My Initial views on Mexican Balance - I_HaRRiiSoN_I

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
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Yes im doing my own post instead of tagging onto others as i want this to be seen. Some of this feedback is a knee jerk reaction but from the limited time ive played as and against the civ I have a few suggestions. The devs want these posts on the forums instead of discord so here it is:

Mexico has too many shipments. This is due to the XP crates on age up (which is fine, part of the civ / US design) only difference to the US is that mexico can spam hasciendas granting 120xp per pop. Possibly the only civ which can send 3 age 1 cards after sending in the 2vils + hascienda.

2vils + hascienda card is very strong due to the xp. options can be leave it as it is or go 1v + 1 has or just 3v instead. A wierd change could be that at the start of the game you have a hascienda wagon which grants 0 xp on completion and change the 2vill + has card to 2vill.

Balancing civs eco around a 600w building is risky but seems to be have donw well. no card relating to hascienda feels too op or broken (yes even 18 vils) is a pass in my book … just but LAND GRAB needs to be removed from the civ. Single best way to sort out mexicos 18v super early card shipment.

Hasciendas themselves can allow 20 vills to work, so that when germany want to put 20 vills to estate, they have to spend 1200w meanwhile mexico just has to spend 600w or just hop onto one of their many pre built hasciendas. I would like to see gathering space on hasciendas down to 15. Still a nice bonus but doesnt take the â– â– â– â–  out of the other civs.

Hasciendas should not have a shipment point. to be able to have a forward shipment in the game for free in age 1 is way too strong with no counter play from opponent, cant siege it down super early game, it has very large LoS to see incoming raids and placing them in random places actually works as vills wont gather on them until most nearby natural res has gone. Russia/china/ger have to build forward shipment and brit/spain/Natives/Africans get theirs on the age up, so there is a slight delay until when these building are actually in play. Defensively this allows mexico to be able to give up their TC if under a heavy push and still be able to send a shipment like 2 falcs in age 3 to hold off timing attacks. Final point, just like toprs having a shipment point having an ECO building receive MILITARY shipments is gimmicky as skirms could get shipped to clean up pike units trying to siege the 5k hp building.

Town Centre Bombard attack card is probably too strong. Although you never really want to send it, having a TC which scale from 30 attack to 300 is pretty good, and if you have all vills trapped in TC then they still contribute to defence unlike any other civ. Having all strong musk units like sepoy, jans get 1 shot from the TC feels like pushing is going to be needlessly hard. Also shipping german team TC combat or Colonial Militia card can boost the attack 450 and 600. Essential this gets to the realm of 1 shot-ing cav and taking on the2 falc shipment themselves.

Chinacos having multiplies vs Skirms/archers Heavy Calvary and Dragoon units feels gimmicky. Also due to the fact that they can attack from distance chinacos never really feel like a bad unit. The multipliers does make evaluating the unit strength feel a little convoluted.

Stealth skirms are already a unique feature of the iroqouis. Im not sure why there was a need to carry this over however Iro/haud have much stronger units at the expense of having a bad economy compared to other civs, not sure Mexico can be said to have a bad eco. Age 3 stealth skirms is probably fine but in age 2 this feature needs to be removed. this forces the other play to make outposts on hunts just in case 5 stealth units turrn up randomly, or they may not and the defending civ has just wasted precious wood. Having abilities that allow units to move a full speed under stealth conditions is broken, no one asked for and thankfully is fully lamed to the max as of yet. I knoe the period is short but for the skirms, this is already added to a skirm combat card making this card one of the greatest cards in the game you could argue.

The Revolution FI as Argentina/CA is a massive issue. Given that mexico has a slow age to age 3 and can utilise a cathedral to speed up an age time only once. The FI strat from the revolt is too fast. I still dont know why return back from a revolt advances you up two ages. (i see age 2 revolt as your still in age 2 but like age 2.5 or something). I doubt this will change. Also when you return to mexico surely you should be able to pick federal cards?? maybe not picking cards is good for balance but the whole revolting mechanics is super confusing to new players. Like it takes someone 6 hours just to read through all the techs/cars/age ups of mexico.

