Fresh food stuffs is too strong

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
21

I agree Swabia is too strong for that reason and needs to be addressed. I agree the age up price definitely shouldnt be discounted. I think if they keep the villager production speed but make it full cost for villagers it will be alright because raiding will have a cost. Even if they can replenish the villagers quickly they will be losing out on food to replace the them.

I agree making Fresh Food Stuffs apply only to the starting TC would make it much more appropriate for a Feudal Age Tech and would be another way to balance the issue.

22

I think so if i’m not wrong, Abbasid supposed to have 50% off on traders, and traders normal cost in 60 60.

23

Isn’t it 33%? Did it change?

24

I wish they reduce it to 30% down from 50%. Multiple TC is meta and on land there is no civ that does it better. Rus can effectively buy their 2nd and 3rd TC stone but that abba 50% discount on vils cant be touched by any civ…

Or create better competitive alternatives. Say the feudal military tech became a free tech and in addition to the 15% infantry hp also include a 15% discount on rams and ram build time!? This would introduce an aggressive playstyle potential uncommon to this civ.

Imagine an English -ques ram push that requires no blacksmith and is cheaper and your infantry are beefy?

1 Like
25

You do know that French can still keep pace with abba eco and Rus can flatly out do it right? Aside from Delhi and English, most civs actually have a perk to booming that ultimately breaks even with ff.

Rus have the wood bonus and bounty/golden gate to get another tc easier into a much stronger age 2 push.

French have the production speed which until the recent nerf was beating ff booms at high levels. More vils > cheaper vils, especially early on. French also has more map control in age 2 like Rus, if with a less flexible gameplan.

China can outboom God if they can secure enough early food - abba isnt exacly the sort of civ to contest that kind of thing.

HRE can ramp up fast with aachen and each prelate is about 3 vils if it keeps buffing 8 vils. Lotta value potential for multi tc play.

Mongols are have the ovoo stone production and a reasonably viable trade boom which does sacrifice aggression, but its not like abba is gonna ever go early agression.

26

They’re basically the same thing, in that fresh foodstuffs saves you x food per minute, and additional villagers can gather that extra x food per minute, it’s just a matter of calibration to make the two match. Once Mongols have double produced 6 additional villagers they can gather enough extra food using those villagers to match Abbasid 3 TC savings from fresh foodstuffs.

27

All those civ bonuses are nice, but they generally all have counterplay. The only exception is Rus, and they are generally acknowledged to be overpowered by all the pros. How to deal with balancing the Rus is another thread.

The French bonus is a slow increase. If you counter raid them you can wipe it out.

China’s bonus works slower because making villagers faster at full cost means a bigger up front cost. The delay in when you have the overall benefit matters because it gives you time to do something about it.

HRE has counterplay because you can kills the prelates. They also cost 100 gold which makes them costly to spam early allowing you to get the raiding force necessary.

Mongols dont get enough stone to constantly make double villagers and their trade boom is raidable.

With mass town centers and cheap villagers you can’t raid abbysid and if you manage to actually kill some villagers, the replacement cost doesnt matter. They can also use the respurces they save to defend your attacks. By the time you have an army that can take on TCs, they have too much of a lead for you to stop.

29

so french cav landmark and english archery landmark needs to cost another 150 wood then they shouldnt attack that early and so we can have a chance to raid them also chinese shouldnt have barbican it makes it hard to raid too if we look at your perspective they are literally gettin a bonus and free military production and we also must take the chinese and french fast training villagers and french shouldnt build their economic structure at half of the cost its put them in front wood resource usage

30

Not that slower… As delhi you reach feudal with wheelbarrow and the lumberjack tech, without delay feudal age up, and instanly you start to investigate all eco technologies that will end up in 2 minutes.

For other civs that’s unthinkable, no one can have wheelbarrow and the lumber tech before age up without delaying the age up, and no one can have all eco techs 2 minutes after aging up without sacrifice resources.

Even castle upgrades can be done in less than 2 minutes, and it’s the same, no one can age up and have all the eco upgrades in 2 minutes, so yes, more slow than investigate paying resources, but much better because you simply can’t afford the pay.

If you count the resources saved, Delhi saves much more resources, and most of all gold, which is more limited than food.

Just in imperial is where Delhi slow investigation is bad, because you need between 3-4 minutes to elite upgrades, and if you and the enemy age up paired, he will got his elite army like 3 minutes before. That’s why it’s known that imperial Delhi is bad (and because elephants are easy killed by gunpowder units).

