The developer’s note on patch 11009 said
So it’s been controversial enough at 33%. While network of castle buffs up to 50%, what is the excuse for this?
Stacking it up with shattered projectiles, and English basically have anti building, anti personel, anti everything heavy artillery.
The worst part is, this bonus applies to everything including mango, springalds, ram etc… virtually makes English the best siege civ in the game.
Can we see the same change apply to network of castle please?
Are you sure it affects siege? Have you checked the siege firing speed while active? I thought to remember it doesn’t actually increase
Yes it ■■■■■■■ does. Applies to ■■■■■■■ everything including bombards.
Developer’s note: Reload speed reduction are extremely powerful but if you are not ■■■■■■■ Chinese, especially if you are English you’re alright mate.
The most ■■■■■■■ stupid thing this game has rn.
There is no excuse. There are tons of situations where the devs clearly favour one civ over another. They had many opportunities to fix this, but they didn’t.
Another such example is how Rus and Chinese have literally the same upgrade for increases attack speed on bombards. However its much cheaper to research for Rus. This shouldn’t surprise anyone though. The devs have been nerfing Chinese several patches in a row despite there being no need to grant several nerfs in a row. Its a civ which had on of the lowest pick rate in the recent tournament and even then ended up with 50% winrate only when it was picked into good maps and good matchups. For some reason devs love handing out these “pre -emptive” nerfs for Chinese while they randomly toss out buffs like higher berry gather rate or +50 starting wood to other civs.
Even though this has been pointed out many times by the community, there are no changes.
Yeah I’d like to give them the benefit of the doubt, but things like these are hard to swallow man. The responsible people are probably white supremacists or self hate Asians. This much amount of stupidity is why people are leaving this game.
English all together is busted…hopefully they reign it in
Network has buffed English siege since forever. English roster also has a fairly weak siege line up. The Rus has discounted siege with their high armory, on top of the strong techs, on top of the wood income bonus they get. Of course the Chinese get extra range and damage on top of the clockwork tower. French have cannons, Mongols have the best springalds (and mangonels), Abbasid/HRE have Culverins.
Siege isn’t the problem with English right now, the real problem is that mangonels don’t do their job and counter blobs of longbow/xbow anymore. For the Season 1 patch, we had English buffs, Mongol nerfs, Chinese rework which makes them weaker earlier on, HRE put in the dumpster, Abbasid and Delhi nerfs. Plus the biggest one is the mangonel getting a 70% reduction to its AoE.
Correction: Siege isn’t the ONLY problem with English right now.
Siege is literally one of the worst aspects of English gameplay. Everyone else can get siege superiority vs them. From bringing culverins, better bombards or longer ranged springalds. Only Delhi has worse siege engines, just because its completely generic.
Plus in Castle age fights, trebs can comfortably destroy outposts from outside the network bonus.
Funny because just before Season 1, no one gave English any thought. We can keep crying about the English, but the reality is that once the other civs are buffed back up along with mangonels, the English will go back down again
This logic basically contradicted the developer’s patch note.
False. Just because the meta hasn’t developed to that point yet doesn’t mean it’s alright. Additionally, English had low pick rate before buffs and that’s why, but circumstances are changed now.
Do you realize that once this happens, English mangonels would be all over the place with +50% attack speed?
First of all, English siege had the network 50%fire rate buff ever since. They weren’t good at the siege meta at all. Back in the prime of mangonel spam and even now they are bottom tier at siege war in team games. This reflects on their winrate 48%. English now isn’t even that strong. They have a 50.5% WR in ranked ladder and sub 50% WR in team games.
Abbasid, Mongols are by far the best at castle age siege with traction trebs easily destroying outposts. If you try to come up to the enemy trebs as English, you’d just die when they bring up springalds. Delhi just doesn’t give a ■■■■ because of elephants.
Fire rate is not that important compared to range and who fires first in a siege fight anyways. You’d be in a disadvantage as English since you’re pushing up to kill enemy siege. All he has to do is kill your outpost from treb range which is extremely easy.
Of course, it also wasn’t an issue in Castle age if the enemy just dives with horsemen, mangonel. Your xbows/spears just die to mango shots while horsemen just raid your backline. Now, with mangonel being useless, you’ll just get shredded by xbows under network buff while your mangos kill like 6 guys.
The logic for devs is that 33% reload reduction for Rus was too strong. I agree. Chinese bombard reload drills remain unchanged and still have 33% reload reduction.
Why is that so? Rus already have Streltsy, 25% discount to their siege units, increased wood income on top of instant pack/unpack mangonels, long range springalds and faster shooting bombards. Rus Imperial even after their nerfs still beat English imperial by far. Good luck siege spamming vs Rus as English.
Lets not even get into Chinese, Mongols, Abbasid and HRE.
Objectively false. English pick rate low? They are consistently 19-21% pick rate. Throughout all patches they are consistently the most popular civ to play. The meta has literally just developed from siege wars to what it is now. And during the peak of the springald meta and mangonels, English were mediocre at best and one of the worst in Imperial.
Edit:
If you remain unconvinced, this is the English WR curve for the season. Extremely dominant early game and quickly falls off.
French WR curve. Again, dominant early but falls off. Still better than English in the Castle age and early Imperial.
I can go on, but its clear that the problem isn’t English siege.
Playing in plastic league perhaps you didn’t notice that siege exists 
