Conq/Spanish Tweaking

Firstly im not saying spanish are weak at all. I just think that now that most of the bottom civs have been pushed up and most of the top civs have been toned down, if we are striving for “perfect” balance if the spanish could get a little tweak…

i think their early game is the weakest phase, lack of xbow, no real eco bonus(gold means more in late castle/imperial so BS bonus is incredibly small until then, leaving only vil time saved on construction bonus) meaning it is more than likely the player will almost always FC for conqs since it seems that is primarily what the civ is balanced around.

while at the same time gunpowder in general is even weaker in DE due to low ping and thus being able to actually dodge even gunpowder shots.

i think everyone can agree conqs are amazing in castle age, but fall off in imperial. what if they buffed the imperial conq? or gave some kind of minor early eco to spanish. so either they are more able to survive until FC / execute a different build for once, or they are more rewarded for keeping their conqs alive…

as a comparison… early game franks win 10 out of 10. in imperial frank cav is far superior to spanish (nevermind hp, the sheer number that can be produced compared to the spanish player) meaning if both players have an imperial death ball of paladins and halbs, the frank will easily win

example tweaking: e conq projectile speed from 5.5 to 4. upgrade from 1200/600 to 1000/600
mills cost -25w

they’re not massive changes at all (to keep conservatives happy) but make the e conq slightly more attractive while making dark/feudal slightly more flexible

(if they just fixed the broken HC it would make a massive difference as well)

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Spanish can also go Knights, and they have their meme Monks (Missionaries), which are faster than normal ones, and can still convert and heal during Knight raids.
The reason why Spanish go for Conqs almost all the time, is because Conqs are still better than Knights, not because the rest of the civ lacks any other Castle Age options.

The issue with this is:
-What would Spanish lose in the Imperial Age to compensate, seeing as they have FU Trash, a Trade bonus, FU Champs and Paladins, and both Siege Ram, Onager and Bombard Cannon (that fires faster)?

Imp Age Spanish already has a lot of options, and lacks nothing relevant except for Arbalests. They lack Siege Engineers, but have Fast-attack BBC to compensate, and even spend no Gold on Blacksmith upgrades.
They really already have a very strong and varied Imperial composition.

HCs need to be fixed, but Spanish ones are already better than regular as it is.

As a reminder in case anyone forgot… DE conqs gained cav archer armour… meaning the extra damage from relevant sources… aka a nerf

with no eco/civ bonus it inherently means their knights will be worse than an equal skilled player using almost any other knight civ…(no not almost any, actualy ANY OTHER knight civ will field superior knights) so your point is moot. how many times do we have to say the game revolves around eco bonuses?

compensate for what? making a non used unit actually slightly more usable? did you even look at the change?

with no eco or military bonus backing it… how many times do we have to point out that the top tier civs have incredibly narrow tech trees…

i never said it is weak… and thus the incredibly minor change to e conqs only

zero multiplied by anything is still zero… how often do you see these spanish HC in play?

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They pay no Gold for Blacksmith upgrades, which means they need less Vills on Gold to afford Knights and upgrades, and that is an eco bonus towards Knights.
They save a total 695 Gold by the Imperial Age, and that can mean another 7-10 Vills on Farms instead of Gold throughout Castle Age.

Not true. Lithuanians, Magyars, Teutons… all will have to pay Gold for upgrades that the Spanish do not have to cough up.

Spanish lategame already has a lot of highly usable units.

Blacksmith and Trade bonus. HCs and BBCs faster firing.

And increasing the power of wide Tech Tree civs will not change that.
Spanish are a wide Tech Tree civ. They need to lose options to get buffs, and they will go back to AoC and early HD days, in which they dominated.

How often do you see HC at all? But you do see Spanish BBC quite a lot, because 18% faster attack is murder.

which still makes there knights better then most civs in the games. also saving gold on blacksmith upgrades gives them lots of options overall. honestly i don’t think buffing conqs is what spanish need. they need something to solidify there early game.

exactly. giving a civ more options always leads to the civ being stronger. imperial age is not a problem for Spanish. they actually get stronger the longer the game goes because no gold for blacksmith upgrades and having very good trash.

if spanish need buffs somewhere its in the early to mid game, where their only two eco bonuses (outsie of team games) don’t really compete with other civs.

yeah khmer, britons, tatars and chinese totally have narrow trees.

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Mmm I actually thought of 2 potential buff for the spanish, but none will fix the problem that you brought up.

I’ll still write them down here, since they may be useful anyway.

Either:

  • Faster building bonus buffed to 60% (it may be 66% too), except for towers, BBT and castles that stays at 30% (wonders too that stays at 20%) and for the first TC in nomads.

… or:

  • Trash line upgrades don’t cost gold.
    so basically pike (90g), ES (130g), LC (50g), halb (600g) and hussars (600g). So basically 270g in castle age and 1200g in imp. If you are allied with viets, you also save 450g from IS.
    Combined with the blacksmith bonus, you would basically need only 150g to get bloodlines to tech into any trash units, which suits the spanish because get all 3 lines FU.
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I like both of those ideas but i’d go for a middle ground.
trash doesn’t cost gold to upgrade
and building up to 40% except for fortifications

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They already save a lot of Gold on Blacksmith upgrades, though. It would be perhaps too much Gold savings.

