Public Update Preview - January Update

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
180

I think Transport Ship is both more realistic, more illustrative of their role in game, and just a nicer name.

It’s very obvious that all ships can transport, and if a very new player (who probably isn’t even looking at tags) gets confused and trains a Galleon instead of a Caravel for transporting the only downside is that they spent a few extra resources.

On the flip side, if you’re trying to make a landing on a shore with building defenses, it’s not very obvious that Galleons are your best option for getting through alive. If you picked a Frigate to transport because they have better stats and you think all ships are equal at transporting, you might have an entire army at the bottom of the ocean.

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181

Maybe a Naval Rework is in the works!

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183

Nah this is just an ad hoc fix to deal with the siege unit changes. If anything it’s going to make a naval rework harder if they have a bunch of incoherent tags.

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184

you are the smartest individual, this is gonna to fix all wall problems
well done you just destroyed the game!

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I like the spirit of the changes, but it’s a very ham fisted approach that doesn’t achieve what they think it does.

They needed to start with what tags would be necessary to break up a tag as broad as siege units. Then assign new tags in accordance with how counters should interact. Just randomly fiddling with counters and not checking what it affects gets insane results like Hand Mortars doing x84 vs Monitors.

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187

In my opinion the Chilean estates were overnerfed. The only way to get a critical mass of them was on huge maps where you were not under much pressure. Moreover, the devs nerfed too many parts of it at once. I would revert the income nerf and make them generate 0.8 again. I would also increase their build limit to 20 or 30, but that’s more of an optional thing.

I would also heavily suggest reverting the nerf for indonesia. Those elephants aren’t that threatening. All I would suggest doing is putting a cap of like 30 or so for the amount the player can have on the map at any one time. This cap would be seperate from native build limits to prevent the indonesia player from being unable to send cards.

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188

I replayed Chuvash Cape and I didnt see any tartar archer (the “new” native unit, right?)

Besides that, the spacing between max selection of units it’s better now than before on stagger mode, but isnt enough. This can be fixed?

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if u get spies I have seen it able to just snipe stuff across the map

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La expedición de Cristóbal de Gama (1542) se solucionó el problema con los cañones de órgano que no aparecían en la baraja y que antes costaban alimento pero ahora tienen otro problema, los cañones de órgano no llegan. Consume la experiencia del envío y no entrega los cañones.

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192

So, ally with Spain and Huad, Inquisition and Team Scout Infantry gets them +18 los.

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194

So I am noticing a few things,

They can do their firing animation through the fog of war with this but it doesnt seem to damage the unit in some cases

But they can absolutely snipe stuff that is beyond their view range, even through fog of war

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I think that the target needs to be moving in a certain way or stationary to be hit but it does hit

edit: I think it might have to do with the animation being canceled mid way since the projectile takes so long to travel across the map

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196

This time hopefullyXD
I assume based off infernos wording that we’ll get a pupdate tho.

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I know it wont be fixed, but for the love of god why is it that hausa can make 5 TCs in age2? I know team balance is often backseat, and in 1v1s its “not frequent enough” but its pure cancer in teams. its bad enough they get wagons for cheaper TCs/Forts than euros but at least its somewhat limited or doesnt exceed normal limits usually. But to just give them the ability in age2 to 2x boom ports is imho the definition of a bad design. Remeber when we all agreed inca getting a cheap 2nd TC in age2 was too much? But not the civ with cow eco, influence and the ability to spam better steppes/goon/good archer fast enough to lock a map.

I just dont know why stuff like this is even in a game, there is 0 reason hausa “needs” this so its just another abusing strat that wont be touched until a few people showcase it and then everyone will act shocked like “wow 4 discounted TCs in age2 was a bit much who saw it comming?”

sorry for the acridity, And i like the general direction of this patch, but there is still so much stuff like this in the game that just ruins the experience for the other guy. imagine holding a rush thinking its greed, only to realize your 5 banks are scaling less than the dude throwing units away. If its a treaty tech, lock it to age4.

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200

Hey Devs, any chance of a British Outlaw gang to hire?

The Dutch get Buckriders, however Highwaymen gangs on the UK were very much infamous in British Isles, with Richard Turpin (I’ll avoid his much used shortened name…), the Dandy Highwayman (now a big trope) James Whitney and the duo Plunkett and MacLaine.

I’d love to be able to hire the Gregory Gang . In game, obviously the Highwayman unit is the model :grin:

Highwaymen were romanticised a lot in the British Isles, long after their heyday - even being sung about in 80s song (‘Stand and deliver!’), so a nod to them would be awesome!

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203

We can just make the uni tech cost 1k influence which should fix that problem though where do you get 5 from cause iirc the tech adds 3 to the build limit.

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204

Thanks inferno, here is my general feedback:

  • Asian civs are still being excluded from the mercenary DE update, even though both Europeans and Asian civs had a similar reliance on mercenaries in the original game. Hope we can fix that after 3 years.
  • Disciples are still by far the slowest shock infantry unit in the game and the only one at that cannot snare (all after Age II to keep Age I balance).
  • There is still no means for Asian civs to reliably use their consulate armies in semi-long and long games (if they wanted to invest particularly in it); making Malta weirdly way better at spamming consulate unit types.
  • Infantry outlaws still cannot snare and Manchus are still 3 pop even when they were balanced before.
  • Flamethrowers got unnecessarily nerfed even when they suck. Culvs counter them now and you removed the attack card and the HP artillery card buffing them by 20% instead of 15%, like it was in TAD (and it never was a problem).
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205

Tbh ive seen 6 before.but that maybe is age3 which would track.

