I am not saying Incas aren’t good, but the dominant Meso pick in tournaments is still Mayans. They just have a smooth Feudal due to the extra food and it only gets better from there. And Mayans are toward the top, yes, but there are other civs at the top that see tons of play, for example Franks, Georgians, Mongols etc.
1 in 3 meso civs being top tier seems good balancing to me, certainly more tolerable than Knights being the meta unit for high level play and advanced mid elo (~1700).
If you hate on meso, then you should hate on other meta units too. It seems biased to nerf meso and ignore the elephant in the room (Mongols SL for example), even going as far as saying ESL needs a buff while not nerfing the clearly overperforming Castle Age Mongols variant seems biased to me.
I think Georgians need power to hold until post imperial, because their bonuses are almost for imperial age.
Start with a Mule Cart, but -50 food
Mule Cart don’t bring extra resources in early game. It does when enemy need to rebuild lumbercamp.
Fortified Churches provide +10% work rate to Villagers in a 19 tile square
In early castle age, extra TC is more worth than Fortified Church.
Building many fortified Churches is good after post castle age.
Units and buildings receive -20% damage (-40% instead of -25%) when fighting from higher elevation.
It is also good in early game when there is a hill.
Mounted units regenerate 5/10/15 hit points per minute in the Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age.
It’s low healing, isn’t it?
Repairing buildings costs -25% resources.
This is mainly for a treb battle.
Healing and hill bonuses are for early game. It’s poor, I want more heal bonus; eg. 10hp in feudal, 15hp in castle, 20hp in imperial.
Your “-100 wood” and “Fortified Church cost” bunus sound good, however “-100 wood” bonus makes Georgians simillar to Huns on nomad. So “-25 food and -25 wood” will be better, Georgians will be able to build a dock and a house when starting a nomad game.
Monaspa nurfs sound exsessive. It’s better to choose one.
Most of these are not backed by rationale, but I’ll react to some anyways.
Don’t love it, don’t hate it either. I like losing shipwright though.
Hard pass. This takes away the flavor and doesn’t address their weakness.
Again, this doesn’t address the problem with Bohemians. The design of hussite wagons in terms of their counters being absurd and chees-able is my main issue. For one, mangonel takes almost twice as long to train and are more expensive. The recent training time nerf is a step in the right direction though.
We have new issue of balancing Nomad again
This seems good.
Sure.
Koreans, Portuguese, Saracens and a couple other changes feel unnecessary.
These two have been proposed for a long time, and I 100% agree.
I don’t know why you propose more archer nerfs now, since archer play is not dominant in the meta at the moment. Just see NAC5, archers had little to no play.
What’s the reason behind this? Sure the american civs are strong, but they are not the most overpowered at the moment. Eagles are fine as they are.
Garland wars is fine. The tech has not received changes for 20+ years, and its high gold cost is justified, besides is not like Aztecs can get low on gold in Imperial due to their relic bonus.
Agree with the Jaguar Speed buff.
What would be the most powerfull tool of the Aztecs in Castle Age if you nerf their monks? Exactly.
Why give them Knights? The Bengalis are antimeta, they have an identity, it gives more variety to the game, no reason to change that.
Agree with these.
Heck no to the Hussite Wagon one. Since those got buffed Bohemians are only played in closed maps as Hussite Wagons go brrrrr. Hussite Wagons actually need nerfing at this point.
Agree.
If this is so Kipchaks can see more play then I think Steppe Husbandry there is unnecessary. Just bring down the base training time.
Agree with the Urumi buffs, if they are more resistant they could become one of the best infantry units in the game. The fishing one I consider unnecesary, since Dravidians are already strong with their current fishing bonus in water and hybrid maps. I say save that bonus, that would be pretty good, for a future civ.
Not sure if that change to their start is good, since I think the current one is fine and balanced. As for the Monaspa, any nerf that makes Georgians stop seeing Monaspa as their only play is welcomed.
Yes please. Their super high speed is the one think that makes this unit unbearable to me.
Agree with these, but I agree with what Hera said and have Huns lack the Elite Upgrade.
I never understood why the devs gave #### that Cav Archer bonus, it should go away, it does not go along with their identity.
I don’t see a reason for that Fishing Ship nerf in Dark Age, it’s not like Japanese are the most broken or picked civ in water and hybrid maps, there are civs picked way more.
As for the Samurai i completely agree with these ones, specially the Royal Heirs-like one.
I don’t like these ones, and I say it as a Mongol lover. These changes hurt both their early and middle game and would only make them strong in post-imp. If you want a change to the Steppe Lancer dominance in Castle Age, I would agree with Ornlu and make the HP bonus apply to SL as the Castle Age Unique Tech.
Fair enough. The Savar is very strong and it’s not like the Persian eco can´t pay that price.
With all the rest I disagree, except the buffs to Flaming Camels and Portuguese team bonus nerf.
Japanese had good CA historically in Kamakura age. 流鏑馬(Yabusame) is the legacy of it.
