Definitive solution to the condo problem?

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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In a recent discussion about the possibility of anticipating condos in castle age, another idea popped up. I would like to hear the feedback of the community.

The issue is giving some role to condos. Several people say they are unused and underpowered, and too similar to champions. Few people say that condos are more or less fine as they are.

I agree with both, and here the idea explaining how: let us make condo a sort of militia-line upgrade. The Italian team bonus becomes: “access to condottiero tech”.

If you have an Italian ally, you will be granted the “condottiero” upgrade, as the Viet ally is given the imp skirm upgrade.

The condo upgrade overrides the 2hs/champion upgrade (so for instance malay would not get it, as turks do not get imp skirm), and gives you the access to the condo, better say, to the new condo.

You upgrade your longsword directly to new condos because you no more have the 2hs/champion upgrades. This new condo (upgraded infantry after researching the “condottiero” tech) looks like the current condo, but:

  • it has the champion stats, cost, and bonuses (vs eagle/buildings)
  • it has a speed close the current condo and the anti-gunpowder bonuses of the current condo

So you cannot choose between new condos and champions. If you have an italian ally, you can just upgrade your infantry to new condos.

Notice that if you are not vs gunpowder, the new condo is totally equal to the champion except for the speed. So this is equivalent of a team bonus providing you a faster champion, but with the exact abilities. So I would say 100% balanced. There are a lot of people asking for a buff of the militia-line speed, so basically this would became the effect of the team bonus but acting in imperial age only. The new condo can be even a bit slower than the current one, if you want to

Notice that if you are vs gunpowder (very remote case) the new condo is basically equal to the current condo (since champions and current condo are similar).

This is a slight (indirect) buff to the underpowered samurais.
The “condottiero” upgrade can be fast and cheap (still you need to research m@a and longsword). If you think this is too much, it can have cost and research time equal to 2hs+champion upgrades, so the new condo will take exactly the time a champion takes to enter the fight.

Curious thing: Italians would become the second civ in the game incapable which can never train a 2hs…

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That seems to me like an overlycomplicated solution to the problem.

I propose a much more simple approach: buff the condo attack and pierce armor, but create a tech to unlock them, without overriding anything else. This way italians have to commit a serious amount of resources to make the condos work, but at the same time the unit stops being a one trick pony (which doesn’t work well). I still think condos should be countered by 2handed swordmen and champions cost effectively. If that’s not the case after the buff, we can just add a bonus damage against condos to the militia line.

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My thouts about condos I share in other topic, but I repeat here:

change cost to 10F 55G
+4 vs Eagles
+1PA
Being affecting by Pavise (for Italians Only of course)

I think the most impactfull will be cost change, even all other buffs are not nesessery, exept maybe vs Eagles. Swiching balance between food and gold will do two things:

  • Condos will become really strong in 1v1 in early Imperial, because with so little food needet Italian player will be able to do realy fast low eco Imperial and still be able to afford many of them.
  • In TG, when Condos should shine, they will become true mercenaries, because, again, less food for them mean player can have realy low food eco and big trade.
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My proposal sounds over complicated. But it can be translated as:

Team bonus-> champions have extra speed and anti gunpowder abilities… or, if we prefer, champions gain speed, ant gunpowder bonus and condo appearance.

The way this is implemented is by replacing the champion upgrade with the condo upgrade, making the condo with the same stats as champion

55g for less than champion? This seems more complicated to balance.

The point is that condos are never used since they are useless. Champions are always better unless some very specific cases. Instead of having 2 units, where 99% one is better, I am saying to have one single unit.

My proposal can be stated as removing condos from the game and giving their anti gunpowder abilities (bonuses and speed) and appearance to champions.

Condos will just become a faster champion reskin with a small extra advantage vs gunpowder.

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their speed makes them more useful than champion. The HP and speed should allow them to perform better vs archers. Not having to invest 10-15 mins until the champion upgrade kicks in is also huge. Champion’s only advantage is its cost

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And still they are underused. It seems to me I was not capable of explaining my proposal. Conods were unused even before supplies. But I agree that they have a speed advantage, so my point is to give that advantage directly to champions. I am saying that, instead of having two barrack unit, where the current condo is never used and the champion is rarely used, just have one: a champion with the condo speed and appearance.

This is implemented by replacing 2hs/champion upgrades with a condo upgrade

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I believe the problems are more to do with the underused Italians on land than anything

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I agree that it is a problem. Buffs that people are proposing to italians, are good (like free archer armors), but correctly unrelated to condos.

