My list of proposed balance changes

Whaaaaat?? A balance thread that doesn’t have super wacky suggestions that totally reinvent the game in the image of someone’s hyper-niche vision? Perhaps there is hope for the internet dot com after all.
I agree with the great majority of these, so I’ll only focus on the ones I don’t quite.

Franks are quite strong, but in general I’d preferentially buff weaker civs before nerfing strong civs, except in the case of civs that are obviously strong in too many contexts (Gurjaras, Hindustanis). Delaying the cav HP bonus would give them too much of a weakness in prolonged Feudal/scout play for a cavalry civ. But perhaps the berry bonus could be reduced or removed.

Not sure about this. GC already shred cav and this plus Pavise mean 7/5 armor, which I can’t say is broken, but it seems excessive.

Nerfing everything good about the Mayans simultaneously seems overly punitive and excessive, and gives me flashbacks to the Steppe Lancer nerfs. I agree with the last 2, as well as the global eagle cost change (net nerf until lategame). Further reducing their res bonus to half its original amount is too much, and makes the bonus very bland and hardly impactful beyond the Dark Age food benefit.

I imagine this refers to reducing Eskirm/Pike/Halb upgrades? Decent bonuses for sure, but not sure it fits Spanish identity as a cav/gunpowder civ. I’d prefer a cost reduction and/or small stat buff to Elite Conq, which is one of the few UUs that becomes substantially less useful by the time it’s available.

1 Like

But this is what Franks need right now, they have two eco bonuses + a military bonus that start in feudal age, making Franks hard to deal in early feudal in a scout war, especially in TG.
Compare that to Burgundians, have insane economy since dark age but they have a hole late feudal-early castle age, where you need to use your eco advantage to get there first and deploy cavalier or are punished for that.
Not to mention Chivalry, which is just broken, in BOA I saw how stupid Franks can be in TG.

And again, this is what they need, Mayan have too many things on Arabia that make them broken by a large margin.

That won’t make Spanish any better in open maps, but it will make Spanish incredibly overpowered in Imperial Age for Arena 1v1, they could tech into a Halb + Siege Ram ridiculously quickly without wasting any gold (that was the reason why Ethiopians lost free halb upgrade long tme ago), and then you could also add hussars whose upgrades don’t cost gold, is super broken.

About Hindustani and Gurjaras, I agree they need some nerfs.

Hindustani need a less open tech tree, take away Champion (Ghulam already super counter eagles, and they don’t need champion to to deal with other trash units) and Ring Archer Armor, but get back Parthian Tactics (So their skirmishers are weaker and overall makes them worse in trash wars, where they can eventually gain a weakness, while their cavalry archers stay untouched).

As for Gurjaras, shri riders need to be slower, the mounted units bonus damage removed from armored eles or just reduced to 33%.

Great, so take away the berry bonus instead of making a cavalry civ bad at cavalry until mid-game. Without the HP bonus or bloodline access in Feudal you might as well be making Viking scouts.

Chivalry could be brought down 10-15% and would be fine.

Maybe, but when has nerfing everything at once ever been a good idea? Start with a couple targeted changes, then see where the civ is after that before you go full Steppe Lancer.

Agree with this one. I also think Chakram throwers are a little too good. Chakram + Camel is really hard to counter for a lot of civs, especially civs without strong archers.

Man Burgundians are a cavalry civ that’s bad till Cavalier is researched…

Even if you tone it down by 10% is still too strong, and if is 15% then is just a slightly better Huns team bonus.
Just change the effect.
Franks have already one of the strongest paladins and they don’t need to be produced 40% faster.

The difference is that Steppe Lancer was itself too OP in conjunction with the pre nerf Cumans, which were OP.
I won’t be surprised if Mayans continue to be powerful even after all nerfs at once, Look at Khmer, in the 1st Anniversary patch got 4 things nerfed at once, are Khmer bad nowdays?

Decrease its hitpoints by -5HP, also increase the TT from 15 secs to 18 secs.

