It’s quite clear to me that Khitans are broken. What changes would you suggest implementing that would balance them?
Their eco bonus is way stronger than Vikings’ free Wheelbarrow and Hand Cart. But Vikings have one of the worst tech trees in the game to make up for that. That is not the case for Khitans. So should you nerf their tech tree or their eco, or both?
Maybe removing the faster producing Scouts, Spears and Skirm bonus, and also the 10% faster working Pastures bonus. Perhaps you could also remove Llamelor Armor and replace it with a tech that improves the Pastures (something like 15% instead of 10). That way, they’d be less broken in the early game but slightly stronger in the late game.
Yeah I’ve watched quite a few recs. With a similar villager count you’ll have about the same amount of resources collected around the 30-35 minute mark. But prior to that Khitans have more food, so they can produce more military and go to Castle Age quicker.
I think the main thing is how easy it is to add the Pastures. It takes the same amount of time that it takes to add a farm (but you effectively get two).
I haven’t played them myself though because I did not buy the DLC.
up the cost ever so slightly of pastures. right now they are 100 wood vs the 60 for a farm, moving them to 120 wood slows the transition and reduces the overall impact.
Reduce the herdable bonus to +5% and tweak as nessisary from there.
Remove scouts from the discounted trash units. the excessive food and discounted scouts make for a very powerful scout rush, which i think they intended to be limited by the fact they dont age well (no bloodlines) but as it stands it still feals exceptionally strong.
any of those three tweaked I think would bring them in line. I wouldn’t them to kneejerk and overnerf and would rather see them gradually tap them down. The scout nerf in particular I think might be the most deserved as it also plays into their double blacksmith damage bonus which, notably, also only takes food, I don’t think removing their discount would make a scout rush unplayable, but it also has the advantage of making a men@arms rush more apealing, which is more in line with the civs suggested infantry focus.
Not discounted, but 25% faster production. It synergies too well with pasture +10% bonus. Maybe these 2 can be toned down together. (Nerfing pastures would make you unable to sustain production early on anyway)
With a cost of exact 100 wood, let the Pasture not only replace the Farm but also the Mill. The upgrades and “reseed” will be moved to the Pasture itself as well.
Just find it strange to see people who don’t build Farms to engage in farming build Mills (which even visually have a case of large water wheels that hints at the presence of an irrigation canal). When a Pasture is built near berries or shore fish, there will always be a 1 tile distance that causes the villagers to move slightly further than villagers of other civs.
No animal by default. The line of upgrades would be: Domestication (I) → Grazing (II) → Pastoralism (III) → Transhumance (IV). The Domestication has the effect at a cost of 100 wood that Pastures start to spawn the animals, while the other upgrades increase the number of animals.
To prevent the civ from saving the 100 wood like currently skip a Mill. In this way, like other civs, they will always have to spend 100 wood once before they can have buildings that provide food.
Animals in pasture can reasonably carry just as same amount of 140 food as they are in the wild (increased from 110), but now they will also naturally decay. Herders in the same Pasture will now tend to gather food from the same body.
Therefore, Pasture will be very slightly weakened, that is, originally one animal provided a full 121 food, but now it will provide about 118 food (ignoring walking, and the rate of decay and the base efficiency of Herder are known to be 0.25 food/s and 0.42 food/s). More importantly, they will have an additional disadvantage that Farm does not have, that is, they need to pay more attention to attacks, because once the Herders are evacuated, the animals that have been slaughtered in the Pasture will continue to lose food.
Reduce the base efficiency of Herder to 0.33 at most, same as the Shepherd.
Then it won’t be 118 but 111, decreased 10 food for every animal in Pasture ,and every Herder gathers 0.363 food/s rather than 0.462 food/s. I think this could be enough.
Not enough I afraid. the base efficiency of Herder is 0.42 food/s, and Herders almost no need to walk, while the Farmer is ideally 0.4 and walk is needed so it could be about 0.32 averagely.
If the base efficiency of Herder can be reduced, e.g. 0.33 (same as the Shepherd), then at lowest it would be 0.363 with the bonus. I guess this could be fine.
Isn’t it just basically similar to receiving less damage in melee combat, while it is implemented in a relatively more strange and gimmicky way?
Well, I don’t appreciate it too. It seems crazy when the cavalry can “suck blood” from weak units like skirmishers.
Khitans’ economy boni are basically a mash-up of five other civ economy perks:
Teutons – Pastures cost 50 wood (per villager) instead of the usual 60, mirroring half of the Teutons’ 20-wood-per-farm refund.
Slavs – Herders work 10% faster, vs. Slavs’ +15% farm work rate.
Maya – Sheep and Pasture villagers generate +10% food, compared to Maya’s 15% longer resource lifespan.
Khmer – No drop-off penalty on pastures, so you can tuck them under a castle (or anywhere) and gather at full speed. Plus, Khitan herders auto-dropoff after just 3 food—so you get a continuous trickle just like Khmer
Britons – +10% food from shepherding (Britons get +25% shepherd speed).
Remove any one of those bits and Khitans are still terrifying. Stack them all together, and it’s utterly bonkers.