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closer to 270g (plate barding) to 390g (including iron casting).

but otherwise you’re right, but every other civ with earlier eco bonuses will be ahead up until then and then surpass them as their continuous eco/military bonus carries on…

lith 150f(better up times,better eco sooner), plus stronger knights. magyar save more res + BS time on attack bonus. teutons have a massive eco + much stronger knights(they are possibly the worst comparison 2nd to franks or even better wrt to plain knight v knight)

do you know what the definition of compensate is? this doesnt answer the question. compensate for what?

ill remember to trade in the next 1v1

unused.

mid imperial. vs armies? faster firing helps vs armies? siege engineers is vastle more useful. its like mentioning magyars can kill wolves with 1 shot. yes they can but does it change anything in fighting another army?

these massive buffs will do that?

omfg literally my point and you somehow think it justifies yours??

Wide open Tech Tree and ability to actually unlock it due to cheap upgrades, taht already gives them all the answers.

If wide Tech civs with cheap Techs are no strong, the why is Chinese so dominant?

It justifies mine because it is still a FU unit Spanish has, that is better than regular, if they need to use it.

As soon as HC is fixed, Gunpowder civs will see a HUGE buff.

There is, you just refuse to accept it.

Heed your own advice.

Now you are just telling everyone you lost the argument.

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Meh, most of it come in imp, which I don’t think it’s OP, there are civs who save a lot more in those ages. In castle age they would save the gold for about 3 and a half knights, but consider that you may not need allo those upgrades that early, most of them are researched later on.

The way I see it, this bonus is more of an help to get some powerful trah units as a support without delaying the production of gold units, since its unlikely that you research all blacksmith and trash techs in a game (unless you are going into super late game trash fight).

It may work, fortifications stay at 20% but all other buildings are buffed at 40%, but I would make an exception for walls (both palisade and stone). Since faster walling in dark age is really important for spanish (they are the only ones that have the same pre-patch walling) so having 40% on that may transform into a decent “eco bonus”.

Consider that all civs take 7s to build a palisade segment, spanish take 5s (same a before the nerf). With 40% they would take 4s, so almost half of it, far from being OP, but still it can be a decent and useful dark age bonus.

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It does allow for less Vills on Gold, which translates into more Vills on Farms, and therefore more Knights.
Spanish not spending Gold on Blacksmith upgrades is actually a great bonus. You will have your Knights and Pikes upgraded before you opponent does, and have a better Food economy while at it.

It really does cut down on Gold gathering Vills, by quite a few of them.

They have the highest number of techs of any civilisation.
image

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Plus, 6 villagers with supremacy can take down a paladin.

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i like these. they’re much stronger than i thought would be acceptable… but really good

btw some supporting data

(from his magesty)

1v1 1250 -1650 (play rate for largest high skill pool, and thus gives an indication of what the large population feels is less likely to help them win)
image
1v1 1650
image

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mayans, aztecs, franks, britons, vikings dont care… how many wide tech tree vs narrow tech tree are s-tier

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i think 5 vs 7 is already decent, and if anything more may lead to the same negative player experience from pre patch. on top of them getting the double eco bonus of both 40% building, and trash gold discount… remember the 40% will apply to buildings(houses etc) that will be used as walls anyway… so there is already a factor there

my only opposition to the trash discount is that it leaves lacking flavour as opposed to making the conq more usable in imperial…

but would definitely take it anyway

britons are narrow and have an amazing eco, you main archers(in your own words, you simply need to make rams to beat them). how is a lack of stable upgrades, weak monks and a basic siege works a wide tech tree???

chinese have a big eco bonus/start and an incredible UU, and lack very specific counters to their counters.

khmer have an amazing eco…

and finally… i specifically said

just that they have room for improvement, they arent remotely s-tier… you are literally disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing… you will support bagi’s massive buffs but shoot down my incredibly small ones

Yeah but so do portos, or berbers both savings tons of gold on units for the whole game. They too need less vills on gold thanks to the same principle.

I don’t think it’s OP, in dark and feudal doesn’t help, in castle age it’s not even a third more of what they already save (620g + 270g). In imp it becomes strong, but it really depends by how may trash units you really need, and usually you don’t really need both halbs and hussars right away.

In imp it becomes more than double of what you save now (1025g + 1200g). But the point it’s still the same, if you for example have gone for knights+skirms, you don’t save 620g, but at best you save 520g (you don’t need the infantry upgrades), this way you would save just 650g. In imp it’s unlikely that you have 2225g, but it’s more likely that you go for just halbs or hussars, so around 975/1025g.

Though, it could be implemented this way, and the nerfed to “trash units upgrades cost 50% less gold” if we see that it’s OP, but I don’t think it’s that OP.

Yeah but I could live with only one civ out of 37 that can fast wall so fast in dark age, especially if they don’t have any other eco bonus.

In any case you are right, with 40% (that could be even 50% to non fortifications buildings) it’s already more time spended on gathering resources.

Well, they would become more of a trash unit civ/defensive civ, a bit like bizzantines. I know that it doesn’t really have flavor, but it does help conqs too, since it’s more easy to support them with hussars (you would need only 150g for BL, the rest can go in just conqs and their elite upgrade).

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