Discussion about the april patch

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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Ok, I’ll admit, I’m very disappointed about the new civs balance of the april patch, and that’s why.
First of al I want to say that I appreciate monthly updates, and I like some of the other improvements, I don’t agree or see the point of most balance changes.

  • Indians got their fisher bonus reduced, ok it wasn’t that strong before(since it’s situational), but I can live with it, the problem is that they haven’t addressed the real problem, the EA, the least useful UU, they bring it right from aoe1 and never balance it.

  • The Italians got their FS disc. nerfed, yes I know that it’s a bug fix on paper, but in reality it’s a nerf. Now I know that they need a nerf on pure water maps, but that affects also ibrids maps (where they weren’t that strong) and also, like Indians, they don’t address their problems on pure land map (like the uselessnessof the GC), they could at least give them back their +2LoS.

  • I don’t think that khmer are really nerfed with less 3% farming, taking away crop rotation, that could be a nerf.

  • Lituanins seem to have win this month rotation for being the OP civ, along with tartars from the last month. They now have a super cheap-super fast training UU that ignore armor, and tower shields now give them (for a reduced cost also) +2 PA, so now their halbs doesn’t have any drawback, and their ES have 10PA, basically they are immune to any range attacks.

  • The boyars now is basically a paladin with a lot more MA, but hey it have 0.1 less speed.

  • Persians are basically back to the old aoe2 version of themselves, instead of fixing their trashbows (25+45=70w not 60w) they now take away their bonus in the DA.

  • Still think that FC is an april fool’s unit.

  • Now teutons onestly make me laugh. 0.7 to 0.8 for the TK doesn’t make them viable any more than before, and as for their +1MA on their knights (because on their scout is useless) it may help on knight vs knight situations, but onestly it already a unit that crush all melee units without a cavalry-bonus it kind of an useless bonus.

  • I don’t see the purpose of the changes on stirrups/paladins for Bulgarians.

  • And there is still no love for the portos, which have a desperate need for any bunus.

I still don’t know how to fell about letting the vills drop fish on dock, we will see.

Oh and still no fix on the medal dor the first yodit campaign (or other campaign’s bugs), it seem that only the multi-player count.

Now I know that I may sound like a child angry because they nerfed their favorite civs, but I onestly don’t see the purpose of this changes, they nerf civs without compensate where is needed (I get it nerf of Italians on water, but they are still trash on pure land) and either trow useless buffs (like teutons) or OP buffs (like Lithuanians).

The result will be that people will still play with the same 5/6 civs (Britons, Mongols, huns, Chinese, franks and now Lithuanians) instead of seeing a bit more diversity online, in fact I’ll probably put the multi-player on pause for a bit, maybe I will continue with campaigns, if they fix them.

EDIT: Oh and I still don’t have the correct name for the Magyar hussar in my language, since it’s called “Ponte-C-crollato” for no reason.

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Yeah, don’t think this was necessary - they should have at least kept the carry bonus. +10% speed and carry would still be decent, but I don’t know that it would make them an instapick for shore fish heavy maps.

Italians are so dominant on water and still good enough on hybrid that even with a bigger nerf, they’d still be fine. Besides, this is in the running to be the smallest nerf in Aoe2 history - fishing ships costing 4 more wood is nothing.

Elephants require a food heavy eco, so I think it’s good that their farming bonus was only nerfed very slightly. And they lost Bomb Cannons. Overall, I’m happy with where Khmer are at with this patch.

I agree, it seems like Lithuanians are the big winners. It’s good to have their UU become more viable, but 50 gold seems a little too cheap. For halbs, I like the tower shields buff since it actually makes it worth getting and not just a more expensive version of plate mail (for the pierce, anyway), and it makes Lithuanian trash extremely good. With regards to skirmishers though, there seems to be a fad for giving tons of unit Huskarl-like levels of pierce armor, and it seems to be overkill at this point.