Appendix: Empirical Pasture vs. Farm Food Output
Khitans’ Pasture
2 villagers build + deplete a single pasture
Total yield: 344 food in 444 s → 23.24 food/min
(Wood‐cost bonus excluded)
Britons’ Farms
2 generic villagers build + deplete two farms
Total yield: 350 food in 545 s → 19.27 food/min
Net Gain:
Pastures alone deliver a 20.6 % higher food‐per‐minute rate (and that’s before accounting for extra sheep food or the 17 % wood discount on pastures).
Relative to existing civ bonuses (including walking time):
200 % of the Slav farm-speed bonus
40 % of the Briton shepherding bonus
67 % of the Maya resource-lifespan bonus (looking only at sheep/farms, of course)
Because the Pasture (Herder) itself is powerful, it should nerf the Pasture (Herder) instead of the Khitan bonus. That’s why I guess letting the animals naturally decay and nerfing the base efficiency of Herder are good adjustments that also make sense.
The Pasture (Herder) itself has to be fixed so that it can be shared to Cumans, Huns and Mongols
I can’t speak for the developers’ roadmap, but if they do intend to give pastures to Cumans, Huns, and Mongols, here’s what I’d propose:
Baseline pasture = two-man farm
Cost: 120 wood (same as two farms)
Efficiency: Roughly equal net food per minute—maybe slightly slower to offset the Khmer-style no-dropoff convenience
Those three civilizations currently lack any equivalent farming bonus. If granting them a pasture by default would itself be a significant buff; the only other option would be to nerf each civ’s boni in another way, which seems undesirable.
Once we accept “pasture = two-man farm” as the baseline, Khitans’ unique pasture perks should then be trimmed so that their overall economic boost is roughly half of what it is today.
Expected a post like this much sooner. And won’t be surprised to see similar ones for Wu and Jurchens.
Increase the default building time of pastures and let it improve with pasture upgrades.
Yes but they are not actually broken.
Its not even close to Vikings. Ornlu did an introductory video on Khitans and tested out pastures. The food collection rate before any upgrades is lower than Vikings and the same as Poles and Aztecs but inferior to Slavs and Vikings. Post wheelbarrow its much worse than most of the farming bonus civs and only 5% faster than generic. Slower than generic farms after handcart.
Given that your assumption is wrong and they don’t have bloodlines, blast furnace, halberdiers, gunpowder, knight line or monk techs, I’d say neither.
Goal is not to have another sicilians or dravidians.
Yes because everyone builds a castle to get farm upgrades.
They’re a very weak civ in the late game. You don’t get halberdiers, bombard canons, arbalesters, redemption, block printing, siege engineers. Defending against stronger cavalry units like Monaspa or infantry+gunpowder pushes can be very difficult. Pastures are slower than farms after handcart as well.
That’ll be an exact repetition of Gurjaras case though. Without the only eco bonus, civ will fall behind a lot and there won’t be a proper justification for the lack of bloodlines, monk techs.
That’s their design. Imp is weak, mounted units lack bloodlines. So you have to make use of the early food collection advantage to get a lead before the late game weaknesses become a problem.
That’s the problem. You have to try them out yourself to see the downside.
Search for Introducing Khitans by Ornulu video on youtube, navigate to 18:44. Ornlu’s test contain the numbers comparing pasture food rates vs all farming bonus civs. Its nothing like you’ve exaggerated.
Yes and individually much inferior to all of those bonuses. Also Slav farming scales well with wheelbarrow while Pastures don’t. Many bonuses in game are such inferior combinations of multiple bonuses. Like Malian gold drop-off can be seen as a combination of Mayan longer lasting gold and Turk faster gold collection.
Roman eco bonus is a combination of Turk, Korea, Celt, Briton, Mongol and Slav. And yet they are not bonkers. Khitans aren’t bonkers, they are just new and good in early game. And thereby overhyped.
Come on – guess which civ currently tops the win-rate charts at over 55%? Khitans. But yeah, obviously they’re not too strong…
Jokes aside, most of us agree their design is overtuned. You’re right that Wheelbarrow, Hand Cart and Heavy Plow’s +1 carry capacity don’t affect pasture gathering, but remember that food-based eco can snowball into even more economy, and AoE is famously snowbally. Plus, a surprising number of games are effectively decided well before Castle or Imperial Age.
yeah, Khitans are clearly hitting above their weight class.
Its not even close to Vikings. Ornlu did an introductory video on Khitans and tested out pastures. The food collection rate before any upgrades is lower than Vikings and the same as Poles and Aztecs but inferior to Slavs and Vikings. Post wheelbarrow its much worse than most of the farming bonus civs and only 5% faster than generic. Slower than generic farms after handcart.
This is critically ignoring several other benifits shown in that video. Namely the benifit of wood savings. All of those civs show 480 invested wood, and 400 for the khitans, but thats also incorrect in the video as the khitans can skip the mill, which means the actual costs listed should be 580 to 400. 180 saved wood is a huge boost early game and allows you to go leaner on woodcutters. This can translate to a faster castle, faster rush times, so on. and thats combined with them tieing for 3rd best “farms” in the game before other civs can get handcart. Even post handcart, the base value is so strong it provides incentive to just skip handcart altogether.
