Glad to see they’re still touching up the Royal Houses, I think they’re mostly in a good state. Some random thoughts on Oldenburg:
as long as they’re making some of the techs cheaper, can Hunting Expedition receive a discount? I know this was thought to be too strong in the KotM beta, so it was increased from 175f 175w to 300f 300w, but that seems too expensive for a tech that has barely a bigger impact than Placer Mines. Decreasing the price to 250f 250w or 225f 225w would be nice. I also think it would be fun to have it give double the effect to Royal Huntsmen, as extra incentive to pick them up.
Speaking of Royal Huntsmen, it’s weird to me they gather at the same rate as a normal vil. Yeah, their combat stats are slightly better, but they have the same hp and much more limited features (iirc just hunts, berries, and treasures. no buildings, crates, or other res). I also know this was in the Beta but since reverted, but I still think it should be slightly faster. Maybe 1.1x the base rate of a normal vil, equivalent to a Pilgrim.
Also, when you upgrade your Huntsmen to Hunters (can’t gather but get stronger in combat) they still train individually even tho they’re no longer vils. Not Batch Training severely limits their potential to mass which is a big discouragement to use them.
I think these changes would make Oldenburg more enjoyable and rewarding to use.
You’ve been the person to post the 400th post on this topic! 
How are you feeling? Any speech on the menu?
I think this is the standard for native villagers? Because CdBs were quite useful on Cree so they’re afraid of huntsman being to good early? I don’t know.
But they’re definitely not as good as Cree CdB, so I agree with everything you said. The lack of batch is probably a bug.
Someone told us Klamath rifleman has been reworked to behave as a villager too, so I’m curious about how it will turn out this Tuesday.
well, Cree CDB are a copy/paste of the French original, so not sure what’s to change. But you’re right that singlehandedly bumps Cree up from an average or above-average nat to top tier. When they added Berber Nomads, they made them stronger than vils but not in all cases as well as making them very expensive. I think that was partly because they were primarily testing with African civ, and those make them appear cheaper since food is converted to influence at something like a .8 rate. Regardless, I think Nomads could be comfortably discounted to 160f, even 150f, where they’d still be noticeably more expensive than even the CDB but are more comfortable to mix.
Compare that with the Royal Huntsman. They have more attack but less hp, speed, and resistance than a CDB, and arguably worse multipliers. They’re also much more limited in function; not only are they limited to gathering from Hunts, Berries, and Treasures, but they can’t build buildings. I don’t think they can gather crates either. Arguably, this means you’re paying for less, making them even more overpriced. On top of that, they gather at the rate of a normal vil, whereas a CDB gathers 25% faster and a Nomad gathers 33% faster on natural res (but 33% slower on infinite sources). Without a special perk (either a higher gather rate [1.1x like Pilgrims] and/or getting extra from Hunting Expeditions) they’re basically a fancy Settler.
Unlike the other native vils, Huntsmen are also tagged as an Infantry plus other appropriate military tags. This is both good and bad, since they will get stronger from various Infantry upgrades (as well as vil combat ups), however they take relevant bonus damage. They also group with Military in your dragboxes, making it difficult to select vils around Hunstmen, or to get all your hunting vils to move together.
I still think they’re quite handy, but they can be tricky to use as well, and can feel somewhat underwhelming at times.
This is appropriate for the Huntsman, who is a vil. But it’s annoying when they’re “upgraded” to Royal Hunters, who aren’t vils but only military and don’t take up pop space. Massing them is much more difficult, so you can’t use them effectively. I had thought for a while that it’d be something to do with them still being affected by vil combat techs (btw that’s only some, not all. there are some weird exceptions, I suppose to keep them from becoming op, but it’s sad they don’t work across the board); however, when the devs made it so Envoy are affected by vil combat techs that didn’t nullify their ability to batch train. So now I think it’s something specifically in the code of the Hunter that was copy/pasted from the Huntsman and wasn’t removed, some hidden tag telling the game that this unit doesn’t batch train.