The second point is that both the FI and age 2 rev full aggro start the same way, possibly hard to pivot your strat once you learn which way mexico is going. On the aggro side the 5 soldado + petard shipment is too strong, revolutionaries feel super strong en masse due to speed and anti cav bonuses and have a great synergy vs falcs. Some civs just have no answer to falcs in age 2 and cant age up fast enough to get culvs. Not to mention that CA revolt gets a 2 culv shipment to further eliminating a potential weakness they have. 7 vills instantly on the revolt is so strong that it allows the FI strat to easily doable.

The 9 soldado + 2 fac card is too strong. age 4 shipments should have a resource value of 1600 res. NO argument there, thats the design of the game. only a few cards reach 1800 res like 6 cuirs, 17 ruyter and 9 dops as examples. The 9 soldado + 2 falcs has a res value of 2530 res which is insane!! also that this card provides to units which counter each others weakness. I think there a 2 8 chinaco shipments, 1 sending an extra siege unit with the card ? yeah please remove and respect the 1600 res limit like spains 7 hussars or ottos 8 hussars.

Overall Mexico has an identity crisis, plays like every civ combined, has no weaknesses, no “missing” unit in its unit roster line up, has easy access to lots of XP and can either have a super strong vill boom, fish boom, age 2 standard aggro from forward hascienda and military wagon, age 2 aggro revolt or age 2 rev into FI for fast access to the super strong cards that mexico has in age 4 and the xp crates that the age ups bring.

Mexico is an easy S tier civ, probably stronger in team than 1v1 with this likely rising to S+ once crisp builds are figured out if there are no changes. Mexico is everywhere at the moment on the ladder due to it being new but it may soon become a must to bring it on the ladder to compete. The civ does need tweaking and that the creative ideas to bring something new to the game, is continuing to the pull the game in a direction away from what the most loyal and active player base would like it to be.

there could be another 20+ points i could discuss about balance but I will leave it here for now

Many thanks for reading
I_HaRRiiSoN_I / Harrison

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overall I FULLY AGREE with what Harrison says here

Exactly, the 120 xp is way too strong especially with the card 2vills+haciendas
the civ seems to be designed around this building but this building gives 120 xp where we can build 4 or 5 at the start of the game for send the card that gives 3 vills per haciendas,
it’s bad because
1: it is a building that allows you to put 20 vills on food or gold in base (no need to leave your base to collect resources at the start of the game if you are under pressure)

2: As Harisson said very well, it is a shipment point that cannot be countered at age 1 and therefore we can take the control map for free with the military wagon given by age 2 or by revo etc

3: the building is just too strong, 600w allows to garrison vills, to put 20 vills on them, to be able to collect gold or food of your choice (+ the trickle), allows to train vills with, allows to receive shipment point, gives 120 xp and 5000hp which is just too much
I agree that this building remains as it is but then put a limit to 1 or 2, make sure that the building is important for the civ, the building is really TOO STRONG with this limit of 6 (btw do you see what your base looks like after building 4 or 5 in the first 5 minutes for send the card that gives the vills)

Yeah don’t understand that, for me this is completly gimmicky age 1 card, put them age 3 or 4

the design of the unit seems random, the chinacos should not be a cav that destroys everything, give this unit a lancer design a bit like spain but less strong, we already have 2 excellent infantry unit age 2 no need to have a too strong cav either

very well said no need to say more

yes age 4 card for mexico are way too strong especially with this revo mechanic

yes the civ ultimately has no identity since it can do everything, it’s a real problem, a civ that can do everything has no identity

Just to say that I agree with harrison in all these points, excellent post

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Agree with every point. But tbh, I don’t think I have one point which I have raised or agreed to in the forums that Dev actually did something g about.

So this post might mean none of these will be dealt with by devs

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So

hacienda stuff

  • reduce XP bounty - agreed
  • hacienda shipment point remove - agreed
    (alternatively could scale build limit with age up - 1 for each age and doesnt increase with revolts, and getting 6 by age 5)

Others

  • remove the cav multi from Chinacos - agreed
  • TC bombard - they dont have CM so if it just requires garrison and max out at 100 like normal then I think its fine

On the revolution,

the problem is the advanced revolt card which reduces the cost of both revolts and the return. either remove it or don’t decrease the cost of return. its worth about 1100 resources in the FI build, way too strong for an age 1 card.

