Hera is calling for nerf to unique units. A strategy game evolves with time as BOs and player base become better with years of play, unique strategies are found to circumvent Meta plays and then anti meta becomes meta. IMHO these strats should not be nerfed nor castle age upgrades made expensive. These strats can be countered and I feel give the player base time to evolve.
Definitely nerf the Ratha. The recent balance patch was really bad for the Bengali identity of âboom into elephantsâ civ. Now they are an FC UU civ that abuses the Phosphoru build due to the Rathaâs insane stats immediately on reaching castle age. Devs did this to nerf Bengali late game on closed map TGs, but ruined Arabia balance in the process.
I would revert the Bengali changes in the last balance patch:
Bengalis:
Even with these changes, Ratha would still
But how will everyone deal with EAs on closed map TGs? Buff heavy scorpionsâ bonus vs elephants:
General:
Heavy scorpions are rarely used despite the recent buffs because they donât have any niche to occupy in the meta. This change is intended to make the definitive âelephant killerâ in late game TGs. If 12 bonus damage is not enough for this purpose, then increase it even further.
Organ guns and Hussite Wagons can be addressed by reducing their melee armor for the castle age version to make them more vulnerable to Feudal scouts.
I am not against balance changes but against targeting UUs just to nerf FC UU strategy. I have watched red phosphoru almost every stream over last few months, he losses a lot and you can easily counter these strats if you scout early.
Hell noooo
Bengali elite ele archers were totally OP in post-Imperial, and buffing scorpions wonât change nothing because Bengalis have superb monks to deal with siege anyways.
As for these cheese pudding/phosporou strats is simple, put all deers far away from bases so deer pushing is gone on arabia and if you want to hunt deers then invest into other mill and accept to be exposed to be raided ( like more or less is handled in aoe 3).
I am open to making UUs production +5 sec from current levels but not deer change. You need deer if you get lamed, if you put deer too far civs like chinese mayans will die if they get lamed of a boar.
I think some nerfs would be good, but I would make tje changes as subtle as possible to not impact non related maps.
I would rather see changes such as (not necessarilt all together):
Iâm not entirely sure if this is the âbest wayâ to address it.
Youâre absoutely right with the observation thatâs only really an issue with wood UUs.
The conversion resistiance can work, but only on higher levels. Increasing the training time though makes the units also way harder to mass with a non-cheesy strat.
Agree, maybe even 130. Should have been done way earlier imo.
I think we have the same observation. The current amount of free food on especially Arabia is the exact right to make these cheese strats work. If it would be less food, your eco would be so terrible you wouldnât stand a chance. If it was more, the guy who goes standard feudal against this could click up way faster to castle himself and get competitive units out - with a better eco behind.
So definitely one way to address the current timing meta: Adjust the amount of free food.
BUT
The whole thing isnât ONLY a FC into UU problem. Itâs a general timing issue. This lead to the current âHamsterâ meta, which is very much based around getting the timings as good as possible.
And I refuse to now only point towards the UU cheesy strats, cause Hamstering is very much the same, just with standard units and a more healthy eco setup (what you need when you want to make them work). And I am not willing to give in the complaints of the âHamstersâ who are now upset that their cheesyness is outsmarted by other peoples cheesyness. Itâs NOT impossible to counteract these cheese strats. They are usually reliant on very slim eco management. You can herass that eco with very little investment and use your own economic superiority to withstand the initial push, mass an competitive army behind and then fight back when you have the superior force.
Ofc this isnât always working - alos situational there might be other ways which are better suited, but there ARE ways to counteract this, even if you donât go fast castle yourself initially.
The Castle Age tech advantage is just too big in general - itâs not restricted to UUs. And that has to be adressed - in general! Not specific just because one part of the community which only can play âmetaâ (which is abusing the powerspike itself) canât handle the overtuned abuse (with eco sacrifice) of it.
If you let your opponent boom into such a massive expensive army, without stopping them, thatâs a you problem. This existed with units like War Elephants and mamelukes for years.
As for the general topic. I think the problem is more some civs are too âUU or bustâ (eg. Burmese, Bengalis, Portuguese, Bohemians etc). Fix these civs, and the problem should solve itself*. Civs that use their UU sparingly/in niche circumstances shouldnât be nerfed because of a few âproblem childrenâ.
Not calling for these civs to be nerfed overall, just spread the power more laterally for them. Hell, perhaps nerf the Arambi and give Burmese the Elephant Archer after all this timeâŠ
*Iâd also look at other problems to do with this. These all-in strats could very easily shift to knights or another castle-age unit if UUs are not viable for it. So perhaps the issue is the market, and trading efficiency should be reduced in Feudal.
Man try to watch at least some (good) arena and rage forest TGs at 2k level and see how oppresive Elephant Archers can be and why the nerf was neccesary, just because at 700 elo people doensât know how strong they are and how to use them doesnât mean they are bad⊠and yes comparing to War elephnats and Mamelukes, units that requiere castles to be massed vs someting very spammable from multiple archery rangesâŠ
Then make the Boars spawn behind bases so if someone tries to lame, is even easier to react.
Countered how, exactly? Hussite wagons and organ guns are basically unbeatable for civs that lack redemption and donât have a decent castle age unique unit (for example, Goths). Sure, you could use mangonels, but theyâre more expensive than both, and they take longer to train. Also, with the way hussite wagons fire now makes it harder for mangonels to even hit their target.
As a first step they should make hussite wagons and organ guns and any other UU that canât be converted without redemption (donât know if there are any others) subject to conversion without having to research redemption. Just change their categories to something other than siege, it wouldnât affect the balance much and would give civs lacking redemption a fighting chance.
