Devs - Malta Desperately Needs A Small Buff

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
1

Do not let another update go by without a proper Malta buff.
They are and have always been underperforming since release.

Just small things such as:

  • Reverting the 2% XP penalty.
  • Making the Age IV Sentinel card a little better by reducing the cost increase to 35%, adding another 10% to stats (so 55%), and adding +2 range to Sentinels.
  • Reducing German Tongue cost from 450w to 425w.
  • Decreasing the cost of hospitaller by 5c and train time by 2s.
  • Improving “Wall Guns” card to also increase the attack and range of Forts by nearby walls by 20%.
  • Add a +1 Melee range per Sentinel upgrade
  • Improve Auberges card by making Commandery units train 10% faster as well.
  • Decrease depot cost back down to 50c 50w and decrease build time by 3s and give the attack speed aura +1 range.

None of these will break Malta in the slightest, it will simply give them a slightly much-needed edge.

12 Likes
2

Yes, buff them please. Win rate is currently the lowest of every civ. Depot/wignacourt nerfs should also be reverted and give fixed gun 1% hp per shipment.

Maltese xbow also got nerfed last patch with the change to the guard tech making it cheaper but now giving them 5% less increase.

2 Likes
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Are canons still using population?

Is it me or the melee infantry even with cards + upgrades is not that great?

I general think is a great def civ but defense doesn’t win matches… And how to say it defense and builds even if focus on with cards and so are “weak”.

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I will repeat one of my replys from another topic:

I advocate again for this.
Until now I tried it, and for the first time since I played with Maltese the Sentinels were useful for something, they didn’t just fall without doing anything.
It’s okay that they don’t have a very high attack, with the card they level out.
It’s okay that they have low HP, so they are easy to heal, a specialty of the civ.
Giving them ranged and melee resistance makes them come back alive from battle and can be healed.
Give them +10% Ranged resistance with French Tongue and +10% Melee with Russian Tongue.

<Tech name="DEHCFrenchTongue">
	<effect mergeMode='add' type="Data" amount="0.10" subtype="ArmorSpecific" newtype="Ranged" relativity="Absolute">
        <target type="ProtoUnit">deMalteseMusketeer</target>
      </effect>
	</Tech>  
	  
	<Tech name="DEHCRussianTongue">
		<effect mergeMode='add' type="Data" amount="0.10" subtype="ArmorSpecific" newtype="Hand" relativity="Absolute">
        <target type="ProtoUnit">deMalteseMusketeer</target>
      </effect>
	</Tech>

I like the idea of a new unit, with his own niche.
Tell me, isn’t Malta the civilization that resisted the endless siege of the Ottomans? Is not La Valette the unbreakable wall, the shield of Europe and Christianity?

Well, let’s make the defenders of that impassable wall also fearsome for the Ottoman cannons. Let’s give them siege armor, good ranged armor, and good melee armor.

They are quite expensive in terms of population, and they don’t do much damage. Let’s make them special like this, because surviving battles and being able to be healed synergizes very well with the theme of the Hospitaller civilization.

EDIT: and adding 1 range for melee attacks to represent the halberd attacks would’ve very welcome

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Modified the original post a bit to add a few more things. None should tip the scales over as they are all very slight buffs that affect scattered parts of gameplay.

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I think the unit that suffers the most is the sentinel. It’s really not that good for it’s cost, and the damage sharing thing makes it prone to catastrophic frontline failure.

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I’d like this card to offer some kind of buff to them as well, none of maltas cards effect these units perhaps this card could allow them to benefit from the 2% hp per shipment or something.

I think they’re good for their cost but bad for their population.

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Population is cost 20 characters

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plus it’s the only civ that use a lot less cards for its own playstyle. Some cards can be combined or to make with some shipments outposts more cheap or somethingh like that.

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Didn’t someone say that the WIgnacourt nerf was shadow reversed already? I’m showing +10% natural res increase, and +20% near Ranged Buildings.

