I don’t know if it is a recent bug or we found it after 20+ years. Anyway that’s not the point. Devs are aware of this bug and will probably be fixed soon. But how will it be? There are 3 possible ways -
Nerf market bonus to 10%. I really wish this doesn’t happen.
Nerf market in general. I don’t want this either.
Sell prices always round down while buy prices round down. If you read the bug report, you will know this happen when sell price is exactly at 27 gold. Actual price is 26.6 but game rounds it up. And therefore this bug happens. Rounding it down to 26 will solve the problem.
Now if #1 really happens, I want another big Saracens change to compensate this.
Market cost -100 wood → Start with +100 wood.
Market fee only 5% → Market fee only 10%
This will make them balance in EW settings as in current meta their all in market strategy is OP. Also in standard ma they will remain same and can finally be a proper “Naval” civilization.
Generally speaking all bugs should be fixed but honestly i dont see this as super problematic. 2 clicks gives you 1 gold so what are you going to do, click 90 times to afford an arbalester? I think option 1 and 2 are way to drastic for something so insignificant and option 3 is the best one. No comment on the other changes
I was able to achieve 558 transactions per minute with a simple keyboard macro, that’s more then 5 relics or 10 villagers on gold. Someone else claimed to have managed an autoscript for 24000 per minute. This can definitely be game breaking late game when one player is Saracens
I had no doubt it was possible to do that, very risky if your opponent uses the market while you perform it, but still, a bug is a bug and should be addressed.
I’m not sure if it’s possible, but creating a check condition where sell price can’t be more than buy price could be an easy solution.
How much should the fee upped to stop that? Is 6% enough?
Keep the bonus as is, just change market function slightly to ensure 1 gold will not be gained, if anything make it so there is 0 change in price and no gold gained if constantly buying and selling one after the other. The bonus itself is fine, the functionality just has to be tweaked, no?
Doesn’t really make any sense at all. Now the bug must be addressed, but that’s it.
Saracens are really middle tier civ, do they really need nerfs? Seriously?
I’d say bottom tier even unless you’re really good at using market. Even in pro level, there are only a handful players that are good and actually terrifyingly good at doing this.
replace this civ bonus with something else, as what they have been doing with bunch of other “useless” techs.
honestly im not fond of replacing tech, seems more and more techs are geared towards unit stats rather than unique/niche stuff. things like celt’s dominant sheep control, magyar vills 1 shot predators, or monk return gold (recently removed) upon death are unique and spirit of the game, should be kept that way.
exactly and it should be left untouched with exception of gaining gold. they have replaced way too much stuff imo and should let the game play out for a few months before a patch. monthly patches aside from bug fixes, are not necessary
Saracen markets should not be cheaper. The market discount itself is good enough. The 75w markets double down too much on one trait, and make the FC saracen xbow push way too strong that they are banned in BoA3 very frequently. Would make much more sense to replace that second market bonus with something for Saracen Monks to make them special again after loss of Madrasah.
Also could change the camel bonus to +10/+20 in castle/imp to make it look more well-rounded because all other hp bonuses are percentage based and scale itself naturally in imp.
Zealotry could be changed then to something that brings back good old AoK CA with bonus damage vs buildings.
Saracens don’t need nerfs, they’re bottom 10 (11) on open maps (1600+ ELO) and even on closed maps.
Pro players can abuse a lot of things, but we shouldn’t balance game around them entirely.
Saracens are literally a bottom 10 or 15 civ with a strategy built around market abusing and you think they would be fine with 2 nerfs to their castle age?
I dont nerf them, like what I spoke about giving them something better than cheaper markets for their monks and giving them a better UT while they get half old one for free.
I having them more than one trick buffs a civ not nerfs it automatically. It just makes the one strat worse.
Did you ever make a statistics of how often your contribution is:
This civ is TopX it doesnt need a buff/nerf Changes are not only there to achieve perfect 50%WR across the board only…
let’s see. you’ve made it so they can’t age up as easily by using the market, which is their best strategy at the moment.
better monks isn’t going to help them in aging up faster.
and a better unique tech isn’t going to help them until a castle is actually built.
so what do they do in feudal into castle age?
it makes literally the only strategy they have going for them worse, without any compensation to make them better in feudal or early castle age.
Yeah but they don’t really nerf something that isn’t problematic. Furthermore changes must maintain balance, and right now your changes nerf them, when they don’t need nerfs, and doesn’t really provide any adequate compensation at the times when they would need compensation.
you buff their late game, which doesn’t need to be buffed, but in feudal and early to mid castle age? they become worse. and they already aren’t a good civ there outside of 1 timing push that is literally on a clock.
also - how often have you actually seen civs changed because as you put it “something is problematic”. they happen once in a blue moon.
so if you want to nerf what you view as problematic, at least remember to buff them in a way that doesn’t absolutely trash them. which is exactly what you did.
Oh and by the way - i just looked at every civ draft from battle of Africa, and Saracens were banned zero times and saw play in all but 3 series, so this is straight up not true.
Ok, I take back that they were banned frequently. But they were banned once in the Group Stage and at least once in the Qualifiers. My assessment came from seeing them being banned twice in the small sample size of series I have watched so far and wrongly extrapolating it, but they were banned more than zero times.
Ok, then stick to your argumentation, that a civ is only to have one strategy in a strategy game and to balance that must be particularly strong.
The monk bonus I had in mind was that they can make them in feudal age.
Also they still have the one of the strongest team bonuses in the game also affecting them in feudal age. Why not use the market bonus more to do stuff in feudal than just skipping it. It is a strategy that annoys many still.
I personally think their team bonus has to go, even at +2 attack vs buildings, archers feel way too effective vs buildings and is poor design (like Obsidian Arrows and former saracen bonus), I ve seen degenerate stances on how stupid is on Arena games (esp with Ethiopians and Britons).
Replace it with Cavalry Archers trained 25% faster, it gives back some form of cav archer identity, and also reflects how strong were the mounted archery at the Ayyubid/Mamluk dynasties.
I spoke about giving them something better than cheaper markets for their monks and giving them a better UT while they get half old one for free.