Which sounds rough until you realize that’s early Castle for little more than the price of bloodlines…
My point is that cav HP is more important to Franks’ identity and streamlined play. Berries was just an extra buff that was thrown in for kicks and giggles but is not needed, so it should be the first to go.

It’s possible, but I might have to see it to believe that Mayans would even be ~ top 10 on Arabia after that. Khmer elephants were so strong pre-nerf, they were the reason battle ele was nerfed globally (and probably excessively), besides having OP farmers and a counter to everything when they had BBC.

One of the better balance lists I have seen. I agree with most of it.

Spanish - build bonus doesn’t apply until first TC built.

I think it might be better for nomad starts if all civ bonuses did not take effect until the first TC is built.

Malians - Wood discount returns to farms.

Might be a little strong for an already average civ if top tier civs are nerfed.

2 Likes

I like the longbowman change. Brits should be playing more UU every game like the mongols. Historically they didnt go around with mass crossbowmen. It was longbowmen

And there should be a distinct niche for it, want range? get longbows. Want cheaper and feudal age massability without a castle go crossbows. But crossbows shouldnt be providing both. Crossbow range should be less

3 Likes

and this is compensated by having a very strong economy.

The goal was to give them a bonus to help during the early period, but yeah, it wasn’t my favorite of things.

It does fit their identity as the only civ with fully upgraded trash units though.

Thing is, civ is already quite strong in imp with supremacy vills, fully upgraded trash, fully upgraded paladin, etc.

yeah its not the best idea. what if we limited it to elite skirm and pikeman?

first of all, most civs don’t even take bloodlines until on the way to castle as is, so that’s a moot point. second of all, franks already have a better eco and better units at that point then most cav civs. which was the point of the nerf. they either get the better eco or the better units. not both.

and 100 seconds of time and an idle stable. meanwhile everyone else is making 120 hp knights while burgundians are left with 100 hp knights and less numbers to boot.

except neither one of those things was a thing until the forgotten, so which is more important to its identity?

except right now i wouldn’t call malians average right now. again. these are just suggestions, i don’t expect everything to stick. :slight_smile:

This to me doesn’t matter. we literally got a game where meso civs have steel, xbows, arbs, siege, etc. a game where throwing axeman throw a double headed axe. where mamelukes throw scimitars.

historical accuracy was never a highlight to the game. the reason for this is more to see a bit more diversity in the game and to nerf britons xbows.

i’d agree this would be ideal if you could find a way to do it without completely homogenizing britons with existing archer civs.

I don’t see why Chivalry is broken. Huns get weaker version for free as a team bonus while Franks must reach Imperial Age and spend big 400w 600g cost. Even 4v4 Team Games 60 trades, gold runs out and non-Franks Paladin player get forced to stop Paladin production because even 60 trades doesn’t supply 12 stable Paladin production.

I observed SotL video and I saw that 20 gold/min is above average income for 1 trade cart.

  • 60 trade carts = 1200 gold /min which is equal to 16 Paladins gold cost.
  • One Paladin is produced in 30 seconds which means 2 Paladins production/min from 1 stable.
  • 12 stable is equal to 24 Paladin/minute. 12 Stable is very low invesment (1 stable is cheaper than 1 Paladin). Villager building time is negligible.

One user proposed that Franks get bloodlines but hp bonus be “10% hp Cavalry in Castle Age”. In this way, Franks Feudal Age oppression come to an end and get rid of having generic Knight-line until late game as a Cavalry Civ.

Edit: I forgot Consription which gives 33% creation speed to Paladin. 9 Stables with Conscription equals to 12 Stables. In short, Paladin player can create Paladins from 9 Stables as much as he/she wanted.

yes because making franks even stronger in castle age and imp is totally the right answer.

the civ needs real nerfs, especially in team games. not to be made stronger.