The Depots being nerfed is also one that should be reversed, but if all of the ones I suggested are done then it may not be needed.

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No idea tbh I’ve not played malta for awhile, if it has been though then even that hasn’t been enough to improve them and much more is needed.

it was hard to get a good explosion with them before unless the opponent was a total noob and just walked on top of them, now they’re only really good to keep opponent away and to improve building rof. The range at least should be reverted to what it was even if damage remains nerfed.

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Oh I see, thanks for clarifying! I agree.

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it was revered from 25% on natrual res back to 30% 2 patches ago
I assume you dont mean buff this card more. SW plus this will always be on the cusp of OP and i dont see how maltese eco can ever get buffed more

the core issue to malta is the same civs like japan and ports have. the civ scales way out of control so it has to have slow tempo. this means any boost to its tempo or start risks the civ snowballing out of control. the reason everyone hard rushes malta or FF>falcs them is simply put, that is your only window often to punish malta. that fails its GG for almost every civ. As long as malta gets 2% hp, super charged eco cards, shadowteching/super cheap upgrades, and units like fixed guns and shadowtech units the civ will be forced to have slow tempo initially to prevent it being too oppressive. fwiw malta is fine or strong into the non FF civs or at least hits parity in most matchups.

So the really crux is this: do you want to have a civ that is hard to get going but has this unique and very strong snowballing? or a less boomy/pay off/flavor for more tempo and less weakness. ive long accepted ports must struggle in age2 or vs some pressure (hence why the organs getting nerfed isn’t Suprise) because it feels good IF i get to 12 minutes and can just do w/e I want. When i do play malta the begining of the game is so stressful but if i get my feet set, drowning people in xbows or skipping age3 into age4 powerspikes also fun. How we improve from here i think is very difficult. Thats my 2 cents imho
edit: the censor on this site gets worse every month

1 Like
15

At least they reverted that silly change I guess.

I’d understand all of those points you made if they hadn’t already nerfed the scaling of the civ in many ways, fixed gun no longer gets more HP, artillery now only gets 1% more HP and they added a 2% xp penalty which was fair when all units received 2% more hp per shipment, now they don’t so it should be reverted. Xbow also lost 5% attack and hp from the guard tech albeit it costs less now but with the age 4 age up that already made the upgrade cheaper the cost change isn’t that important compared to the stats nerf.
The civ was nerfed when it was already performing poorly at all levels mostly due to whining about annoying mechanics I guess so things like depots and the fixed gun and building spam. Unfortunately while it may be an annoying civ to play that doesn’t seem to translate to wins for malta either previously or now.
Wignacourt is a strong card but that just gets worse over time unless you build outposts on top of new hunts and mines and stay focused such that the hunts don’t leave the aura and by very late game it just becomes a poor version of exotic hardwoods.

Malta has almost no positive match ups and just a couple of even match ups. It also feels bad as malta that you’re almost forced into going xbow/pike every game even though you’d prefer to use the unique units. Hospitallers are ok though the church techs for them are abysmal and fire throwers have their use but you can’t really combine them with pikes so you must combine with dragoons or musk and you end up with a very pop heavy army that’s even further reduced by any fixed guns.
Sentinels being 2 pop causes a lot of these issues because you might want to go fire thrower/sentinel but because the musk cost 2 pop it causes issues, even just going sentinel/falc it’s an issue. They need to consider either making it a 1 pop unit or allowing the age 4 card to make them 1 pop so in late game it’s not such a problem.

It would be 1 thing if the civ was very good in treaty and not so good in 1v1 but that’s not the case either as it is the worst civ in treaty due to being forced to go xbow and it costing wood and you only have 1 factory, other unit combos are too population intensive.

Also worth noting that as a defensive civ the changes to cards like heavy fortifications or the bastion tech will also result in further nerfing malta indirectly.

3 Likes
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What infantry beats arbalesters after say 8 shipments? Usually 10+ shipments by then? Res to res? Then backed by RG culvs? Few in supremacy if any.

