- Szlachta Privileges replaces gold cost with food
- Lechitic legacy effect the knight-line
So food only Knights with trample?
Two problems - thatâs awfully food expensive and completely busted
7 Likes
Yeah I think knights are maybe one of the few units we canât make a trash version of. Especially as hussars already are their âtrashâ version, but also trash knights with 2 less armor would be kinda weak, but trash knights with full armor would be OP aswell as trash cavaliers with 2 less armour. Donât think itâs possible to find a good balance there. (Itâs also because of their high pop efficiency, thatâs not good in conjecture with trash)
I would like to see the trample damage affecting the knight line actually, I think the bonus is wasted with the hussars. But ofc neither with 30 g knights nor with trash knights, both would be broken.
Idk, it could potentially work. I wouldnât combine it with trample damage, but Polish Cavaliers are pretty weak. The 135 food cost would be unsustainable in Castle Age, so this would become a late game only tech. Probably not worth using in team games, just 1v1.
Now lets compare it to other trash units. For the same cost, 16 trash cavaliers appear to be very well balanced with 27 generic Hussars when fighting each other. The Hussars do better when facing archers. Trash cavaliers also lose decisively against Berber, Magyar, Bulgarian, Malian and Tatar Hussars. They lose against Magyar Huszars and Malay two handed swordsmen with equal cost. They lose against all spearmen, even Turksâ.
It would be a nerf to Poles midgame, but nothing about trash Cavalier is screaming overpowered in the late game.
I would rather have Szlachta Privileges be nerfed to 40% discount but give Poles paladin. Trash Cavalier seems like it could be too good, especially considering how Poles have a very good food eco with the Folwark. Not sure about the Lechitic legacy change.
Well the Cavaliers still win, but itâs actually way closer than I expected to be. The thing is we donât know the impact of pop efficiency on trash fights yet.
TBF the current bonus is kinda busted, probably even more busted than trash cavaliers would be. As long as the food price is above 40 G the current design is actually superior to the trash cavaliers and even if the price goes down to 17 at some point, the current design is actually not that much worse than the trash cavaliers would be.
Polish knightsa are already somewhat trash knights. And with that bonus Poles already rarely have any problems with their gold.
When I think about this, I question myself why we donât use this⊠Why not giving Poles an âOPâ lategame winged Hussar unit that uses all the Gold Poles saved on the way to imp?
Something like a 40 F 120 G unit with 1 range, bonus vs infantry and trample damage. Because of the high Gold amount needed it would set the poles player on a timer to go for these winged hussars in the lategame, but it would be a very interesting Powerspike, an interesting new concept for a civ.
Also if designed well it could be interesting in Team games aswell, where poles currently suck. Key is to find the right amount of pierce armor for that unit, so it isnât trash but also not OP there. (Donât forget also in Team games, gold income is way slower than other ressources so a cav unit with way higher gold ratio than the knight isnât as strong in TG as in 1v1 when gold isnât scarce. But itâs ofc essential to find a good design for that unit so it fills the intended role in 1v1 and tg aswell.)
Yeah, it looks like the trash Cavaliers do win that fight most of the time (about 80%), but it can go either way. I agree this result was surprising. If you add even one more generic Hussar (28 vs 16) then it flips and they beat the trash Cavaliers more than 80% of the time.
Trash cavalier does seem like less of a bonus than the current 60% gold discount. Iâm not sure Poles deserve a nerf, but it is a little tempting to weaken their mid game knight rush and buff their late game heavy cavalry.
What is the objective of this change ? Nerf Poles mid game and buff 1v1 late game ?
3 Likes
Probably. But I think the first thing for poles to happe is an adjustment to their Folwark bonus. The Folwark bonus is insanely strong but also too easy to punish on open map types. This currently leads to weird gameplay.
First, if you look at the pure stats: Poles currently dominate Arena. They arenât a good âarena civâ from their design, lacking a lot in many departments good arena civs usually shine: Good Siege, Monks, lategame army comps, defences.
