From what I understand, Gurjaras are generally doing poorly, so becoming stronger on non-chicken generations as well isn’t a downside in my eyes.
I’m pretty sure it’s the chicken arabia.
As I tried to explain the classic gurjara buildorder is really bad there. Ofc there would be the option to go for a buildorder that is similar to yours in your tests. But we are used to the other one already and we would lose out on the faster timing the classic offers on non-chicken generations.
And even if this is the case for some the reason for that would still be the chicken maps, so I really would prefer to specifically target them.
I see. If that’s the intention you could a decaying bonus capped at some value. Like start at 40%, drop to 25% in a standard 3 deer, 2 boar Arabia or 20% in a 4 deer 2 rhino Arabia. And slowly decay to 10 or 15% when the amount of hunt gets higher.
Lithuanian bonus isn’t long term, its sort of a one-time thing when you build a town center and whether to build an extra tc is not an obvious decision in every game. Mongol equivalent for something like that will be 20% faster hunt but each newly built tc in castle age spawns 3 huntable chicken.
Farm bonuses are very tricky since they scale better as the game goes. This is why even minor adjustments to food economy can have huge impacts in how the mid/late game of a civ turns out. Like 5% drop in farming rate for Slavs, 2% difference in instant food from folwark farms for Poles.
True. Wu and Shu are some of the best civs by design and balance amongst new civs in a very long time. Shu just needs a fix on their scorpion replacement. And Wu some minor adjustments with their unique units. Otherwise those civs are in an excellent spot. I believe Jurchens are weak due to negligible eco benefit and Wei are weak because of their CA replacement unit. A couple of changes could balance out those civs as well.
Then why not just give them a similar bonus to Lithuanians?
I think it’s fine if mongols just have a general hunt bonus. But I feel like it should be similar to other faster food income bonusses like Slavs, Franks and Britons.
It’s weird that Mongols get this exception from the general rule to not overdue food income bonusses.
They even removed the small faster fishing Bonus from Indians, but Mongols hunt was no issue?
The way you propose it is just way to complicated to apply and imo also not essential as at some point it gives diminishing returns anyways. Ofc there are maps where you get enough to support your initial boom with it, but at some point with 60 vills or so this would become a macro nightmare.
So it’s not really necessary to make it that complicated, just a general decrease will do it.
It’s actually more long term than Mongols, you get it with every TC. Though I have to admit that I haven’t seen it abused to perfection yet. People have their booming macros already and the lithuanian Bonus would requiare a big change to abuse.
It’s actually just in general that when a Bonus is already strong small changes can make a huge impact there. You see this with the Khitans, the beta-tested pastures were good but now they give just 10 % faster income they feel completely broken. The same for the double melee attack tech.
Also the 2 % from poles actually translate more into effectively 5 + % because it’s a headsup bonus. That was a huge nerf, indeed similar to the 5 % of slavs farms.
The general saying here is that redundancy in bonusses stacks, which also makes a lot of sense. If you have one overpowered tool you can lean on it’s really tough for the opponents to find an answer.
I actually think that shu should get some “spice”. They are a good civ, but bland. I would like if their bonusses would be way more focussed on specific upgrades (like archer attack) than being so general.
I actually think they are fine. The food from the buildings is too high, especially for hybrid maps.
Lithuanian bonus is a momentary power spike bonus not long lasting. You could give just some starting food advantage and farm benefits starting from castle age or negligible dark age benefit and farming advantage from feudal. Like Slavs, Franks have a very minor benefit in the dark age in most of the builds. Britons don’t have good mobile units, like most archer civs they rely on timing advantage. Mongols have good mobility and powerful units in the imperial age. So you can either give a farm bonus and negligible benefit in dark age or give a power spike benefit or you can give both but make their military much weaker.
Not at all. Simply the mathematical inverse function of what’s used in Gurjara bonus. something like 10 + 30*exp ^ (-x/400) where x is the food collected from hunt so far. In a standard Arabia this will average to 22%. Any hunt beyond that will have very minimal impact just like how any sheep beyond the 6th has negligible impact on Gurjara food income.
You just repeated yourself without bringing any arguments or even responding to mine. Idk why should I engage in this type of conversation?
