Ottoman’s historic weaknesses have all been removed…

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
27

It’s far more than just health. Humbaraci are really the perfect showcase of everything wrong with Ottomans right now. They just straight up outclass Grenadiers by all metrics.

Pros:

  • Health
  • Speed
  • Range
  • Line of Sight
  • Train Time
  • Attack (ranged, hand, and siege)
  • Artillery Multiplier (four times better)

Cons:

  • Cost 10 resources more (weighted slightly more to coin)
  • Area of Effect

Neutral Differences:

  • 30% ranged resist and 20% Siege Resist instead of 50% ranged resist

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This would be fine if it was a one off unique unit and Ottomans were lacking in other areas. But no, they have straight up better versions of everything across the board. I really don’t understand how having essentially zero trade offs is justifiable.

4 Likes
28

You forgot that the RG upgrade reduces their cost slightly and they can get 20% cheaper in age 4. Somehow Ottomans get 20% cheaper Heavy Infantry who can have their train time reduced by the same percentage as standard Euro civs…

2 Likes
29

I agree that urban centers should cost 600 wood again, what should not cost 600 wood are plantations.

3 Likes
30

I think that reducing the life points and leaving each of these armors at 20% would be enough.

31

Humbaraci are only worse than Grens in AoE and another neglectable aspect. Cost is 12.5% higher in terms of vill seconds. Those 12.5% show up a few times
12.5% more HP against melee damage and Habsburg musks
12.5% more damage both ranged and melee
12.5% more speed
And then a whopping 40% increased HP pool vs siege damage, 4,5x the damage vs artillery and 20% more damage vs buildings
All that on top of 2 extra range
Downsides? 20% less HP vs ranged damage, less AoE in ranged and no AoE on melee attacks.
So they are a better slightly more costly Gren that absolutely obliterates artillery, one of the Grenadiers weaknesses and can run up to skirms with more speed and range to negate the 20% less HP.
And on top of those insane base stats and removing a whole counter they also have a ton of upgrades and get incredibly cheap in Age4.
Oh and did I mention, that a Batch of them with either combat card or vet can oneshot a Falconet at 4.5 speed and extra range?
Regarding the different game modes I see this unit as a problem in every single one tbh.
1v1 you can make a few of them to obliterate Falcs or almost monocomp then vs semi lancer civs
In teams they can destroy the whole enemy base and everything in-between with a good anticav teammates.
In treaty the cheap cost makes up for Otto’s bad eco and destroys most units while nuking all buildings in seconds.
As an established Abus hater this feels wrong to say by Humbs feel like the most OP Otto unit right now.

5 Likes
32

One of the big problems of very strong asymmetry is that there are MU where it is almost “free win” or “free lose” as soon as you have a considerable level.

A healthy balance should allow that the civs are not excessively bad or excessively good at some point in the game or in some map or in most MU and that this civ still retains its identity and differences (the most difficult part of the balance).

From my point of view, I think there are some artillery upgrade cards that need to be readjusted, but I think the most important thing is a definitive rework to the abus gun. That unit should be nerfed because of the artillery cards (and a strong nerf to its attack) and, at the same time, not be so mediocre in mid/late game (maybe 1 pop with a very low attack and a little better than a skirmisher because of the cost). In return, it would reverse the last economic nerfs.

That will make the ottoman not so dependent solely on their units, TPs and still have decent units.

Perhaps raise the food cost a little for fourth age Spahis shipments, by having a shadowtech for each age.

1 Like
33

Remove spahi age ups and change card costs to equivalent in gold, so change 5 spahi from 1k food to 800 gold or something. Food costs are nothing to ottoman because of the free villagers but gold will make it so much harder for them to just hit industrial with spahi age up, send 2 bombards and ship all the spahi cards.

Their tc spamming has been nerfed, church strats have been nerfed by adding gold cost like this. The spahi cheese is what leads to so many cheap wins for them when they have 1/3 your eco.

3 Likes
34

I’ve noticed a recurring theme from the devs where they significantly change civs that were intended to play differently than the norm - this is most apparent with India, Ottomans, and Lakota.

Ottomans and India are similar in that they have the same “subclass” of Musketeer (Sepoy/Jan are intended as similar variations of Musketeers with more health and better melee at the sacrifice of ranged damage) and few reliable other 1-pop units that they can effectively spam (Gurkha required a large card investment to buff to the level of their European counterparts and I’m just flat-out going to ignore Rajput and Urumi, as the former are useless past Commerce and the latter are extremely card-reliant to function).

On top of this, their infantry were notoriously slow to train, as both civs lacked the Fencing School card and - most importantly - their economies were organized around this substantial lacking.

Sepoy and Jans both cost a lot of food up-front; Both civs circumvented this by not requiring food for their villagers, instead investing wood for villagers instead (India directly, Ottomans by their Mosque and various upgrades to Villager spawn rate and numbers). Both were punished for this later on by lacking heavy ways to quickly amass food (both civs had a subpar late-game farming rate, though their estate and wood gather rates were higher than normal).

Both civs are losing their inherent weaknesses in favor of acting like normal civs (quick training Muskteers, good late-game economy without their inherent balances in mind), but, more importantly, they’re not gaining any new weaknesses in exchange.

India and Ottomans were designed around these weaknesses, but the new devs aren’t paying any attention to them and trying to make them play like every other civ in the game. It’s most apparent with the Lakota, who have 9 cavalry units they should be using every game, but instead the devs choose to keep buffing their infantry.

Lakota should be using cavalry as a replacement for every possible non-artillery purpose an army can have, and then they should have a siege trooper cavalry unit as well. Their three infantry units should be extremely niche and/or fall off past Fortress age. Trying to maintain them as useful beyond that is just wasting power budget that should be put into making them the unique, horse-centric civ they were originally designed to be.

5 Likes
35

I just wish at least one of the Ottoman Church card upgrades gives a disadvantage like Decreasing movement speed of units(used to be all infantry but now just musk)(Brit), Making Buildings expensive(french), Tweaking a gather rate(Portugal)

Its possibly one of the nerfs I can logically think of,But at least i dont feel salty about the Age 3 1 TC card nerf anymore.

1 Like
36

Great analysis, I agree

37

Excuse my ignorance, what does it mean?

The abus is not too strong in 1vs1, only as a team.

I would propose the following:
10% Ranged Armor at age 2. (recovered with veteran upgrade)
Rate of fire of 3.5.

Another alternative:
Available only from age 3 and up.
To compensate for the absence of skirmishes, the Fanar house is enabled through a card (replaces 9 infinite Fanar allies).

38

MU means match up.

For example ottoman vs dutch

2 Likes
39

Every civ doesnt need every unit. Ottomans have canons to efectively kill heavy infantry and jannisaries for LCavalry. In top of that they have nizams with tricky bonuses

40

It is just the modification of an existing shipment.