I really think that if devs put 50% on this tech, and looking at the civ win rate and other statistics, is because the savings in resources and times are in order with other civs and they have designed delhi, abbasid, or other civs taking in care that the earnings are not so overpowered comparing with other civs. Obviously not everything is perfect, and nerfs can happen, but Abbasid is not precisely a OP civ, and right now I think is pretty well balanced and a solid civ.

31

Dude there is no match to abbasid fresh food stuff.

Yes any civ can match the amount of TC’s easily, but the problems isn’t TC’s. Its the cost of villagers.

1TC = 25 food saved
2TC = 50 food saved
3TC = 75 food saved

and these numbers are every 20seconds (training time of villager) So with 3TC Abbasid saves 225 food every minute. Which massive is lead early on. Yes there are other bonuses like lower cost for upgrades or gathering rate bonuses etc, but those take time to pay off and take an effect. Abbasid is the moment villager is made.

This leads to many advantages for abbasid faster age ups, techs, infrastructure. Then there is the factor that abbasid doesn’t need to build their landmarks so it even further boosts the economy

2 Likes
32

Dehli research being slower is dramatically different. Yes you reach Fedual with the basic upgrades ahead ov everybody else that is because people choose not to prioritize them. If you do a fast wheelbarrow build you can have it way before Delhi.

The thing with Delhi is yes they save research resource costs, they have to wait a long time for those upgrades. If a civ does not research them, they are on even footing with Dheli until they are complete.

2 minutes for an upgrade is massive. That means you have to idle your barracks or whatever unit producing structure for that long or you have to build an extra building for it, adding a resource costs. You also have to tie up villagers mining gold and making houses and mosques to put the scholars in to speed up research.

You can counter play this by pressuring Delhi so they have to spend resources on units so Dheli cant go pure scholar and tech. By the time the techs kick in, you have an army and can do something about Dheli. The problem with Fresh Food Stuffs is it comes too early in the game. By the time you have an army to deal with them, they already have a 30 villager lead and can trade armies and replenish faster because of their bigger eco.

1 Like
33

I like to add while everything tou said is true of delhi timings and pressure, delhi scholars really really covers most the gaps. If i have 10 shitty harden spearman plus 5 scholars vs CASTLE maa!? Though it will take a trillion years, the delhi side will hold and will win if the maa spend the night. Hence why in most pro games scholars are in battle rather than in production/tech buildings; its super inefficient to snipe a 130hp unit using zero bonus dmg especially in feudal .

But i digress, with 2TC META being THE thing and abbasid having ZERO alternatives to age up on landmaps (open land maps), I’d like to see fresh food nerfed somehow

34

I can’t agree with you.

Yes you can prioritize wheelbarrow or eco upgrades but while you have to spend res on this I can spend resources on army, or more barracks to fit the problem you mentioned.

Also, in feudal you only have to upgrade the spearmen, that with 2 scholars on mosque it’s 29 seconds.

But think about this: 2 minutes is too long when you want to investigate a thing. For example, if I want to prioritize wheelbarrow, it’s 3 minute and a half to delhi with 1 scholar, but I am saving 200 resources that it’s probably more than the benefit you will have from wheelbarrow when investigating it before feudal.

Also think that 2 minutes for investigate mill eco tech may seem a lot, but no one will have any eco tech 2 minutes after aging up, so it’s not really a problem.

The problem with upgrading units and having to build more barracks isn’t also a problem. I am playing a lot delhi this weeks, and I usually open feudal with a barrack and a stable, and put 1 scholar on each building so they can produce like 2 of each. When reaching castle I put another of each, so I investigate the upgrades on this and I maintain the other free to continue producing (remember that production rate it’s x2, so is acting like 2 of each).

If you didn’t put scholars, just think that castle upgrade is 250 resources, and another barrack is just 150. All.delhi is built about using the saved resources to have more army than your enemy.

By the way this is offtopic, but I wanted to comment this as I am playing a lot delhi right now and I am really liking it :slight_smile:

35

I thought the same and thought fresh food stuff is way to strong, but in reality villager production is not eating that much of resources, if u compare it to everything else. Rus fast 2. TC with boar and golden gate, no gold gathering, French 15% villager production, HRE +40% or Chinese +20% IO + taxes are also unique strong boost.
For each Towncenter abbassid can have 2 villager less on food.
French for example needs 4 min to have two additional villager / TC, which compensates for it.
during the time french payed ~ 250 more resources on villager per towncenter, that seems to be a lot and it is, but if french has 1 villager lead since they placed their tc 20 sec faster … during this 4 min … it would be just ~100 extra resources for their 2. TC villager production cost. Sometimes just more flat resources or having an eco boost directly from the start on, can have a big impact on timings and the economic lead.
In this example french likes to try to snipe a few villager, but what is when french just fast 2. tc and delay the aggression a bit?