The vikings and slavs may be faster, but the khitans are getting a giant savings bonus on top (aka the teutons bonus). it’s exceptionally strong.
Thats not including the fact that this is the second of their eco bonuses, the first being 10% faster sheep food which means you get more food out of your initial sheep (less decay) and faster. This civ is built for early game performance.
At 40 gold each and requiring castles, I think that they are often going to be overshadowed by champions. Sure, Liao Dao are stronger in melee, but aren’t affected by gambesons (leaving them more vulnerable to ranged attacks), require twice as much gold, and are harder to mass. I don’t think Khitans are going to struggle all that much against melee units, so the Liao Dao is getting slotted into a niche that isn’t going to come up all that often. It may be able to take a small nerf, but too much of a nerf would turn it into what jaguar warriors used to be: a strong unit that is a meme.
As some people are pushing for the pastures to be added to other nomadic civs as well, I don’t think it would be a good idea to overnerf the pastures. They may be able to take a small nerf to base efficiency, but it would be bad to reduce them far below optimal farming rates. Balance the pastures based on dark age efficiency, and you kill them for late game because pastures don’t benefit from wheelbarrow/hand cart the same way farms do. Admittedly, having their own drop-off point does provide an effective gather rate boost by removing inefficiency, but I don’t think that would make up for having a late-game food gather rate that is well below-average.
One option would be reworking the pasture techs to include a gather rate boost to herders (similar to lumber/mining camp techs) - then the base rate could be reduced significantly. This could be in addition to the already-existing effect. And as pastures provide their own drop-off point, I think they could afford a small wood cost increase (since Khitans aren’t spending wood on mills so that they can farm more efficiently).
Small correction here: Teuton farms cost 36 wood, or a 24-wood discount. So pastures are really only receive ~42% of the Teuton farm bonus.
I personally like Ordo Cavalry’s gimmick. When I did some scenario editor testing, the regen rate was noticeable but didn’t seem too fast. And it had higher impact on the higher hp cavalry units (camels, then steppe lancers, then hussars). But I haven’t gotten a sense for how it plays out in practice. I have seen it affect cavalry attacking buildings though, which has interesting raiding implications. I don’t think it’s better than having bloodlines, but I’m not certain if that’s solely because it comes later or if it’s still inferior in post-imp.
I agree that pastures shouldn’t be significantly more efficient than farms, considering the many other advantages they have over farms. Poles, Burgundians or Gurjaras ecos have drawbacks. Pastures are straight up stronger, safer and cheaper per vil than farms.
That would be an easy fix, and the second farm upgrade already works that way.
Pasture (Herder) Nerf is necessary if it would be shared to other civs…
The maximum efficiency of Farmer is fixed 0.4 food/s, and they still have to walk so the actual efficiency is always lower, and the 0.32 is the average in the long run. Herders shouldn’t be affected by Wheelbarrow and Hand Cart, as almost not having to walk means almost adding the food directly to the stockpile.
What I mean is, if the base efficiency of Herder gets reduced from the current 0.42 food/s, the minimum should not be lower than 0.33, the efficiency of Shepherd. In my opinion, 0.33 is averagely as efficient as Farmer in the long run. Definitely the devs should choose a modest change at the first try, like reducing it to 0.38. In any case, I feel like this value should not exceed 0.4, otherwise Herder will be better than Farmer at any stage.
I want the Pasture also replacing the Mill… In the term of theme, it’s weird to see a civ not farming still able to build Mills and even needing a Mill to upgrade Pasture. Just disable the animals of Pasture by default, and add a new upgrade that costs exact 100 wood in Dark Age to enable them, so that the player no longer can skip the 100 wood cost for turning the Pasture into a equivalent to Farm, which is just exactly like a farming civ have to build a Mill fot that.
I think this could be an acceptable nerf too, and I prefer this than just increasing the cost of Pasture itself while still remaining the Mills and need a Mill for upgrades. A typical farming civ only builds about 0 to 2 more Mills, in addition to the initial Mill for berries. It is difficult to say how much the cost of these additional Mills should be considered and how it should be amortized to Pastures.
Other than that, it’s probably just a matter of making the animals in Pasture provide 140 food and naturally decay just like in the wild. Just make the Herders in a Pasture tend to gather food from the same animal’s body, so that food income won’t change much. It will only make players need to be more careful about raiding, because after evacuating Herders, Pasture’s food will still be reduced due to decay, which is also a reasonable and decent nerf I think.
As far as I know, the rate is 2.5% HP/s. It’s by percentage so surely the higher HP the faster regeneration.
when units are in combat, that is almost equvalent to recieving less damage from the enemy but implemented in a fancy way, as the regenerated HP offsets part of the damage from enemy attacks. As long as it can offset more than 20 damage, it is more powerful than Bloodlines, but in combat the unit dies usually before that.
That’s probably another silly thing about it. 100% regenerarion for cavalry in just 40s. when the damage is one-sided (such as the targets are buildings or rams or skirmishers), it’s just an insanely efficient regeneration during the attacking, as if sucking life from an opponent who can’t resist.