Well I don’t have the PUP downloaded so I can’t check, but my guess is rather than turning them into a villager per-se, it will be a military unit that can also gather some resources, like Karelian Jaegers from Finland or Gunslingers and Filibusters that can gather coin with a card.
For the record, I was fine with Klamath and Cherokee being more or less the same unit accentuated by different techs, because you’d never see them on the same map (outside of Unknown), and if I had to rework them this is not the direction I’d have gone. More than anything it’s perplexing.
I have thoughts on the other proposed nat changes, but I think I’d rather go over them when the patch drops to be sure there aren’t any last minute changes.
One solution that could fix the Royal Huntsman could be to swap some units around between royal houses (most are so generic that it doesn’t matter).
Give Vasa the Royal Huntsman and give Oldenburg the Royal Arquebusier. Then make the upgrade that transforms Royal Huntsmen into “Royal Hunters” turn them into Karelian Jaegers instead. Karelian Jagers are a much more versatile unit with a name that also means hunter. It would slightly buff the Finland revolution to have Karelian Jagers classified as a native unit, but I don’t think that revolution is strong enough to become overpowered with a change like this.
This would also take some swapping of techs:
First of all, the League of Armed Neutrality that currently upgrades the Huntsmen is about neutral shipping and has nothing to do with land combat. Changing it to do something like give Fishing Boats extra health and an attack proportional to garrisoned units would make way more sense.
Vasa would also need room for a new tech to upgrade Huntsmen. Golden Liberty is a concept that could also apply to Jagiellon. It is also not a very interesting tech so it could just be scrapped instead of being swapped with Jagiellon. Maybe the Jagiellonian Legacy tech could be renamed Golden Liberty instead. Vasa would also need a new tech for the Karelian Jaeger upgrade.
I can sorta see where you’re coming from, but I think that’s overly complicated and honestly I don’t see the need. I don’t have a problem with Royal Huntsmen or Hunters in concept, just some of the specifics need to be finetuned
I don’t see how this is complicated at all. All the units involved are already in the game and every balance patch has more substantial changes to cards and decks than moving some techs around as I suggested.
Beyond fixing the utility of the unit by allowing batch training, replacing Royal Hunters with Karelian Jagers would massively increase clarity. You’d no longer have two units with an almost identical name and a ‘hunter’ that can’t hunt. The units are even more unclear in most other languages. In German, you have Königlicher Jäger for both Royal Huntsman and Royal Hunter, as well as the Jager mercenary and Karelian Jager. If you could cut down on one of those options it would be much more clear. There’s also the issue of the League of Armed Neutrality tech having absolutely nothing to do with the history it is supposed to represent.
It’s overly complicated when you switch around a bunch of units and techs for a problem that only requires the most basic of fixes
In this case just making the Huntsman more versatile like a Karelian Jager or the new Klamath Rifleman and getting rid of the upgrade to change the unit would be the most simple option.
But there’s a bigger issue with how bland and nonspecific a lot of the royal house units are. A significant portion of them are entirely made up with no historical basis and given to the houses at random. “Royal Hunter” is so vague it could have gone to any royal dynasty ever. The worst example is how the Habsburgs have “dismounted infantry” which would have made infinitely more sense as a Bourbon Chasseur.
New patch is out. I think Klamath Rifleman received a straight out nerf.
Now we have a even weaker RIFLEMAN that can gather SOME resources yet, in a WORSE way than the average villager.
He’s MORE EXPENSIVE than a villager and MORE EXPENSIVE than a skirmisher. He can’t even gather the two most important resources.
Yes definitely, they gather wood at less than half speed of villager, their hp got nearly halved, and damage reduced as well.
In return they gained .25 speed, 15% rr, and no negative multipliers, but it’s still pretty bad as a 16 range skirm that does 10 damage a shot. An xbow does 16 ffs.
