If you were to attempt to create perfect balance of knights/Xbow power spikes and castle power spike in general how would you go about it mat?
Still a huge advantage to xbows because you can start making archers in feudal age, so this whole tech to unlock knights completely fucks knights over. Meanwhile archer civs can easily have some archers already made by the time they hit castle.
Iâd leave it the heck alone. I dont see anything wrong with them as is. Whereas locking knights behind a tech means youâve got to make further changes just to balance it. if knights and xbows really are too strong (and i donât believe they are too strong, they both have counters), adjust the cost of the units in general, donât just completely screw them over.
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You can give double or triple the research time for crossbow and maybe disable arch creation if possible (donât know if it is) itâs just a case of messing around with the settings to figure out what results in flatter power spike
Not every woodline is rangeable usually with just arch. almost all woodlines are rangeable when crossbow gets in with bodkin though
My point overall is not to say that knights and crossbow are too strong but to delay their power spike early on so that players going heavy fuedal can have more of a chance. I think the Meta makes it hard to get a distinct advantage in fuedal and when your civ is a military based one without good eco bonuses Vs a good eco based civ you just lose either way by playing standard with them and fuedal attack is not that enticing or worth it a lot when you screw your castle time and they have TCS and knights pumped out instantly. When you watch pros play defensive like Hera and viper they show how minimal investment to keep off opponent from killing you yet getting best castle age time Is the best strat. This makes it impossible for a lot of matchups to ever catch a big enough time window to do damage once TCS are up or a castle is up and you are actively scouting for siege workshops the game is over. At least give the player thatâs been trying to break through walls with men at arms arch a but better chance to get something done.
and yet you can still make archers during the feudal age and while aging up - which means that the moment you hit castle age even if you click crossbow right away you still have archers you can do stuff with.
meanwhile what is the knight civs left with? making scouts that eat up tons of food and donât hold up well against feudal archers with bodkin? using skirms which means they have to drop an archery range?
the point is - youâre literally making change for the sake of change - and in the end it will always hurt knight civs more then it hurts archer civs.
thatâs the risk you take going heavy feudal.
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I never thought of that actually 11 ya your right you have no answer to those situations for a big arch army early castle age.could you give a bigger bonus to scout line upon hitting castle age to try help with this? Surprised nobodyâs mentioned this point now that youâve said it. I was waiting to hear your response the most tbh because you seem to have the best views on the game in this forum Iâve seen. Now that I think about it this is too complicated of a adjustment that could be made probably just easier to nerf some aspect of walls /buff some aspect of men at arms whats your opinion on needing walls/ buffing men at arms or do you find that fuedal aggression is fine the way it is?
see the problem now?
so now we have to - lock archer creation during crossbow research, increase crossbow research time, give a bonus to scouts against archers. not to mention that knights players are seeing their food eaten up left right and center as they have to research a new tech just to unlock knights and make scouts, something they donât want to make at the same time. and guess what? the archer player can easily mix in 2-3 spears and laugh at those scouts.
all because you guys want to flatten the power spike in the name of change.
My proposal is: increase xbow cost and reserach time a bit.
Make knights trainable from the beginning of castle age, but weaken them by like 20-30 %. Add an upgrade which mostly takes time that puts them in the current state. Or just let the light cav upgrade also upgrade knights aswell.
With this both powerpikes are just a bit delayed, but comparable to the current situation how and their timing interaction.
and again, all youâre doing is massively buffing archers vs knights.
so now my knights are 20-30% weaker then they currently are. not only does this mean archers/crossbows kill them faster, but PIKES also kill them much faster.
iâm an archer civ - i mass up archers with a few pikes otw to castle age - once i hit castle age crossbow might take a bit longer, but my archers with bodkin and pikes will be absolutely punishing on knights civs.
all because you wanted to flatten what you call a bad power spike.
so what if my archers are just a little bit weaker for 20 seconds, they will absolutely still shred knights, especially when backed up with pikes. especially since those knights still cost the same as they do now, and give me much less value.
not a good look balance wise.
Actually completely no. I didnât gave any values to the proposal. If I would raise xbow upgrade cost by like 200 F 100 G and 30 secs getting the full knight with the light cav upgrage actually would heavily favor the scout into knight player as his old scouts would also be upgraded.
I made the proposal as it should be quite easy to balance in a way it doesnât disturb the current archer/knight meta in any way.
except scouts in early castle age arenât a good option because they are so expensive. and donât really do all that well against anything other then monks.
furthermore - again - my knights are 20-30% weaker right from the get go - which means if the enemy is at my base the moment they hit castle age with archers + spears guess what? iâm screwed as a knight player.
except you know massively favoring archer civs.
yeah itâs intentional to flatten the powerspike. It shall work like this. Too gready fc players should have problems with full feudal agression.
Itâs actually the same the other way around. An archer player would need to wait longer for the xbow upgrade to come in to deal with scout/skirm.
Perfect.
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i think since if you did move around all the values/ timings of crossbow upgrade knight upgrade be it free or not you have lots of variables to work with to get it right maybe?
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except scout skirm means the knight civ is making units he wants to transition out of, and a building he doesnât want either, the archery range.
meanwhile the archer player is making a composition he can easily stay with the whole game and isnât costing him extra resources in buildings he doesnât need.
youâre slowing down knight civs far more then youâre slowing down archery civs. and the knight civ has to research a tech he normally wouldnât, while the archer civ isnât changing anything except costs and time.
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Thatâs the key. The Idea is to slow down both strats equally. Thatâs why I didnât gave values now, because I havenât looked deeper into it. But the way I propose allows to slow them down equally.
With the example I gave for making crossbows 200 F / 100 G / 30 secs more expensive would heavily favor the knight player in this scenario, as he would only have to invest 150 F / 50 g and the added research can be made parallel with producing units while the xbow player is forced to wait 30 seconds longer regardless of the amount of production and military he still has alive.
I donât know why you think this would damage knight players more be default. The concept is clear it can quite easily be balanced a way it doesnât hit one strategy more than the other.
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on the resource side? yes. he only invests 150f and 50 gold.
but again. the knight player is stuck with either making a comp he wants to transition out of, or weaker knights until Light cav is done. which also idles one of his stables from making knights. right now knight vs xbow is balanced - and doesnât idle the knight player from making production right when he hits castle age.
knight player has 50% of his production idle - where he currently doesnât.
knight player forced to make units he normally wouldnât and is forced to transition out of. including a building.
any knights that pop out before LC is researched are much more susceptible to archers and pikes then they previously were, giving archer civs a distinct advantage. especially a Civ like ethiopians who gets pikeman for free.
even if crossbow is more expensive all they lose is 1 range and 1 attack for an extra 30 seconds. the knight player meanwhile is stuck with a 20-30% reduction in strength of his units, including making them much weaker to the pikeline.
Increasing the cost wonât fill the big gap or difference between the castle age units and feudal age units, isnât better to buff dark/feudal age units or add new units and new techs in dark and feudal will be better?
Thatâs also a way to adress it.
But tbh dark age⊠sorry militia but you suck for reason. Still a drush can be very neat, but everything exceeding a basic drush shall be terrible against a skilled player. That balance is actually quite ok-ish in the current state.
But feudal units could be buffed a bit, indeed. But in a way they excel better in their role. Scouts faster, shorter attack animation. Archers probably more range. MAA more bonus against buildings. For example.
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I honestly prefer to add new units in dark and feudal to make them more competitive. Maybe dark age militia need a buff to make going with them a good option rather than just wasting resources for nothing, maybe give them bonus attack vs Palisade walls or vills?