What does civs do vs sentinel age4 powerspike hacked by shadowtech cav? If pulled off fast super rocket toting musk is damn good backed by free guard huss. most just die if it happens before the 2 pop is a real issue

Then there is issues of the tongues which tend to be situationally busted, the fixed gun that singlehandedly GG’s most native civs if you can get 1-2 covering eachother, and crazy scaling pops like the hospitalier pops from forts or commandries. As you said, malta is benefited from building onto the map so these all combine into some very strong pops. It wasnt just whining it is really an issue that while malta is weak to popular civs (famously otto usa and spain), when you control the win rates into most other civs and compare things like win rate over time you see its not just “poor malta” but really “malta cant live until it does and when it does it takes off.”

So you buff malta you just piss off everyone not botting the oft broken FF civs, which is why the civ got nerfed in the first place. You call this civ bad, lets imagine if devs nuked all falc/falc eq shipments. Suddenly Malta would be a top 5 civ. No go look at the number of civs that dont have 2 falcs or a way to duel with fixed guns. Then compare those win rates. not so catastrophic of win rate.

I do think malta is vulnerable to popular plays and a bit too much, but watch kaiser or i forget who is doing the sentinel build atm at high level but you’ll see this civ isnt ded. its just at odds with the current “tempo spam build into op unit pop” meta. So is russia and japan and lakota. All these civs can find ways to win and have very strong scaling in various ways. I’m simply stating that i get malta mains probably tunnel vision vs otto and think otto is the only metric that matters when there are 20 other civs, and the win rates arent too bad (fwiw malta bodies ports like 60/40+ still). And when you buff one aspect, you need to think how does this effect the other matchups. Aoe3 is complex and needless buffing things like fulani is how we get…current fulani (were buffed to deal with the uber musk).

i do agree the age4 sentinel card could be shifted to be less instant power for longevity (10% stats and 1 pop imho be fine) and possbily a 1 culv 1 falc or something shipment for 200c could help. But i dont think just blindly boosting the eco or scaling back to where it was would be healthy for the game at all.

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When they actually can get arbalesters they only become strong when fully carded, any unit with a royal guard upgrade and 3-4 cards will become strong just most civs don’t invest that much into 1 unit. It’s also rare in most games that you can get them to that level. Triple carded cuirassiers, brit huss, french skirms, forest prowlers are all just as good if not better and also get all AA techs in addition to several cards/RG. Prior to the royal guard tech your xbow are also at a max of 18 range after steel bolts compared to 20 of most skirms.

A good 1 time powerspike/pop and that is it, the sentinel card is good only if you already have a mass of like 30+ sentinels so you can get the effect of the card without paying the increased cost, they’re just a poor mans soldado even after the card and stats become very mediocre as soon as you leave your own buildings.

The tongues are mostly very poor cards other than german tongue, brit tongue is pointless, same with port tongue as why would you want unupgradeable/expensive cassadores or longbow.
The only good tongue card is spanish tongue to get 9 lancers but again just a 1 time pop that costs an age 3 card plus a thousand wood to send so basically a total opportunity cost of 2k res for 9 lancers and you have no cav combat cards. It can turn a game in your favour as it should for 2k res though.

Fixed guns without the extra hp per shipment aren’t particularly good, vs a civ like haud if you can somehow withstand the age 2 rush and FF you have no units because you spent all your res on age up, spent 700 res on a fixed gun and shipped another. They just have the entire map sit outside of fixed gun range and age up with light cannons and it’s over. Malta have a terrible win rate vs lakota for example and they have no artillery at all. Malta only do ok vs civs that don’t ff like brit or a civ like dutch which is vulnerable early on and has no 2 falcs.