They dominate there because of their sheer eco. No other civ can be fully boomed in imp with castle drop seizable army (of obuch) at 30 minutes.
On open maps they are too easy to punish for their greed, but if they arenât punished, they dominate from their. Itâs like the cuman extra TC bonus, but not that extreme. Itâs not as easy to punish but it also takes a bit longer until the eco kicks in (and poles lategame eco is one of, if not the best in the game whilst cumans is generic).
This isnât good for the strategic diversity of the game, if the whole game is basically forced around an OP eco bonus that needst to be punished by raids. Itâs too simple and also repetitive. All civs need different strengths and weaknesses, so they arenât âone trickâ. In general I am also against overpowered eco bonusses like chinese, vikings or mayans cause they feel unrevarding. These civs can âget awayâ with unfavorable early skirmishes just because of their insane eco bonusses and one of them - namely mayans - has one of the strongest rushes in the game aswell so it is even harder to inflict more early damage to them than they do to you. I think this concept of designing civs around OP eco bonusses should be abandoned by the devs, the game is just so heavily explored already that this only leads to extremely volatile gameplay, pretty much like tower rushes would if they werenât nerfed so heavily. And they lead to repetitive gameplay as the whole game would only about greed and punishing the greed. Basically every game. We saw it with cumans, we see it with poles.
So the first thing to happen is that the poles Folwark bonus must be tuned down but also less punishing. Probably even apply to the early game ressources to some extend, as for a cavalry civ itâs important to have an early food bonus for their scrush. A midgame bonus is nice, but often comes just âtoo lateâ. Look at Franks, Mongols, Lith or Magyars. They have good bonusses to their scrush. And then look at Spanish in comparison. Itâs just essential to have some little bonus that makes the scrush a bit better than average, otherwise the civ has problems on open maps to keep with the pace. (And thatâs also applying to poles, especially as to make their eco work you need to be greedy and even sacrife a bit of the scrush currently.)
So thatâs the most important thing that needs to happen with poles, fixing the folwark eco so it isnât that dominant in determining the gameplay with them.
Then the szlachta Privileges is also busted. Itâs the same principle: OP, but punishable to go for it. A bit more rationalism, devs please. You canât give civs a tech that defies counter mechanics in the midgame. Poles super reduced knights trade cost efficient against camels and pikes! Not to mention the saved Gold. Also monks are almost useless against them cause the knights are so cheap and low in gold cost. Itâs possible with monks, but you must be a god in monk micro for that.
So once Poles have that rolling in castle age the only way to beat their knights is to try to get the tech advantage in imp, then they can be countered again (but with reduced efficiency).
One way could be to just reduce cost and effect of the tech, but I think it could be even more interesting if it was âhalf/halfâ - so szlachta privileges reduces the Gold cost by 60 %, but increases the Food Cost by 50 % in the exchange (=> 90 F 30 G knights) (also cost of the tech must be reduced then). Then the usual counters still work, but the civ would save a lot of Gold with their Knights. If the tech was adapted this way it could be comparably cheap (like 200 F, 100 G, 20 secs).
And then in the lategame they could get that extremely gold intensive new Winged Hussar unit, the best cav unit in the game. But it would set them on a timer, Donât forget, Poles donât need to go that way, they can still also get for arb/obuch or stick with their standard cavalry lines. But if they have a lot of Gold to their disposal they would have that tool available (the unit still has the common weaknesses of cavalry, but especially in respect of weakness agaist halbs it would be heavily reduced. Still you shouldnât throw it stupidly in fights against halb, Elephant, camels or even monks. Itâs not designed to fight everything of, just to be overall the strongest cav unit in the game.)
