Based on some comments I received and some things that were told to me, I would like to chat a bit about Germany, which seems that since the last update some pro players agree that it has been broken.
-Germany and India have same shipment penalty as of currently.
-Germany Shipment bonus increases by 45% compared to other civs when it reaches age 3.
-Germany can’t be rushed nor counter pushed in age 2 because of the overwhelming units mass.
-Germany late game is quite strong makes it hard to counter against for many civilisations.
One could then argue Germany isn’t countered by any civ other than hausa as of right now, which means it’s either close or favourable against 20 remaining civs.
What i suggest is, Germany shipment penalty should be increased to 115% from 110%, in order to make shipments balanced. 3 SW 2 uhlans shipment should 100% be nerfed, too much value.
I too have noticed that germanys win rate has skyrocketed on current patch, beyond that of even sweden and china. The shipment penalty is too low or at least other civs is too high in comparison, hausa has almost the same shipment penalty but just recieves 1 unfattened cow per shipment whether in age 1 or age 4 yet germany receives free 150 res cav units.
Nah its pretty balanced the xp curve isnt why german win rate is “skyrocketing.” Beyond the obvious issues of win rates ina. 22 civ meta with barely a week of data, the xp rate of hausa or india is a trade off since 1.villager will base be mroe value after 5 min, and a hausa cattle sold for 300w (takes around 2 to 3 min to fatten with techs) isnalready better value. These civs have incredibly diverse rosters as well to flex these better pay offs. Its balanced around instant pay off (2 uhlan, 3 uhlan) Also the german xp curve has existed since forever but the civ remains fundamentally unchanged whereas hausa is barely 2 years old and india just got its 2nd batch of nerfs despite being very powerful for decade.
If you watch the games what i see isnt the few uhlans being any different and germany still peters out late age3 with its tempo spent, the new cards rarely making appearances. What i do see is merc spamming at the mid elos and low and these overpowered mercs often killing civs that dont have good access to their counters. Also with civs like otto turtle italy getting hit, natural to see some ein rate boost
I dont think we need to nerf legacy mechanics that werent an issue and may still not be. Lets nerf the new mechanics or look at them first that are causing issues and addressing the built in balance if germans supposee limited roster
People keep forgetting that little over 7k games is far from being enough to arrive at a conclusion since there aren’t enough matches for it to be statistically relevant. I’d wait another week or two before we start ranting about nerfs or buffs.
Talking about competitive level, Germany is extremely broken. Only USA is close to it. The scaling is giving an uncounterable amount of army. Germany also recieved huge amount of buffs last patch. If compared with India and Hausa penalties, Germany has an overperforming civilisation bonus that has never been balanced. 3 Settler Wagons 2 Uhlans Shipment is the best shipment in age 2 without any comprasion in the game. All Germany age 3 shipments are equal to 1450 resources shipments. The amount of bonus Germany gets doesn’t match with it’s civ bonus.
99%+ of the player base isn’t competitive. Balancing things for very high level play should be delicately pulling on small levers, not with massive nerfs that will hurt all levels of play. At mid-to-low Elos, Germany is middle of the pack, because while its shipments are very strong, it is an incredibly technical civ, so lower skill players can’t take advantage of the high strength of shipments.
I dont think 3sw is op when age4 is limited but prehaps once the italian fort nonsense is fixed we may see germany instead of falling off, simply going age4 and never having a “deficit” of value.
Having a powerspike and falling off is what mamy civs are supposed to do. German 3sw is compsensation for no eco boosts in age3 and coin intense shipments. This has always been strong but no less then haudes beastly age2 or france falling off mid 3 to be godtier super late game. I like that civs have different strengths, but one issue is when a civ can escape that downside.
Still, id rather revert new mechanics than mess with core civ features. As we saw with brit 3 vill, sometimes you gotta let a civ has its identity. 3 sw 2 uhan can be the king of age2 eco as long as germany age4 isnt too op imho.
Germany for me has always been one of the broken civilization in age 2, always hated to play against this civi the shipments of Germany are very broken at age 2 earn 2 ulan and even that save 200 gold and 100 of food , if you are going to do for resource gain and the same as the card to win gold by cards of the Spaniards, It’s no wonder that the Kaiserklein only plays most of the time with this civi. another boring thing is to fight WW I find this troop very cheap and very strong and with a lot of range, Another thing to note are its very powerful mercenaries and military standard in age 3 with 3 ulans
I think nothing has really changed for germany as of recently so I think a lot of the performance will be due the other top civs falling off since I think germany has always been like right behind them.
