My concern with the spanish

Everything honestly.
Fletching, usually an important upgrade for archers, is useless for Conquistadores, they need archer armor instead, so you can’t even switch easily then like Mongols or other civ that can transition to proper cavalry archer unit (berbers, tatars…).
If you have food eco you just need a couple of stables (which you already have if you went scouts) to simply go knights as soon as you hit castle age at that point, no need for a castle, even less upgrades needed if you went with the scouts route, since they’re both cavalry.
Conquistador is good in castle age, its problem is that’s a castle unit of a civ that don’t really have any shortcut to get there. If Spanish had castle discount like Franks it would have been much better.

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True, it definitely requires more investment to go with the UU. I guess my only point was that there’s no age where Spanish lack a ranged unit, and that Archers into Conqs isn’t a bad transition (shared armor upgrade, and fletching is good for the castle). I do think Scouts into Conqs is slightly easier, and obviously Scouts into Knights or Archers into CA are the most seamless. All of these are easier transitions than Archers into Knights or Scouts into CA.

What?

Clutching at straws to prove Spain is fine.? By this same logic every civ in every match up is exactly equal

You seem to be ignoring the fact that Spain has zero eco bonus so any Res they spend puts them further behind than for example Franks or mesos

Spain is wasting Res /delaying up time on any upgrades for their archers in feudal, nevermind it’s the complete opposite eco to what they need for conqs.

Bulgarians (only other non xbow civ) at least has cheaper fletching(where it matters) and more inclined to go CA

Or benefit from fletching on krepost drops

How would you word this as a civ bonus? Imo it’s too convoluted

Faster builders and bs upgrades cost no gold. Its minor but they are evo bonuses. I think the faster builders could be increased for certain buildings.

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What buildings can be built faster?

Several possibilities:

  • Houses: useful in early game in every map. Abusable for quickwalling
  • Walls. For open maps defense
  • Fortifications: in additiin of defense, for trushing and castle dropping.
  • Eco buildings. Similar to houses
  • Militar buildings: good for both attacking and defending

It depends on where we want to buff the bonus.

Another option is increasing the bonus every time they age up

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Yep this. The faster builders are pretty nice. For example Spanish can build 3 houses at the start before going to sheep, which saves 25s+ of villager time when reaching 13 pop and needing a house. This same logic applies to every building, lumber camps are up quicker so vills start chopping sooner, TC’s build faster so cill production starts sooner (and/or you can send fewer vills to build).

I wouldn’t call them fine, and I’m not opposed to a small buff for Spanish, but they do have an eco bonus and I don’t think crossbows would be a good addition for the civ.

I’m a little confused why you think Fletching is good for Krepost drops, but not Spanish castle drops. You’re going to make a castle for conq production, it’s easier than most civs to place aggressively with the fast build time, and more range and attack are beneficial. Easily worth the 100 food.

The lack of Crossbows is an existential feature of the Spanish flavor. It makes them stand out, whereas many civilizations that even perform poorly with Archer units remain competent in Castle Age.

I came up with this idea too, but then I though it could further incentivize walling early and going fc.

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I was thinking either houses or economy buildings.

I think you can buff everything except wonders, towers, and castles

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Then the choices will be wall/house/gate. But currently Spanish already has 30% faster building rate. The percentage need to be about 50% as an obvious change. Not sure if it is suitable for Spanish.

A few civ going quick walling is fine. But with previous nerf on wall/tower, I guess devs are unwilling to buff building percentage, esp on walls.

Then they may exclude from the buff the Fortifications. Still wonders are out if I remember properly. So the bonus may be 30% for walls, towers, castles (even palisade walls? TC?) but 50% for everything else

Not every civ needs to be balanced solely around arabia. Their win rate on arabia is already totally fine.

They are a top tier TG civ, great on nomad-start maps, decent on most closed maps. Making them any better on arabia 1v1 is really not necessary and would mess up other balances.

Edit: I’ve just re-read the OP, and I like the way Spanish castle age can be built around the conqs. Same way as Viking castle age is all about archers and franks are about knights. Nothing wrong with a civ using a powerful unit more than other options.

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Won’t be a good from balance perspective imo as they can build faster.

It’s a terrible transition as not only they don’t share the most important upgrades of ranged units - attack upgrades of blacksmith but also the resource type - Wood vs Food.

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I thought my words were easier to understand. For in game tech tree, it will definitely be shorter - Blacksmith and military buildings (and Dock - optional) technologies cost no gold. Players have to figure out it doesn’t count unit upgrades. And also Castle, Monastery (and Dock - optional) doesn’t count as military buildings.

Wonder is not completely out. It is built 20% faster instead of 30%, same as having Treadmill Crane.

Moving lumberjacks to make farms is an easy transition. They’re already gathering the
wood required to build the farm.

I find it harder to move from something like gold to food because you may not have the wood required for farms. Moving from food to wood or gold always feels like a waste, leaving empty farms with no workers. You’ll use them eventually, but until then its just unused resources sitting there.

That being said, I do think scouts into conqs is smoother because they share bloodlines and you’ll have the stable for husbandry (no need for an archery range). Conqs and scouts both use food eco, and you’re less likely to run into skirmishers if you’ve only attacked with scouts.

Yeah, I think the same. I suggest adding an economy civ bonus. Converting half of the food you spend on eco upgrades to gold (and its also very historicaly accurated). For example double bit axe costs 100 food so you get 50 gold when rearching it, etc. I reckon this small bonus will add more viable options because its a bonus you get in feudal age and the rest of the bonuses are more for late game (cannon galleons, gold mining castle age bonus, faster firing gunpowder,…). Going knights as spanish will be a very good option bcos you get the blacksmith bonus, you are saving gold and receiving it with economic upgrades. Its a small change but as you mentioned spanish are pretty boring and this will encourage more people to chose betwen diferent strategies.

Converting food to gold doesn’t really do much though. How much gold do most civs actually use pre castle age?

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@MatCauthon3 I think this bonus works a bit like the ethiopian civ bonus, you get resources when you reach next age. Converting food to gold is not the main point, the objective is to give a spanish player more options, going full eco or both eco and army. Normaly with the FC and conq strat you dont have much eco because you want to reach castle age as fast as possible. Imagine if you reasearch eco techs and you get some extra gold to spend it on a militia/men at arms rush. You dont need to go FC anymore, you can boost you eco in feudal age while defending your base and then reach castle age with a decent amount of gold to spend on knights.

The problem with Spanish isn’t options. They have a crappy early game. This doesn’t help it at all.

As for militia into men at arms. All the resources for that are spent BEFORE you research eco techs

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