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Great post Harrison.

I only have an opinion on a few things yet as the only thing I’ve really tried is the soldado/cannon FI and some experimentation with Haciendas. Based on that I’d say:

  • Haciendas are in a weird place. They’re too effective with land grab and don’t feel good enough without. There is limited public knowledge of strategies but at least I haven’t found a way of making the full 600w investment worth it. Perhaps the card could be changed to a toned down “Team Land Grab” or it could be replaced by an “Advanced Hacienda” with a lesser cost reduction and something else instead? Or the weak Jalapeño peppers card could be buffed by adding in a Hacienda cost change? Regarding shipments I think they should be an eco shipment point, but not military.
  • Cathedrals at 200w/200c feel way overpriced so fast age seems really costly. I find it hard to justify such an expensive building that doesn’t do that much. It’s also bad on no-TP maps where other civs can use the church to speed up XP, but for Mexico that’s hard. As a result in my mind I see Mexico basically as a civ that doesn’t have a fast age.
  • The revolution as an alternative to a fast age looks like really cool design to me. I also don’t understand why you don’t get to pick a federal state when you return to Mexico though.
  • Some age 4 shipments are clearly to strong. The 9 soldado + 2 falcs should be at most 9+1, probably better 8+1 or 5+2. The dragoon + culverin shipment could also get 1 dragoon less. The one with the mortar is fine I think because mortars have more of a utility role.
  • In general, I don’t like the design where many civ have one no-brainer age 1 shipment that’s practically required. Maybe a free hacienda from the start (no XP or already built) and making it 2 vils like you suggested would slow down the shipment curve and also open up more diverse age 1 shipment options.
  • I haven’t tried them, but I agree with you that the stealth on salteadors is unnecessary. They look strong as they are and the civ has enough to differentiate it.
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That is another thing I’m very confused about the new civ designs, especially Mexico.

On one hand they are forcing all those weird gimmicks to new units for the sake of being unique.
On the other hand they are also copy-pasting the uniqueness of older units?

Satiredore as one unit effectively has four “abilities”: one stealth ability from haud skirmishers, one other is simply an improved version of stealth and one other makes totally no sense (getting buffed from natural resources). This is another carolean. The amount of traits stuffed into this one unit can be split into at least two.
It’s not that you really lack time or resource to implement a lot of contents. Why not simply make more units and civs that are less stuffed?
Every dlc nowadays seems to be draining the potential of this game faster. And I have never seen a single broken design reverted or removed. Some are just nerfed to oblivion. Seems devs really like their creative new designs. I do too, but not when they are stuffed into one. Even with the nerf the designs are still there, contributing to the “creativity creep” and setting a higher bar for future civs.

BTW whenever people suggest giving the old civs something similar to the dlc civs there are counter-arguments of “keep them unique traits of the new civs”.
But now that dlc civs are also getting a lot of traits from older civs, I do not see this as a problem.

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Lmao, why all confuse the revo with Argentina? It is central america.

image

Regarding the topic, I agree with everything.

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very much agreed with all this. tbh mexico feels like the 20 page first draft of an essay that your teacher will have you edit down to 10 pages by the final draft

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I will give credit where credit is due, Mexico feels relatable to euro civs / USA and aoe3 in its play style. I tried a 1v1 skirmish game earlier as the ethiopians and oh my god I will not be playing as the african civs ever tbh. Africa feels like a completely different game, kinda awkward to play as you need to make the most of the cattle trading and influence to just compete.

I Believe mexico has been thoroughly thought about in terms of play stlye and balance, a few tweaks here and there and mexico will be a great civ :slight_smile:

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Removing land grab basically just kills the hacienda boom, which at best is just a worse version of the brit manor boom. If they cost 600w each it’d take forever to actually do the boom and considering you want to lower the build xp of them then you wouldn’t even be able to send repeated wood shipments to get them built. It’d be like removing virginia company and lowering the xp of each house so you couldn’t even get 700w shipments sent fast. Why don’t we lower build xp of banks and just remove the 700w card from dutch?

