I know 1v1 RM is typically where balance is focused but there are a lot of players who do play ‘chokey’ maps such as Black Forest or Forest Nothing. In these games there are only a few viable top tier Civs - typically with strong tanky or siege units. By nerfing Khmer removing Bombard Cannon you’ve basically removed them as a top option for these types of games - anyone with Siege Onager + Hals basically counters them easily. I can understand the farm nerf as it was too powerful in early game for competitive gamers - but who does the late game nerf appeal to?
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Also, how are chinese doing in these maps? Not even siege engineers. Some civs just are bad in some settings sadly, and others are better.
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Ballista Elephant can clear trees, so I do not think Khmer should be suffering too much.
Also, this is the result of people crying for nerfs. Avoid nerfing stuff, buffs only.
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But a few Siege Onagers will go right through your Ballista Elephants as they move slowly towards them.
No Siege Onagers, no Bombard Cannon, no Paladin. All they have going for them now in terms of late game death-balling is awesome Scorpions behind an elephant meat shield (of some sort) - which is easily countered. I’m still trying to figure out in which scenario their previous use of Bombard Cannon was OP (they were previously still vulnerable to Onager as a counter - just they did have some sort of anti-siege answer to that).
Ballista Elephants can cut trees in the Castle Age, where Mangonels cannot. Just attack sooner.
I have actually tried a Castle Age Ballista Elephant rush before a few times on BF. Let’s just say, erm, there’s a reason there aren’t Youtube videos promoting it as a new meta.
Use a few Ballista Eles to take down the trees (you need only 2 or 3), and then Knight rush in the Castle Age, which is strong to do with Khmer due to the farm bonus.
Yeah, the civ with the best scorpions and best elephants in the game sucks in BF, sure. Have any other interesting takes like that ?
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Use onagers to cut trees
Why, when Ballista Eles do it on the Castle Age, a full Age before anyone else can do it?
Choke battles, I think we are talking about post imperial battles. Onager tech will cut tree and accommodate the map much faster.
Ballista elephants are already borderline op when massed, not to mention them in situations like chokepoints
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They are hard countered by massed onagers
Good thing Onagers are hard to mass, the upgrade is prohibitively expensive, and Khmer have their own Onagers.
Are you trolling? onagers are not harder to mass than Ballista Elephants
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They’re much, much, MUCH more expensive.
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Mangonel: 160 Wood + 135 Gold. Upgrade cost 800 Food + 500 Gold.
Ballista Elephant: 100 Food + 80 Gold. Upgrade cost 1000 Food + 500 Gold.
The Ballista Ele upgrade is more expensive, but in unit cost, the Onagers are much harder to mass. You are correct.
It is also to be noted that a player going for Ballistas will also have lots of Farms, so he should have a good Food economy for the Elite upgrade; while a player going for Onagers will have to skip a lot of Farms in order to afford the massivs Wood costs, so he may be stuck with Mangonels for longer.
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In seemingly welcoming the nerf I’m guessing you are actively saying that a bombard cannon mix was OP - and that’s where we disagree. As per my original point experienced players should already know how to counter this. With this nerf we’re just making it so easy to counter that it’s not a good civ choice anymore for these scenarios (and indeed I’ll welcome being able to choose my civ against an opponent who has already picked Khmer).
But I can kill a lot more Ballistas with a Siege Onager / Halb mix than vice versa without Bombard Cannon. It’s much more resource efficient to go heavy siege now.
Khmer should lose arbalest instead of bombard cannon. The problem was always their eco was so bad because they never had an eco bonus to make use of all their weapons. Now they have an amazing eco and are destroying. So instead of remove bombard cannon which fits their theme of slow but strong why not remove arbalest? It would make Khmer less powerful in castle age and limits their possible attack in imperial age. Upgrading to crossbow in castle age would give you that power spike but now you have to tech switch in imperial age.
FYI Khmer was introduced without arbalests and then added later. I suspect if they had the current eco bonus then, their tech tree would have been more limited in imperial.
Personally I think their farm bonus should be something less powerful like food drops off at houses. If that is too much of a nerf then also give them 2x2 farms.
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