However, we can take “heavy cavalry archer” away from them. Infantry and archers took the place of CA in Sengoku age.
The historical basis is nice, but using it to get rid of HCA is something I disagree with. It would mean that #### can’t fully utilize the niche that bonus provides, and I don’t think the civ needs to be nerfed, anyway.
Taking heavy cavalry archers away from Japanese for “historical reasons” seems pretty weird to me, considering their cavalry archers were samurai who wore relatively heavy armour.
Also Heavy Cavalry Archer is a bit of an anachronism as a unit anyway. Most cavalry with heavy armour, barding and bows (like the ingame model) also carried other weaponry and fought as versatile units (like the Ratha).
So as far as the ingame engine are concerned, Japanese have as much right to heavy cavalry archers as any other civ that fought as mounted archers.
Now they are pretty good against archers, so less speed can make them easier be pursued by melee units.
They weared heavy armor so it also make sense to be slower.
True, a (“light”) cavalry archer upgrading to a heavy cavalry doesn’t reflect reality – but AoE2 is pretty figurative, and I think it makes sense within the game’s logic.
I’m not keen on this. Balancing a niche buff with a very general nerf seems like a bad idea to me.
I’m mostly talking on how still oppresive is the Post Imperial Bohemians deathball, by removing Siege Engineers the deathball is still there but gives a chance to other SE Bombard Cannons to compete with Bohemians. Catsle age Hussite Wagons aren’t changed. The unit just needs a major rework honestly.
Aztecs are still top on any agressive map, ask to any pro that, and the change of Garland Wars is a buff for late game where they are weaker.
Maybe because Bengalis suck so hard on open maps while on closed maps their Elephant Archer deathball is difficult to stop for various civs, without Paiks the Deathball is still there but then is easier to overwhelm these elephant archers with cavalry, and also put highlight into Rathas as their fast-firing units and Battle elephants as well.
No, Archers had little play because of the bad pathing, which is about to be fixed in the next patch, once it, Archer plays will be back.
I mean is just pure consistency, both Kipchaks and Genitours are cavalry archers but aren’t affected for some reason.
Well not sure from where you got this but in almost any Hybrid map the Japanese are now a top pick, after Lithuanians being gone there on high Level, Japanese are taking the spot as is just boring to se them picked all time there.
And that’s where Mongols need a nerf now, 40% faster working Hunters is absurd in conjunction with the 30% HP in castle age (being this fast allows to get there fast), at 20% HP their midgame isn’t overnerfed as you might think (Both Steppe Lancers and Light Cavalry still get 92 HP, strong but not ridiculous as is now). Also their Castle age UT is still too useless and the change motivates them to use Steppe Lancer in Imperial, where they fall off hard.
Why not change the mongol nerf to 10/20/30% HP in Feudal/castle/Imp? If 5 HP is enough to break feudal scouts then why isnt 6 HP on archers enough to break them for Vietnamese
Spearmen still kill in 3 hits in all feudal age armor and blacksmith scenarios
Yes, let’s balance the game around results from one tournament and ignore the fact that Aztecs and Mayans are both bottom 10 overall and for average players
Love the changes for the castle age upgrade but the imp nerf is too much. I’d just make it 70 seconds and that’s it.
I’d rather make the upgrade itself slower but probably not the unit training time. Both eagles and crossbows getting nerfed would make knights the best castle age option for most civs and blow up camel civs usage.
Great changes.
Amazing set of changes to these civs. Realistically Bengali won’t receive knights due to the Indian civ theme but Camels with the OG Indian bonus or Shrivamsha riders will be good.
I’d increase houfnice (and not bombard canons) base range to 13 with this.
Would also change something about their feudal. Like a tower bonus or something.
Amidst all the Monaspa hype thank you for noticing how cheap this unit is.
Wouldn’t nerf non-elite kipchaks.
Also a great set of changes. I’d leave urumi speed and just make squires, arson have double impact.
I believe you meant to say the bonus applies from castle age onwards. That’s also a great change. If it stops from castle age that’s terrible.
I’d just remove the -50 food, no penalty. Limit the max extra damage for non elite monaspa to +4 and make it +1 attack for every 7 units for non-elites as well.
That’s terrible to nerf it without reverting back its cost. If you’re doing this I’d suggest a base cost of 60 food 25 gold.
Lancers fine but probably not with the discount.
Shouldn’t lose access to shipwright, maybe dry dock. But interesting approach with the ranged units.
Samurai changes are neat but wouldn’t remove CA bonus unless there’s an alternate eco buff. At best would remove parthian tactics.
Elephants still not 1v1 friendly. Scorps won’t have mobility either. Hussar sort of important.
would rather just extend the wood discount to towers.
Another amazing set of changes. I’d also increase cost of El Dorado by 200 food without your elite eagle cost nerf.
Should be 25% flat or start at 33 and decay with the amount of hunt food collected globally. 33% initially 30% after 1 boar, 28% after 1 boar 1 deer, 25% after 2 boar…and decay faster after 1k+ food.