Making the sentinels 1 pop would go along way to improving them late game. Their eco is terrible late game though which is why they’re the worst treaty civ, I cannot see why they lack a second factory card, it’s not like they have banks or torps or something and wignacourts buff is mostly gone by that stage in the game.
I dislike the nerfing to all of maltas unique features, the civ should be all about strong defenses yet fixed gun is nerfed so much despite being immobile, depots range nerfed so much, stuck with team building hp card etc and now bastion and heavy fortifications nerfs will effect malta.

I mained malta for a long time upon its release, I’m not sure if you play them a lot but play like 30 games straight of malta without doing the xbow/pike rush every game and you’ll experience a lot of the issues that I’m mentioning here. It’s just underperforming so much since several patches ago and I’ve been waiting on a few small buffs and yet again we get nothing, giving the sentinel +1 range and a 5 sentinel shipment in age 2 has obviously had zero effect in making the civ better and they should consider giving them a few small buffs, nothing major just remove the xp penalty, change the age 4 sentinel card, give the fixed gun 1% hp per shipment.

3 Likes
18

To me, it’s only this sentence that doesn’t make sense, " unupgradeable/expensive cassadores"
since cassadores and every togue card gets upgraded with each age up. So Cassadores gets upgraded, benefits from arsenal etc. They are not the same as the main civ playing with it. But this is kinda innacurate.

However Devs need to focus to every aspect of game. We can’t talk only about 1v1 supremacies. Since treaty games aren’t playable if you playing Malta, or Italy(much worse). There are many problems regarding the late game of both civs in team supremacies, too. And I agree with other things OriginalKnot717 said. I thing Malta it’s kinda bad at the time. If i try to rush pykes/cross with every other civ it’s more rewarding than doing so with Malta. And if the enemy ages up for cannons i am left out most of the time cause my stable costs 350 resources or yy Gernan tongue. But how can you rush if you get the 450 wood tongue? Literally you need to do extra work for less rewarding game and you strugling a lot in early and in late.

And i d like to add to the “strong defences” section. If you want to upgrade all of your army, you can’t have room for outpost or commanderies cards, the only feature which is given to Malta, and is taken from her at the same time. Do you want it to be “gunpowder Mills”, “Advanced Commanderies”, “Fire Towers”, “De Redin Towers”, “wall guns”? I cant see anyone higher elo using any of these and winning. That won’t happen to other Civilization with their special features. To merge some of these cards might add up to it. I forgot the most useless card, Barakka Garden, in my opinion if you have some respect to yourself, you don’t use it at all in any mode, i don’t know what this card supposed to mean from the beginning, tried to figure out ways of using it and i didn’t find any. It’s useless, and it’s not like Malta has that much of food production to be able to sustain that thing in the terms it works right now.

2 Likes
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fwiw all of these were serious balance concerns in teams, ofc people usualyl say “well who cares about x mode” but malta was pure cancer in teams which remains a popular mode. just trying to explain its not “impossible” to get the stacked stats. as for my experience, I play them off and on in 1v1 I’d hardly say I was a main of them but here i usually just sentinel/huss semi. fast musk with extra damage close to buildings, huss that shadowtech. reminded me of italy tempo of 3vill GT 700w or winningcourt into 700c age with hospitality. i did the tp/market/house start fwiw which is a PIA to pull off on some maps but consistent. or id pike rush cause people seriously underestimate the speed of malta’s pike rush and how it scales. its old ofc but there are some old vids on youtube of me doing that and winning, and trying a logi and putzing it up on several levels XD. oh and 1 factory is due to winningcourt and 6 SW; its basically a 2nd factory until natural res run out.

Fixed guns are one of those guns i feel like malta severely underestimate because their own experiences. Since release, this thing has owned native civs and TAD civs. I can promise you the reason you were getting rushed hard by native is they have 0 answer to fixed gun with a wall or depots in front. this literally was a hardcounter and while i get native civs arent popular, when a civ can just say “nah f thr s in rts now” to a civ its probably not going to stand. they still now are very hard for haude/lakota/inca/hausa to deal with. Long age2 civs also struggle into it since it will beat 2 falcs most the time. the scaling hp plus base hp was at the point it would consistently require more res than it took to make to kill it with mortars or culvs. if malta didnt get all normal artillery maybe, but 1% on a 2250 hp building scales fast. fixed gun is probably fine, but the shipment itself value is a bit weak. i dunno 200 or 300w crate to go with it might be ok?

