I come here to make an appeal to the devs to nerf the infinite zuavo card, this card in treaty games and long supremacy games is a terror that completely breaks the game, it is almost a cheat in games of 1 hour or more and it is very easy to see players with 50 60 zuavo
s always before sending the card the players complete 199 population before sending it
Indeed, once you reach critical mass of 200 pop per shipment, it doesn’t matter that opponent as 200 pop in cannons, you will win because your army literally is much more cost effective then his entire army for 1500 coin, often times you if you check the “free resources” via shipment army stats you see this USA player have 200k to 400k “free resources” send by shipment, while most civs take 1 hour to even reach 100k, they nerfed South Africa revolt for less and that almost took 2 hour to have the broken units, either increase the cost per shipment sent or cap the number.
This is absolutely ridiculous. They nerfed the Indonesian Elephants into the ground -understandably so - after most other infinite stacking cards like South Africa Wanderlust BUT of course USA has to keep being the exception. To put this into perspective: Indonesia is arguably one of the worst revolts especially for the late game and they got their card nerfed but USA is one of if not THE strongest civ in the game and gets one of the best age ups in the game with New York to get both Mercenaries and Outlaws buffed and yet they keep their insane shipment which doesn’t even block your pop space because you can send it in 10s with a different Federal state. And not only does it add extra pop space as already said by @vitorcxb20 but it also exceeds any known shipment value after sending it enouh times.
With 1500c cost it has a starting net value of 1500 and gets increased by 300 every time it is sent. The highest actual value of a shipment that comes to my mind would be ChimayĂł which(after sending two other cards and not getting upgrades) can get a net value of around 6k res and that would be reached after sending New York Zuoaves 15 times which will happen in most late game scenarios.
my rant is over for now - I wanted to make a thread about this anyway but forgot so thanks for bringing that back to my attention and to all who read this: have a wonderful day^^
In addition to Zouave having a very high damage and health, they also have 17 range and 40% shot resistance
The card would be busted no matter what unit it sends but having Zuoave - a really good all purpose unit that has pretty solid pop efficiency is even stronger.
It’s a fun shipment!
However, it really is too strong. But the idea of a snowballing shipment should be considered for all civs.
I think at least the cost should be greater with every new Zouave added to the shipment.
Have you some ideas for more of this shipments for the other civs?
100% not. This is just to strong vs not having it and would make the lategame too snowbally. They already removed some of those shipments for this reason
I have to disagree here.
I have played many long games. AoE3 is unique among RTS games in that you can set up an economy that’s self-sustaining in the end-game with nearly every civ. About the only ones that really struggle is the Native American civs who don’t generate wood well and who need it (Iroquois). The result is that you can end up with two sides where one just can’t mount enough of a push to outplay the defender’s advantage. The defender can always defend whatever attack comes forward and repair/replenish before the next army hits. The economy self-sustains. These games SUCK! They can drag on for hours.
Ultimately, you want mechanics in place which force the game to declare a winner.
In this case, the snowball mechanics are stalemate breakers. Play 2 hours and you’ll finally just accumulate a big enough pay-off in your snowball card to end a game. That was one of the best parts of S. Africa’s Wanderlust and the Indonesian elephants before they got nerfed. This card apparently does the same thing with a stacking +1 zouave. The accumulation rate on those is so slow, I’m not terribly concerned with it. It’s hardly overpowered, especially since so many things counter heavy infantry.
People complain about these cards only in the most extreme circumstances, such as ultra-long treaty games that are specifically designed to allow the game to proceed to the ultra-late game when you really need those stalemate breakers. Personally, as the US, I’d much rather use Texas for the free units out of 6 forts as my Imperial age-up, but I play standard rules and my goal is to end the game before it becomes a 3 hour marathon. I just don’t see any of these cards are particularly broken. None of them should have been removed. The game needs mechanics like this specifically to serve as stalemate breakers/tie breakers so you can declare a winner.
Yeah what does that have to do with anything? They are not Heavy infantry.
