This game has a clear counter system. It’s supposed to work the way that you have a counter for any unit in the game. Siege is a bit different in that regard, so I leave siege mostly out of this thread. It’s about units (and mechanics), their costs, their counters, their strengths and their weaknesses.
We live in the age of range meta rn and range altogether is too strong with mangonels being useless. There are some ranged units, however, that barely have any real counter or simply have unjustified numbers.
Here we go:
Change Arbaletriers to heavy or reduce their melee armor to max 6. This unit makes no sense the way it is. They have more armor than maa, they counter heavy units and are barely touched by light ones (spears do nothing to them, archers are also not a good counter due to pavise. Even Horsemen struggle). I have issues with this unit’s design since release. It beats the rock, paper, scissor basis of the game. And with the mangonel nerf, this unit literally has no real counter. Making this unit heavy would allow other crossbows to counter the Arbaletrier. And it makes sense. They wear a heavier armor, so anti armor weapons should deal more dmg to them.
It looks very smiliar with the grenadiers. That unit is just ridiculous. You cannot counter it. It beats everything. There is no friendly fire, so there is zero downside to them. They are overpowered. Plain and simple. They should be changed so they have a deadzone. That way they can’t attack units that are right in their face. And their aoe dmg should not stack, but instead deal single target dmg. Example: 5 Grenadiers hit one unit. The first grenade does aoe dmg and damages adjacent units. All the other grenades in the vicinity of the first grenade deal only single target dmg. That discourages massing grenadiers into a stupid deathball, and encourages to just build a few to compliment and boost the rest of the army. The only reason this unit has not been nerfed, is because it takes a while to get to it. So you actually don’t see that unit often. That, however, does not justify that they are borderline op. They need to be tuned down, they need to be nerfed so you don’t want to mass them into an unbeatable onslaught. To balance it out, they should be more accessible. Make it easier to build a grenadier, but nerf them accordingly. This unit as it is is nothing but a joke. You rarely see it and if you do, you are dead already or just about to die.
Grenadiers and Arbaletriers make the game’s counter system inconsequential. The rock, paper, scissor system does not apply to them. These units need to get their counters (that go beyond mangos, as mangos are supposed to counter any kind of infantry) or need to be nerfed accordingly.
Streltsies. I never understood why they are cheaper AND better than handcannoneers. Reduce their dmg to 30 (36 with chemistry), so they max out at 45 in full stance (+9 dmg) and leave their price. Or simply make them more expensive. Not 90/90, neither 150/150, but 150/170 instead. This unit is not in line and needs to be looked at. And looking at the Rus eco, there is simply no reason for streltsies to be cheaper AND better than HC. The Rus eco is pretty solid so this is just not justified.
Last but not least: Network of castles is way too strong. It should be 15/25% instead of 25/50%. It’s just too strong. And siege should not be affected at all. The buff is kinda always active, you cannot always destroy all the towers. The range of effect also is so big, towers shouldn’t even grant it (stone wall towers, keeps and tc’s should). What should be a defensive mechanic, is actually always active and used offensively. And for that kind of usage, it is way too strong. 50% attackspeed for any unit is just irrational.
So either nerf the % or remove it from normal towers. And leave siege completely out of it, if the attackspeed bonus is not at least halfed (max 25%).
I am not trying to nerf anything into the ground. I just want the game to be more reasonable. To make more sense and to be more true to its own merits and measures.
I just don’t have any real opinions on these. I’ve played 15 games of Ranked so far and I’ve had 10 matches against English, with the other 5 being 2 Delhi (so for me, mirror matches), 1 Mongol, 1 French, and 1 Chinese.
None of these games ever made it past Age 3, and most of them ended either early into Age 2, or the middle of Age 3. I guess the English tower buff would be most relevant to me but I haven’t had too much of an issue with it due to turtling for elephants (so I don’t attack until I have siege which demolishes the towers with ease). I most often face Longbow rush with Rams.
unfortunatelly the age 4 stage or late game design in gameplay is lazy af. They literally need a full rework on that one. is not only fix hc in general. Also how to get relevant pre age 4 units at that stage.