Not long ago, I thought Boyars should get +1 PA, but now that they have it, I have mixed thoughts on whether it’s a good change. Balancing it with the reduced speed is actually pretty good though, and further establishes their identity as basically a mounted Teutonic Knight. But yeah, now it’s basically a stronger paladin, and though that’s somewhat balanced by being made at a Castle, Slavs already had A tier Siege, Infantry and Eco, and probably B+ level cavalry, and I think this bumps that up to A-. So…they’re basically good at everything except archers. While I’m all about making UUs more viable, you have to be careful when improving the UU of a strong civ like Slavs.

Yeah, I’m not sure what to think about this change yet. While fixing the trashbow tech would have made more sense, if any civ was clearly at the head of the pack, it was Persians. This might be good by making them less of an insta-pick, but still a strong hybrid and lategame civ.

Totally disagree about Teutons. IMO the TK speed boost is something they’ve been needing for a long time, and IIRC with squires they’ll be nearly as fast as a non-squires champ. They already had impressive stats, what they needed was the mobility to engage. +2 (by Imp) Melee armor on knight line is pretty huge, and gives players a good reason to use them despite being slow. I do think +2 for infantry is too much though, given how cheap they are, and will make them absolute monsters in trash fights, while helping halbs do better against cav, and adding to an already long list of civs with Super-Duper™ A++ Champs. +1 armor for infantry would probably have been enough, and it would step on the TK’s toes less.

It’s pretty huge, IMO, and I think it’s intended to encourage use of the UT and UU more, since Bulgarians never have to decide between Paladin and Konniks anymore.

This word keeps on taking on new forms on this site…

Definitely a mixed bag of a patch though. Overall I like changes to the Teutons, Bulgarians, Khmer, and Persians, but with mixed thoughts on the others.

Oh yeah, and there’s Goths. I’m convinced more than ever that, as with Teutons, the devs don’t really have a vision for Goths and are just trying out random things, more or less. With free loom and a 20% infantry discount, the Goths will be pretty strong in Dark if they make lots of militia, but are weaker in Feudal and Castle than ever, and are still weak on maps or in situations where they don’t make lots of militia in Dark Age. And their Imp is definitely weaker than in AoC due to Supplies, and this has never been addressed. Don’t love it.

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It means 6 FS for the price of 5 instead of 5 for the price of 4, in DA is a nerf, but my complain is more about land, I get that they needed a nerf on water, but they still aren’t viable on land, and their UU isn’t usable.

Yes it almost resemble a lottery.

And I agree with you, but +0.1 is a joke, it won’t change anything, they should be on the level of Champs at least for them to be usable, as they are now, still nobody will use them.

Paladins was better vs archers, konniks vs anty infantry and for raiding, now they are just the same.

Oh yes true, I forgot about goths, this patch doesn’t make sense at all.
I mean maybe could be a good idea free loom with the old bonus that starts from feudal, but like this seems just OP.

A lot of fan here always make hypothesis and ideas about balance, but almost every time they justify it with solids arguments and personal experience, I don’t see anything behind those changes, some were even requested or necessary.

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I didn’t try it yet, but I don’t like the balance changes. Leitis are going to be broken. Bulgarians were actually nerfed and vikings buffed. Loom for goths seems an uninspired bonus and Teutons Paladins seems unnecessary. Why take out khmers cannons, instead of nerfing their eco a little more?

It’s incredible, but a noob like me seems to understand bet the balance than the devs.

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You’re overdoing it, of course they are viable on land.

It’s like a 14% increase, that’s quite huge actually

Well, it’s more than Elite Konniks are straight upgrades to Cavalier, so the choice will just boil down to whether you can afford all Konnik upgrades.

Overall in most realistic situations it’s a buff tho. Because now they can go heavy on knights, build a castle and then Stirrups give them the best Castle age knights, which is worth more than eventually being able to upgrade them to pala. I do think it might make the Konnik a rarer Castle age sight tho.

Theoretically yes but no fire galleys is still worse than +5 sec fire galleys so it’s not liek they are getting out of hand.