Tbh removing the berry bonus would make them useless, moving the hp bonus to castle age would be the solution

how? yeah generic dark age (except extra hp scout), but once you hit feudal you get free farms + 54 hp scouts.

im fine with either. but what they don’t need is an extra round of HP on top of bloodlines.

1 Like

Franks must research bloodlines to gain this +10 hp bonus. Lithuanians and Berbers Knight is better bonuses than +10 hp. I think it is appropriate balance change.

for one, Franks have a better Eco then either of the other two.
for Two, that is not always true.
are Berbers knights and cavaliers better? only by virtue of being cheaper, yes. but they don’t have Paladins.
are Lithuanians knights better? most likely, are their cavalier and paladins better? only if they get 3 or 4 relics. and that’s still debatable. i’d rather have +12 hp over +1/2 attack.

You need to stop looking at individual units though and look at the big picture. the big picture is that Franks are the better civ. They do not need to be made better in castle age and Imp.

Especially since this is a massive buff to their Light Cavalry.

2 Likes

The farm bonus is lackluster compared to the berry bonus. Also Franks got OP when the hp bonus started affecting Scouts.

like i said, i’m fine with either.

1 Like

You are underestimating Berbers and Lithuanians eco bonuses. 10% faster villager enable to be boar and drush-proof as well as it gives 5-6% work effiency to villagers. 15% cheaper Knight is better than +10 hp Knight always. Trick of Franks is Feudal Age and Early Castle Age power spike. After this Franks Knight is totally generic and outclassed by Huns, Cumans, Lithuanians, Burgundians Knight-line. Franks isn’t oppressive in team games anymore, I am seeing Burgundians and Cumans in team games more than Franks.

no, i’m not. lithuanians eco bonus is great to get the ball rolling, but by the time you hit castle (heck more like late feudal) your eco bonus is completely used up. at which point your struggling to get your boom going, get 2 stable knights going, get a monastery down and get monks out. all while literally everyone and their brother knows your plan. Hera said it best, deny relics and lithuanians becomes an easy win.

first of all, simple quick walls enable you to be drush proof, and 5-6% worker efficiency? are you kidding me? they get 3% on farms before WB and it goes down from there.

doesn’t matter, show me one statistic that makes you honestly think Franks need a buff at this time.

Got stats to back that up? because all the stats i see and tournaments show Franks continue to be a force to be reckoned with and Pros still consider them better then both Berbers, Cumans, and Lithuanians.
Sorry, i’ll take the opinion of Viper and Hera over yours any day.

1 Like

https://www.ageofstatistics.com/statistics/winrates?period=p03_v06&filter=rm_solo_open_pro

here you go. 1v1
Franks, 53% winrate and 3.5% playrate.
Lithuanians, 51% winrate, and 3% playrate.
Berbers, 52% winrate and 2.5% playrate.
Cumans, 49.5% winrate, and 2.25% playrate.

https://www.ageofstatistics.com/statistics/winrates?period=p03_v06&filter=rm_team_open

here you go. team games.
Franks 55% winrate and near 10% playrate.
Lithuanians 49% winrate and 2.3% playrate.
Berbers 51% winrate and 2.7% playrate.
Cumans 51.25% winrate and 2% playrate.

If everyone can do this, no one would go drush. Players lose villagers to militia and scout very often. Berbers villager is very good at surviving against these attacks. Faster villager is very strong eco bonus, Berbers villager wall faster, lure boar faster and it also increase wood, gold gathering as well as farms.

I listened this conversation of Hera. Hera’s habit is talking exaggeratedly. 2 relics Lithuanians Knight is so strong, 3 relics is most likely gg and it isn’t easy to stop Lithuanians.

I didn’t propose to buff Franks in all respects. I proposed to nerf Feudal-early Castle Age and buff Mid Castle Age to end of the game. Franks needs this buff for late game. Right now, Cumans, Huns and Teutons Knight-line is better than Franks’. +12 hp Cavalier and +4 hp Paladin wouldn’t be OP, I can assure.