TC bombard is fine because they have no CM at all and their early game units are very expensive. Plus if you want to make the hacienda boom much harder and slower to do then you can’t nerf their only form of early game defense.

Stealth units were never only for haud, there’s no reason they should have the only stealth skirm, the forest prowler is already the best skirm in the game, giving another unit it’s ability is fine. I’ve always wanted stealth skirms but on a civ with an actual eco.

The shipment point can be removed I agree and the revolt to FI is too strong but the reason being because the age 4 shipments themselves are too strong and need reducing in resource value, that I agree on, if they nerf the age 4 shipments and move the cheaper revolutions card to age 2 that would be enough to nerf it.

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Hum i mean a manor does not give 120 xp, it is not a mill or a plantation that can put 20 vills on it, it has no shipment point, does not have 5000 hp, cant garrison vills, really its not even comparable and a manor does not allow turtle play all the game, same for banks

tc bombard age 1 xD, its obvious right, you send that and you can’t be pressured age 2 oh and you have 4 or 5 haciendas so you not need to out of your base, the shot kill everythings aswell and imagine for aztec russia ahah ( 1 shot for musk btw with 1 area )

Hum the card give a competence which you can use the competence meanwhile the cav attacking your skirm, forest prowlers can stealth mode meanwhile getting attacked by cav ? Or in fact every unit who have stealth mod can do that ? don’t think so

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Manors give the same amount of xp per wood cost as a hacienda, 600w worth of manors gives 120xp as well. Plus a free villager that goes straight to gathering, the hacienda boom only becomes effective after you’ve completed it and sent all the wood and the card, you actually need an additional card for the hacienda boom over the brit which would use 3v, VC, 700w, 600w, the hacienda would be something like 2v+hacienda, land grab, 1 hacienda, 700w, the federal card.
The hacienda may have more use late game but for most of the game it’s quite useless, the shipment point can be removed I don’t care about that as I build them in base. Gathering from haciendas is not what you want to do anyway and is far slower than natural res, if your resorting to gathering on them before your opponent you’ve probably lost. Garrisoning vills is neither here nor there if they’re not actually on the haciendas, china can garrison vills in it’s houses and who cares about that.
The same amount of wood cost in brit manors is worth 8000 hp just so you know compared to 5000 of the hacienda.
The haciendas don’t allow turtle play particularly because you’ll be stuck gathering res much slower than your opponent and you will lose if you just sit in base and give up the map.
Banks actually do allow for turtling, dutch are known as a turtle civ, they spam out 5 banks before 8 minutes worth 20 dutch vills(worth more normal vills on coin because dutch vills gather faster), their settlers cost coin and their units are all coin heavy so they can sit in base very easily and with decent herding don’t need to leave for a very long time because they use so much less food than other civs. Ducth banks also give 140xp each for 100 res extra than the hacienda so the haciendas xp is perfectly in line with manors and banks.

As for bombard well that’s their equivalent of CM, they lack CM and their units are hard to mass early game due to the huge cost, unless they rush they need to do the hacienda boom to compete with civs like brit or dutch eco wise and that doesn’t even start paying off until you’ve built all the haciendas and sent the card.

I don’t understand what you’re saying about stealth units, it’s poorly written or badly translated. No unit can stealth mode when in like 20 range of an enemy unit.

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Since they will listen to you I want to expose the main issues most old school players feel the designers need to address.

XPSHIPMENT-MANIA

This is the worst. Shipments used to be something chose with care and a key moment for the match. But since every new DE civ (but Sweden) literally abuses XP.

XP went from being a “special saving” to an ordinary spamming resource. Age of Empires 3 now feel like a Tower defense game, a Yu-Gi-Oh game because it is just spams, wagons for anything and just overlord improvements. The former strategy franchise I fell in love with just dies out.