Abbassid plays the early feudal always super greedy on eco and most others don’t do it to this extent and wonder why they are behind 10 min into feudal.

Vs french abba expects knights and usually always farms already for a barack before the 2. TC and has 1 more vill on food and 2 more on wood, but if french just goes 2. TC, it should put french on an equal economic level as abba, regarding the fresh food stuff bonus and the 2. TC.

Some civs can have their 2. and 3. tc faster or safer then abbasid and it compensate the tech that seems on the first glimpse totally broken.

Abbassid has downsides, during the slower kick off all the benefits, golden age I and fresh foodstuff. It looks more broken than it actually is. Not saying it is weak, just not totally broken, that’s all.
I think abbassid players will feel the TC nerf quite a bit. Timings are the hardest thing to get right as abassid and every second matters in some match ups.
But the biggest issue is, that abbassid is always going for fresh food stuff and the 2. TC.
If you want to also boom and not pressure abba early on, chances are, you will not be behind if you execute it greedy and on point with some civs, since abba will go as greedy as possible for the 2. TC

The issue IMO is not abba fresh food stuff, it is more the 2. and 3. tc meta that suits them. Abbas feudal age is also strong, which further plays into their hands.
I think the little patch on the pup is nice and will definitely be noticeable specially for rus and also abba

If the meta changes(through TC nerfs, ram pushes buffed or something else), fresh foodstuff will also be directly nerfed by doing so. I think we should wait until they established something that allows players also to play single TC more frequently again, this will put specially abba under more pressure and they might need it to survive the new meta.

But i would really like to see the other wings to become more viable on feudal, the pup changes will further more nerf the culture wing as an option, because the economics techs will be cheaper, trade wing will be buffed tho. Im certain they will revisit all civs and their landmarks and techs again when the bigger changes on the balancing are done.

1 Like
36

I agree Abbysid needs to have a reason to use the other wings. The anticipated TC nerfs mentioned on the closed PUP are a good step in the right direction. Delaying the boom by a minute could make the difference between being able to mount a successful counter push or harassment to delay the greedy TC build.

Rus also has some big nerfs incoming so it will be an interesting landscape when season 3 comes. While Im sure the devs had the TC nerf in their sites for awhile, I would like to think this tread helped highlight its importance as nerfing TCs delays the advantage of freshfood stuffs. Thanks everybody for your time and input. I think we had a good discussion.

1 Like
37

With how awkward the other wings are to make a viable build order around. Like on open maps, how do you stand up to a straight age 2 archer/ram rush as abba with just military wing? Boot camp is nice in castle with the veteran maa out the age and excellent in imp via stacking with elite army tactics, but in age? Its not enough for most I feel. Any other combination of trade/culture wings seems more like greed just of a different stripe - the same problem with a different flavor. Fact is, with the way the Abbasid bonuses like to stack on top of each other, macro focused play is just the most optimal way to go, even if there were a valid aggression strat.

In any case, with the TC nerfs I think its best to watch and wait. Water maps are gonna be a whole new realm and Abba does have potential for different openers there.

38

Ok so this is nowhere near as good as fresh food stuff just simply because China has to spent all the extra resources on something that other civs get while making 1 landmark. Getting song dynasty is 800 food and 400 gold. Why don’t we increase every other civs landmark prices to 800 food and gold and respectively for castle and imperial same. Even then 1 IO costs 150 resources so it takes few minutes till it turns to profit. Also China is sacrificing 1 vill at beginning to make IO which again pays off after few minutes.

Now Fresh food other hand the moment player starts creating villager it pays off because you save up 25 food.

Imagine delhi having instant free research. It would be same but more broken or well actually same would be if we had to refresh our gathering buildings every 20 seconds paired with french 50% cost reduction on gathering buildings

39

You have to research the tech for 50w 125g, so you need make 7 vils (140s single tc) at the discount rate to pay for itself after that point its in the money.

They need to do something more to make the alternative openings comparable. IMO they should make the military wing feudal option mega aggressive focus, somethijg abbasid is NOT known for. This would add to the dynamics of the faction.

I suggested the military wing feudal buff be free and instant. And in addition to giving all infantry 15% hp also give rams 15% hp.

But also they should take a lil off the top of fresh food. From 50% down to 30-40% off. Or even in feudal its 30% but in castle snd beyond it goes back to 50%.

Just do something to break the monotony.

40

True thanks for correcting me dunno why I forgot the cost.