against because they always operate at the same level and there’s no way to effectively counter them.

If, say, Javelin Riders were given stat bonuses through the Monasteries and the Universities, that would be more interesting. Then those two buildings are clear targets for the enemy player and can be destroyed to make the Javelin Riders less effective.

Currently, however, Javelin Riders are effective simply because they’re a stat-ball that can operate as a 1-unit response to everything. ERKs have the same problem, to a lesser degree.

The issue is they get all these stats for free and no interesting mechanics around microing these stats and utility bonuses, whereas TAD civs have their Wonders to micro and TWC civs have their Plazas to micro for the bonuses and utility.

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Good post. This is a great game.

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But African civilizations themselves are very fascinating, especially with their livestock mechanics and the way you get older. Its uniqueness is in its economy and fourth resource, and in its ways of advancing age.

On this occasion, the buildings do not give a military bonus, but they do it economically and generate resources that allow obtaining units and technologies that otherwise could not.

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How do you format things to do the drop-down arrows? That would be super useful.

First of all, don’t trust the wiki and recheck your stats in game. Dervishes have x0.5 vs artillery and villagers, and Ankobia are actually heavy infantry. I’m not sure what else you’re being misled by.

Shotel Warrior - Completely agree, the confusing ROF makes no sense on that one.

Darood Militia - I would have suggested giving them only siege resistance to make up for them countering their counter, but if what you said about them actually taking more damage because of it is true, then something needs fixing with them.

Sudanese Dervish - Being that these guys throw a melee weapon at moderate range it makes one think they’re heavy infantry at first glance (I have definitely been under that impression). I think they’d be a much better unit if they tagged them as that and got rid of their multipliers (except the cannon and villager one you didn’t mention). That would make them good against all cavalry and decent against skirms and cannons but poor against other heavy infantry. The attack rate could also be cleaned up to vary from 3 to 1.5 like everything else and attack strength could be adjusted accordingly.

Akan Ankobia - This actually does have the heavy infantry tag so I think it’s fine. (don’t trust the wiki)

Berber Camel Rider - This one doesn’t seem functionally too bad. I’d maybe give it a 0.75 multi vs heavy infantry to counteract some of the melee resistance it benefits from and make it countered better by them.

Yoruba Oso Legionary - This one just needs its ranged attack lowered a bit to counteract the resistance.

Yoruba Eso Rider - These guys are supposed to function like minutemen but I think they just went way over the top with the stats.

Lifidi Knight - I agree with nixing the double resistances and adding health in most cases, but for a very tanky unit like this, that would buff the resistance to siege which might be problematic. But it’s not like siege is good against heavy cavalry anyways to in this case it might be fine to remove the melee resist and increase health.

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I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the weird mechanics and stat-ball units, like units changing ROF based on distance. That is a mechanic that can get busted very quickly because other units still retain the same ROF no matter how far they are, so they get out-DPS’d insanely quick with no real ability to respond.

The problem is the units are full of unique mechanics like this, which means that is their baseline of power, rather than what happens when you get certain bonuses. Other civs get stats from buildings they control - TAR civs get powerful units to start with at roughly the same cost as other civs, but then they get free utility and weird mechanics on top of that.

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I’d partially agree with your points. However most of the units are natives with limited accessibility, so these are not the major problem. Shotel warrior is basically a weaker lancer. The problem is it takes the place of the “normal” hussar while lancer does not.

Speaking of unit designs, the most outrageous ones are Swedes and Incas, US and Africans however are even more “traditional” and “conventional”.

The real problem for new civs, especially Africans, are, imo:

  • Too many free upgrades and bonuses. Many other civs need either investments in techs or xp, or specific options (meaning discarding all other choices) to get something similar, like the merc upgrades.
  • The options are too different. Each upgrade option leads to entirely different unit composition. Other civs like Asians or US who also rely heavily on upgrade options are not even close.

And there is one universal design principle that I do not like since DE:
Mercs are underused → design civs that can get better mercs more easily
Livestocks are underused → design civs whose economy relies almost entirely on livestock
Natives are underused → design civs that can switch between different native units with free upgrades. Also natives that are incredibly good but only on the new maps
Outlaws are underused → design outlaws that are incredibly good but only on the new maps

The same mechanics for older civs on older maps still got little improvement. These are not solving the core problem. Only those new civs can make use of these mechanics while others still would not even consider going for them. This is very different from a situation where every civ could go for mercs/livestock/natives/outlaws etc. when they wish while some civs could be better at it. This is a wasted potential.

The new update to saloons/taverns and outlaws are a good direction though.

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One other point that I kept bringing up since DE is that, especially for non-European units (whose every single unit is unique), you do not need to give every new unit a new mechanics. This is not aoe2. Most “unique” units in aoe3 are simply regular unit replacements.

