Exiled Prince Politician is dominant

When considering the popularity and usage of age up politicians, Exiled prince is clearly the most used politician to reach to III age, an adjustment which would make exiled prince politican cost time either +5 seconds or buffing the slow age up options by -5 seconds would be a useful change in order to reward the variety in the game, because exiled prince doesn’t have good alternative age up option for what it gives.

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No.

If you nerf Exiled Prince, then another option will just become the dominant one, that will be picked all the time.
There is no way around this, it is impossible to have diverse strategies as soon as Meta is discovered, Meta rules all, hard as iron.

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There’s nothing wrong with having one most powerful option, if the exiled prince combined with a certain civ is too strong, the civ doesn’t get exiled prince anymore, take Spain for example, it would be absolutely broken if Spain had the exiled prince, an age up time just after 6 minutes, that’s why the civs that would be OP if they had exiled prince, simply don’t have it, I think the way it is now with some civs not having it and those that do have it, although in a discord server a heard someone mention that the highest win rate civs are, Aztec
(not really sure how, Aztec feel garbage) Spain, (proves my point, a civ without exiled prince can still be a perfectly viable age 3 civ)
And German( feel like German makes sense, the shipments they can get are amazing) so what I’m trying to argue is that a no exiled prince civ can be a perfectly viable age 3 civ and Spain is a perfect example of that. Also china is another example, even though China doesn’t ff as often as Spain, it’s still viable without exiled prince.

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If the game rewards one way of playing instead of rewarding the variety, then it is supposed to be saying something about whether it’s overperforming or the other way around, and exiled prince is currently overperforming that it has no alternate, what is stated here is that having a variety of age up options instead of just rewarding one way of playing the game, that way the game will likely become more insteresting.

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That is inaccurate, if exiled prince gets adjusted, other options will also started to be used and the variety in the game will be increased, if one politician is almost always sent rather than the other politicians all the time, then it must also say something regarding the balance, for other ages, different age up politicians are rewarded while exiled prince doesn’t even have any alternate to it at all.

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No, another 1 option will just become Meta, after a while.
Exiled Prince is not OP, it needs no adjustment, just because it is Meta.

No matter how much you adjust different elements, one will always come out on top, being better than the others.
There is always a BEST choice.

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There is an alternate option, it’s just slightly less used because it’s situational, take the ottomans for example, when you do the standard naked ff with ottomans, you take either the marksman, or the scout marksman is 4 abus, scout is 4 Huss. Another example is the Russia eco ff, where you take the bishop for a tc wagon. Another example is the Inca ff, where you can choose the fast age, or sometimes you take the wise woman for an additional shipment. And your still not addressing how 2 of the most powerful age 3 civs in the game, Spain and China dont have exiled prince and are still the best age 3 civs along with Germany.

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this is far from being accurate when a politician itself gets called like a meta itself, who decides on meta? adding variety options rather than having one strong dominant option is the way RTS games are balanced, and everyone agrees on Exiled Prince being arguably strong, in this case, giving adjustment to other politicians will make the game more diverse and more variable than having a one dimensional playstyle.

A very long sequence of games between high level players, that inevitably exposes what the best moves and builds are, by trial and error, over and over again.
That is also the reason why old games, like AoE3, have incredibly hard Metas, because everything was already tried, there is no mystery anymore, the game has been figured out, and you cannot rebalance it to be wholly different and new ever again.

Variety is an illusion, in the end there will always be a BEST choice, and suboptimal options on the side.

Never has been the case. ALL RTS games develop a diamond-hard Meta in a year after release.

Will only create one option being better than the other, regardless, therefore establishing a new Meta, which will still have no variety.
New Metas are never better than old ones, just different, and in games as old as this, they get figured out in days, and become just as stale.

Cannot be done. There will always be a Best choice. There is always a best path to everything in gaming.
Gaming is deterministic, by design.

