Minor (insane) frank overhaul

Experimental, not as accurate as my elephant and infantry suggestions (because those were totally accurate :scream::rofl:)

Remove berry bonus

Remove chivalry :scream::scream: +20% hp paladins will likely never be balanced for TGs, so long as the UT exists for franks, they will have the monopoly in TGs wrt to knight civs. Nerfing chivalry to 30% would still be too strong, leaving 20% which is the same as Huns(likely needs to eventually change as well). Imo it was not the best design staking these two together. Either you get extra bulky paladins or you get faster training. Not both.

Reminder that franks miss TR, bracer, ring archer armour

New imperial UT. Heavy crossbow: crossbow damage +3. In place of a civ that over excels in a singular field, the civ gains a complete alternative option to aim for. High damage, low range xbows as fire support. Advantage over HC and taxmen is pre imperial massability, leading to a significantly bigger powerspike.

Cost 700f/700g 60sec (ARB + bracer = 750/600, 50sec and 40sec)

Generic arb does 10 dmg over 8 range with TR. Kills FU cavalier in 35 hits, 141.6 dmg per minute Vs 6PA

Heavy xbow(HX) does 11 dmg over 7 range without TR. Kills FU cavalier in 28hits, 150 dmg per minute . Assuming all shots hit, but realistically this value drops slightly with 85% accuracy. Arbs are significantly better Vs lower armoured targets, while HX are better Vs higher than 6PA targets. Realistically speaking franks have HC/TA for extremely high PA like champskarls/eagle.

Generic paladins. Arb kill in 60 Vs 45 HX

Hussar. Arb 24 Vs 19 HX

The term arbalest is a French word, yet neither french civ fields arbalests. This makes up for it while killing 2 birds with 1 stone.

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That oneā€™s a gimme, IMO. Let it be done.

While I think Chivalry could probably be appropriately balanced via nerfs (cost increase, and nerf to 25% or 30), I sympathize with the logic of having the devs pick a lane in terms of tankiness or spam. Although this is slightly mitigated by the power creep of other strong civs such that Franks arguably no longer have the strongest paladins.

Not a particular fan of this, for a few reasons. The main one being that Franks have always been very streamlined into one (very strong) playstyle. Nerfing their cav in favor of this significantly alters the identity of the civ. I like the idea of some civ getting an upgrade of this sort, but Franks already have 2 solid options that fill a similar role, as well as FU barracks units. And IMO their being a little harder to tech into is kind of the point, and plays into Franksā€™ very cav-centric identity. This would also significantly step on the role of their UU, which isnā€™t something I generally support. If anything I would like to see many UUs (especially infantry UUs) become more viable and fill more important roles in their respective civs.

Interesting ideas overall though.

4 Likes

Not a fan.

For this, I would suggest:

  • A global change, Bloodlines becomes Castle Age technology, and Franks gain it.
  • The extra 20% HP changed to free Bloodlines.
  • The effect of Chivalry changed to Knight +10 or even +15 HP.

In addition to no longer fast Stable working, this would also eliminate the powerful Feudal SC that the reason Franks are despised, and maybe allow them to gain Hussar.

You can choose to simply allow them to have Arbalester upgrade and even Ring Armor to symbolize this. But their archers have to be uncompetitive, especially in the late game.

Scouts, already a subpar opening become even more terrible

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If the SC is regarded bad, the reason should be the fast walling instead of having no Bloodlines.

It is hardly to see Bloodlines in Feudal in almost every game using the SC.
Feudal SC, good or bad, basically has nothing to do with Bloodlines on the most occasions.
Moving Bloodlines to Castle age would not be such a huge impact.

2 Likes

I think chivalry should allow their cavalries to slowly heal over time like in aoe4 and move it back to castle age. Or they get free blood line and chivalry adds another 15hp for all cavalries.
Your new UT for XBow is interesting but then I realized it accomplishes nothing because frank already have throwing axe for the same job and they do it better. Though it can be good once frank lost all their castles.

Chivalry:
Stables work 40% faster āž” Fallen Knights return 33% of their gold cost.

Cavalry 20% extra HP now apply starting at the castle age.

Those are the best ways to completely tone down once at all what makes Franks always with 55% and 56% WR on all ELO, and more relevant, it reduces their absurd dominance in TGs at the first 20 mins and their paladin supremacy over others.

Isnā€™t like 54 HP scouts are already too strong at early feudal, sure letā€™s give them free bloodlines for 65 HP scouts ā€¦

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it literally would.