Lechtic Legacy can be removed, instead give them a tech like âMobile warfare reformsâ that allows to build winged hussars:
Winged Hussar - 40 F 120 G, 20 secs Train time
Trainable in Castles (as an additional weak spot - if the opponent kills your castles, you canât make them anymore)
HP: 160
Atk: 15 (+7 against infantry) melee
RoF: 2.2
Range: 1
Melee Armor: 3
Pierce Armor: 4 (donât forget, poles donât get the last cav armor upgrade)
Armor Class: Cavalry
Speed: 1.4
Deals 1/3 splash damage to surrounding units
As you should see, the unit isnât generally stronger than the other top tier cav units. It has the same HP as a paladin but 1 less PA and being considerably more expensive, especially on the gold side. The attack isnât stronger either, but the main deal is, they have range, deal splash damage and have a seizable bonus against infantry that makes halbs less effective (Mass halbs still should be avoided, just because of the Gold efficiency, but smaller numbers can possibly be taken on)
So the unit is clearly very strong, but there are ways to deal with it, itâs not a guaranteed victory to get to them and you need to take care of them a bit (you probably want to fight about the remaining Gold spots with them as they would chew through your saved Gold like crazy - and the opponent will try to push you from Gold so you canât sustain their production). I think this would make very interesting strategical gameplay.
In Addiotion to that with the whole redesign thing it may be useful to give poles access to the standard hussar in stables + halberdiers. They need to add some trash to their winged hussars as no civ can make such a gold heavy unit with like 140 vills behind it. Then you would need like 80-90 vills on gold, which would be absurd. Also it would be bad if the civ would fall of as heavily once Gold becomes scarce if one design element of them would be to save Gold for later. They also need usable trash, so even if the winged hussar donât work they arenât immediately out of the game. (And also with cavaliers that cost 90 F, 30 G they canât just throw them against other cavalry anymore like they do with their current 60 F 30 G cav, so they need one more anti-cav tool besides the obuch then.)
yeah Szlatcha Privilege is Op in castle maybe not as much in higher Eloâs. Also itâs kinda weird that the
light calvary and not the heavy Calvary have trample damage
Itâs also op in ikperiak age against any civ that uses meele. They are better than paladins in that case, and by numbers arenât that bad against archers either.
They arenât good against arbs they go down in 24 hits compared to a paladinâs 60
By the time the tech is able to properly exert its power in Castle the game is already most likely reaching Imp given that the tech requires 650 Stone for a Castle alongside 500F and 300G to research the tech (admittedly helped by the gold stone bonus), and only actually starts paying for itself after you train 7 Knights (even more if you convert the 500F to gold in account the Food cost). Not good considering how ineffective Szalachta Cavaliers are against Arbs, and that Winged Hussars can do the long-term resource efficiency game better given that they cost no gold.
1 Like
Actually there are rarely castle age UTs that really have a chance to shine in castle age, since 650 stone + tech cost can rarely be worth it. The main difference to imp UTs is just that u can research them before you are in imp, so they dont stop your treb production.
I actually like that poles are kind of an exception to this, as their castle age UT can really be worth it in castle age
The thing is, itâs too volatile. Either you get punished heavily for it if the opponent goes a lot of military and you canât defend. Or you get away with that greed and then easily win with trash knights that donât have any counters if the opponent doesnât gets the imp tech advantage.
Thatâs not good for strategy if itâs that volatile. Strategic Balance lives from diversity and this isnât diverse. Itâs just âeither you kill me know or I will kill you thenâ. Also, whatâs the strategic choice the opponent has? The Poles player is totally determining the gameplay with itâs choice to go for szlachta privileges, he doesnât leave any strategic decisions to the opponent.
And I think thatâs important that both players always have strategic choices and not one single player can determine the gameplay with one strategic choice entirely. Even if it is âbalancedâ in terms of winrate, itâs just bad for the game. (Same argument is also for techs like flemish revolution)
1 Like
disagree. polish can go szlachta, obuch or arbalest. either is quite strong.
and âone single player can determine the gameplay with one strategic choice entirelyâ is something that happens in many matchups
Never questioned that. But szlachta is too volatile imo. Itâs too costly and gives too much value for the time you want to research it.
In most games I usually have several options in most situations. Ofc there are sometimes situations where you heavily prefer specific responses, but itâs rarely the case that you technically have to play only one specific way. At least since the Incan Trush isnât that way anymore.
I dunno, I. think itâs. alright as is. I like Poles, you have to play off meta to win
1 Like