Not only that but we are going full Daft Punk now: Legacy shipments were harder. But D.E. shipments are better, get stronger and they are now faster. All at the same time. I had issues with Inca and Sweden, but every new civ things got more useful and powerful cards.
If we don’t draw a line here, that will ruin this game. For real. This XP madness can’t go any further than what it is now. :weary:

BUILDINGS GIVING EASY RESOURCES

Thank goodness it slowed down. Livestock market and Hacienda are fair things. Kamcha houses and Torp were a crime. We are very appreciated of you listening to our feedback :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:.
But even so this hacienda needs to be brought down a little: it’s a farm+ plantation+ livestock pen+ town center+ villager at the same time. All under 600wood (should’ve been more) and still comes with 2 settlers in Exploration Age. Busted.

80% OF COMMON UNITS WITH GIMMICKS AND SPECIAL ABILITIES (same for super Politicians).

It’s ok a civ with 25%-30% of that (just look at how successful The Warchiefs expansion was designed). But 99% is just insanity. It’s not a MOBA. Save gimmicks and abilities for Mercs and Natives. :pray:

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mexico skirm can, btw manors don’t have trickle aswell, if you think its balanced, i mean i can nothing for you tbh, the civ get an FI at 7min30 but its balanced, TC bombard but its balanced, and your bo for boom haciendas is bad, really bad cuz you don’t even need haciendas wagon and concerning xp is not like mexico don’t have xp create right, and if you compare xp per wood cost lol xD

And concerning dutch you don’t understand that dutch not have musk, don’t have good anti cav age 2 compared to mexico and yes 5 bank in 8min compared to 15 vills at 6 min with mexico AHAH

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Chinaco are just crazy, especially after taking age 3 cav combat and lancer attack card and the age 4 charge ability. They can counter every unit easily because of the multiplier vs cavalry and infantry. Hacienda xp nerf is bad for treaty because u can’t get enough shipments without the xp. Getting shipment on hacienda is just kinda sick maybe just enable economy shipments or completely remove that feature. Soldado with age 4 grenade launcher card is just insane, yet again another unit that counters everything with the splash damage.

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I do think it’s perfectly balanced, you only mention parts I say that suit your point of view. Yes they have a small trickle which makes up for all the time where you have no extra villagers until you send the federal card, brit for example has a new villager popped and gathering instantly after each individual manor is built, dutch gains +4 settlers per bank, it doesn’t have to wait until all 5 banks are built to get the benefit.
The xp crates is a bonus to that civ same as usa, dutch get settlers that gather coin faster it’s a perfectly fair trade and each civ has it’s individual bonuses.

I understand perfectly that dutch don’t have musk but considering they go straight to fortress and don’t need to leave base it’s a non-issue, they have CM and 8 pikes to send if need be, then once they get to age 3 they have top tier skirms and ruyters. Mexico have no easily spammable musk either, the soldado requires a lot of resources, as does the skirm and you have no spare wood for extra houses which you need if producing soldados.

5 banks are worth 20 dutch villagers gathering constantly unraidable, unlimited sources of coin and I’ve seen 5 banks done at 6.30, as I said before it’s not like you need all banks built before they start gathering from the 1st bank your getting those resources constantly, with haciendas you receive all the vills at once and it takes a long time to pay off. It’s just a worse brit manor boom overall with THE SAME XP per hacienda compared to equivalent cost in manors.

Not sure what the big issue is with the bombard either, it’s not that great if you don’t garrison vills and it’s their only defence to early aggression, just age up and attack with falcs.

Also I clearly said that the FI is OP, not debating that, the age 4 shipments need reducing.

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oh that is probably a bug, Interjection said you cant auto stealth within 20 range. better report that

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I don’t think this is a good point because British manor XP is already too high and is the reason Brits are so OP.

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That’s debatable. If that’s the case then bank xp is too high as well as banks give 140xp each and despite costing 100 res more than a hacienda half of that’s food.

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I don’t think the hacienda boom is too strong, though it’ll probably be nerfed anyway. it makes you more vulnerable than manor boom because you have no pop space, and if you have to pause to make units it hurts you more as all your vils are on the tail end of the build.

What is broken I think it combining it with CA revolt to give another instant 7 for 300/300/300. Think about that for a second, inca gets 4 villagers for 300/300/300, mexico gets 7 for same price? And then you have the 1 vil per shipment card also, it’s too much imo. It’s like the inca big button on steroids, in fact just getting access to 2 culv infinite falc shipments makes it almost worth for me.

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