Scout line was always strong, mainly because of it’s the strength and speed.
With perfect micro scouts+ are impossible to counter.
So when considering balance changes it’s very important to avoid making them even more overpowered.
So I’m reading the changes for the preview-125283 and noted several changes to the worse:
Poles:
NEW civilization bonus: Bloodlines and Scout-line upgrades cost -50% food
Poles are already good enough. This change will make them absolute overpowered on all open maps, before post imp. Just watch the statistics spike to the first place on higher Elos.
Instead they could get cheaper stables, that’s it.
Non-cav changes that make the alternative units, including cav much stronger:
Portuguese:
Organ Gun train time increased from 21 seconds → 25 seconds
Absolute no need to change it. They are easily countered by siege. Why devs fall for noob complains?
Bohemians:
Hussite Wagon train time increased from 26 seconds → 30 seconds
Absolute no need to change it. They are easily countered by siege. This only slightly nerfs Redphosphoru, everyone else is affected negatively.
Other:
(Elite) Battle Elephant conversion resistance increased from 0 → 2, increasing minimum/maximum conversion times by +2.5 in-game seconds.
Absolute worst balance change of all time. Now they are truly unbeatable, especially with mixed hussars to sniper monks.
Palisade Gate base armor increased from 2/2 → 2/4
Makes archers even worse!
Side note. Please consider changes to the pathing in the future (maybe in my dreams). If a pathing is going to be improved even slightly it will make all cav units ultimate OP. So please don’t improve cav in any way. The only viable improvement is a better pathing.
Yes I garee thta making their Hussar play even better is not a way to make them good on open maps, also cheaper stable is already held by Cumans.
Add 20% cheaper Monks with 25% faster researched Redemption and all your Siege is useless vs Organ and it isn’t even nerfing Portuguese at all, the civ is still top on any map and that’s isn’t good balance.
Same reason as above, FREE mining techs and a 160 HP tank that is only countered by siege in low eco games??..
Add 20% cheaper Monks with 25% faster researched Redemption
Just change the bonus to apply only to non-monk units.
In any way, the all-in with organs and redemption only rarely works on arena. I fell to it only once, while every other time countered it
Good for you while Portuguese are still absurd here due to that.
Agree on making their gold discount no not work on Monks, also reducing their TB to 15% should be considered.
First watch the current statistics for Poles 1900+ aoestats before claiming they are “good enough”. 45% winrate overall and 45.5% winrate in Arabia. Abysmal winrates above 1200+. They’re one of the worst civs in the game currently and have been a bottom 5 at 1900+ for the past 20 months. Stats are going to spike but 100% guaranteed not to the first place, at best from 40th to 30th on Arabia. If getting discount on scout upgrades is that powerful Turks and Burgundians would be S tier Arabia civs at top elos. Unfortunately they’re not.
For how strong those units are, this nerf was necessary. And mangonels get converted by redemption monks, available to both Bohemians and Portugese. Also think outside Arabia and consider maps like Nomad, African clearing, Arena, Hideout etc which aren’t based on feudal rush and castle drop into these units is a nightmare to defend. For Arabia this is strictly a nerf ONLY for mid and higher elos phosphorus build, with minimal impact on lower elo games. Nerfing the stats on the units themselves will matter at low elos but not production time. 4 seconds is nothing in games where people reach castle age at 30 and produce units once in a while.
And not just noobs, even 2600+ players have mentioned that these builds and units as broken. Even GL, WeS players.
Ya today they are abysmal and unusable in 1v1, not even produced in a single tournament. And now with that change suddenly they’re broken?? One player does elite battle elephants and hussars with 100 farms while the other player sits with just a few monks and nothing else? You should probably watch pro games and not extrapolate based on very low elo games. And for such low elos, scorps have been buffed and since they get bonus damage against elephants, should be a good option in such games.
Nobody makes elephants at high elos for 4 reasons - very high food cost affecting production, vulnerability to conversions, low speed to defend from counter attacks and chase down units, poor scaling in imp due to bonus damage dealt by halberdiers. Only 1 of the 4 has been addressed making it a bit more usable, at least in some situations. Much needed buff for very weak civs like Bengalis, Burmese on open maps.
The only bad and unnecessary change imo. Feudal units already struggle to do damage against defensive gameplay.
Cav hasn’t been improved in any way. One of the weakest civs in the game, has received a bonus for cav upgrades and not a direct stat on the cav. There are a couple of other civs which get one of those upgrades for free and isn’t OP. This feels exactly the same as when gambesons, urumi swordsmen etc were overhyped when those changes happened. So please stop exaggerating things until you’ve watched the patch changes play out in pro games. What you feel is going to happen based on your personal bias like Poles are good, wood gold gunpowder units are balanced, might end up being completely untrue since its not the reality.
