New Balance Discussion

Age of Empires: DE I - Discussion
1

We finally got new balance patch, small but welcomed.

General

UNITS & BUILDINGS

Ballista: Increased attack speed by +15%. (Welcomed buff, without Helepolis upgrade they were rather too mediocre).
Elephant Archer: Reverted previous changes to damage by increasing it from 5 :arrow_forward: 6. ( :clap: :clap: :clap:, absolutely needed denerf)
Elephant Archer: Increased gold cost from 45 :arrow_forward: 60 gold, which restores the original game value. The food cost remains the same (180 food). (Compensation for denerf, and unlike AOE 2 ele archers, the ones of AOE 1 are really strong)
Helepolis: Reduced the upgrade cost from 1500 :arrow_forward: 1200 food. The wood cost remains the same (1000 wood). (Nice buffs to make Heles more viable).
Helepolis: Increased attack from 40 :arrow_forward: 45.
Legion: Reduced health from 160 :arrow_forward: 140.

TECHNOLOGIES

Long Sword: Increased the upgrade cost from 160 food, 50 gold :arrow_forward: 240 food, 100 gold.

This and the Legion nerf are WELL DESERVED, honestly they need more nerfs, they are way too snowbally.

Assyrians

TECHNOLOGIES

Alchemy: Now have access to the technology! (Any buff to the Assyrian late game is wonderful, they are too meh here).

Babylonians

TECHNOLOGIES

The Babylonians now have access to all Chain Mail technologies. This includes:

Chain Mail Archers
Chain Mail Cavalry
Chain Mail Infantry

(Strong buffs to make their military a bit more flexible rather than going for Chariot/Priest 100% of the time).

Shang

TECHNOLOGIES

Ballistics: Now have access to the technology! (They need a military bonus, but Ballistics is welcomed and we will see more Shang archer action).

Overall solid chnages, but I would like to see in the future small nerfs to War and armored eles, reworking the Minoan farm bonus and splitting the Bowman range bonus to +1/+2 in bronze/Iron age. As well buffing again the Persian ele speed bonus.

5 Likes
2

I think the Legion and Longswordsman nerfs were unnecessary, as all it encourages, is people to got Hoplite and Heavy Cavalry even more.

It is not like Minoans have anything else to go for. They do need those stronge Bronze Age Bowmen, because they have a terrible Iron Age.
No Legion, no Chariot, Horse or Elephant Archers, no Chariots, no Heavy Cavalry, no War Elephants.
All they have is the very good Composite Bowmen, an average Centurion, and a decent Siege Workshop.
This leaves them with no raiding units whatsoever, so they really need to score damage in the Bronze Age.

1 Like
3

The nerf to the Legion seemed very correct to me. The legion is very cheap and quick to create, also it costs 1/2 population!
The Longsword upgrade cost was ridiculously cheap for Iron. It’s OK now.

I think the additions to Assyrians and Shang are good. But they should have one more civ bonus, they only have two.
Shang could have a LOS bonus for buildings as they are defensive.
Assy may have an HP bonus for Stable units, since they haven’t Nobility and they are one of the few civs with Cataphracts.

4

Assyrians where known in history for having good siegecraft so I would rather give them 15-25% siege movement speed.

5

The Long Sword is the AoE I equivalent of the Two-Handed Swordsmen, isn’t it?

Just asking, could you name some other civs with Cataphracts?

6

Things to note here:

  • Scythe are a decent choice versus Legions again. They still lose but cost no gold.

  • Legion still beat cataphract resource wise but it’s a decent match up, Yamato Cataprachts now win.

  • Legions still beat Elephant archers.

  • Elephant archers still beat Helepolis.

  • Helepolis beat Centurions resource wise, with the tiniest micro. Except Greek Centurions which are cheap and fast.

  • Ballista beat Horse Archer(but horse archer can micro)

  • Assyrians very much needed Alchemy, finally they have a good Horse Archer. They still lose very bad vs Heavy Horse Archers/Elephant Archers but do quite well against melee units now. Excellent change.

  • Babylonians now get fully upgraded Scythe. Along with the Legion HP nerf I think we’ll see more people transition to scythe faster with them in team games. -20 hp for a unit that already had only 1 shield to begin with hurts.

  • Shang Horse Archers are going to become commonplace now. Helepolis also hit now, but without engineering, they are not so great. Expect to see a lot more HHA.

3 Likes
7

Yes. There are only 6 civs with Cataphract:
Assyrian, Persian, Macedonian, Shang, Choson, Yamato.

8

I agree, the Legion and Longswordsman nerfs were unnecessary.

1 Like
9

i agree with you Joonas, good analysis.

1 Like