But anyways. This thread was more geared towards Civ balance. But recently Ornlu made a video about his general balance change ideas for specific units. I will respond to his choices and ideas and why in most parts I actually disagree with his selection.
For me the video of Ornlus is actually a good exapmle how nostalgia and selectional likings (how things should be in opinion) have influence in the perception of balance. Stuff is often NOT compared against each other at a time but rather how it was before. Units that aren’t liked very much but are now seen more often shall be nerfed but units that you want to see a lot but aren’t played as much as they used to need buffs - or are ignored if they are still meta.
- Fishing Ships
I see what Ornlu is complaining about. We had a huge influx of (aggressive) hybrid maps in tournaments. Especially WL. And players chose often the hybrid map on each “map type”. The games were very snowbally.
BUT! This is a design choice of the tournament organizsers. I don’t like these games aswell. But these games are fast paced from the beginning and even if it is snowbally there is always “action” somewhere to cover. So I see why especially the “hype casters” like these maps. They are also kinda calculable cause these maps even if they are decided in early feudal most of the time drag out to like minute 40-50, rarely go below or above a lot. And the OP fish boom is intentional part of that design. The tournament hosts could just use less or shore fish instead. They want these maps exaclty as they are.
The next thing is that the proposed nerf of gather rate won’t change as much anyways. The biggest issue is that you can’t add more eco on land until Castle age to compete. For a long time I said that already that it would be helpful if all civs could at least add a 2nd TC in feudal - but at a higher cost. Similar to Cumans but when it EG costs double the wood it wouldn’t break the game as Cumans do. Instead it would give an option to respond to the Cumans boom with your own (way more expensive) TC. And ofc add an option to add eco on land against the fish boom. If THEN the fish boom turns out to still be oppressive you can nerf the gather rates. This way we wouldn’t be intrusive to the map design choices of the tournament hosts but instead add a potential for less snowbally maps there - but the aggressive hybrid map nature wouldn’t be touched.
- Long Swordsmen
Ornlu is right that LS feel completely underpowered. Which makes sense as they were already before the changes. And didn’t really see any buff actually. The solution for that is in my opinion simple: A) make militia line 60 F 20 G again B) bring back supplies, but it gives +15 HP instead of reducing the cost.C) Compensate the militia by increasing their Attack by 1 and the THS and Champs lose 5 HP each.
The new suplies could also increase the other Infantry units HP by like 5 or so but then would be slighty more expensive and the pikes and halbs would need 5 less base HP to account for that.
- Mangonel LIne
This is a really odd one. Cause we see Mangos still all the time, and they can oblitterate armies of archers with single shots still. And counter Scorpions. Increasing the projectile speed also is a terrible idea, cause it would make it even more mechanical skill depending to dodge the shots. Which means that then only the very best players in the world could do it. But they could still do it and all others would massively struggle.
Archer line is already super elo depending because of this. And this would make it even worse.
IF we want to change Mangos the new Rocket Carts actually give the opportunity to do so in a manner it wouldn’t make things any worse. The rocks/rockets could just spread out a bit more, covering a wider area with damage, making the matchups with other units more consistant. Ideally in a fixed (hexagonal) pattern.
- CA
IDk what he’s ranting about. We see Knights with almost ANY civ. Damn, I’ve seen so many Bohemian Knights from Hera people might get the impression it’s a “Knight civ”. If a civ shouldn’t play a specific unit that unit should be removed from the tech tree. And civs like Vietnamese and Japanese played CA ALL the time. It’s nothing new. For me CA are currently in a good spot balancewise. They received a nerf and we see them less. But we still see them. Perfect. There was a time when CA were almost unplayable and maybe that’s the comparison Ornlu has in mind. But this time is now thankfully over.
However, I wouldn’t mind if CA had a higher Gold ratio. They are currently one of the best if not the best value lategame unit for most civs who don’t even get a lot of important upgrades to them. BUT I would only like to see this as a tweak to the unit rather than a nerf. I can see a 30 W / 70 G CA. 40 W / 70 G CA would require a massive reduction in training time to remain balanced.