IMO the patch moderately negates the buffs organ guns and hussite wagons received last year and makes another attempt to improve abysmal units like elephants and scorpions such that they are usable.
The reason is that Poles are heavy on wood. They scale very slowly and easily disrupted by lack of wood. So the better fix would be to reduce the dependency on wood. For example, cheaper stables, as I suggested and/or stables giving the pop space.
Also, maybe, remove wood discount for stables for cumans. They got everything they need already.
(Elite) Battle Elephant conversion resistance increased from 0 → 2, increasing minimum/maximum conversion times by +2.5 in-game seconds.
I think that’s a quite interesting general change.
I still don’t get why most Elephant civs miss Heresy.
But Devs seem to try adress some of the main issues the line has at least at higher elos.
This approach will show if the line will need a major rework or if there’s a world it can stay as a “stat monster” unit.
Kinda surprised to see that. Devs partially revert a nerf they did some time ago. It’s still far from where we begun tho.
Battering Ram attack vs. buildings increased from 125 → 150.
Capped Ram attack vs. buildings increased from 150 → 160.
Thought some time about this. Not a fan. I don’t think the line has too low anti-building damage. Imo the biggest issue is that mangonels and some ranged units can snipe it from safe distance.
(Heavy) Scorpion projectiles now affected by Ballistics.
Also interesting. Seems devs took the positive feedback and now apply it in general to the line. Ofc needs to be observed how Khmer Scorps fare now, but I think it’s a really nice and positive change. I think the line will get a lot of tweaks and changes going into the future. The direction is promising.
Palisade Gate base armor increased from 2/2 → 2/4.
I think a very positive tweak. Palisade Gates always felt as a weakpoint in your walls. Idk if this is enough, but I like the íntention.
Market base exchange rates for food prices increased from 100 → 115, so initial food prices are more expensive and selling provides more gold. Wood and Stone exchange rates are unchanged.
I think 130 would be the correct amount given how valueable is food at certain stages of the game. But I’m fine with that change. Devs are definitely listening to the feedback given from the players.
IT’S NOT affecting Phosphoru very much. But there are certain all-in plays that will get increasingly difficult with that change. Notably one of the civs that would be negatively affected receives a nice general buff, so it looks devs really put their heads together there.
I will get to the civs specific changes later.
But the general changes for the most part go in right directions for the approached mechanics of the game. I think this will be a good balance patch then.
And the Italians untouched, again. As are the Sicilians
Do you know what would eliminate all the problems of the Poles? If the city centre counted as Folwark. OK, that bonus would probably be heavily nerfed. But that’s how it is.
However, yes, this change of developers will shift the balance very little I think.
Its ok to not have town center count that way too if Folwarks could either garrison vills without firing arrows like Khmer houses. Or the instant food should have been fixed per age without forcing mill upgrades. Tbh gold discount from UT and the rate of gold generation from stone mining were the only nerfs needed in the first place. Instead they overnerfed folwark due to such unnecessary hype.
Exactly. Its just similar on scale to Bulgarian blacksmith discount bonus.
Way too little. Thats actually significantly worse than their current bonus. Imo it should have been 20/25/30/35 flat or 15/20/25/30 with +5 per mill upgrade and crop rotation removed. Either they can skip horse collar and get the food they get today with horse collar or do horse collar and get as much as before in feudal age. But lesser food per farm in castle age and imp.
Right they should have removed crop rotation instead of reducing the % instant food from folwark.
This could be a solution, but even if you get lucky with map generation and have the berries protected, the timing in building the second folwark is always a bit of a problem.
If you play a scouts war there is no problem, but if you need to build an archery range to make skirms here suddenly the 100 wood becomes a pain.
Not just heavy on wood, but also vulnerability of farming out in the open to get that instant food. That means they need to secure a considerably large portion of the map before they can start using their folwark bonus. The stone generating gold and villager hp regeneration partly helps with that. The reason why they underperform is because the benefit from the risk is small. Poles weren’t OP before castle age even before the nerfs and the 10% to 8% nerf hurt their early game a lot. Imo their castle and imperial age instant food needed to be nerfed, reworked as instant food based on the age instead of being a percentage. That along with some adjustments to Szlacha Privileges. Either 50% less gold or the upgrade itself costing 200 more resources.
That discount is a major part of why they are good. Now you have options, either 2 tc build or quick stable and range addition. So its a mindgame with and against that civ. However if you remove that discount they’ll have negligible benefit in early game if they decide not to play 2 tc in feudal. They were and will become very weak if that bonus is removed from Cumans.
Even if you can add the range a bit late, you have to farm far off from the tc. And that’s always risky.
The way it is also fine if tower rush were to become a mainstream strategy almost equally as good as scouts or ranged opening. Or its also fine if the bonuses of insanely good civs are reduced. Right now its a decent bonus but not good enough relative to the bonuses of most other civs.