I don’t think that’s a fair evaluation. Each batch of Klamath gives you 5/3rds of a villager’s gathering rate that can be produced independently of the town centre and don’t cost population. And when they’re not gathering, they’re strong enough to somewhat fight back. That’s better than the Huntsman in my opinion.
The Klamath Strategy tech could use a boost though since their base attack is so low. Maybe it could give them passive healing too. That would let them contribute to battle but then recover as they go back to gathering.
I’d personally like to see a Dakota or Ojibwe Native that would fit into the Dakota and surrounding maps. The Cheyenne there are out of place and there’s not really another Native post currently in the game that would work.
You can have only two batches of Klamath at max…
With the wood you’d spend on them you’d have enough wood to build 3 houses and get + 30 population for 30 vills. Almost ten times the amount of space worth your Klamath to build actual 30 villagers.
And half the wood used for a new town center.
What I said above + the fact that they CAN’T gather hunts or mine on top of gathering HALF of all the remaining resources, completely undermine their value. Farming & woodcutting are already the slowest resources.
When they are not gathering, they are weak enough to die if you decide to stay put and trade shots instead of running away.
135 HP and 6 hand attack for them?
A single villager has 150HP and get +35% HP for just 75 food.
[quote="M00Z1LLA, post:413, topic:169231] they’re strong enough to somewhat fight back
[/quote]
With 10 ranged damage, 16 range and bonus they will only harm musks, but not enough since they have a train limit of 10 and most likely they won’t even be altogether in the same place when being rushed. Vs goons they actually do pretty well.
Well, ethics and strategy were not outstanding techs. Now they’ve been downgraded even further because of Klamath Rifleman rework.
I don’t think that’s a fair evaluation
For supremacy at least, Klamath are not worth the time and resources in my opinion.
Isn’t that pretty standard for a Skirmisher?
That’s sounds pretty reasonable for a Skirmisher that can gather resources. You’d be using them to supplement your army, not as the the entire force.
I don’t think they’re as wildly out of balance as you initially implied, but I agree they’re probably overpriced. I’d drop them down to 80f 30w (from 100f 30w). And Klamath Strategy needs a buff if their base attack is so low.
Alright, I know it’s a little late but I wanted to give my thoughts on all the recent changes not natives and native techs.
Totenkopf Hussar: starts with Death Strike charged but takes 8 strikes instead of 4. - I think this is a solid change. It makes the first engagement from them much more threatening and hopefully speeds up their promotions. This is especially good for the shipment of 7 Totenkopf Malta has.
Royal Scots Grey: effect changed to "Totenkopf Hussar’s Death strike now takes 4 hits to charge - Given the change above was this tech’s previous effect, this change is sensible.
Austro-Hungarian Empire: cost reduced from 500f 500c to 375f 375c - A good change. This tech was pretty rare to pick up, now it’s a bit more affordable. Remember in the beta when this was priced 1000f 1000c? It definitely isn’t worth that much for 1 Hungarian Grenadier every 5 minutes.
Royal Tax: now grants 35c per building - Despite what the tooltip says, this tech is working as described. And it was already a good tech but now it’s an even better deal. Keep an eye out for this one if you’re a civ that housebooms.
Filiki Etreria: cost reduced from 1000c to 800c - Another rare tech esp in supremacy. I kinda wonder why they set it to 750c if they were reducing it already. There was a clear theme before of the cost increasing for Athos techs (250c > 500c > 1000c) so they could’ve salvaged that into a similar but different progression (250c > 500c > 750c), and tbh I don’t think an extra 50c discount would be a massive breakpoint to make this an op tech in 1v1.
Northern Musketeer: build limit increased from 12 to 16 - No complaints, Northern Musk seemed the most underwhelming of the trainable RH Musk, so it was weird to me how they had the lowest build limit.