- Skirmishers
This is the most awkward one. I don’t say that Skirmishers don’t need any changes. But a unit that does 2 damage can’t really be overpowered. There are massive design flaws in the entire game that lead to the current state of us seeing Skirms almost basically every game and even a lot Skirmisher openers. BUT
Nothing of this can be addressed with nerfing Skirms. The Skirms aren’t the cause of this meta change, they are a reaction. I will now try to list some of the factors that lead to this felt inflation of Skirm play. But I also want to state that despite all this Skirms aren’t even close to being the most invested into unit in the game, Knights/Gold Cav + Spears still rule. And ofc lately there have been other units also like the mentioned CA and we see currently also more Archers than when the game was a complete Knightmare. Ofc there is the factor that Skirms aren’t a unit you crave to see all the time. So seeing just more of them has for some the impression that we live in a “skirm meta” allthough overall we still see more of a lot of other units.
A) Skirm is a “same unit counter”
It’s made from the same Building as the units it counters, is available to anyone and profits from the same upgrades. Archery civs matchups usually just go Skirms at some point cause… yeah they counter what your opponent is going for and you already have teched in that direction. Very simple
B) Skirms counter an entire composition
Archer + Spearman. Classic. And completely countered by one single unit choice. The Skirmisher. Perfect response. Also very simple.
C) Skirms build a comp with Cav/Knights
This now becomes a bit challenged by the Miltiia line. But as they are sill superbad in Castle age when Knights are the strongest it’s usually not a real factor in most scenarios. It’s a classic unit comp. It’s the “Hamster” comp. And Hamstering is still meta. They just work together. Skirms counter Archers, Spearmen and CA. All the units Knights sometimes have to worry about. The main part of the comp is ofc the Knight still.
D) The current meta
This is the complicated one. But I will try to explain a bit. The current “hamster” meta is based on utilizing timings but also trying to add as much eco as you can behind the military aggression. Ideally you only want to have a little bit, enough to be able to raid the opponent. That’s why we see almost always a small Knight rush these days. Cause on not closed maps they are usually the best unit choice for exactly that. 3 Knights can devastate an entire eco if not responded well to. The important part is ofc to utilize the timing to don’t allow the opponent to get a massive Siege Push rolling when your eco isn’t developed yet. We frequently see 4/5/6 TC booms these days behind smaller military investments.
What’s the tactical response to that? Vikings are a good example. 3 TC miniboom into Arbs. It’s not a guaranteed win, but very effective. And how to counter this? Skirms! Masses of skirms still can beat Arbs. As long as you have enough of them. They don’t even need to destroy the Arbs. They only need to buy enough time for yourself to get to Imp too.
So by opening Skirmishers you take away the biggest strategical outplay of your own strat for the opponent. Or at least you set yourself up to defend against. And when you were in the lead all the time you don’t lose much with going any kind of Army. At least if - and that’s also happening - you setup your defenses right to be able to stop smaller Siege Pushes or shoot down smaller Cavalry Raids. This also works against CA in general, tho to a bit lesser degree.
That’s why we see so many late Skirm openers these days. It’s just a natural opener in the current meta for the one who is in the lead and added a lot of eco in Castle Age. It’s NOT because Skirms would be OP or whatever, just the right tool for that situation.
However I would like to see changes to the entire Ranges units roster and how they are countered. The issue is ofc HOW to target that because you can so easily break things there. Especially BECAUSE it has so many issues. But just now picking Skirms out and want blunt changes just because we see it more doesn’t solve anything. It actually is very likely to just make things worse.
What I see for Skirms currently that with all upgrades they have 7 Attack in Imp. If you then think about that the opponent possibly hasn’t gotten any armor upgrades yet and some civs don’t get the last armor upgrades for possibly favorable unit choices you can see that Skirms can in these situation feel oppressive especially if they come from an economic lead position.
So IF and really only IF devs want to target this specifically. Make Skirms not getting a direct attack Bonus from the Blacksmith upgrades (just range), but instead give them more Bonus damage agianst the units they shall counter. This will still be a massive nerf to the unit, but at least it will be specifically targeted towards the current meta development and not the entire game.
Skimers are produced too quickly, not to mention those of the Khitans. When you manage to get 20 skimmers (which is not unlikely in long feudal wars), they become a huge problem to deal with.
