I think Celts can be buff without nerfing siege.
Ideas for changes:
Armenians:
- Receive Plate Barding Armor
- Receive Siege Ram and Bombard Cannon
- Receive Camel Rider
- Receive Hand Cannoneer
- Lose Halberdier
- Lose extra Galley and Dromon projectile bonus
- New bonus: Siege Engineers available in Castle Age
- Barracks units available one age earlier bonus transferred to Georgians
- Warrior Priest transferred to Georgians
- Cilician Fleet now adds extra projectile to Galleys and Dromons
- Fereters transferred to Georgians, renamed âAznauriâ
- New Imperial Age unique tech for Armenians: Aspets (cavalry +3 attack vs other cavalry)
Georgians:
- Receive old Armenian bonus for infantry available one age earlier
- Receive Camel Rider
- Receive Warrior Priest
- Lose Siege Onager
- Lose Heavy Scorpion
- Lose Hand Cannoneer
- Receive Fereters, now named âAznauriâ
- Lose Plate Barding Armor
- Elite Monaspa receives +1/+1 armor
- Lose Keep
- Svan Towers: Now upgrades Guard Towers to a unique third evolution called, appropriately enough, the Svan Tower, that receives +3 attack and +1000 HP, in addition to the piercing arrow. All other effects removed. The Svan Tower resembles the Scenario Editor object, but slightly shorter and with a player color and destruction animation.
- New civ bonus: Repairing buildings costs -50% resources (moved from team bonus)
- New team bonus: Towers and Outposts provide +5 population space
There. That should make them much more historically accurate as well as interesting.
Its too late. I dislike both civs current designs but you cant just make them be that diferent. Also, a lot of these changes are completely unnecesary or just bad
Well I would not give Bombard Cannons to the new Armenians as they would have decent Cavaliers.
And Iâd not like to give Hand Cannoneers to them as I would encourage the players to use Composite Bowmen.
If so, maybe you should give them the Hussar upgrade. Otherwise they would be quite weak in the trash war.
There are big risks even though itâs expensive. The longer range would be too powerful in the Mangonel duel in the Castle Age.
The Warrior Priest has both Armenian and Georgian elements in its design. Instead, what should become unique to the Georgians is the Mule Cart.
You could keep the Warrior Priest for Armenians but would not need to give it many improvements.
Maybe remove the Plate Mail Armor so they would not have to lose the Halberdier too.
So if I havenât looked into the Keep upgrade yet, will it upgrade Guard Towers to Svan Towers? What if I have already researched the Keep upgrade? Turning Keeps into Svan Towers means I wasted resources on the Keep upgrade?
If you just want to use the appearance of the decorative Svan Tower, you can simply have the Svan Tower directly replace the Keep as a unique upgrade that maybe has just 2 more attack and a bit more HP, and then rename the UT and make it provide only the penetrating ability to pierce multiple units.
These changes make the game more unbalanced. Why elephants are enhanced? They are too strong and elephants should be nerfed. Konnik is also a strong unit which could defeat other unit easily and you enhanced it again? Unbelievable how unbalance in the game after apply the change.
Fair enough.
Wouldnât they already get an extra +3 vs other light cav? Thatâd be pretty decent.
Fair enough. Perhaps it can be free then.
Yeah, but the unit itself is dressed in exclusively Georgian clothing, so giving it to the Armenians doesnât make sense.
I took away the Halberdier because theyâd receive Heavy Camel Riders with extra bonus damage against cavalry, so Halberdier is a bit much. Almost no civs with good camels also get Halberdiers.
I took away Keep for that reason, but incidentally, Guard Towers have the same problem. Your next paragraph is a better solution.
This is a lot less clunky than what I suggested. Perhaps Svan Towers can simply unlock the upgrade for Imperial Age, requiring Guard Tower first, instead of automatically upgrading all towers to Svan Towers.
Since a technology, an upgrade, and a building all having the same name would be terribly redundant, the current Svan Towers technology can be named either Murkvam, the Svan name for just the tower, or Koshki, the Georgian word for tower. Or the building/upgrade can be called Murkvam/Koshki, but I think that would be harder to remember and say.
Alternatively, the current Svan Towers tech could be called Litsvri, for the Svan revenge killing custom, but it feels like too much of a stretch trying to connect its effect to towers.
