their late game statd are with flintlock tho. it’s circular reasoning, they need to say 2 pop because otherwise their card would make them too powerful, but they need those card to make them worth 2 pop.
beside, while i only play bots, i did make them 1 pop, a default .5 splash and didn’t touch FLR, and well, the civ feels a lot nicer, and having them against be in bots feels amzing, since it goes froma very weak civ to one you actually look out for what is on the field and have to adapt to, like port with organs, ottomans, and mexican soldados
except you should, because while playing bots is a different deal, any stat changes will still affect them. it’s a gamemode that care less about balance than fun, while also taking a big chunk of the active playerbase. So when balancing, you got to make sure the fun stays, otherwise you fail as a dev and disapoint a huge part of your audience.
and rn, that’s what malta is failling at, not having the same core level of silly fun as the others for the sake of staying balanced
May be a hot take but if I was designing the civ I 1. Wouldn’t have done the 2% hp per card bonus and 2. Wouldn’t have given them the fixed gun (at most it could be a one time card). The first bonus ends up felling clunky too my mind (often times it’s no help till suddenly it is) and the fixed gun is fairly hard to balance against a variety of civs (American Indian civs often have no chance I find).
I specifically said they were good in age 2, then mentioned some specifics about later. I also didn’t say they didn’t need a buff. I said the buff needed to primarily focus on the late game. Earlier on, pop inefficiency isn’t much of a cost, and near your TC you’re getting Ashi-like Musketeers with more hp and range for 20f less. After the first ten (because you saved wood on your barracks), their price basically goes up about 10w each (technically, replacing casualties is free, so not quite that bad), but with the free healing from the hospitals and extra hp it’s still a good deal.
Later on, the pop inefficiency becomes an overwhelming disadvantage, excluding a few key points where they can be decisive, or in instances where things get weird which can happen in PvP games.
The obvious solution therefore becomes a later game buff if the civ needs a buff. In the case of Malta they definitely do.
But then you get into the weeds with: how?
Simply reduce Sentinel pop cost to 1: Well, that creates its own issues. They are probably one of the most cost efficient Musketeers in the game. That’s only fair bc they cost extra pop. At a minimum you’d probably need to increase their cost to 80f 40c, which would hurt early when your eco isn’t running well yet. And Malta has a slowish eco to get running.
Just increase Malta’s military pop space (either by increasing total pop space or reducing their eco’s footprint): Again, this comes with its own issues. Sentinels are less pop efficient than Malta’s xbow/pike, so more military space actually buffs xbow/pike by a greater amount than it would buff Sentinels. You definitely don’t want that.
Reduce Sentinel’s pop in age 4: this could work, but comes with problems again. You’d need to rework FLR into a 0% stat boost that just gives a rocket attack and reduces their pop cost. This unfortunately takes away what is an interesting build order because it isn’t a power spike. While this might be the least offensive suggestion so far, pop reduction seemed to have been ruled out by the devs because it was requested, but was never done.
Then there’s the suggestion I made, which was somewhat similar to a mod made by @coffeeco01 (if I remember correctly): increased range later in the game and allowing them to benefit from Incendiary Grenades, which also kinda buffs Fire Throwers because they’d benefit from the same upgrade. My suggestion was +2 range in age 4 and +3 in age 5 (totaling 18). The idea there is indirectly making them worth the extra pop. More range pairs nicely with the building aura too. This has its risks too, but I personally deemed it lower since imperial Sentinels are really only worth about 1.3 to 1.5 pop. 18 range at least makes them insanely interesting, while still being different from Soldados.
That’s not all I’d do, but none of this really matters since I don’t believe the devs have any intention of releasing any more updates.
You really can’t determine balance based on PvE games. The AIs are pretty stupid and just cheat. I don’t intend that in a mean way, I’ve played a lot vs AI over the years, but I’ve also played a lot vs people and you’re talking about two entirely different games. You did correctly diagnose Malta’s weakness, but my gut says 1 pop and default AoE would probably push Malta to S tier in competitive 1v1. Double Hospital Sentinel Rushes would just take over.
You did correctly diagnose Malta’s weakness, but my gut says 1 pop and default AoE would probably push Malta to S tier in competitive 1v1. Double Hospital Sentinel Rushes would just take over.
i think this is probably the thing that highlight my issue better than anythin gi’ve kinda said. Malta is a promissing civ, but in very casual context, like bots, the civ feel strangely underwhelming, but “fixing it” to fulfill the “promise” of it’s feature would also break competivitve because the reason it’s underwhelming is because they balanced competitive first
It’s basicly that “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” but then they realized they shouldn’t, tried to correct it, but instead of jusr remaking it for both casual and competitive to be equally as pleasant, they just said F it and balanced around competitive since it’s the place that would complain the most
me i just made my mod for me and my friends to play boths on moderate, and if work, so since the game is abandonned, it’s the best i’ll get unlees i redesign the civ from the ground up
Kinda disagree that they balanced it for competitive so much, but other than that everything you just said seems reasonable.
Malta was pretty much only op in a pure xbow/pike sense. That was the op strat. Nothing else was all that great (though some things were super annoying). My personal opinion is that some personal politics between some pro players might have had some impact on balancing decisions with Malta as well. Having said that, the bow spam did need to get nerfed for team games, so idk. The strat was nerf and not enough was given back. Also of note is that some extremely annoying strats were allowed by the civ’s design that had to be nerfed. Would have been nice if they locked forward at what would happen based on what they were considering adding. The civ could have been a lot cooler if they leaned away from the building cheese and into the “last of an order of crusader knights” imo.
Crossbowman and Pikeman are only normal units Malta can make for 1 pop but there are others that can be unlocked such as the following
Longbowmen ~ British Tongue
Cassador ~ Portuguese Tongue
Cannoneer ~ The Mercenary Contractor Age III Politician
When you start a game put mouse pointer over the Tavern to see what Mercenaries can be made you could have Irish Brigadier to train for 1 pop each same with Cannoneer and can each be trained starting in Age II.
Then there are some Outlaws that can become 1 pop with Theaters card. African maps are great for 1 pop Outlaws with all such maps having ones that can be reduced to 1 pop (Desert Warrior are great for filling the role of a Musketeer). Some European maps have Outlaws that can be reduced to 1 pop.