I seriously hope that is the case. Otherwise I cannot help but to interpret that most of dev team is completely detached from actual reality of how this game plays out.
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they donât play their game, they just wanna finish the 8hr job and yeet back home. They are indeed completely detached.
Yeah, I ran this math too before posting.
93% so far, pretty much what Iâd expect.
So you then confirm horsemen are STRONGER versus the units THEY ARE ACTUALLY SUPPOSED to counter??? But at the same time they got WEAKER to every other units which now makes horsemen more niche? aka Raid/explicitly range counter (this should be ok by around???).
The old horseman at 155hp vs feudal age 24 attack pikes could BEAT a pike 1 on 1 AND that was often the case when a small horseman group would encounter a comparable archer/pike mass; the horseman would NOT have to micro around the spears but instead could trade decent enough then clean up the bows after!!
The current iteration of horseman forces the horseman to more readily be supported by archers to handle spears and micro to flank the spears while archers pick them off.
No they are not stronger. 31 versus 31.25 attacks is in a huge vacuum, that isnât reasonably relevant in gameplay. Focus fire, overkill damage, all of those things simply make basic math not work. (As Eric pointed out in that last dev video when discussing the unique Chinese archer, how basic adjustments werenât altering their performance.)
Basic math.
Horsemen cost 100 Food, 20 Wood. (120 total) - now 125 health / 1 ranged armor compared to 155 / 0 - 9 damage.
Compared to Archers - 30 Food, 50 Wood (80 total). 5 base damage, 70 health
Again ignoring slightly abstract things, some things are clear 9+9 = 18, so 72 is 4 attacks ( > 70 health)
Archers as you say now take 31.25 (32) versus 31.
How is this a nerf? Itâs obvious when you take equal resources, closing gap time, clumpage, overfire / focus fire / overkill, attack speed (average time to kill).
If they did this health decrease and increased pierce armor say by +2 then archers require 42 attacks. Which is actually significant to make a difference. Yet as you clearly state make them weaker versus everything else. Which again very few people would even claim they should be.
I personally think Horsemen should cleanly counter Archers as cleanly as Archers counter Spearmen, and NOW spearmen counter cavalry. Archers have been working, Spearmen now work, however this is a clear step in the opposite direction for Horsemen.
Horsemenâs role is a bit vague right? Regardless it needs to do 1 of itâs ârolesâ correctly
If it isnât a frontline unit at all (which is what this nerf clearly tries to achieve - which actually really upsets any chance of countering Man at arms even as a -1 counter (meaning for many civilizations their âbest betâ)
Man at arms 100 Food, 20 Gold,. 120 Health, 3/3 armor, 10 damage.
So Horsemen require 20 (edit forgot -3 from armor) attacks to kill a Man at arms.
Man at arms now only require 13 down from 16!!! That is an astronomical difference!
Spearmen - (not hardened) 70 - 6+15 (21) require only 6 attacks now down from 8 (if there wasnât a horsemen nerf)
Hardened Spearmen 90 - 8 + 20 (28) requires only 5 down from 6.
Crossbows are a tier 3 unit. which is very significant for the balance wheel (for all current factions) so they obviously arenât an option.
Clearly in real game play mixing of units, horsemen suffer drastically. Archers have safety of range which is also lost in a basic math abstraction.
Long story short.
The first two knee jerk reactions are -
- Horsemen back to 155 Health, Keep 1 Range armor 31 â 39 Archer attacks to kill
- Horsemen still new 125 Health, up to 2 Range armor, 32 â 42 Archer attacks to kill
0 voters
Not to spoil the poll but my personal opinion is option 1.
2 Likes
I think the issue is Horsemen were performing too well against knights. Thatâs fine - debuff horsemen vs other cavalry. Donât freaking nerf their HP.
What they need to do is buff horsemen to be a more effective against blobs of archers and siege and less effective against other cavalry. The update significantly screws up 2 things:
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Horsemen are even worse against early man-at-arms, which was already a problem for the civs that donât get early MAA or early knights.
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Horsemen are even worse countering archer/siege blobs in late game.
What needs to happen is horsemen should get keep their pierce armor buff, have their hp nerf reverted, get a damage and/or armor nerf against other cavalry so they arenât competitive against knights (letâs be honest, armored knights should wreck unarmored horsemen in melee, and I think you could combine a damage and armor nerf such that theyâre worse against heavy cavalry but still have the same fight dynamics against each other), and get a damage and/or armor buff against siege.
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Pretty sure Horsemen doing âokayâ against Knights also isnât an issue.
I personally feel going Spearmen + Horsemen should be a decent counter to Knights. As Horsemen donât really damage Knights well, but can take a few more attacks than Spearmen, plus afford the option to harass.
Option 1 in the Horsemen option poll is basically - same as was versus non archers, but better versus archers.
Or Option 2 -
Worse versus everything else, but better against archers.
Current Patch
Same versus archers (in nearly any application), drastically worse versus everything else.
MAA has armor and u didnât include in the stats in the fight vs horseman.