Of these UUs that can be abused at such strats I think War Wagons still are too strong, as once said they should have less base attack in castle age, 9 base is just ridiculous.
But War wagons have significantly slower rof.
That doesnât even matter that much as that high attack scales so quickly vs higher PA units (Knights, Skirmishers and Mangonels), and add the free armor upgrades with 150 HPâŠ
They are expensive and vulnerable to monks
I also like most FC â UU strats, I think organ guns and Hussite wagons are now fine since they were last nerfed. I mentioned them since Hera mentioned they were unfun to play against. I do think that Rathas are OP right now. They were fine before, but now they have better stats than knights, donât cost food and (since the buff) survive a little longer against skirms.
If your opponent is able to make mass EAs AND monks while you are unable to mass a comparable number of scorps (scorps train faster than EAs), then that is your fault for letting them get there and falling behind. Also, your ally can help out by using BBC to push the monks back.
Once you get Heresy+Faith, scorpions will get some shots on EAs before dying. Then, it is just a matter of balancing the matchup. If 9 pierce armor is not enough, make it 10. If +12 bonus damage is not enough, make it +18.
These changes seem fine if it affects only the castle age version. But I worry about changing Koreans since they donât have much else going for them on Arabia. Maybe another -1 cav archer armor for war wagon instead of the above?
I disagree with market nerfs. Once you learn how to use the market, it allows weaker players like Daut to keep up with the top players. This will kick Daut out of the pro scene entirely.
I am not sure about these. These things help in other cases such as if you get lamed, you can rely on deer.
Well I can change your EAs and Monks to Halbs and Houfnce, if you let the enemy get there then is your faultâŠ
Also what is this wayy to buff Scorpions so letâs make Battle Eles even less used in 1v1sâŠ
I did not complain that EA + monks are OP on closed maps, you did. I made a suggestion to help with that. Halb + houfnice needs an entirely different counter compared to elephants. If you want to complain about houfnice, make a separate thread.
11! BEs are already useless in 1v1s, so this would have no impact. Besides, mass scorpions are not a thing in 1v1s anyway (except maybe Romans).
Such evolution didnât happen automatically, it was forced through balance changes. Huns drush or moderate feudal into 3 range CA was the meta for more than a decade. All the strats found to âcircumventâ the meta didnât actually achieve their goal. Finally, when CA discount was reduced through balance changes, other units and strategies became viable. Thatâs how the game evolves. Itâs a terrible idea to ignore broken and repetitive strategies assuming someday a counter will be discovered. Even if such a counter does get discovered, its a âcounterâ, not a generically good strategy and will become useless if the opponent deviates from it.
Agree with nerfs to market usage in feudal and early castle ages, small nerfs to overpowered gunpowder and ranged unique units.
No it cant. If its something that can be easily defended you wonât have certain strategies like Mongol fc lancer on Arabia, Turk fc janissary on Arena or ####### ## Conqs on Nomad being ridiculously overused. These civs and strats are done 2x more often than any other civ or strat in their respective setting. Or to put it in other words, the balance between executing these strategies vs countering them is not right.
While I wouldnât agree with nerfing âall the unique unitsâ, those which are dead strong immediately after a castle drop and extremely effective without even a single upgrade should be nerfed. At the very least their current power levels should be locked behind technologies and default market rates should be a lot worse.
Rathas were absolutely useless before those changes and even now Bengalis have less than 50% winrate at all elo brackets. Hera himself never picks Bengalis, nor plays FC-Rathas. Whatever you faced or felt is just a consequence of market abuse. Nerf the market, maybe training time of non-elite Rathas and that should be enough. Bad idea to revert a set of buffs that was given to one of the worst civs in the game to make it more usable.
That will once again be an irrelevant set of balance changes. Scorpions are niche because theyâre as slow as other siege units but have lower range. Canons and siege onagers will counter them in black forest, amazon tunnel like maps. Bengali EAs not having 8 p.armor is a good change.
Thatâs not a good change either. You might be able to kill them one hit sooner and thats fine when its like 4-5 organ guns. But after a while, you have to make dozens of scouts with bloodlines and armor to kill a mass of organ guns. You canât sit in feudal age and do that many scouts with upgrades waiting for organ guns to move forward.
Neither organ guns nor hussites are indestructible. Theyâll die to a mass of upgraded cavalry in the later stages. But its very difficult to make that many cavalry and get all the upgrades. These units are easy to produce since they cost wood and gold, need 0 upgrades and still have a lot of dps. The right way to address it is to reduce their training time, default dps and lock it behind techs.
No, they were fine before. Rathas had good stats and you could still do this Phosphoru rush with them before. They just die to skirms. Now they have better stats than knights on top of a ranged mode.
According to aoestats Bengalis have 50% win rate overall at 1900+ (Hera mentioned high elos in his video) and 50% winrate on arabia. Bengalis climbed 18 places since the last patch. More importantly, this comes at the cost of civs specifically designed for open maps falling below 50% win rate such as Aztecs, Berbers and Bulgarians on Arabia. Bulgarians are the most painful because they donât have the tech tree to be good on any other kind of map.
If what you said was true, why would anyone make anything other than BBC/SO? The reality is that they are the strongest units on closed map TGs, elephants are. So SO/BBC are not as big of a problem as you say it is.
All units in this game have a counter. If your opponent ##### ####### you can counter with your own SO/BBC or make monks or cav (depending on the map). Yes, scorps have less range than other siege, but EAs have even less range. Also, I think heavy scorp HP has been buffed to a point where they donât die to a single BBC hit anymore.