Overall I think the devs has done an incredible jobs with the new DLC and patch, I think the changes are really great, and is probably one of the best patch, but there are a few things that I find really strange, just wanted to list them here as feedback for devs:
-Black riders seems absolutely overpowered, of course this will need testing, but it’s crazy how they have everything: high damage, ranged attack, armor, movement speed, hp, and even move while attacking which is one of the strongest ability in the game. They could become very hard to counter.
-Strange that you cannot garrison in the Lancaster castle, not sure if it’s intended, but normally you can always garrison in all defensive landmarks.
-I like the Templar bonus that give them food when collecting wood, but really not a big fan of any “resource teleportation” bonus, it feels anti-historical, and a bit like sci-fi / out of theme ability. I would have preferred if Templar needed to build the lumber camp, and just had free wood tech + food bonus from collecting wood.
-Earl’s Guard knife range is out of this world, why do they throw knives almost as far as longbow, their range is higher than Yeoman archer, which is also anti-historical and breaks the immersion for me, range should have been 4-5 max, and I don’t think it would have made the unit much weaker. There is a reason why they invented bows, to throw more far than with bare hands.
-Camel trader run WAY too fast. I know they adjusted gold, but still traders are supposed to be slow so the opponent has a chance to interact with them and stop the trading, with such a high speed, it makes the game less interactive, and more boring. It’s also so weird to see them run carrying such a big load. And since when camels are so much faster than horses? The reason why pro scout was so strong is because the scout were running too fast and it was just too hard to stop, I feel there will be a similar issue with camel traders in early game.
-Game getting a bit complicated. There is no need to have a different counter scheme for each unique unit, its harder and harder to keep track of what counters what. Would be best to keep it consistant based on the unit look. For example the Condotierro and Sergent are the weirdest ones. First has a hidden armor against gunpowder (thats not how bonus damage/armor usually works), and the second one has a big shield, but is countered by ranged units/archer which is counter-intuitive. I think sergent shouldn’t be holding a shield.
-I like the idea of a future rework for JD, but there is another variant that I really think need a rework: OOTD. I’m really hoping the devs will rework both JD and OOTD, especially in their Landmark choices, they are the only 2 variants that have the same Landmark as their parent civs. The Aachen + Regnizt + Swabia build makes OOTD too similar to HRE. I think every variants should have at least a few unique landmark. And now that HRE is getting a new unique unit. It seems like OOTD should also be getting one. Really hoping those 2 variants will get their own landmarks, or at least a few unique landmarks.
On a more positive note: I really like the point of interest idea and hoping they will add more type, and also add them in more maps in the future.