Trabant: gains a Charged pistol attack; melee attack increased from 15 to 22, multipliers adjusted accordingly; cost increased to 60f 70c - After Royal Arquebusiers got their promotion, it made sense the Trabant was the next under-powered unit to get tuned up. The pistol attack is nice, but the melee increase is really what does it. Now it’s no longer a weird middle between the pike and halb, but a halb with extra goodies. The +10f cost is just compensation imo.
Royal Saxon Grenadiers: cost reduced from 600c to 500c - Another discount, and a decent enough tech to get one. Now it cleanly pays for itself after 1 shipment rather than a dangling 100c extra.
Sharktooth Bowman: now benefits from target lock feature; attacks faster the closer the target is - It seems like everytime the devs turn to a legacy archer, they take the chance to give them target lock. I suppose if the intent is to make it a universal feature then fair enough. I’m kinda confused why they decided to give them the faster attacking gimmick some African units have. But with these changes plus the ones to Seminole techs, the Sharktooth has gotten much scarier, and I already thought it was underrated.
Guerilla Wars: increases Sharktooth siege range by +6 (for 16 total) and cost increased to 350f 350c - An, interesting change. I’ve suggested alterations to this tech before, but as we’ll see with the next tech, rather than branch out the devs have decided to quadruple down Seminole as being singularly focused on the Sharktooth Bowman. In this case, now the Sharktooth can destroy entire towns even more safely (remember from the start of DE they had +4 range from TAD, including their siege range). The only shame of it is Guerilla War already felt expensive to pick up, but now it’s prohibitive for a rush. This was probably just compensation, but I hope it gets a discount to 300f 300c at some point.
Seminole Invincibles: for 225f 225c Sharktooth gain +10% hp and a slow regeneration of 2.5hp per sec - Well the third tech for Seminole is here, and it was nothing like what I was asking for! Kidding aside, this is yet another buff for the Sharktooth. The hp bump is nice but not significant. The regeneration tho, while not impactful during fights, will make a huge difference between fights. Unlike Hero regeneration, this does continue during combat and while moving so it is always in play.
Maya Pyramids: delivers 1 Maya Castle Travois, which can construct a powerful defensive building - speaking of new third techs, Mayans got one as well. I’ve made my suggestions here as well, namely a tweaked AoE 2 bonus, but once again the devs have a surprise. I don’t mind this one terribly tho, it’s certainly something Mayans didn’t offer before and stands out in a good way.
Klamath: completely reworked. 100f 30w; can gather wood, berries, and treasures; -100hp -6 ranged attack, but +2.5x guardians and -negative multies vs cav and shock inf. - Well the new Klamath is here, and I’m not sure I like it. Tbh, I didn’t have a problem with them being so similar to Cherokee, but if I was the one to rework them this is definitely not the direction I’d have gone. To keep it brief, I think at the moment the Rifleman is an underwhelming military unit and economic unit, and I think it will be seen less often than before, not more.
Klamath Work Ethos: now also affects Klamath Riflemen - This is a sensible change given the Klamath rework, but tbh in that capacity it’s negligible since a) the Klamath are so few in number and b) their base gather rates are already so low (their wood chopping goes from .20 a second to .21). As well, this does nothing to address the previous complaint in this thread and elsewhere that it’s an overpriced tech with an underwhelming effect, a complaint which tbf the devs may have thoughtfully considered and rejected.
Huckleberry Feast: now comes with an additional Tiny Food crate every 3 minutes (effectively from 100f to 150f) - I think I have to apologize about this one, since this is more or less the change I suggested, only I didn’t realize how messy it would be in game. So many crates on the floor you can’t get to your TC. Still, this increases the value of this tech a lot which is good. I still don’t get why they didn’t change the time interval from 3 minutes to 2 tho, that seems the most straightforward fix.
Tupi Poison Arrow Frogs & Carib Kasiri Beer: now Blackwood Archers and Blowgunners respectively gain poison damage - Since this was basically the same change I decided to combine them. I know a lot of people in this thread clamored for this change, and well here you go. Tbh it seems more symbolic than anything as from testing the extra poison damage is rather negligible, maybe only an extra 2 damage per attack. Which is fine, since these were already decently strong units where a major buff would be unwarranted, unlike the Incan Jungle Bowman which was designed from the ground up to have poison be a major damage dealer in its kit.