P.S: Horsemen, in proportion, continue to lose against MAA and knights although they do not do so badly (neither is it intended that MAA and knights clearly counter the horseman as the pikeman does).
Thanks, so 9-3 is 6 so 20 attacks, much appreciated!
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Theyâve been made weaker vs ranged in almost every scenario.
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Iâm also baffled by this change. Itâs so clumsy. So basic. Nobody wanted this.
Hopefully everyone sees this complete damage breakdown because I see a lot of misinformation about how theyâre stronger vs ranged which, demonstrably, is untrue (only slightly better vs normal archers in feudal only).
But I think a major issue at play with the games balance in general is that the feudal triangle is not balanced. Even looking at relics official counters chart, archers counter spears +3, spears counter horsemen +3 and horsemen counter archers +2. I donât think this is inaccurate or illogical, but when horsemens primary target to counter is crossbowmen theyâre going to struggle to find a role, because crossbows only appear in the castle age, and crossbows primarily counter other castle age units (knights and MaA). Essentially archers are overtuned in the feudal age, so why would someone go crossbows (weak to archers) until theyâre already well into castle. Horsemen feel like their role is that of a late castle/imperial unit, but by that point siege is dominant and +1 pierce and -40 hp means horsemen canât even perform an anti-siege role very well.
Maybe horsemen taking 1 more shot in feudal will help curb feudal archers a little (VERY doubtful) but the downsides of this strategy are massive regardless. They really should have just given them the +1 pierce armor. Combined with the spear buff the feudal age may actually have felt balanced.
Why do we need horsemen to fight knights? Why should you need to go spearmen + horsemen vs knights? Why not just spears counter knights end of story? You are throwing away resources using horsemen as meatshields against knights. You would be better off just making more spears.
Horsemen for raiding while spears defend makes sense. Horsemen for attacking archers and mangonels that want to kill your spearmen makes sense. Horsemen for direct engagements with knights makes no sense.
I can see not wanting knights to kill Horsemen too quickly (so the Horsemen can live long enough to damage archers and siege), but I donât think Horsemen should do much damage to knights. They should be at a clear disadvantage.
2 Likes
Because Horsemen have mobility to put pressure elsewhere, exert map control. It isnât 90% horsemen, mostly 30-40%ish.
The game design has been to encourage unit / army diversification. Unit combinations are what should be balanced around. Not 10 of A versus 10 of B, the game is not in a vacuum.
Horsemen should have a clearly defined role. Knights should have a clearly defined role.
Horsemen should be a pretty decent raider, but they are not. Archers should not be a better unit in killing villagers than horsemen. It isnât even close. AoE 2 it was close, each had their benefits.
If Horsemen arenât good against ranged units, soft targets (villagers) and taking TC (all arrow fire) they donât really have a role in the game.
Currently the counter to archers is more archers, or mangonels. Mangonels arenât in the balance triangle! Horsemen are!
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Thatâs why I said keep horsemen armor buff, revert their hp, and give them a buff vs siege. I just donât think they should damage heavy cavalry well. If youâre going horsemen against heavy cavalry (and actually fighting the cavalry, not raiding or focusing on archers/siege) you should get whooped.
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YOU DIDNT MAKE ANNNYY SENSE AT ALL WITH YOUR HORSE VS ARCHER ANALYSIS???
In a matchup of STRICTLY ARCHERS VS HORSEMAN
the current horseman would perform BETTER than the previous horseman facing EXCLUSIVELY ARCHERS! PERIODâŠ
Now if you wanted to say the spearman buff PLUS the horseman hp nerf NOW makes the current horseman WORSE in a bow/spear combo vs archer/horseman THEN youâd have a great point given pike kill horseman 2 strikes sooner (spears are now very very efficient vs horseman). However this only force higher micro since TYPICALLY a ton of spears get SNIPPED while encroaching charging cav.
In general all youâll have to do is CHARGE with cav; then STOP COMMAND short of meeting the pike, meanwhile your archers shoot over top to snipe the pike, then take your horseman and flank and constantly flank until the pikes are low enough to fight with your horseman, THEN finish off the archers.
31->32 is insanely insignificant, and if youâve played any number of games you would know that.
It isnât a 3-4 different it is a 31->32 difference which is a 3.22 % difference. Again, all of the game play randomness is far greather than 3.22%, aka focus fire, etc.
You CANNOT vacuum the data. Army compositions get mixed as well. The game isnât pick only 1 unit and make it!
They arenât damaging Knights well, 6 just as they do to Man at Arms. (same armor). which is terribly inefficient.
Itâs the same role of having something in front of your archers. to absorb attacks. Especially with their counter based system being +damage only. It isnât + defense. If it was +defense, spearmen would be by far the frontline unit of choice. + damage means your spearmen are your âbacklineâ and horsemen (since they have more health, mobility etc) are your front line.
By your logic is taking an additional shot to die is INSIGNIFICANT than all +1 blacksmith ATTACK upgrades are ALSO insignificant⊠because they OFFER even less benefit than this âinsignificant 1 extra strike to die thingâ???
So why bother getting blacksmith attack upgrades until you can get all 3 attacks tiers??? Or even at all??