I do think African civs are a little better designed than Swedes or Incas. Though the changing DPS or double armour still exist.

That was well handled in TWC and TAD. For example, Chinese got something as simple as “weaker pikemen and skirmishers that are more cost effective”. You do not have to design arquebusier as maybe a skirmisher that switches to anti-cavalry bonus in close range etc. It is just a skirmisher replacement and it should be.

Not that new mechanics are bad. But maybe try to scatter them a little more instead of stuffing every single unique mechanics you can think of into every new unit.

(Only talking about regular units. Not natives or mercs)

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excuse me what? i cant imagine this is how artillery is balanced.

personal opinion i think for units universally available through native settlements its fine for the unit to be a bit weird in this regard. it still is countered by heavy infantry and likely also by skirmishers, its just that you need to protect them against melee a bit (which is usually the case that you will).

i expect a future faction might have something a bit similar, which is fine IMO, skirmishers still can easily get into a situation where they counter them. it is just much more conditional than now.

dont agree with that, what made caroleans counter skirms previously was that they could start competing in range (16-17 range i think?) and they could buff their hp with resist up to around 500 without giving up much in ranged dmg for it. frankly had caroleans been 10 gold more expencive they likely would have been balanced on launch, alternatively grenadiers could have gotten a buff to make them conditionally counter them.

another issue with caroleans was that sweden had the best hussars and art in the game, the unit alone wasn’t actually that broken but everything around them fits so perfectly to them.

i think there are scenarios where this makes sense but then the unit in question probably need to be countered by artillery. a grenadier type unit with both ranged and melee defense wouldn’t be too far fetched for example really hammer home the “heavy infantry but counters ranged infantry” aspect of that unit type.

but with lifidi knights they practically just gain a hp bonus since artillery (except for rockets) is just never going to be effective.

i do think this unit is probably too complicated for the good of the game. like this unit is honestly probably the biggest issue in the game when it comes to readability.

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That is true, in the new civilizations they make viable things that for the other civilizations remain asleep. What is needed is more fairness and keeping civilizations lagging in gameplay and options up to date.

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i agree that they are unique but they are unique in too many ways at the same time.

as a treaty player they are hard to read, them and the USA.

like looking at USA with practically no eco upgrades i think most assumed the faction would be pretty mediocre in treaty but because of a couple of specific age ups and statemilitia+flag the USA was surprisingly the strongest faction in treaty, and oddly enough not at all using the units you would expect like sharpshooters and gatling guns, like honestly i feel like they should remove sharpshooters from the faction cause it just steals an interesting concept that could have been given to another faction.

the African factions i still dont quiet understand, the eco cards are again really weird and it seems like a lot of it has to be chosen in match through age ups instead, which means that i probably need to play a good 10 games vs the AI to really grasp them. then on top you add the bizarre units and it just gets really hard to get a read on the factions.

14

It’s not artillery specific; all splash damage is capped at usually 2x the base damage. But actually, I’m no longer sure that I was calculating things in the right order, so I’ll cross out this section. There’s two ways it could go: a falc has 100 dmg and 200 dmg cap. It shoots the cannonball dealing 100 damage to whatever unit it hits, then at most 100 more damage can be allocated to nearby units, then multipliers apply, then resistances apply. OR resistances applied before multipliers, which would mean a falc deals 70 damage, then 130 is distributed among nearby units, but I actually don’t know for sure the order. someone could probably figure it out with a simple test using this unit, but I don’t have time atm.

It’s true that svea lifegard was paired with infinite mams, but they were problematic nonetheless. People weren’t really upgrading hussars at high levels b/c of the mams. but it’s true that half the reason caroleans were busted is that torps collect at perfect proportions to mass them.

15

you can do this in the little gear on the built-in toolbar. the gear has a pull-down with the option “Hide Details.”

1 Like
16

right of a sudden it makes sense why grenadiers are so bad if they cant even fully upgraded do more than 80 dmg per throw.

3 Likes
17

i should mention grens do slightly more than 2x the base damage as a damage cap ( i believe 36 damage cap at base). i think otto grens max at 100 cap but don’t quote me on that. they are, however, absolutely awful units.
(oh and flail elephants too, they do like 5x base damage for splash but thats not relevant rn)

2 Likes
18

hmm, you know what the british grenadiers max out to?

19

they got the card nerf so my memorized tad stats are wrong i think. brit and otto grens used to max at 40 damage, 500 hp (brits had to use thin red line to hit that so ottos were faster, or brits were same speed and less hp). Whatever improved grenades got nerfed to will end up as the discrepancy from otto

20

Grens caps at +125% damage (16 → 36) assuming it was never changed.