What if they give militia line +0/+1/+2/+2/+2 vs infantry (-2 vs shock infantry to offset) to help them counter pikes and Infantry UU. It would make them a counter unit to other infantry units so you could buff some underused infantry UU. Perhaps you could add a few if your opponent is heavy on skirms + pikes.
Swordsman line get countered by most the castle age units (crossbow, monk, scorpions, knights, cav archers) so it would be hard to find a role for them. Making them anti-infantry would at least give them purpose in life.
I also had an idea to add a tech at the university that allows them to repair siege and maybe buildings but upon reflection that would be much more fitting for a UU.
One of the main issues longswords have is that they need a good number of techs before they’re viable. Removing supplies reduced that issue. Bringing it back would therefore be a step backward, even with a changed effect. Outside of LS, the militia-line is doing fairly well now (MAAs are much better and a serious threat, 2HS and champions were already fine, but do appreciate needing 1 less tech, even if it was a cheap one). Right now, LS are about equal to knights (assuming bloodlines and equal blacksmith upgrades) if they outnumber 2:1, but knights are less than half the price of LSs (whereas before, LSs were slightly below half in total resources after supplies). I believe an additional +1 attack to LSs would allow longswords to beat knights with equal resources - though knights would still have the advantage of picking their fights.
The change he recommended was increasing mangonels projectile speed, making them harder to dodge with micro. The issue he’s pointing out is that skilled players (or skilled AIs) can basically make the mangonel useless because of micro, so that they can actually obliterate armies of archers instead of getting obliterated by archers.
The militia-line also is a threat to buildings, especially once massed. I’ve seen <10 MAAs destroy buildings often enough to know that if you aren’t prepared for an infantry push, you’re going to lose buildings (it’s hard to counter MAAs after you’ve lost your archery range and lumber camp). MAAs also get the benefit of attacking earlier, and pair nicely with skirms. I don’t really think of monks as a counter to LSs, as LSs tend to be massed when they’re used (and monks are hard to micro against massed units). The monks may get a conversion easily, but it’s much less of a loss than it is to lose a mangonel/knight.
If you want to make them a counter unit, I’d think a little extra bonus damage against cavalry would be more helpful. As it is, they do have an intended role in countering shock infantry (eagles, fire lancers, and Jian swordsmen), but most infantry civs already have solid infantry units and so can already deal with infantry by using their own infantry. Knights mainly work as a soft counter against the militia line because knights can pick their fights. Increase infantry attack (against cavalry or generally), and it becomes harder for knights to pick their fights (especially if an infantry mass starts tearing down buildings).
I don’t think all that much actually hard-counters the militia line - Xbows do well, but gambesons + armor upgrades (combined with speed disadvantage after squires) weakens them as a counter. Scorpions and mangonels can work well (so long as the infantry don’t get too close). But the main hard infantry counter is hand cannons (plus a few UUs), a unit only available in imperial age.
That wouldn’t be enough.
I also considered this some time ago, but now I got to the impression that “same type counters” that are generally available such as Skirms and Camels just lead to meta bottlenecking into these units when the map favors the unit type.
I think it can work if the effect is big enough. I think 75 HP LS would be a solid option especially for civs that have good bonusses to them. The other unit types are very timing based, so there is the opportunity to actually make an “anti-timing” unit type. I actually now like the idea cause how the Infantry works out they can actually be countered even in high numbers. Which is way harder against Cav and Archers.
I also think that the way formerly Supplies worked was the issue. It was an upfront cost which made you really unflexible, as you would have to make enough militias to justify the investment. A tech that has a similar effect but can be researched later is way more powerful.
I know. I responded to that.
But you don’t change this categorically with increasing the proj speed. You just achieve that fewer players can do it. And if you argue in that categorical sense you should make it so nobody can completely dodge it.
What would ACTUALLY be achieved with my proposal.
So I nead to ask the question what is actually the goal here: Making completely dodgig Mangonels impossible to get a more consistant matchup? Or return to the state where only players like Larry could do it? Cause that would be the result of the increased proj speed.
Also, just fyi. Mangonels don’t need a buff. They are still the best Siege Unit in castle age. In imp we ofc have the by design overpowered long-range Siege. But also there Siege Onagers are amazing when you get to them. The Onager upgrade might be a bit too expensive but for all other stages the unit is amazing. And sees play all the time.