What I am proposing here is not a real buff to the condo. Just a way to make it slightly useful in several situations. Now it is decent in some rare situations, that is why it is underused.

You can read my proposal in two equivalent ways.

  • The new condo will be a replacement of the champion with the same stats and the two small advantages of the current condo (speed and gunpowder).

  • The champion will get the two small advantages of the current condo (and the appearance).

In practice, if you have an Italian ally, you will be allowed to train just one unit (now are 2, condo and champion). That unit is a faster champion resistant to gunpowder. But, to make the game more enjoyable, it will have the condo appearance.

Against everything but gunpowder it will perform exactly as the champion (since the stats are identical), with the advantage of extra speed.

I would say that this is a very modest team bonus, but it can be used every time going champions. So the quality of the team bonus does not come from the fact that is is strong, but from the fact that it is always slightly useful.

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A champion with condo speed would be way too strong. The champ slowness is its main weakness after all.

Either way, I think we need to accept the fact that condos need a huge rework. They are a poorly designed unit, meant to counter a niche strategy (gunpowder), which makes them so situational that they are basically useless. And the fact that this unit is shared with allies makes balancing this mess even harder.

That said, I don’t think italians are complete garbage in land maps. They are for sure among the weaker civs, sure, but it’s not like it’s automatically gg if you get italians on arabia. They need some serious balancing for they UUs though. And a relevant military bonus wouldn’t hurt, either.

Hopefully the devs read at least some of the threads here and we can see some change in the next patch.

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Well, champions are underused. Moreover it will be a team game unit. In any case it may have slightly lower speed.
A team bonus unit cannot be super strong. But even unless as the current condo is bad. If the team bonus provides some extra champion speed I would say that, at least, it is a team bonus always useful, despite weak. Basically the team bonus buffs a unit which is clearly not OP.

I agree. Imo Italians need some small buffs. The only civ needing a more relevant boost is turks imo, but I do not want to talk about this in this topic.

Several topics are suggesting small land buffs to italians (like free archer armors), and that what they need. Regarding the genoese crossbowman, it would be sufficient a reduction of training time (or, if you want to be more original, just let the pavise UT to reduce the training time by, say, 40% in addition to extra armor)

But I do not think Italians need more. They should be average on land (now they are just bad)

in some sense my proposal could seem a huge rework, since you basically modify the tech tree of the ally. I have insisted on saying that it is equivalent to a faster champion just to say that it is balanced. @Exradicator, you say that it will be to fast. Which is a good speed compromise to be balanced? Maybe this is more a question for @Bzhydack numbers :slight_smile:

I want to stress that, regardless how small this speed increased will be, it will be still always useful

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That’s one of my issues with the current implementation of condos. We have to worry about the unit being too strong for certain allied civs in team games while it still sucks for the italian player. This doesn’t make any sense. Condos need to be balanced for the italian civ player first and foremost, if the unit being shared with allies breaks the balance, let’s just remove that feature…I can’t even remember when was my last time seeing condos being used by an ally anyway.

But I do not think Italians need more. They should be average on land (now they are just bad)

I agree with you, but at the same time I look at Vikings and they are top notch on both water and land maps. This feels a bit unfair to me.

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I agree but Vikings are a fun vanilla civ. Still Italians may have the potential to be very fun to play. For instance, a ranged anti cavalry unit is a good idea. But you have to make it viable…

The majority of team bonus is weak. My proposal was to leave italian team bonus weak, since they need other buffs. But just kicking in in all the games.

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On further thought after using them, I’d say they’re fine. The anti-gunpowder is more of their other speciality than a justification to use them. Much like Rattans who are defined as an archer thats also good against other archers but not a skirmisher.
If I were to compare them, they’re more like shotels and karambits except much bulkier and dont need castles. Less weak to ranged units and siege than champs due to speed and HP. Their raiding potential is pretty insane in early imp with bonus against buildings and no trash counter whatsoever.
The balance isn’t around infantry civ allies but for their ability of being a fast quality infantry (no trash counter) produced very fast from barracks and not needing any expensive upgrades.
Potential buffs would be cost down to 40f 35g or 50f 30g and maybe 10 attack.
But I think they should make land Italians viable first and then think about condos