Im just sick of the uber scaling. 20+ vill shipments of mexico, 40+ unit pops, insane eco cards. Like some stuff is just BM. Theres fun gimmicks like exploding battleships or stealthy buildings or moving buildings. This is just lame mechanic that isnt needed most the time but then makes an already strong af age2 op others. There is no sensible reason to give it 4 tc in age2 where balance is around 1tc growth vs invest to age3. Get it out of there and no longer is it an issue

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207

Well I think, at its core, the issue is often stacked layers of layers of gimmicks. And too much weight of options drags the whole thing down. Balance in aoe3 is tenuous, we all know that and i certainly dont envy the job of those to balance such a complex game. I’m not saying as a forum poster im 300iq and have every answer.

But the trend of just adding in more on top of tenuous balance creates bigger compounded problems. Hausa is already so unique, from 4th res to full roster of unique units. Its already hard enough to wrap your head around playing with or vs this civ, yet there remains so much wtf cards. Tsetse sabotage, berbers on infinite coin mines, now extra TCs, etc etc etc. Why?? What does this add?

Fun fact, for the Americans here, did you know Costco on purpose limits options of food brands per an item? its due to industrial psychological studies consistently showing that giving a person too much options not only limits their chances of making a decisive choice, but they will simply choose to walk away when they do. I’ve seen so many new players literally laugh and stop playing when trying to wrap their heads around playing into US/MEX/AR civs cause you need like 100 hours per a civ to understand. meanwhile, most civs are fairly understandable and therefore your opponent through virtue of civ pick gets a hours of gameplay efficiency boost for paying for DLC. Thats not a feeling that helps a game. and I’m fairly certain ethopia is a case study of this cause despite having some of the most broke eco/units in game, it remains rarely picked and goes up and down in power as people CBA to learn it or vs it. Same with mexico often (but more about revolts/cards).

So why keep things like this even viable? you could remove this tech entirely and does hausa loose any of its identity? no. this effects nothing but limits one more unvetted scaling mechanic. Hausa would be leaner without ti. And there is probably dozens of such cases needed to be examined but like you said we’ve had so much other issues, they just get sidelined and continue to fester until it gets exhausting. But how much future design space could be freed up by just whacking some of the cards like this?

Anyways, while this stupid tech killed my recently recovering enthusiasm for the game a bit, ill probably play some more pup and give feedback and just see what happens

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209

Hi, I would like to share these suggestions and thoughts from this PUP, I hope it helps.

Walls : Costs increased by an additional +4w to 10w (up from 6w).
Walls have already recieved a massive nerfs recently, which reduced the use of them quite a lot. While it’s impact is still intact recieving such a massive change to follow up means removing walls from the game. I don’t see any other use than quick walls at this point, which is indeed a wrong approach considering Aoe3 is a game that can reward aggression a lot due to it’s unique batch system and outposts being able to ungarrison units, this change should be considered for the sake of strategic variety in the game.

Advanced Artillery (III): Now also sends 1 Mortar.
Extremely dangerous change, the benefit of 1 mortar shipment early age 3 means you can do the most risk free push in age 3 without having to deal a fight, this shipment will be objectively broken and have to be reverted in the future it not now, due to the extreme use it will bring for civilisations such as spain and otto

Hand Mortar: Added a 6x damage multiplier against Siege Units.
This change should be reverted, it’s possible this can result so many unintended balance issues

Shotel Warrior: Movement speed increased to 6.25 (up from 6).
An unnecessary buff, shotels are already one of the best shock infantry in the game, giving it additional speed buff is not a correct approach

7 Jesuit Allies (II): Now sends 6 Conquistadors.
10 Jesuit Allies (III): Now sends 8 Conquistadors.
I can see the approach of balancing the unit shipments, however this is a biased change due to similar civs with higher winrate doesn’t get this kind of a change.

Tomahawk: Hitpoints reduced to 145 (from 150).
One of the worst change this patch has brought us, tomahawks are already considered as one of the worst musketeer in the game, it’s not what was making hauds strong at first place, Explorer change is right approach

Plumed Spearman: Cost increased to 100f 25w (from 90f 25w).
Chimu Runner: Cost and train time increased to 75f 40c (from 70f 35c) and 30s (from 27s).
Jungle Bowman: Poison effect now inflicts 50% less damage against Heavy Cavalry and Hand Shock Infantry.
Inca has one of the lowest winrate at top elo right now, it already recieved big nerfs, having this many additional nerfs added will surely make it an unplayable civ, while Inca is considered one of the best in late game, these changes will effect the early game to a level Inca will be very bad civ

Maltese Reduced shipment penalty curve to 1% (from 2%).
[NEW] 1 Falconet + 1 Mortar (III): Card added.
Malta has one of the best scaling bow pike units which is extremely hard to deal in late age 3, adding buffs to malta without moving one of the crossbow shipments to industrial age is going to make malta perform better

For revolts: Some revolt are big balance concerns such as 3 ironclad shipment, I think some revolt shipments are so broken that it would require special thread just to mention what should be changed.

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210

Thank you for saying it out, you just reinforced my point. i can put my sign under every word. Especially my heart is aching cuz of conquistadors and walls.

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