(I hate that I canât look up Svan towers for research purposes without bringing up AoE2-related stuff. I guess that gives them better exposure, but it makes my search feel disingenuous.)
Konnikâs stat should be compared based on its mounted version plus dismounted version. It has lower attack rate but 12 attack with 145 HP combined with dismounted version. Is it really weak compared to Knight? Sure it has drawback of lacking 1p armor but they shouldnât be like kill-all unit.
They are only civ never played at all in Warlord. They really deserve that nerf?
Also it is fun to have one-two civs focus on winning game in castle age and weak in late game. Not all civ need to be designed to boom and imperial age fight.
Mongols frequently banned because of hunt-heavy map in the map pool, secondly by lancer push, not because of Mangudai. Unlike other good UU from Castle age such as Conqs, Organ gun or Janis which is deadly without any upgrade, Mangudai need Fletching + Bodkin at least to be effective. Also getting into FU or nearly FU mangudai is very unlikely due to mongolsâ lack of eco bonus after hunt. They are only strong in BF team game maybe. We are seeing a lot of Cav archer play with Tatars or Magyars which is much easier to mass and can win FU mangudai but not seeing mangudai in recent 1v1 tournaments. They are also power creept by introducing more strong CA civs.
Warrior Priests wield a war axe and an Armenian Cross when healing.
And a broadsword, a detail taken straight from the Khevsur warriors of Georgia. The Warrior Priest also wears Khevsur garb.
The only reason I can think of for the devs giving the Warrior Priest to the Armenians aside from purely gameplay reasons is that thereâs a false misconception that Khevsurs are descended from Crusaders, and since Cilician Armenia was involved heavily in the Crusades, thereâd be a connection there. Unfortunately for them, that misconception has no basis in reality, as Khevsurs are thoroughly and unquestionably Georgian.
Come to think of it, Khevsurs are basically like the Klingons from Star Trek, given that honor is the most important thing, theyâre a warrior culture, and theyâre constantly eating, drinking, and making merry.
They were complete garbage and in the meh quadrant in NAC5 and ladder when they had -50 food. I think that old regeneration bonus combined with -50 wood in the start should be a very strong nerf for hybrid maps. The earlier game being too good makes the lack of bombard canons, ring archer armor, atonement irrelevant.
Maybe that will change with the nerfed dark age.
Canât, theyâre common for 2 other civs which are mediocre. Unit is fine until timing advantage is too huge.
Why not 20,00,000% faster, will be more fun. And can be used for casual campaign or single player. More realistically such a change will make them more broken on Nomad, Yucatan and a bunch of other maps. 60%, 120% are terribly imbalanced even if theyâre situational, which is quite the opposite of good balance. Youâd have to replace their tech tree with OG Dravidian to balance it out.
Iâve edited the main post for Mongols hunt to stay positive in the long run.
Not sure if you missed it, Iâve suggested the reduction of berry wood trickle, removed monk from discount and the new chemistry change nerfs castle age organ guns making them weaker against cavalry.
I think it should be some kind of kill-all monocomp unit. That is what to expect when you lack crossbow, any free knight bonus and any eco bonus to properly boom.
And this is what to expect from a heavy cavalry unit turning into pike killer upon death. The only counter should be monks, before the unit is massed and maybe gets heresy.
I agree that not every civ should be designed to boom into UU. But as viper said in his most recent tierlist Celts are hard to buff because they arevthat strong in team game. So it feels better to nerf their siege while buffing their other stats.
I agree that it may be nice to buff the mid game push while keeping the late game weak. However, we cannot tell whether it will appeal for pros, who might be more conservative and would not pick an all in civ, which is predictable and fairly easy to defend against if they know it is coming. For the ladder, Celts are fine, they probanly do not need anything.
I think CAs are the recent & temporary meta on open maps, and that Mongols should still try to go Mangudais + Hussars + siege in late game, and still work well against other HCA civs.
Mangudais cannot really be power crept as long as they are the only HCA unit really killing siege, and Mongols have their own speedy siege to help out.
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They are really that strong in Team Game? In Team game closed map. there are more civs excel in strong gunpowder/seige. Celts are strong but it is debatable whether they are one of the best. Turks/Bohemians/Spanish or Teutons have an edge on that.