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Not necessary. The other way would be Rock Paper Scissor type situation.
3 politicians that each counter a different of 3 possible strategies of the enemy.
So it’s down to luck of good scouting.
But a situation like this is hard to create in a game with so many possible metchups.
In a game like SC2 where you have 3 matchups plus 3 mirror matchups you can balance each of them individually. The going bio, mech, air is all valid but each of them have a counter and it’s up to the enemy to scout if early enough or guess which strategy to pick. (I’m not up to date with SC2 meta so sorry if my example is wrong)

It’s also a valid argument to say the meta of everyone using the Exiled Prince is boring and making other choices more valid would improve the game. But that’s subjective.

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I dont think that the exiled prince should be changed, as the current game is more focused on fortress and industrial, and without Exiled Prince you take a long time getting there.

But, if you really want to give other choices to those civs, you can do that Aztec treatment (lower the age up times of the remaining politicians for the civs who have exiled prince). Hence if the civ wants a super super fast age up it can go exiled prince, if it wants only a fast age up with a bonus it can go other politician.

That wouldnt break the meta, and actually would probably create new meta as it did with the aztec skull knight rush.

I think the politicians granting units must be buffed a bit. They are equal to an age2 shipment, not worth the 2200 resources cost.

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They shouldn’t be worth 2200 res…
Sometimes the reasoning of some of you impress me.

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You already gt teh Age Up, which is what those 2200 resources are for, and it is worth it. The unit shipments are an extra.

The fact that the Exiled Prince is the Meta, and only gives you Age Up, means that the Fortress Age itself is already worth the 2200 resources, alone.
Fortress Age gives you Falconets and Veteran upgrades, which are the things hat usually close out the game.

All the age up politicians give you the fortress age. They are equal in this. This makes the bonuses the deciding factor. The timing of the EP is too great of a bonus compared to the others. So buffing the other bonuses will make them more attractive.

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When one playstyle is unarguable strong, then there must a problem with the balance of the game, giving other chosies strenght or adjusting the strongest option would be the ideal way to balance it in this regard.

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This is inaccurate, the game still has lots of spaces to discover and especially with the addition of new civilizations, the game has more diverse strategies now.

Again, this is idea of yours, theorically it’s possible to have similar options to pick rather than having one strongest option to do.

This is also not the case, most RTS games try to avoid the one sided play and try to adjust the unpopular/weak considered parts

Again, current situation is not anything better nor useful, so that having multiple options would add more variety and reward different playstyles than rewarding only one playstyle.

There is not gonna be a best choice if the best choice gets fixed in order to balance the game.

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The constant patches can change the meta. Just look at China with their changes, look at the Logistician age ups, or even the new cards such as house of bragança. The fact that you have constant changes forces you to change the meta.
One of the most considerable (while subtle) changes was the TC building gaining 100xp. The Portuguese (one of my main) are now able to make a nice rush while sending a card in age I (that wasnt possible before - or was very suboptimal).

This is not necessarily true. There is always a best choice, but that is adaptable to the matchup. Most of the problems regarding balance in this forum is exactly because people only follow one build order and expect it to solve everything no matter the matchup or the strat that the opponent is using.

This is not chess nor there are 2 ultra AI computers vs eachother, nor is the game balance to the last byte. Most of the competitive play resides in the human element, and if you switch from 1vs1 to 2vs2 that complexity multiplies. The top competitive strats usually break the meta (example the Silversmith German FF). So while there might be a best choice, the fact that you have experienced humans playing, changes everything.

There is a 3vs3 feeding strat i like to do with the Old Garde. Event top players (2000+) fail to predict it, because its unexpected. And that fact changes the game entirely. Takes them off their game.

I dont think this is entirely true. But as i said before, i am more than happy to say buff the other politicians.

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Somewhat off topic, but wouldn’t it be cool to have an age up to three that’s cheaper but takes slightly longer and gives no bonuses? Also if the exiled prince was nerfed, I would see late age 2 civs like Indians Russians and British dominating the meta because if the opponent would try to age, these civs can easily crush opponents trying to age without exiled prince, or if the enemy stays age 2, they are playing into these civs powerful aspects, so I think it’s safe to keep it as is or everyone will be begging for a nerf to brits and Indians, and to a lesser extent Russia, these civs would be ridiculously OP, look how impossible the spain vs Brit matchup used to be back before logistician starts became meta for Spain.

A change to exiled prince to make it slower and reducing the time of slow age ups would be ideal in this case.