20 chars

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[/quote]
Isnā€™t like 54 HP scouts are already too strong at early feudal, sure letā€™s give them free bloodlines for 65 HP scouts ā€¦
[/quote]

Just make it a castle age tech, itā€™s not like people get blood line in feudal most of the time anyway

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I liked this one. Bring back Burgundians early beta bonus.

I wonā€™t mind that. But removing berry bonus and giving it to Portuguese will be better imo.

I do not like. It might acceptable for 160 HP Paladins, but 192 HP Paladins return 25 gold on death, which is likely unbalanced.

Thatā€™s right. Let Bloodlines move to the Castle Age.
Regarding Chivalry, as I suggested above, it +15 HP for only Knight line in my opinion. Since with no training speed advantage and others, I think the Franks might be worth simply getting full 95 HP Hussars rather than 95 HP LC.

Itā€™s not fair to do this until Bloodlines is Castle Age tech.
If Bloodlines becomes Castle Age tech, Iā€™d prefer it to simply make Bloodlines free as I stated.

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Franks late game is average. I think it will be balanced.

This is the root of the problem for balancing Franks:

  • They have a good early game (until mid Feudal)
  • They have a decent/average mid game (until late Castle)
  • They have a weak imperial in 1v1 and an awesome imperial in team game.

So if you nerf their early game too much, they easily become bottom tier in 1v1 as they are carried by their triple early boni (berries, cav hp, farms upgrades)

But we shouldnt ever buff their late game paladins, to not make them even more disgustingly OP in team games.

The solution I like the most is to give them a mid game power hole, as they will still be carried by early boni in 1v1 and by late paladins in team games.

I like the idea of moving BL to castle age and ā€œside gradingā€ the knights by giving free BL and replacing Chivalry by Knights+15hp. Then Franks get a slightly better light cav, and the nerf of Feudal (no hp) is balanced by other civs not having BL either. And in 1v1 they can get the 15hp tech if it is cheap (as anyways castles are cheap)

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I think the chivalry effect change is a nerf in TG where it is needed. While a trade-off in 1v1, neither a direct buff nor a nerf.

But how? Reducing Cav HP to 10%/20% in Castle/Imperial? So they will have only 110 HP knight in the mid game. This sounds too bad to me btw.

Edit: Also I want berry bonus removal more than anything.

Agreed. But for me it is an overall side grade / trade off.

In another thread, i proposed 10%/20% hp or 10%/15%/20% hp, which is a heavy nerf indeed (mostly due to pikes), but i proposed it along with a heavy cost increase of BL, which makes it more of a knight nerf than a Franks nerf.

And as you ā€œsuggestedā€, I wouldnt mind seeing 110 hp on Franks knights, as terrible as it sounds, as the civ already had a strong early power spike compared to most knight civs, and Franjs are over 55% win rate anyways.

And I also said I like the idea from this thread (instead of mine), of moving BL to castle age and make it free for knights. Even though it is more if a power hole for late Feudal scouts than a power hole for Franks mid game.

Anyways, this is my opinion on the topic. Of course devs dont have to implement it (probably wont). But I didnt get any good reason why nerfing castle age Franks is a bad idea. Because ā€œIt is too bad for meā€ is rather a good thing for me to hear about Franks, it is not like they would fall below 50% win rate 1v1 anyways.

No, I donā€™t. Absolutely against this ā€œsuggestionā€.

For everyone? Or just Franks.

I know you are against it, but you ā€œsuggestedā€ it by talking about it before other people on this thread. If you have a better wird than suggesting, please tell me.

Sorry, I meant make BL free for Franks, not for knights.

Obviously I donā€™t think so. Returning cost can be roughly understood as giving a discount since the second wave. Paladins with better qualities should not be discounted in any case.

What I wanted to state at the time was that no matter how the current Franks are in the late game, itā€™s very easy for them to break the balance when they get this effect.

When the Stables are no longer working faster and the extra HP is changed to free Castle Age Bloodlines, why not just give them simple full Hussar? Especially their Elite Skirmisher is really poor, I think they deserve simple full Halberdier and Hussar.

I saw this multiple times before. So ā€œaskingā€ if you support it.

Probably because back in the day, when they had only this mid game power spike, they were considered one of the worst Arabia civ. But there were only 18-23 civs back then.

I fully agree. But this one is barely a discount. Either way, this is not my most preferred suggestion.

Scouts without eco are bad imo. No matter how strong they are

I dont like it

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