It is true that pros generally more conservative and prefer standard play but some pros also like off-meta, all-in strategy like Mr.Yo who picked Celts frequently 3-4 years ago and maybe also Vinchester.
CA play arenât temporary meta. Tatars are popular pick on tournament from back in early 2021 after Tatars/CA frame delay time buff. That is already 3 years ago. Also Magyars are also popular pick in open style maps.
I agree that Mongols can still compete with strong CA civs. But mangudai deserve nerf? Nah. UU even worse than generic counterpart arenât good design definitely.
Donât just quote the first half of my words. Clearly my focus was on the âArmenian Crossâ.
The devs had designed the unit with both of Armenian and Georgian elements, which in my view was to introduce it to both of the civs.
Both of the civs have the Fortified Church. It makes senses if the Warrior Priest could be a default unit of the Fortified Church. That mean the regional unit in the reginal building.
Instead, the Mule Cart is unecessary to be regional. It seems to have only Georgian historical reference.
It could just be the unit building of Georgians and the bonuses of the civ would be designed around it reasonably, just like the current Georgians.
Liereyy just said xbows need to be buffed on his stream yesterday. He said it is unreasonable that official patch can nerf xbows but can not nerf cavalrys and knights.
I am really curious what are you make another âreasonsâ to disagree pro playerâs view.
Who used elite skirmishers counter xbows when they have cavalrys or knights? xbows upgrade is 175 food 125 gold but light cavalrys upgrade is only 125 food 50 gold. Light cavalrys and knights players only upgrade attack and armors from Blacksmith, while arhcers players need to cost 200 wood for University and cost 300 wood for Research Ballistics. 500 wood can help cavalrys players make another 8 farms to make more knights. It is really uncanny that xbows upgrade are much expensive than cavalrys upgrade.
One cavalry can counter at least two xbows. One knight can counter three. Why is xbows upgrade so expensive?
Are you a cavalrys and knights lover so that you are afraid that todayâs knights meta is changed?
A large enough Xbow mass can one-shot a knight, which means that large masses of Xbows can kill a small number of knights while taking minimal damage. And charging the Xbows sometimes means diving underneath an enemy castle, allowing monks to gain a few conversions, or allowing a meat shield (possibly spear-line or camels) to gain free hits on the cavalry (while slowing the knights charge by forcing them to either move around or fight through the meat shield). And sometimes the Xbow mass is sitting behind a wall or in a chokepoint or in a position where enemy units can be quick-walled out. So cavalry arenât always a great option for eliminating an Xbow mass (especially if you donât have the cavalry armor upgrades). Skirmishers can fight the Xbows while taking care of any spear units - and since theyâre a trash unit, it isnât as much of a loss if you lose some of them. But the best counter to a large Xbow mass is siege: mangonel-line can eliminate a large number of archers in a single volley, and scorpions can damage multiple Xbows with a single shot.
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Xbow players often add pikes in front so adding skirmishers is not a bad idea. And knights do not always counter xbow. If there are a lot of obstacles in the battlefield or chokepoints, knights will have problems reaching xbow.
There are personal preferences and bias amongst pro players as well. Liereyy loves his archers and want them to do even better. It doesnât mean Daut, Tatoh are going to feel the same. If all of them felt that way, we would ### ##### as few times as we see longswords or infantry uu instead of seeing them as often as we do now.
Its not as simple as youâve put it. Archer civs try to win with early castle age and timing advantage. Obviously if both players hit castle age with 50+ vills and wheelbarrow, it wouldnât make much sense to open xbow-ballistics. But if its meta 20-23 min castle age and the cav player doesnât have a considerable timing lead, xbows could be very effective even without ballistics. In that case if the cav player doesnât get elite skirm theyâd take a lot of damage from the early xbows, the xbow player can add camels or their own knights except a few civs.
And regarding who used elite skirms against crossbows? Quite some examples from Warlords 3- Mbl (vs Sitaux, Chinese vs Portugese Arabia), Hera (vs Liereyy Malians vs Vietnamese Arabia, vs Viper Saracens vs Chinese Haboob).
