Opinions on the May Balance Changes

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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So, as the title say, new balance patch, new balance changes.

We were expecting them, still it seems that some are new, and some a bit different. Either way now that they are confirmed we can maybe better talk about them.

  • I liked the CG buff, in my opinion the unit was basically never seen.

  • The SL gold reduction was pretty meh… I don’t think it changes something in reality…

  • Burgundians are really strong now, we will see how it goes, but for now I think that they won’t be OP. The only thing maybe is that their 50% food discount on eco tech may be tuned down to 33%.

  • SO for sicilians is good, but I don’t know if it’s enough, I would have buffed a little bit their monastery too. The new conversation resistance is good, even if I’m not crazy about how it have been implemented. The donjon and serjeants bonus are good on paper, but I don’t think that they’ll resolve the units problems onestly… Let’s just hope :crossed_fingers:

  • Good the buff on OG, maybe the meme is back…

  • I don’t know about the nef on mangudai, but it doesn’t seem like that much to me, so I think we can live with it.

  • I also like the changes for the malay, even if I don’t think there is much to say about it, since for the most it won’t change how the civ is played.

  • Frank nerf is great, not so much for the nerf itself, but because the idea has started from here from the forum of the community. This means that even if sometimes we are frustrated that we have no direct or immediate feedback from the devs, they do read our post and suggestions.

Incas and cumans nerf I don’t understand them though…

  • A nerf for the incas Trush was fine, but it didn’t have to be this drastic, or without any competition. I get it that we need to learn to appreciate their flexible tech tree, but without a consistent eco bonus or a buff for their military, they’ll keep being the weakest of the 3 meso civs… we will see.

  • For the cumans instead I don’t know what to say, they nerfed the only bonus that help them a bit of no being punished for using their only other eco bonus (the 2 TCs in feudal).
    So basically now, it’s even more easier to punish them, and all that came without any compensation. Yeah I get it that the fact that this one is a TB may cause some problems, but there were other solutions in my opinion, like making this one a standard bonus and giving them another small TB.

Anyway, I think that the pup_april beta was more for testing those changes, to see thay they didn’t break the game or had any unintended effects, and not to have feedbacks on the balance changes themselves, so that’s why the balance changes are identical to the one on the beta.

Anyway, what do you think guys? Were all good chances? Some are unnecessary or too drastic? Did they need to compensate some buffs/nerfs with other nerfs/buffs? There were some civs left out?

NOTE: Please stay on topic, if your problems are technical, or about quality of life features, or you don’t like the new civs at all, just talk about it in the proper topics, there are plenty of them. Here the title say balance changes, all the post talks about the recent balance changes and my questions to you are about them or potential future balance changes.

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The balance changes are ment for people who play ranked.

The biggest problem for people who play ranked are still crashes and alt-f4 map dodging.

I don’t care if Franks or Burgundians are the preferred pocket civ on Arabia.
I care if I am in queue with my firends for 60 minutes, experiencing 7 mapdodges in a row and then everybody crashes to desktop when a game is finally found.

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As a long term player, not happy. Despite having 37 civs, each balance change makes one or two civs useless (this one included). The game almost starts to feel to have less variety than it did during WK, at this point just please give us a feature to play on older data sets lol

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Having more generic knight or archer civs means that on random civ games people are less likely to play non standard and go forward or boom. All DE civs have fully upgraded cavalier.

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i have to agree to his.

look at all the crazy bonuses we have these days compared to AoC.

  • cuman 2 feudal tc
  • lithuanian relics
  • teuton armor on cav and infatry
  • a mounted chukunu
  • a unit ingoring armor
  • trash crossows.

it is quite the opposite of what yo usay, and i am very happy they are smoothing those extreme roug hages a bit off to get the game a bit more based again.

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It’s incredible how every topic I have to ask to stay on the topic with the discussion…

And yet of the first post there is one complaining about the alt+f4 trouble, and another one complaining about changes of over an year ago because he doesn’t like the new civs…

Because spamming your own idea on the proper topic isn’t enough right, you don’t feel enough attention, you need to go on topics that don’t talk about it too…

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My first post stated my opinion on the may balance changes, my second post is a reply to someone else.

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I think sicilians will be the worst civ on arabia despite the buffs. They have basically no bonus that applies or pays off minute 20, so they basically fall behind vs almost any civ. They’re probably going to be better on more closed maps, where they can boom into their power spikes in late castle age/imp.

I think the goal is to make them slightly worse vs cav, to help a little bit infantry and cav civs with no bracer (slavs, franks, …) to deal with them. Just a minor thing though.

I think this is basically for TGs. In 1v1, meta against cuman boom is going drush FC into siege pressure and having 33% or 50% won’t change anything against either drush or siege.

My unpopular opinion is that this is an issue of the other 2 mesos being too strong instead of incas being too weak. It’s also an issue of meso civs design constraint lacking cavalry and gunpowder. Once you have a infantry focus meso (Aztecs) and an archer focused meso (Mayans), which should be 3rd meso spot, considering that without scout line mesos can’t really shine in feudal and in post imp, so they must be strong in castle age?

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I wouldn’t say every patch… but this one really takes it onto the already poor cumans…

Still, in general despite that there has been a general improvement of the general balance with each patch so I still have hope.

No, first you said that you think that those changes are for some specific people, than you complained about the alt+f4, then you stated that you don’t care about which civs are preferred. Lastly you complained about the timing.

Where did you talk constructively about the changes of this patch?

So please, I’m asking you to just stop it, there are plenty of topics about your troubles and if they aren’t enough you can make your own.

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Maybe not every, but the game is getting worse to play in terms of gameplay content (not stability and such, as that’s not the topic in question) than it was before DE in my experience.

