French Hulk Decision?

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
1

I’m curious on the decision to nerf Hulks for the French across the board. I get 100% that having the Hulk in Feudal Age was a big contributor to their dominance on water maps and something needed to be balanced with them, but dropping their Armor by -4 across every Age doesn’t just nerf them in the Feudal Age, it nerfs them across every Age and they will not be able to compete against even Hulks against any other civ.

More specifically, I’m really curious why an “Early” Hulk version wasn’t made to limit their capabilities in the Feudal Age, without compromising them in later Ages, before equalizing in the Castle Age (either through a tech or automatically). Every other civilization that gets a unit in an earlier Age has diminished version of those units, before they equalize in the Age that you would normally get them (Vanguard/Early Man-at-Arms, Early Horsemen, etc.).

3 Likes
2

I kinda like that decision in a way though because now we have a better reason to use galleases on age3, specially now that their damage has been fixed.

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3

Dont do Hulks Siege Damage themselves so in a Hulk v Hulk Battle the Ranged Armor nerf wouldnt be in effect?

Could be misstaking though.

4

I’m not entirely certain, but either way, I don’t think that giving French worse Hulks for the entire game was a measured response to fix their water dominance in the early game. French definitely had an OP water game with their early age Hulks and that 100% needed to be addressed. I just don’t see the reason behind nerfing them in Castle and Imperial Age to correct a Feudal Age issue, especially when there is already a precedent for “Early” units having reduced states and equalizing during the normal Age.