They are going to make the civ more attractive and are actually something unique to the Teutons.

Because removing Crop rotation wouldn’t have prevented Khmer players from protecting their scorps/ballista eles with BBC I guess.

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Incredibly but it’s true. The funny thing is that when they leaked this patch, a lot of people criticized it, bot under the post and then here on the forums, but they didn’t change it.

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Still less that a champion.

Don’t think so.

Yes now you have 2 similar units affected, why? By the time you see the effect in castle age you are almost in imp, and konniks are still better for raiding.

Cheaper dock+drop fish on dock is buff for them, on top of more TT for FR.

They won’t, people want to use the TK, paladins with +1MA what difference are going to make? [quote=“CactusSteak2171, post:5, topic:80696”]
Because removing Crop rotation wouldn’t have prevented Khmer players to protect their scorps/ballista eles with BBC I guess.
[/quote]

Taking away BBC is ok, but -3% on farming instead of removing CR isn’t a nerf.

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Very possibly, I think they should cost a little more.

I see why you might say that since there are definitely circumstances in which the +1 PA and extra HP of a paladin are game changers, but on the other hand, Bulgarians’ knight line has an earlier powerspike due to Stirrups, and it’s not locked behind a hugely expensive tech like paladin. People are comparing it to Farimba, but it’s available much earlier, or to the Lithuanian relic bonus, but it doesn’t depend on something conditional like getting the relics. I see it as a pretty solid buff to Bulgarians’ Castle and early Imp, in exchange for a slight nerf in late Imp, so overall I view it as a buff.

Did I miss something, or is this just referring to docks being fish drop-off points now?

Agreed.

I actually like the Teuton paladin bonus (although maybe as with infantry, +2 is unnecessary and +1 was suffice, but we’ll see), because it gives players an actual reason to pick Teutons and make their knight line - it’s an interesting tradeoff, rather than them just being worse than every other knight civ.

I think they only wanted to nerf the Khmer farms so much, because if you do much more, their instant drop-off becomes more of a novelty than an actual bonus. Khmer just received this bonus a couple months ago, and it’s not necessarily the best farm bonus, so it doesn’t make sense to give them something good only to nerf it back into obvlivion. Better to remove the excess power from some other area.

Yeah, in threads regarding buffing TK, I called for buffing their speed by 10-15%, and that’s about what we got, so I can’t complain. TKs should still be slower than champs with squires, but this should help them engage somewhat better. In any case, we have a month to try it out and see if they feel stronger enough to be useful.

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Okay, I give you that

It’s still a buff. Killing their fish in feudal is goingg to be harder. And Fire ships are the only counter to longboats

No. Now those paladins are inmune both to arrows and melee. People was complaining about boyar gettin extra pa?. Well, this is even worse. A lot worse.
The infantry buff was more than enough. No need to give this buff to an infantry and civ civilization

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You have first to build a castle and then research it, it will be late castle age by then. And farimba actually let their cavalier to compete with paladins, so it’s better.

I will still prefer husbandry, because even if I lose knight vs knight I will always be able to outrun/outflank them.

I don’t think it will help them, they still are the slowest units.

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I guess but then again, Vikings didn’t become much stronger when they nerfed the Fire galley’s damage output vs fishing ships into the ground.

The change only affects Fire galleys. Sure you will have like 1 less fire galley to upgrade once you’re in castle if you’re unlucky but you still had your whole Feudal to mass them anyway.

By being slower???

They are equal to Frankish palas when faced with halbs and camels. They sound counterable just fine to me.

Man I wish civ tags didn’t exist. Half of them are just so restrictive. And anyway, why Magyars and Turks dare have the best cav archer even tho they are deemed as cav/gunpowder only, and Malian have well above average cav despite being “infantry”? Why Teuton being a good tower and siege civ despite their infantry tag is fine, but them being a good cav civ would be a crime?