The only changes I like from these balance changes are the Sicilian/Burgundian ones, because those civs were underwhelming.

The Mangudai change is also fine, I remember a lot of people wanted them to be a bit less of a kill-all unit. So this change might be it.

I think the Franks change is also welcome, having the bearded axe can be nice if you need to invest heavily into TA early on against more infantry oriented civs. (at least I’ve been finding TA very useful for support to knights if a lot of pikes appear)

But slapping out random nerfs again, and dumping more civs onto the heap of obsolescence… I don’t understand why.

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Having Chivalry in imp instead of castle is a huge nerf.
The way to play was place a castle instead of monastry/uni, research Chivalry on the way to imp, then in imp get Cavalier and Paladin way faster.

edit : …So it’s not about having bearded axe in castle age…

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Yeah I had the exactly same thought.

Maybe… but in general meso are strong to compensate the lack of cavalry and gunpowder. For incas what compensate this?

Their palisade bonus helps mainly against feudal pressure, when the cuman player is booming, but even against castle age pressure, since cumans don’t have stone walls.

I get the nerf for TG, but there were other ways. I mean the community is asking for a while for a buff for cumans, even minor, and instead they received a nerf on something that was at least helping them.

It’s not 20 minutes, it’s before than that if you consider the fact that you don’t need to stockpile the wood for the reseeding… but apart from that, even if they are a civ for close maps, there is nothing wrong with it in my opinion.

The civ itself is good, the problem is their UU and UB, both kinda weak in the critical points…

To me is not. I enjoy the constant balance changes, and in tournaments finally you see a lot more civ variety (except on islands…).

Yeah me too, BA in imp made not that much sense in my eyes, especially because it’s a weaker effect than chivalry (not that it’s a rule that the strongest UT needs to be the imp one).

I think in general that the franks will still be overpresent, but at least this way they are a bit more balanced. And at lyou don’t spam knights into mid castle age.

Yeah exactly…

Well, the only real nerf were the ones of cumans and incas, and the latter wasn’t hard hit either…

But I agree that there were better way to do so.

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mm their main civ strength was taken away… “not hit hard”… okay…

Effect is fine enough, but just situational, because TA is a situational unit. Not often needed to make this unit, but when it’s needed it’s really efficient at its role. Chivalry always seemed more of a TG option to me, so I absolutely don’t mind it having in Imp.

They should have done something about the weird civ bonuses (siege workshop vs TC conflicting bonuses) rather than add a nerf.

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Back to the topic.

Burgundians are great civ now. It is a good buff and I don’t think they will be OP, maybe a bit over average.

Sicilians I don’t think it will change so much. Yes, they can defend themselves against tower rush a bit better but does not change so much. UU buff is good but that is more late game, they are still very expensive as Infantry. And they still have their weak slow early economy. SO are very expensive and situational.

Inca nerf is stupid. Less variaty in game and now 0 pick rate for Incas. What a stupid joke, only because 2 people crying for OP Inca Tower rush…

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Well, they still have a strong Trush, about on the level of koreans and spanish, so it’s not like they can’t do the same meta anymore, it’s just weaker…

I mean, the nerf would have been fine if coupled with a buff…

It was strong in 1v1 as well, with cheaper castles and the UT itself that wasn’t that expensive. And 40% faster working stables is an insanely strong effect.

Yeah I fear that they are still weak to Trush strategies…

In prospective, maybe the nerf was made especially for not making sicilians too weak against incas… maybe…

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I will say my opinions about each civ, and tell me you guys what do you think.

Cumans

I totally disagree to their nerf, this civ need a buff not nerf, their win rate lately sucks.

Incas

To be honest, i knew that one day their deadly trush will be nerfed, but i didn’t excpect to be reomved completely, i wad thinking before about just remove the attack upgrade and keep the armor one, but seems the devs see that wouldn’t be enough, so in my opinion, i have some suggestions for Incas now:

-Team bonus changed to—>farm upgrades add food even after the farms were build and add +5 capacity for farmers.

Franks

In my opinion those nerfs will not change anything about Franks and were completely useless, what make Franks strong is not their UTs, but their free farms upgrade and cheap castles, so at least they should nerf their cheap castles from 25% to 20% or even 15% and remove the last free farm upgrade.

Mangudai

They nerfed their speed and again it is useless, what make Mangudai sick unit is their attack vs siege and their rate of fire, so at least they should nerf their bonus attack vs siege to +2/+3(Elite) or vs trebs at least to +1 and they will still sick.

Burgundians

50% food discount on all eco techs seems so powerful in my opinion, you will get all the first 2 farms upgrades before even adding any farm ez, and double axs and bowsaw very ez too, their eco will be too strong but lets see, I was just thinking about 30% but not 50% but lets check how will they be.

Sicilians

Good buffs, I think they will be much better and they were better than Burgundians in general.

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Nobody is talking about Malay, i feel the 40% battle elephant discount favors sling strats a lot.

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It’s already that way?

Mmm, that’s intriguing, they are a lot cheaper now, and malay also don’t have any problems on reaching imp faster…

In my opinion, it’s enaugh to habe the farm upgrades research faster too. It can be even immediately (almost) since anyway you have to pay for them.

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Malay Elephants in Imp are not that great. You lack a ton of upgrades. You have a lot of HP with them still, but they do die fast. Stable units are not things you want to do as Malay. If you need disposable meatshield with malay, Forced Levy.

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Well against feudal pressure you already have the 2nd TC, that’s why you shouldn’t feudal pressure against 2 TC boom

Still, none of sicilian eco bonuses help their castle age time nor any of their military bonuses help damaging the opponent in feudal. Farm bonus only pays off later, and you can’t afford it before placing farms anyway unless you open scout (which isn’t considered the best opening nowadays).