Yeah and that card definately didn’t make playing vs Dutch impossible in treaty
/s
first of all you’ll get an infinite shipment even if you didn’t plan on the game going that late which only one other civ can do without revolutions - and that one is pretty bad. And unlike infinite natives for example it’s not +1600 res per shipping but has just insane value after just shipping it a few times. You mentioned 2hr games, you’d easily have several thousand res being shipped by it together with the bigger and bigger overpop each time.
Edit: You also haven’t heard about this thing called treaty because that would be even more unbalanced
I’ve used it before. It’s absolutely insane. It should definitely be nerfed.
At an absolute minimum, 100c should be added to the cost every time you send the card.
Hostile much? Good Lord, the condescension is dripping here. Yes, I’ve heard of treaty. I specifically mentioned ultra-long games for a reason. That includes treaty, obviously. You know that and still decided to be a jerk in your reply. I wasn’t a jerk to you, was I?
You’re playing a niche game mode that bypasses 90% of the points around which the game is balanced. You play a niche game mode that just focuses only on the ultra-late game with maxed economy. You can’t expect the game to be perfectly balanced across 22 civs and every possible iteration of civ, revolution, whatever in this niche situation. Why? Because part of the game balancing includes having some civs that are strong in the early game (which you’re totally negating with no rush rules of treaty mode). Those civs have to be balanced with a weaker late game.
The point is that these cards aren’t broken in any normal context in the game other than the extremes of the mode you’re talking about. They’re specifically designed to allow a game to end in those circumstances. If I were designing the game, I’d actually give such a card to every revolution in the game just for those rare cases when you need a tie-breaker - something that stacks up over an exceptionally long time with dozens upon dozens of shipments and allows you to break the defender’s advantage and win. That was my whole point. It’s “unbalanced” on purpose. It’s “broken” only in extreme circumstances when it needs to be broken so the game can declare a winner.
Does the USA civ specifically need such a card? If they pass on Texas for Age 5, IMO, they might. Their merc-focused build isn’t terrible, but it’s not stellar either. And giving them a stackable infantry card doubles down on their strength. For civs playing against them, they’ll already be well-positioned to field anti-infantry counters as well as to build spies to counter them. You mentioned 15 shipments of the things to stack up to where you felt they were broken. If you’re getting properly countered, you’d need even more than that to get the job done. These, AFAIK, don’t have AoE damage like the Giant Grenadiers (which is why they did need a nerf). Regardless, that’s a very long time before you see a return on that investment for repeatedly sending that card, exactly when you need a tie breaker mechanic.
unbelievable!!! how can a person defend these broken cards? Either you are crazy or you only play using these same strategies because everyone in the treaty community knows that this card is broken.
Have you ever played treaty? Because it’s not possible that you’ve never played against this specific strategy. Everyone already knows how it’s broken. Another thing is that players who play treaty are basically a third of the rooms.
wasn’t it a thing that the New York state doesn’t actually improve Outlaws?
I think that card is not meant for treaty. It is fine in normal game mode but if you set the game to be boom for a long time and then start playing, it maybe not in the devs consideration when balancing. Because it is a special game mode not standard settings which this game is balanced around
not it is not because it is a 100% death sentence to go late vs USA. Most MUs are obviously unbalanced when it goes into age5 but against USA you’re on an unstoppable timer to end the game and all that without any intention from either side to go late - you just have to get the right federal state and you’re set to win the lategame without problems.
IFTFY … you’re welcome
Well that IS the point of age5- it breaks stalemates. You need to invest like 8k res to age, 3k for imperial upgrades, 2k for each eco tech. it makes you weak yet IF you hold youll be massively like 50% better off than opponent. THAT is the tier breaker by design, the final push that is far riskier than eternally grinding in 4 but should you gain an edge late game, bank res, its the way to end it quickly
or it was before every single revolt got 2/3 the eco for 1/3 the cost grinds my gears at times but not the place for that
infinite scaling cards reward the grinder who uses minimal game inputs, the delayer, and allow winning by simply hanging on. sure, its fun i can see the argument, and i think some scaling is a cool idea. but with limits to preserve the game state. im sorry, roaching for 50 minutes to click 1 card is not fun for anyone but the guy who thinks he is a rts god cause he clicked a card 24x.
In my opinion, they should enable the monopoly victory in the treaty mode, with a 10-minute countdown. Sometimes the games become unnecessarily long.