First of all its not always a heads-on fight. The xbow player can mass numbers while on the way to castle age while knights canât be produced. They can mix camels or their own knights to block, hit from behind walls, fight in chokepoints. Usage differs in many ways.
Second, cost of archer line is quite cheap 25 wood 45 gold. Wood collection is 25+/min before bow saw and 30+/min after in castle age, Gold is about 23/min before first mining, 26+/min after. While food is ~18-19/min before wheelbarrow, ~20.5-21.5/min after, and depends on wood collection. Its also utilized at a much higher rate for vills, techs etc compared to wood or gold in the earlier stages.
Not at all, I just donât want the game to go back to 2020. I wouldnât mind nerfs to knight and light cav + monks gameplay but I feel that its not right to balance a strong cavalry play by making xbow play more powerful. That will once again make CA unpopular, infantry even less usable.
Lets say the mounted version had great p.armor and the dismounted had good melee armor or vice versa, you can see it this way. Right now castle age konniks and dismounted both have 1 p.armor. They move at the same speed as knights but rof is 33% slower than their civâs knights. Leitis have 1 p.armor, Monaspa have low hp but those units have crazy good dps, move faster than knight and have much lower gold cost, value for cost is much higher than knights. While konniks have 1 p.armor and poor base rof, yet cost just 5 gold lesser.
A great way to put it.
Its simply because you canât use siege as a main army in tournaments. And I didnât intend to nerf Celts overall. Want to make them more well rounded. Would love some of your thoughts on how siege power can be reduced while making them generically more usable, if infantry 20% faster isnât sufficient.
Yes, I never said Mongols are banned due to Mangudai. But not being seen in 1v1 tournaments doesnât imply they are a balanced unit. Like Conqs were almost never seen in any of the tournaments before 2023, like redbull events, kotd-3,4, hidden cup 3,4. But still the Spanish Nomad start and conq p.armor got nerfed in 2023.
Because of overpowered hunt bonus they are banned and since theyâre banned their uu isnât seen. What happens when their hunt bonus is reduced? Theyâll no longer be a top ban priority. And when picked they wonât get much of a timing advantage to end the game with lancers. Mangudai will be played. And the increased cost is quite fair for how good they are. Alternative will be to lock the CA fire rate bonus behind a new reasonably expensive castle age UT.
As you might have noticed Iâve proposed a nerf to their hunt. Potentially the timing advantage should drop significantly making lancers less of a threat. And Mangudai arenât an early castle age rush unit like conqs. They scale better over time. Those units become mediocre after the opponent has fully boomed but not Mangudai. The only counter to Elite Mangudai play, is to prevent the Mongol player from getting a Mangudai mass with elite upgrade and taking out their castles before.
Not at all. They are much stronger than any other CA civ. They get the best timing lead amongst CA civs, great complementary units like lancers and a terrific CA bonus by default.
Magyars have been seen since they got the production bonus last year but were only used in Empire wars before that. Tatars are still an Empire wars only civ. Theyâre very weak on 3-vill and 9-vill starts compared to other CA civs. The old GL players used to draft them until last year but now theyâve almost stopped picking it after having a terrible run with Tatars in tournaments.
Wow, how do you know what Daut and TaToH think about this issue? Are you one of the GL staff ? Maybe that is why you strongly disagree with xbows because you protect your teams benefits?
Why not let the top 32 players in the world taking online meeting to express their views on the xbows nerf?
Your contradictory remarks are ridiculous when your first paragraph is inapplicable to Hera vs Liereyy in Arabia. Hera didnât get elite skirm but he didnât get lot of damage from the early xbows.
elite skirms 230 wood 160 gold
xbows 175 food 125 gold
Food is more expensive than wood sir. Food needs times to be transferred from the farm but wood only needs to be got by villagers directly.
Oh, you all know you need a âLARGEâ enough xbows so that you can shot a knight. I just wonder what research does your knight have from Blacksmith and how many xbows are in your example.
If you knight has Forging and Chain Barding Armor, your example is of no use.
As aoe2 has lost nearly 2.5k players on steam past 2 months, and there are still people like you who insisted on refusing xbows buff and talking about nerfing Mayans Mongols Chinese with nonsense.
It will be no surprise for me if aoe2 keep losing its players.