In terms of their power I do think the increase in merc diversity and its shipment has made german plays a lot more flexible and a lot harder to counter play effectively against.
like having 13 pandours, 7 bosniaks and 8 harq kinda turbo charge the cav skrim comp germany is known for and the pandours has very little range counter play in age 3 unless the opponent also rolls pandours and then they have to make them manually, massing falcs is dangerous against the inevitable uhlan spam.
Pandours might need to be moved to age 4.
Another thing that can be done is increase anti merc options for other civs - Spies are a good counter but training them is argubly a bad way to approach the problem. Massing enough spies to fight off the mass of mercs are not cheap
Euro civs now have a 10 spy shipment in age 3 which is I would argue pretty good to mass spies and fight off the spam. Similar options might be needed for other civs with their developing antimerc units
So for example, france now can train native scouts but lack the spy card, maybe a nvative scoute +spy shipment for france.
China can have a 10 disciple shipment in age 3 that also get their vet techs
India’s tiger can get anti merc multi (they have multi against light infantry for some reason right now) and an age 3 shipment that sends them.
For native amercian civs, advance scouts should send some scouts (and maybe have some kind of upgrade system for them to keep up with imp level mercs)
Inca can get a chasqui shipment that combos with Aymara support
For the african civs its tough they can get access to spies but maybe a influence shipment for spies or better yet maybe the upgraded units (assassins/ agents) might be an option
Germany has always been a balance concern. It’s just there were always other overperforming civilisations that would be buffed, even in legacy Germany was clearly the best civ with TP start. Germany doesn’t have any challenging Match up right now. As anything above Germany is massively nerfed, balance issues of Germany is seen much more. 3 Settler wagons and 2 uhlans shipment is clearly need to be balanced as it’s a clear overperforming shipment. I think 45% better shipments are a balance concern for all level, 9 uhlans, 8 skirmishers 3 uhlans, 3 war wagons 3 uhlans are all slightly overperforming shipments. Shipment bonus in the next ages shouldn’t scale or Germany penalty should be increased.
Ah breeze, it would be cool if you could give serious Information with explaining and examples instead of just doing it for the sake of your agenda versus Germany because its Kaisers Main Civ. (Not offensive meant) but here in the official forum there should be more as a simple “Germany has always been a balance concern” or 4 rows of sentences. That’s a bit less afford for a complaining from the current #1Player in this Game about an civilization. There should come something more on why its “broken”.
That’s right, there were always few other civs ahead of Germany and USA, with recent changes Otto, China, Ethiopia, India, Italy, Malta, Lakota have been nerfed. Germany and USA are the strongest ones right now. They also have been buffed, Germany late game units are one of the strongest like USA.
ye some, not all, germany is indeed strong like it is since 2006 or smth but not broken, for me broken is italy previous patch, USA today or abus or jaguars with aztec, smth who clealry overperform too much which is not the case of germany, but yes the civ is very strong
problem is not germany, its the india nerf which was not necessary
Rushing germany doesn’t exist, its like saying rushing aztec or haud, ofc it doesn’t work looking at the civ design germany has
with recent buff yes which again it was not necessarly ye, but we can’t call germany broken because of the buff age 4, germany always end the game age 3 we know that, tho many civ has better unit late game lets be honest
mental block vs this civ i guess, i have one vs brit or otto
nope, again its because the india nerf was not necessary, also don’t remove the civ bonus of germany plz, its like removing the vills with manors or removing 3 cdb with fre, bruh
tho i can understand germany need a nerf but lets not kill the civ by removing the strong point germany has plz
Germans is given multiple very strong merc shipments and merc camps lately, and age 2 inquisitor cards… which is broken in team game. And age 3 strong mercs means player can camp at home collect only coins, and has a full army. It is really broken, at least for civs without spy units. German mercs should be reverted.
I was 1400 to 1500 elo when I still play aoe3, and half of ranked 1v1 i played was against germans (used to be Ottos). It was frustrating.
I’d say the trouble is that the Needle-Gunner upgrade makes Skirmishers far too powerful, even able to overcome their counters by just being able to fire so rapidly. This is, of course, the success of the real needle-gun, but they need to reconcile the history with fair gameplay.
Considering this patch shaked up the old civs quite a lot by buffing RG and giving them unique abilities, i think it’s too early to tell if a civ like Germany which hasn’t received a significant rework (like Ottos or Russian) is op or not. There just simply isn’t enough data. And even if they are op, it’s still difficult to tell what needs nerfing.
I think powerful shipments of Germany should definitely not be nerfed. Germany is all about them. If they turn out to be broken, the first thing to do is look at xp generation and costs. I think native TPs tickling XP was an indirect buff to Germany that kind of flew under the radar because we were too busy with usa and Mexico being OP.