Hello everyone. I’m curious what would everyone think of the following list of balance changes, which I’ve been collecting and fleshing out for quite a while. Feel free to comment, discuss or ask about anything. Not everything needs to be exactly as it is numbered, most of the suggestions are more thoughts or guidelines instead of real final numbers.
General
Move the free Tracking tech to Castle Age
Hand cannoneers +10% accuracy, reload time from 3.4 to 3.0
Standard & Elite Steppe Lancer +1 Attack
Steppe lancer food cost from 70 to 65
Elite steppe lancer cost from 900food550gold to 600 food 550 gold
Reduce frame delay of cavalry archers (or just fix it to feel like it felt in Conquerors)
Bulgarians
Krepost can research unique techs and can upgrade to elite konnik
Town centers cost 33 stone
Burmese
Elite Arambai +1/+1 Armor, +5 HP (reason: arambai is never exceptionally useful in imperial age, the main stage of its’ effectiveness is early-to-late castle age. and the elite arambai upgrade is way too expensive to justify how little benefit it gives at the moment, only providing 5 hp, 1 pierce armor, 2 attack and 10% accuracy for 1100 food and 675 gold)
possibly also nerf the castle age arambai, but this one is controversial, a lot of people think mass arambai is a bit too strong in arena teamgames, but I think it’s a fine strategy, and very all in-ish type, as well as having clear counters (arambai die to properly microed xbows/skirms)
Byzantines
Cataphract cost 5 less gold
Chinese
Fix garrisoned chu ko nu providing too low dmg to castle/tower
Ethiopians
Get 50% discount on Halberdier upgrade
Franks
Chivalry effect reduced from 40% to 33%
Foraging bonus from 25% to 15%
Lose Squires
Huns
Tarkans bonus dmg vs buildings changed to be only partially blocked by Masonry/Architecture (like 40% or 50% unblocked)
Trebuchets +5 or 10% more Accuracy
Incas
Fabric Shields UT should also give +5% move speed.
Changed team bonus: lumber/mining camps, mills, farms built faster (maybe)
Italians
Elite Genoese Crossbowmen upgrade cost down from 900 food 750gold to 700 food 700 gold
Elite Genoese Crossbowmen training time reduced by 1 seconds
Khmer
Nerf them somehow
Possible idea is to remove Bloodlines, maybe a bit too drastic tho, will make their cavalry really meh, except for the elephants, which don’t care much about bloodlines.
Koreans
New civ bonus: Mangonels +1 range starting in castle age
( reason: this one might be controversial too, but in conquerors, koreans had +1 range on mangonels in castle age as a result of the team bonus, making them have above average mangonels in castle age, which was a nice unique bonus for castle age pushes and fighting archers. The minimum range removal doesn’t quite have the same ring to it as +1 range. I realise that the reasoning is that +1 range was too OP to give to the whole team, but now if you give it only to Koreans it could work. This also gives them back their strong +2 range onagers, makes them closer to the power level of Celts. Imo the +1 range is kinda meh compared to celts 25% faster fire and 40% more hp.)
Lithuanians
Leitis cost +10 gold
Elite Leitis upgrade cost from 750food 750gold to 900food 900gold
Mongols
Nomads UT should also work for Castles and Town Centers
Portuguese
Feitoria should also provide 20 pop, in addition to occupying 20 pop - will be a buff cos you won’t need houses for it
Saracens
Buff or replace Madrasah UT (suggestion: Monks 33% faster recharge after conversion)
Zealotry cost 100 less food
Mamelukes cost 5 less gold
Slavs
Trebuchets are also 15% cheaper
Tatars
Buff keshik gold generation from 0.367 gold to 0.5 gold
Teutons
Merge all garrison bonuses to “All buildings have +5 garrison space, town centers +10”
Reduce free armor bonus from +2 to +1
OR remove completely bonus on cavalry, keep +2 on infantry
OR make the ironclad tech give +1 armor to infantry and cavalry, while making the siege armor bonus the new civ bonus which becomes +2 melee armor for siege per age in castle/imperial age
(reason: right now it just feels too strong that Teutonic paladins have free +2 melee armor over all other paladins. This makes them outshine even Slavic boyars, and makes them arguably better than a frankish paladin vs most other melee units)
Turks
Janissary / Elite Janissary +10% accuracy, reload time from 3.4 to 3.0
so since lithuanians are getting nerfed, where are your proposed nerfs for every civ that is currently better then them?
based on what various pros feel, Aztecs, Chinese, Britons, Vikings, Mayans, among others are all better then Lithuanians. yet you’re leaving them alone and nerfing Lithuanians.
hardly fair.
You’re even buffing some of the civs that pros feel are BETTER THEN OR EQUAL TO LITHUANIANS as is.
Well to be honest I am pretty happy with overall game balance, as is shown that my list is mostly composed of minor changes, with some major ones sprinkled in.
For lithuanians I am merely nerfing the fact that they are able to have such a powerhouse unit for such a cheap cost. Their +150 food and bonus attack for relics still remains. We could buff some other part of their civ to compensate, but Leitis shouldn’t be so strong.