While some of the changes in the broader patch I’ve taken issue with, for the most part the adjustments to minor natives this time around have been positive. While there was some wild stuff I kinda don’t like, a lot of the small changes are well received and hopefully do well in making these options more attractive to players without totally breaking the subject of the fixes, in either sense.
There is still a lot of work to do with natives:
The Caribs are supposed to have been experts in navigation and fishing. But they have no improvements related to it. To replace them on maps containing such add the Arawak who would fit on many South American maps. We could also add Tainos for more of the Caribbean region, but without replacing the Caribs (Just as diversity). My proposal in this regard is that they shorten a little the arrival of the shipments and the cost of experience, since it is assumed that the shipments arrive through the Atlantic to the coasts of the Caribbean Sea, since the Caribs used to anticipate bad weather times and they knew very well the waters of the Caribbean. (Also there are very few improvements in the game that improve the mechanics of metropolis itself). This is the proposal that I liked to propose the most XD.
For the Mayans I had suggested that they could improve defensive buildings, but now they allow you to unlock a fort. It improves the defensive game which was what I wanted, but I would suggest that the fort is not an upgrade or tech, but a trainable unit like a Berber salt wagon. Please add 3 more improvements, since again they would be left with 2 improvements.
I like that Klamath Rifleman can now gather resources, but it’s been drastically reduced. I think it should be a little stronger, not as strong as it was before, but still respectable.
I also feel that all Native American skirmishes should improve to a range of 18 with each upgrade. Many royal house skirmish units can overcome this, and standard skirmishes have 20 range. Units like the Cree, Navajo and Cherokee Rifleman could potentially have a range of 18.
Apache cavalry should have a build limit of 12. There are carabinieri type units in royal houses that have a higher limit of just 9. I’d settle for a limit of 10.
Give me 5 upgrades for each native. Multiple buffs per TP makes an alliance with the natives more tempting. Many of these improvements make it possible to find more strategic options.
I probably can’t come up with techs, per say, but I do have an idea for a minor civ, the Zunghars/Oirats. They should speak Mongolian, just reuse AOE2’s sound bites. They should have 2 units at least, 1 is the Zunghar Cavalry Archer. It should be a super heavy cavalry archer. Ranged attack has multipliers against melee cavalry, melee does not, melee should just have a blanket damage, like a hussar.
My second unit would be Camel Artillery. Basically a historically accurate Zamburak, moves somewhat quickly, rider dismounts, camel kneels, commence firing. It could be good against infantry, and you should only be able to train 5.
As for techs, I have a few in mind, one would be “Tibetan Buddhism” - adds a 2.0 XP trickle.
“Mongol Tradition” - all cavalry moves 10% faster, all ranged cavalry receives a 10% attack increase.
“Zunghar Khanate” - All villagers move 10% faster and gather natural resources 10% faster.
Those are just initial ideas.
Oh should probably mention, they can be found on Manchuria, Siberia, Mongolia, and Central Asia.
They are more suitable to be introduced into the game as outlaws/mercenaries.
The Tibetan Buddhist monastery is worth an Asian minor civ.
You put the cart before the horse.
There are units that can reach up to rank 26 by promoting, such as the mountain soldier. In addition I can create 15 of these units, and also 10 cavalry. Even up to 3 types of units if we consider the passive ability in this case. Why are natives only limited to 16 reach? I don’t understand. Even with 18 range they would be below most other skirmishes.
That’s why it didn’t seem crazy to me to be able to create 12 Apache horsemen, and that’s why it didn’t seem absurd to me that, for example, the Cherokee rifleman has a rank of 18.
Here I will also share the Tier List, although I had already done it here, I will do it again.
(It was not created by me, it was created by high ELO players)
I think that most Natives should also get a second unit.