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For reference, here’s an analysis someone did the first time the patch was leaked.

https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/g7tr6k/analysis_bulgarian_cavaliers_highest_knightline/

So it looks like not only is it available earlier than Farimba, but it’s actually stronger as well. Definite buff to the Bulgarians.

And so you may, but many players who prefer the Teutons “slow but tanky” playstyle will opt for these ironclad riders in lieu of faster generic cav.

Well, someone’s gotta be. the TK’s raw stats are incomparable for a melee unit, so I’d be wary of buffing their speed much more than this. Maybe 0.825 base speed is the highest I’d want them to go. Again, this is significantly faster than they’ve ever been, so I fully expect it will make them a more threatening unit, but only the coming month will tell if this is enough.

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I think that coupled with removal of BBC is a huge nerf

Kamandaran is honestly overrated at this point and nerfing it wouldn’t change much, The dark age bonus gave them a lot of momentum with faster loom and age up and it’d snowball to a huge economic lead

It helps though, TKs at their old speed are very sluggish to move around, even to protect siege 4 tiles away, they’d struggle to catchup and kill the units before its late, extra speed will always help.
And about the melee armor bonus its actually +1 in castle, +1 in imperial, so they’re significantly tankier in fights, it will definitely help against eagles, knights and other infantry

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Little known fact: Khmer farmers were actually already working slower than other civs, to prevent the no drop off mechanic to be absolutely god tier. People wanted it nerfed still, so this -3% percent penalty comes on top of the previous nerf.

Bulgarian players were already forced to do it to make their Konniks good. And late castle is still much earlier than late Imp.

I’m pretty much sure 25% firing rate is good too and would let Bulgarian cavalier kill Celt palas like Malian ones do.

Teutons aren’t meant to “outflank” but to be a slow, crushing force. This new pala bonus emphazises that quite well.

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The only real chance you have to win the water against a viking is winning in feudal age. Good luck with that now.

Generic paladin is super resilient to arrow. Speed in this case doesn’t matter that much, since you can outrun palas with archers.

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That’s the point, Frank’s palads having more HP are better both in melee and range, teutons one aren’t that better, and are even slower.

It’s not that I don’t like the slow teutons gameplay, I lake it, it’s that having +1MA don’t do anything, +1PA, that would have an impact.

I don’t think so, we will see.

Their trashbows should be nerfed instead of the their dark age bonus.

They won’t still be able to force any engagement, they will still be used only as emergency-rams-killers for castles.

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It’s not a buff, then they have 3 different cavalry with different roles, the scout line and konniks for raids, and paladins for more durability on battles. Now their cavalier gains some damage output, but lose a lot in HP and PA.

Also farimba is still better because malian are a better rush civ, with more eco bonus, it’s more likely to hit imperial first.

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God more I read the patch notes and more I think they were random.

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From what I see I think goal of this month’s update was to make unique units more viable for lithuanians,slavs,teutons without making them OP.

Its early call them OP without seeing them used and how it effects gameplay. But considering you need a castle for them which is quite tedious as simply going paladins/knights far safer and easier option %99 of time also while in castle age although they are slightly better than knights going for them still quite hard(due to needing stone for castle etc) and as for imp. age they are worse than paladins expect versus heavly armored units(teutonic knight,boyars etc) which there are only handful of them(most of them also unique units too so its very rare chance that you will encounter them at all).

Again without seeing them in action its hard to justify but with squires they can now get to speed of 0.88 with normal champions being 0.99(with squires) so right now on paper they seem alright and viable but maybe reducing their food cost can also be considered.

I think reason to remove paladin is to push players to towards konniks just like italians not getting halbs so players pushed towards genoese crowbowmen but unlike italians I think bulgarians can somewhat have easier time thanks to their kreposts.

I agree.

I dont see lithuanians being non-stop played like other civs you mentioned but we ll see results this month.

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And what about other civs UU, like Indians or Italians, they also have unbalanced UU.

That they can’t mass, thanks to their slow training time.

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