As for the tongues, there is consistent use of them at the high level. they are hardly “bad” but situational. as people realize 15 dops in age 3 is good as is RG lancers, the appeal of non-archaic is getting explored. the last thing you want is to over buff something, then as its getting explored the deeper knowledge plus op combos creates… well italy. that’s exactly what happened with italy. british tongue is great in some m/u, port has a few, spanish is solid, really only the age4 ones are meh. if anything buffing auberges somehow in cost or like a 5% stat would be fine. its fun for malta, but every other civ is gonna be pissed if their 2-4 carded unique units are equal to another civ stealing said unit.

This why i am cautious. I know when i can get away with annoy af sentinel raids (mini ashi with AA) shadowteching units and still do an archaic rush the civ is going to be tricky. I dont want malta to again get overbuffed and then over nerfed. I’d prefer some sentinel longevity, and then a card in 3 to help survive the darn otto ff cause i still have 0 idea how Malta survives than other than playing uber cancer (walls, sent raids, depot/fixed gun turtling). I think small changes could be nice, but returning prior levels just resets you to the same issues civ had before. and im tired of the wild swings at time in DE, including malta. i took a break after they buffed depots and fixed guns cause i felt it would make the civ synonymous with cancer and thats what happened.

Just my 2 cents. i know people think ploping an autofiring 0 apm cannons is super fun, but no other player vs it does. shipping cuirs or lancers is fun to you, but is annoying to others. the really imho core identy of malta is its rax units which i think sentinels in particular could use buff. I’d rather we start there and maybe small boost to specifically order huss/goon (our goon are absolutely trash late) and some sort of card to help fight off the ff falc play and we deus vult’n in the mid tier imho.
Oh and I 100% agree on shipment curve nerf should go, now that artillery and boats are limited. no reason for it now.

2 Likes
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whatever the case we won’t have another fix till the next PUP so i guess RIP for a bit.

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Sure they get the shadow tech but you pay 750 wood plus a shipment for some units and the ability to train them, these tongue cards only serve as a 1 time pop to change the outcome of a fight, my point was that there’s no point sending the card to train these units because they lack cards or the 2% hp bonus that might make it worthwhile further down the line. They are after all more expensive than regular cassadores in exchange for the shadow tech.

I think the order huss/goons at least should get the 2% hp per card, sure the free techs are nice but the units cost more as standard and you don’t have a single cavalry upgrade card so it can be great if you have 15 huss and hit age 4 and attack sure but otherwise very underwhelming units which is the issue I have with most of the tongue cards, they just serve as a 1 time powerspike but actually training them is quite pointless then you have the issue of sentinels and fire throwers again because any other civ going musk/huss or skirm/goon has 1 of those units being 1 population so you can get a decent mass but for malta both their musk and skirm equivalent(fire thrower) are 2 population the same as the units you’d combine them with like huss/goon.
I can understand the fire thrower remaining 2 pop because it is actually worth it as it’s a kind of skirm/gren hybrid but sentinels are not at all worth 2 pop even after the age 4 card.

All that being said I’m fine with leaving the tongue cards as they are because I don’t like it when a civ has a better version of another civs unique units like spain had with the soldado.
Order huss/goon need to be looked at and especially the sentinel needs several changes.
I’m also surprised that the church card hasn’t been buffed, it’s a trash card with 1 good tech, both of the hospitaller techs are completely useless.
I’d also like the commandery card to increase their hp as it did previously, no idea why that was changed it’s not like you can send extensive fortifications and team building hp every game and spam them everywhere as their attack is mediocre anyway, if it made them a bit tankier as a fortified outpost that costs 350 res should be then the card itself might be worth using in addition to its other benefits.