inb4 everyone says “just nerf ovoo”, yes I know. Please don’t derail this thread with those well intended complaints.
There are three big factors which contribute to pastures being stronger than is fair:
Pastures are more cost effective than farms. I haven’t done the maths, but one pasture is the same cost as two farms, and I’m pretty sure one pasture keeps more than two villagers busy for the entirety of the game. I’d guess one pasture is in fact enough for 4-5 villagers, which would make them half price compared to farms.
Pastures provide a very safe food source, as you can rally the sheep right under the TC. You can also use the pastures to provide a partial shield around the TC to limit raiding opportunities. Farms need to be spread out, and provide no shield, leaving a lot of villagers very exposed, thereby requiring the player to secure a much larger space.
Because of the reduced walk time, and because of the weird way gather rate mechanics work, there’s no need for Mongols players to get a number of economic upgrades, thereby saving a lot of resources that farming civilizations will need to purchase.
Overall, pastures are so strong that in the current meta there’s rarely a need to ever go out beyond the first berry or deer patch.
Here are three ideas which could be considered, either alone or in some combination, to nerf the pasture:
Increase the cost (significantly)
Reduce the production speed of sheep (by a lot)
Move the pasture to Feudal or, better yet, Castle age
Sounds like a reasonable nerf of the Mongol. However, if you weaken the early stage of this civilization, it is only reasonable for you to strengthen its later stage. It is unreasonable to weaken it blindly.
Maybe a nerf to it + a bonus that increases as the game progresses for sheep collection, like +25 wood per pasture, but +5% sheep gather speed per age.
Remember the Mongols don’t have walls, and pastures are incredibly expensive. 2x expensive than the English farm. Their food economy is actually the worst as gathering upgrades are a scam xD.
Other civs can wall and build farms at the back and play safer too. Once the Mongols lose the tempo, they are very easy to beat. That is why it is specifically designed to be safer and the uniqueness of the pasture.
Pasture generated sheep are already a unique unit compared to wild sheep so they could do something like tweak the available food. Bred sheep could have a lower gather rate that brings them in line with farms or lower base food value. There are a lot of variables that could be tweaked.
A pasture costs the same as two farms, but can support as many villagers as 4 farms. That’s not even including if the ovoo is right next to it.
Pastures deserve a nerf. They should cost at least 3x as much as a farm, since they can support as much as 4 farms do. Mongols already get amazing wood savings by not having to build houses and not needing siege workshops until imperial
i think they’re supposed to be much better than farms, or they’d be pretty pointless to have as a civ bonus & special ability
the problem is more that you can fit 50 “farmers” in one place. mongols are more sedentary than every other civ. it’s a very bad representation of nomadic play
Mongol economy without trade is the worst compare to all civilisations.
All buildings cost more wood compared to other civilisations and they don’t get gathering bonuses but 15% movement speed from the Yam Network. I think 15% movement speed is more than enough nerf and other economic nerfs would make the Mongols really weak as they don’t get any bonus and unique upgrades are not worth it at all.
We all know “Ovoo” nerf is coming so there is no need for pasture nerf. Current Mongol gameplay already demands far more wood and TC’s cost 2x more wood and sieges demand 100 more wood to build too.
Sorry, since when did mongol buildings cost more wood? did they raise the price of the barracks to be more than 150 wood for the mongols at some point? Must have missed that. Unless you mean the Ger, which is more expensive due to its ability to be moved around after a deposit has been emptied. Sure, upfront the Ger costs more than a lumber camp, but you don’t need to build a new one after a while, just move the ger up. And Mongols can research the same gathering bonus techs that the other civs can. The 15% movespeed from Yam is actually massive, and a very good economic bonus. Don’t forget the Steppe Redoubt. Mongols have plenty of eco bonuses and pastures should not be another one of them. Make pastures have the same cost efficiency as farms.
Steppe Redoubt doubts this statement is true. Their villagers move faster and they have good gather rates on food, free stone and 1.5x gold gathering.
No. This is just not true. Outside of the Gur and TC all their buildings are the same as other civs.
15% movement speed in itself is an economic buff along with not needing wood for houses and Ovoo stone. They can get the same gathering bonuses as other civs and this isn’t taking into account the Steppe Redoubt. Their pastures put their food eco on par with English farms.
Their unique upgrades are completely worth it. They can make siege on the field like Abbasid, they get almost as strong of Calvary as the French, their siege upgrades are really strong and put them close to Rus/China.
Mongol TC’s cost 900 total resources compared to 700, but they don’t need to use stone. Fair trade off. It’s a little more expensive.
What? Their trebuchet is the cheapest of all the civs and they can make it in the field with the proper upgrade. The rest of their siege is the same cost as everyone else.
Most of your points are just repeating and not considering the upcoming nerfs.
Mongol trebuchet is so much weaker compared to all civs, it has low range and damage.
Rams do cost more.
And Mongols due to aggression really struggle to gather wood even with current bonuses.
And pasture raids are incredibly rewarding for the raider as there will be more than 20 vills.
Personally I think Pastures are really good but might not need nerf. I usually take advantage of opponent using pastures. If you can get 10 horsemen you can destroy 3 or more pastures by just rushing in, as they are very weak to torch damage. This can be a huge blow to their eco. Even larger mass would wipe out their entire food production. Mongols can’t build walls so you can take advantage of this.
We need to focus on stone production or just nerfing their infantry. Which I have already suggested to move their Barrack to Feudal Age. They already have access to horsemen in dark age. Mongols were supposed to be cav civ but is extremely strong in both compositions.
About this, I would say “Ovoo and the Yam Network” need to affect only mounted units.
This will stop infantry spam from early game, and the Mongols would need some buffs to its mangudai and cavalry as they don’t have good upgrades for it.
That is a waste of resources. You won’t see such moves from pro players as they are busy tower rushing with 100% projectile accuracy that gives them 100% control from the start of the game. This is why raiding pastures is so effective.
Don’t start bring up professional play when you don’t even know the base cost of the units and buildings. And try to keep on topic, there’s another topic dedicated to arrow accuracy.
I’ve seen plenty of games where high ranked players used Mongols and didn’t tower rush and relied on their economic bonuses to get them to a fast castle. You can usually identify if a player is going for FC instead of tower rush if you scout an early pasture by their Ovoo.
Those pros have a moral code, but the Mongol tower rush is so good that they wouldn’t want to build a tower next to TC when there is Deer Stone. So the Mongols would want to build towers to slow down their enemy economy by building them near gold and trees. Moreover, it can shoot with 100% accuracy.
Don’t be sensitive xD
This is a fact, towers with 100% accuracy are OP and are the main reason it is so cheesy. And not just pros do it, and I didn’t say anything wrong. You just trying to find opportunities from my comments but so far I have defended it well.
So tower rush slows the enemy economy significantly and forces them to delay castle age and make more feudal units. During that moment, the Mongols would be aging up and bring MAA with mangonels and springs and gg. No need to build a tower next to TC xD.
That is very risky and delays Mongol aggression significantly and the enemy will catch up economically due to insignificant Mongol aggression.
The Mongols need to keep their aggression tempo. If they lose tempo they have little chance to come back as there is not enough defensive infrastructure.
I’m sure everyone adheres to a strict moral code when competing in an 100k tournament.
Please, take a look at this spreadsheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1LG0We2pTFZsbFm_k1SKLix8gxSq_9n5R_Ic3G2tVzBg so you can educate yourself in all the areas where you were wrong. You’re making assumptions based off of bad information. Hopefully after you understand the costs and mechanics of the game we can have a more production conversation that doesn’t devolve into complaining about arrow accuracy.