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firtly i like the idea of buffing condos, but really not to this extent and complexitiy (as others pointed out)

you realise the champion is the counter to goths? now imagine having a buffed champion, with cheaper teching facing off against goffs…

or imagine a bulgarian “champion” or a malay “champion”

so yeah i reckon we would need to remove that team bonus and give them something else…

this might be too much, especially that dirt cheap price on top of the pavise and PA1… that price is already crazy good on certain maps…

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The team bonus would apply only for civs having champion

the buffed champion is totally equal to the regular one in fights… just a bit faster. I mean, a team bonus saying “champions move faster” is not OP at all. And my proposal is very close to this.

this is true, if I had to choose I would prefer to see free archer armors than stronger condos…

the problem is that this does not work since the condo is not used

I want to say that devs have tried to make the condos useful. But it does not work. I would say that we can just eliminate the fact that condos do not need upgrades (this advantage is not enough since it is underused).
Making the condo the longsword upgrade is simple to balance: you give it the stats of the champion. We can discuss how fast it should move and how much it should take to research the upgrade, but:

  • this is clearly balanced since the stats and the bonuses of the new condo will be exactly equal to the champion
  • this fixes the fact that condos are underused: simply you go condos over champions because 2hs upgrade is Replaced by the condo upgrade

In the majority of the cases this is nothing more than a faster champion (we can discuss how fast it should move). The bonus vs gunpowder can be left but it is extremely situational…

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That’s just a better Celt bonus for militia line, except its a team bonus and removes the 2hs upgrade from what I understand? Faster champion just negates their speed weakness

I’d still pin this on the fact that Italians are underused on land and that it is advertised as an anti gunpowder unit thats weak to archers and cavalry than a legitimate raiding unit. Also its seemingly weak stats.
Your changes would just remove the mercenary aspect of Condotierro, make it a faster reskinned and cheap champion. The first two militia upgrades are very cheap anyway and I don’t know how much you’re planning for the condo upgrade so it doesn’t sound as very balanced to me

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you said has the gunpowder stuff as well, so i dont know if you mean it has the gunpowder armour as well? ergo goff HC wouldnt counter them? also a faster melee unit IS BETTER than it’s counter part without the speed.

without even running tests you can think about it, in an form of group fight, your units can kill a model and move on to the next 1 to support their allies faster if the model moves faster… now run some tests with groups of exactly equal units except one is faster

nevermind your ambuiguity of the gunpowder bonus, does it lose the bonus? then WTF is the point of the condo as a gunpowder counter? if it doesnt lose that bonus, then yes it is a uber buffed champion. plus you’re dishing out free res to skip an ENTIRE UPGRADE… im sorry bro people are not going to take you seriously with such massive, seemingly unthought of changes…

they’re opposing +1 damage, how do you think they’ll consider this??

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sorry and lastly… you said speed similar to a condo, thats 33%!!! faster than the current champs(0.9 to 1.2)… celt champs are only 5% faster than other champs, cumans are only 5% faster… 33% is mind blowing massive… (exaggeration) :smiley:

i know you said we should balance around team play, but if you remove it as a team bonus, you are literally making the game less diverse instead of more

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Current Condo has speed 1,2 (without Squires), Champ has 0,9. For comparison, Huskarl (seing as fast Infantry) has speed 1,05.
Now imagine Malian champs with Condo speed.

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Exactly @JoJo9942. Stackable with the celt bonus. The speed boost is the only difference between the new condo and the champion except gunpowder. The new condo can be slightly slower than the current one. Say similar to huskarl: @Bzhydack and @phoenix1089, we should discuss a balanced number.

The simple thing is that the cost is equal to 2hs+champion upgrades. But ofc let us discuss this. It depends if we want a fast imp potential. I am against, but people may like to have a cheaper upgrade than 2hs+champion.

sorry I miss spoke. There are all the upgrades. You can research the condo upgrade only after longsword.

Again, this can be discussed, but in my opinion it should keep it. Maybe just the armor one. Still skirms, archers, and siege are much better vs gunpowder.

Again, the overall point is that this is a team bonus. Fine if it is weak. It has to. Italians do need other buffs, in completely different sections.

Overall this could be even a nerf for Italians, since the fast imp into condos is eliminated. But at least is something really useful for allies going champions. It is useful because you can exploit the bonus several time. It is weak because in the majority of the time is just some extra speed (say new condo speed at 1.0, but I wait @Bzhydack or other good people with balancing for the right number)