Which is good, It should be like dodging ballistics.You can do it, but it takes a lot of work and may not be worth it in many cases.
Militia is fine, they don’t need such a massive buff. +1 attack on LS, which has been talked about for months, is the natural next step.
I think it’s in a great spot.
I’ve seen 1k2 players do it. But i’ve also seen 2k players failing.
Depending on your playstyle if you are good you can try to improve there and get rewarded for your investment into that form of micro. It would be terrible idea to take that away from the players who did invest their time in getting good at it.
If a 1k2 player does it he clearly is terrible in macro. But that’s his decision where he wants to improve. If players want to become micro gods but don’t care so much about macro they have at least a chance to do so. Why do take away something like this? Just to satisfy a few nostalgic viewer experiences when Larry was the only who could do it? This won’t come back anyways. You’d only achieve that Hera would be the master of mango micro cause he would see it’s one more way to separate him even more from the other plebs. Maybe he wouldn’t be the best in the micro itself but with his superior macro he would be able to do it consistant and never look away in a crucial moment.
So no, we won’t be able to return to this state anyways. And it’s also not necessary. Nostalgic feelings aren’t there because these times were so much better. They are there because we ourselves getting older and seek for stuff that reminds us of our youth. And then we can just watch replays of these old days, it’s a way better way to get there. And trying to force the old times back will never work cause WE aren’t the young people we used to be.
But I would like to speak about the Franks here. Franks lately took a big hit in popularity. And big part of it is ofc that now we have Georgians. But devs added in basically every dlc a new super Cav civ. Also ofc to get the cav lovers to buy it. Franks bonusses also don’t really fit the current meta. They once were the “smooth cav civ” but now they kind of miss out on good powerspikes.
I personally would like to bring Franks (back) to the “best Knight line in the game” state they used to have. And bring back their full castle Bonus AND buff the TA. 3 Buffs at once. Ofc this would in total be too much, so it requires a compensational nerf. Here I would take away the Berry bonus. This is a bonus that could be given - even with a rate like 20-25 % to a new civ. Franks already have a nice eco bonus, so if the other bonusses are strong enough they should be fine.
So here is my Franks tweak idea:
- Remove Berry Bonus
- Increase Cavalry HP Bonus to 25 %
- Restore the old Castles 25 % cheaper Bonus
- TA in general +10 HP, +1 Attack/+1 Range and +3 (+5) Attack against Infantry
- Remove Bearded Axe, add “Manufactures” instead. Manufactures makes garrisoned Villagers produce gold at a comparably slow rate (about 4-6 / minute). It’s a very cheap upgrade, like 250 res in total.
The intention is also explicitely against CA civs which Franks have already issues against and will even have more without the early berry boost. TA won’t cut it there alone. As you have to garrison Vills in response to CA play a lot and you want to have at leat 1 defensive castle to protect your eco anyways this should be a solid pickup here helping the Franks out. And ofc if’s supposed to be a bit helpful to sustain the Gold intensive Franks army in the lategame a bit, though the impact will probbaly be marginal as it won’t be worth until the market prices are down to garrison vills just for that slow gold income.
Yes you are right but generally you wouldn’t be spamming infantry unless you are making infantry UU, in which case it could also be easy to transition in ranged unit. Its not like mass skirms countering mass archer, or camel countering cavalry since massing pikes sounds hilarious
I wouldnt say its massive but now that i think about it, maybe it doesnt need it.
I’m fairly low elo with low APM, so usually when I use Long Swordsman I only win because a ridiculous amount of army. In castle nothing hard counters infantry (except scorpions) so if you are ahead in army numbers you will probably win. I dont think it is a good position for the unit especially at lower levels where it is hard to micro and macro at the same time.
The only way to buff the unit would be to somehow make it synergize with another unit really well but usually pikes are just better.
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Berry bonus does have a purpose: it improves their early game economy, and is one of the factors helping their scout rush. Also makes them a good pick on maps with lots of berries (as berries are slightly slower than farms, but are still worthwhile because of the wood savings - with Frank bonus, the berries are faster than farming). Early game bonuses
I think Frank Paladins are still the best in the game. Lithuanian (with 4 relics) and Teuton Paladins may win head-to-head, but don’t have the same general survivability that Frank Paladins get.