Regarding the situation about S tier civs you mentioned, I think thats too much of a complicated topic for me to deal with. We need to know what the devs goals are. Maybe the devs are completely fine with the fact that there are 5-6 civs that will always be on the top on arabia. And that it is simply the flavour of the game. Probably we’ll never be have perfect balance, and always a couple of civs will be clearly a tier above. But what my goal is to at least try to diversify other civs, so that they don’t all feel like a worse version of a better civ. Ofcourse my list is far from perfect and probably some way better ideas can be added here too.
Yes this is a nerf to Lithuanian, probably I agree they need some more compensation in an other department(which I didn’t think of yet, it’s up to the devs to think of a buff for them), but I think it is really bad design to have such a cheap powerhouse unit that can fight into its best counters without any problems. It’s a unit comparable to mamelukes and cataphracts, yet way more accessible than those units.
yeah, and that 150 food is literally the only eco bonus they get, and their economy is fairly lackluster outside of that.
the relic bonus they actually have to work to get while other civs get bonuses for free, see Malians extra pierce armor, Burmese Extra Attack; or once researched can’t be taken away from them like siphali, silk armor, etc.
but you have no problem nerfing a civ below them back into mediocrity while letting S Tier Civs remain S Tier. how convenient.
okay, but this doesn’t mean those civs have to be the ones that are better then everyone else, most those civs have been S Tier for 20 years now, why not let someone else have some spotlight? but oh no, Lithuanians are suddenly a decent civ for 4-5 months and we need to nerf the crap out of that.
except it can’t fight into its best counters without problems. this has been heavily debunked. stop relying on a terrible spirit of the law video with its flawed analysis. 500 gold of Leitis lost compared to 360 gold of camels lost. and that was with equal numbers fight, which shouldn’t happen between a CASTLE UNIT and a STABLE UNIT.
and no, it’s not comparable to the Mameluke, which has range or the Cataphract, which negates damage, has trample damage, and bonus damage as well.
in spirit of the laws 10 on 10 fight of camels vs leitis. the leitis LOST. 4 camels survived.
i ran a test the other day of the cataphract. 10 cataphracts vs 13 camels. 10 cataphracts survived.
That would be too little, they would still takes more time than a cataprhact, and be on the level of WW, OG and konniks, all units with better stats that require less numbers than GC.
In my opinion in castle age, GC should take 4 seconds less to be trained, on pair with LB.
It could be brought up even to 50%, or more, if consider that britons warwolf trebs are 100% accurate.
Why? They have 8 damage, they should contribute well enough.
That would be too much, it would significantly improve their stirrups knights rush.
Completely agree on that.
No, it would mean again that koreans would be able to out-range any castle that lack bracer.
What about giving them squires, or a small bonus like free xbows tech.
Could be even -10/15
Why? The tech is fine.
It’s just enough to reduce the cavalry +2MA to +1MA, infantry and siege can keep their bonus as they are.
I don’t get why you want the Teutons melee armor for cavalry removed, the extra melee armor doesn’t invalidate any of their counters and is should stay as is since they lack Husbandry.
That’s in imp, after the UT and siege engineers. If you are using SO to siege castles, you’re already winning. My main concern with this bonus is that it negates the need of going for the UT
Because it makes them too strong vs all other generic Paladin civs. Huns Spanish Persians Cumans. +2 melee armor on Paladins is huge powercreep in my opinion. I think the devs have been modest in the past about paladin bonuses strictly because how OP it can get. Before Teutons (and before the Lithuanian paladin) the biggest paladin stat bonus was +12 hp, which is balanced and not too broken.
Currently chu ko nu inside towers are counted by their secondary arrow, instead of their main arrow. That means they provide really low bonus for tower compared to others.
Currently it actually is at 50%. The bonus brings the treb accuracy from 15 to 50, so +35 (ingame tech tree inaccurate). My suggestion would increase it to 55 or 60.
This one I feel simply because the cost of the tech was increased too much in a balance patch, without any additional changes. They made the tech hard to get (600 food and 600 gold) while the effect is just an additional blacksmith upgrade. Im fine with the price, but only if we add some more effect into the tech. Like for example this minor +5% speed (which I am suggesting because that was also the old effect of the tech a few years ago, +10% move speed for eagles slingers kamayuks)
Blockquote Yes let’s ignore the 40% faster creation speed of franks, 20% of huns, etc. Stats aren’t everything.
I think the original Goal of Teutons was a strong mixture of Infantry and Paladins and Franks and Huns focus more on Stable units then Teutons so i dont think that should be adressed but rather nerfed/tweaked a bit
the point is, the person I quoted was acting like 12 hp was the only advantage frank paladins have. Considering that franks are a better civ then Lithuanians and cumans and teutons clearly the extra creation speed is a huge factor because franks stank before that ut
I think stat bonuses are a whole different beast than training time or cost bonuses. Sometimes it is simply unfun to play against an enemy who has a unit like yours but better. For example any archer civ vs britons in castle age. It feels really annoying to play vs their extra range units, basically removing your option to play archers vs them, forcing u into other choice. Likewise I think now vs Teutons u probably aren’t able to commit heavy into melee cavalry in imperial, or it will get really tough. Also what is the point of Boyars when Teutonic Paladins are just a better version of that unit now.
quantity is a quality all its own. And thd fact that franks are still the best paladin civ proves it. Trust me I am a huge fan of quality is absurdly good, but franks have proven numbers can prevail