I think something like what you propose for the grenadiers, would have been a better fix for mangonels as well. I know it’s not your original topic, but for many unit (mass) the mangonel was the only viable counter. I agree with the need to change mangos, because it was really annoying to face 10-12 mangos what wiped out every single unit composition (cav or no cav)… where ideally you would like this as a support unit, just as with the grenadiers, having 1-4 with your army.
Having good mangos would discourage massig up any single unit, and reward players to think about army tactics, where do I place what unit, etc. Right know my issue with the rock, paper, scissors is, that it doesn’t feel working for “masses” - for up to 10-15 units it’s ok, but once archers single shoting your knights…
It’s been the same with most AOE games, sometimes the scissors are strong enough to cut through and ■■■■ up your rock, and something the rock pushes through the paper, and sometimes there is not 1 but 1000 sheets of paper so your scissors just broke, get more scissors
This could totally also work for mangos as it would discourage from massing them. But mangos should maybe scale differently. First hit on one target deals 100%, the second hit at the same time to the same target deals 66%, the third 33% and any furchter hit deals nothing anymore. That would make more than 3 mangos only viable, if you split them up and do not let them attack the same area. This could lead to both reducing the number of mangos that are brought to the field and how they are used in general, while they still contain their power.
And I think a similar solution could work for the grenadier, who is fine when mixed in in low numbers, but becomes unreasonably powerful in big numbers with very little ways of effective counterplay.
I also agree that the game’s counter system works best when unit numbers are small to medium. Large scale battles favor anything that is ranged eventually ending up in HCs, bombards and complimenting units and civ bonuses. The exception might be the royal knights or early knight in general. You can continue to build the royal knight from age 2 to age 4. He will always be use- and powerful. There is no unit in the game that rivals his role and how versatile he is.
Yeah, pretty much. But in order to have this kind of dynamic, we need to discuss and evaluate the game. That’s all I do or rather that’s all I am trying to do.
Agree with you, now AOE4’s counter system needs to be changed. In fact, I think AOE3’s counter system is very good, AOE3’s siege units are against all infantry, and cavalry is strong against siege weapons. Not like AOE4 , as long as certain units are in a certain amount, there is no way to effectively fight them, because they will form a death ball.
It is impossible to change AOE4 to AOE3, but we can still make some small changes; further increase the damage of cavalry against siege weapons, and then increase the assembly time of siege weapons. Now the assembly time of siege weapons for AOE4 Much faster than AOE3 siege weapons, which is unreasonable. In AOE3, moving siege weapons are extremely fragile, resulting in very easy to destroy without army cover, not as it is now AOE4, siege weapons are assembled so quickly that they attack any enemy immediately.
I also agree that the AoE 3 counter system is a more consequent. While it works fine for smaller amounts of units in AoE 4, the large scale battles do heavily favor massing the same unit, especially ranged and siege.
I like your suggestions. Siege definitely needs to be much more susceptible than it is. And the counter system of AoE 4 needs to be more on point and should not leave so many exceptions.
That’s only true for early castle. In later stages of the game, archers do squat agains Arbaletriers or Cbs in general. Archers do not even have bonus dmg vs them. They just cost much less and thus trade better. That’s why it makes sense to build archers vs crossbows. But they are not a counter in the sense of making the Arbs life a living hell. They simply are cost efficient, but don’t do anything else.
And when armies clash, let’s say maa and archers vs spearmen and CBs, the Archers would have to go into spearmen range to hit the Arbs, which do what they are supposed to: Obliterate MAA. Archers do not protect MAA from CB’s. That’s the issue here. A counter on paper does not necessarily work out in reality, because their are unit compositions that can make counter play much more difficult than it looks on paper.
