Battering Ram attack vs. buildings increased from 125 → 150.
Capped Ram attack vs. buildings increased from 150 → 160.
Armored Elephant attack vs. buildings increased from 75 → 90.
(Heavy) Scorpion projectiles now affected by Ballistics.
Fortifications
Palisade Gate base armor increased from 2/2 → 2/4.
Market
Trade Cart and Trade Cog collision size multiplier reduced from 0.5 → 0.25, making bumping while trading less likely.
Market base exchange rates for food prices increased from 100 → 115, so initial food prices are more expensive and selling provides more gold. Wood and Stone exchange rates are unchanged.
Initial standard gold price for buying 100 food increased from 130 gold → 150 gold.
Initial standard gold reward for selling 100 food increased from 70 gold → 81 gold.
Aztecs
Military units create faster civilization bonus increased from 11% → 15%.
Bohemians
Hussite Wagon train time increased from 26 seconds → 30 seconds.
Byzantines
Fire Ships and Dromons attack faster civilization bonus reduced from 25% → 20%.
Chinese
Fixed an issue where the team bonus effect was providing slightly different than intended bonus farm food amounts.
Dravidians
Thirisadai base range increased from 6 → 7.
Georgians
(Elite) Monaspa HP reduced from 75 (90) → 70 (80).
Huns
Hunnic Horse that spawns on Nomadic maps movement speed reduced from 1.2 → 1.05.
Khmer
(Elite) Ballista Elephant projectiles now affected by Ballistics.
The Byzantine nerf is unnecessary.
The Aztec buff was good.
I like the Elephant buffs.
Ballistics for scorpions is interesting.
The Elite Monaspa nerf might be too much.
I think the most significant change is actually to civ selection:
Civilization Selection
The civilization selection dialog sports a new look! The new design includes the ability to mark civilizations as starred. On Console, the dialog now also uses a grid instead of a carousel, making it easier to select any civilization.
Added the Custom civilization selection mode, which chooses randomly from starred civilizations.
People have been asking for customisable random civ for a while, and this seems like the natural way to implement it. I think it would be good if you could save civ pools as well, since some players will want to choose randomly from different pools for different maps types.
Deer being pushed will ignore small obstacles such as resources and continue in the intended direction where possible.
I’m not totally sure what this means, but I find it interesting that they’re doubling down on deer pushing, an unintended mechanic that no one seems to like.
In a way, naval changes are always unnecessary, because water balance is all over the place anyway. I guess they did this because Byzantines are popular with pros on hybrid maps?
Although Khmer were already a strong civ, this is going to slap booster rockets onto them.
And I think the Poles change might be a hair too much. Perhaps they were over-nerfed before, and this just improves them on Arabia. But I would be wary of them now.
2.5 secounds sounds like a lot. I’m really interested to see if this will make them played more often.
Good, I like that they did that while introducing the market changes, otherwise it might have been a blow for xbow players.
I like it though I still would prefer to see all civs get capped ram in Castle Age but maybe players might try to take down castles with battering rams from time to time now, instead of just always rushing up to imp.
Oh boy, I thought heavy scorps did already receive enough buffs by now. Don’t know if this one was necessary, I’m a bit scared that we’ll see a whole lot of massed scorpions (like from Khmer or Celts) that can barely be touched.
I like that gates no longer are the point to attack. But maybe they overshot it a little bit and 3 pierce armor might have been the way to go (200 hits). Imo it used to be too easy to take down palisade gates with archers, now it seems to be too hard, at least in Feudal Age.
I like the trade cart and trade cog change, it was always so annoying to have a lot of trade carts that are bumping into each other constantly.
I’m also looking forward to see how the food price change affects the game. I’ve never been a fan of heavy market abuse, so to me this is a good change.
I like this a lot. I think a lot of people thought about giving them back their carry capacity of +5 or at least make it +4, but giving them back their military creation is even more fitting to their agressive playstyle so this should be a good thing.
Also a good change, they’re still really oppressive for some civs.
Very necessary. Byzantine Feudal Age Fire Galleys used to win vs Castle Age Fire Ships in equal numbers, now they’re absolutely even. Still a very strong bonus for some maps imo.
Fixing issues is always good.
I mean Dravidians were already a great water civ… but I still like it. Thirisadai just didn’t see enough play, I’m interested if that will change a bit.
Another good change. Winning with Georgians always involved Monaspa play. Imo they were the single most broken unit right now. So I like that they nerfed the unit first and not their eco or their other options.
I don’t play a lot of nomad maps but from what I’ve seen this bonus alone took Huns from being unplayable to a top 5 pick, so I guess this change will be welcome.
I like that they keep this in line with other scorpions, but man Khmer will be tough to stop once they get rolling.
I like the upgrade cost reduction, the elite upgrade was never seen, not because it doesn’t boost the stats enough, but much more because it was so expensive.
About the speed change I’m not that hyped. To me Turtle Ships should be super slow. But they will still be the slowest water unit so I guess it’s still fine.
This feels like the most random to me. I guess they were like “Poles have a bad winrate, let’s give them another buff, just not to their eco again.” I don’t mind it partly overlapping with the Burgundian bonus but I don’t think they really needed another buff to their cavalry play.
Those changes are ok. Caravels are now the fastest created naval unit (tied with Longboats). Except in super specific situations a Portuguese player would always go for Galleons over Caravels. I would have loved to see another buff to Caravels, but now they at least are easier to mass if the situation calls for it.
Romans just got robbed in this one. Just take their bonus and give it to everyone without giving them any compensation.
Overall I’m quite happy with this patch. Sure, there are still a lot more changes that could be made, but I’m absolutely fine with this amount of balance changes per update, as long as the vast majority of them are good.
I’m just a bit sad for the Militia-line. I think most of us would have assumed they would get something but instead 2 of their biggest threats, xbows and scorpions, got buffed.
Apart from all the balance changes, the thing I’m looking forward to the most is the custom civilization selection mode. This will be awesome and I’m really happy and thankful that they implemented it into the game!
It had been needed for a very long time. It has never been correct that the fireships in the feudal age are able to beat the fireships in the castle age
Yes, they nerfed that civ too much in the past
The civ is wrong, even the Armenians are not the most balanced.
In some ways a little conservative, in others very interesting.
Was ready to suggest some kind of buff to the Teutons to not die badly against any CA in the game but now they have scorpions with Ballistics? Eh, they are very expensive though
Really? It’s now 20 gold more to buy 100 food, so if you just buy like 300 food to go up to Castle Age faster it’s 60ish gold more. If you’re playing xbow you save almost half of that on the cheaper upgrade again. So I don’t know but I doubt that this has such a huge impact on most games. Sure, those all in strats, where you just buy food for gold, will most likely not be effective anymore, but that’s a good thing I would say.
Aztecs
Aztecs
Bohemians
Byzantines
Chinese
Dravidians
Georgians
Huns
Khmer
Koreans
Persians
Poles
Portuguese
Romans