Re-work COWS and some changes for russia

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
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Hello everyone

Today I want to talk about possible changes which if understood properly could be nice to see in the game.

I believe none of the changes I’m requesting are neither bad or good just something we can test and see the result if anything we have developers that can revert changes as we’ve seen already.

What I’ll do is give suggestions. If some of these might be useul for coming patch then please do use them

I’ll start with COWS:

I believe cows can have a rework in the following sense, not neccessarily to be made META but to be more ACCESIBLE
The cards
Ranching: which allows cows
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and
Stockyards: which increases growth rate
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both be merged into 1 as 2 cards for cows to work is too much for supremacy.
Ultimately remove STOCKYARDS [gives 30% growth speed] and replace it with a tier 2 upgrade which might cost 150wood/coin or whatever price.

We currently have as tier 1 upgrade SELECTIVE BREEDING which gives 25% increased growth speed and costs 75wood/coin if STOCKYARDS is made a tier 2 upgrade it could cost 150w/c

ULTIMATELY, I would suggest to completely remove cow and relative cards from game and just allow the mechanic within game itself and instead of allowing cows right away. Place a button that would take 1 min or 2 to complete then cows might be queueable afterwards.

Alongside this LIVESTOCK should be increased in size allowing for it to have 20/20 and its price increased to 300 if needed

If anything a good idea is allowing Livestock to have another upgrade just like chinese houses that increses pop. In this case the livestock would have an upgrade that would increase max amount from 10 to 20 and it would also increase in size to be able to fit 20

Something funny would be allowing each livestock sizeable upgrade to be unique to the building meaning everytime they are sieged down a new one has to re make the upgrade to allow more heradables in it

Allow livestocks to have a rally button for fatten COWS to be sent to a location, this would make it user friendly

Allow COWS and SHEEPS to be automatically trained as soon as available THIS adds for being user friendly

When it comes to russia I only have a couple things since last post I had made year ago I see strelet range is now a max of 18 by imperial, Unsure if we as a community were able to influence it yet I think it should be 20, here is more.

I’ll start with strelets then go with other changes that can be healthy.
Strelets should have range ups through their upgrade at the blockhouse and not through cards. Having to wait for a next age up and doing its upgrade is already a lot to having to also use cards.

So I would suggest
+2 in castle, +2 in IV and +2 in Imperial do keep in mind that supremacy games rarely get to Imperial and this change itself if it does increase win rate by a lot could be twerked around but the main reason to this is the following: If nerf is needed then I would go as far as splitting the upgrades from the normal up this would require 2 ups, 1 for the unit upgrade and 1 for the rnage. Doing this cost a lot in the early game and would require more than 2 block hosues or else you’d be blocking from making units.

Civs with strong musketeer shouldn’t be so carelessly be able to just go in and trade fine even if it is a disadvantagous battle for the musk if it is a battle that decides a match it is just sad that strelet would have to eat musk fire without being able to being a proper skirm. Like most civs have at least 16 range or more by Fortress.

Reason as to why we need +18 by IV is to be able to fight eagle runners, There is a game I recently played vs JPC known as probably best aztec atm and he just melt my strelets at 16 range in IV like nothing and one of the weaknesses aztec has is when you make skirms yet rus strelet does not have that range and pandours should not be able to kill ranged cav/ eagles

The +20 by imperial would allow to not be killed by its counter so easily and yet sitll be useful.

I still like the idea of making strelet cost half pop meaning 0.5, Would love to see how this plays out, don’t think this would make them broken and mostly benefits super late game

Pandours unsure which of the devs came up with the idea but it is great, after playing with rus it feels nice not to be eaten alive by skirms and now being able to actually kite things around the. unit is fine the way it is. It cannot kill musks or ranged cav as easily and is just used to fight skirms.

My suggestion here is to allow them to be trainable at the blockhouse after the card is sent for their own price of 185c per unit and if the change becomes troublesome then a nerf much later would be as soon as russia reaches INDUSTRIAL AGE this bonus is disabled meaning they are only used for Fortress Pandours are somewhat decent at dealing vs ABUS gun which for a long time rus never had anything other than Cav archer/ canons and that is a NON mobile comp
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In regards of cards for rus
One issue I currently see is that new cards were released for Rus but rus already has too many fighting cards or cards that only have 1 purpose and to use them means losing a unit card. Some of the following:

Boyars was recently nerfed however I think the card at its current state is just useless. it adds only +1 damage to strelets and +25 hp to cossacks, Sending this card is really not that great

I would suggest the following, remove boyars from the game and the card in FORTRESS for Cav make it so that it adds an extra 10% hp/attack to cossacks meaning 25%hp/attack for cossacks only and 15% attack hp for the rest of the cavs

And to the strelet card in age 3 make it 30% instead of 20%.

This effectively reduces this card having to not send so many cards and at the same time Oprichniks are nerfed, They are really not as used

And as last
Can we have an upgrade that givs x1 vs ranged cav / eagle runners? we have one vs infantry, however back in the day Fan patch did change it to also give x1 vs ranged cav and I believe this can be made again. Just would have to change the name instead of COUNTER INFANTRY RIFLING TO whatever else fits after the change or Make a new upgrade usable after Fortress 200w/c as well that allows to counter ranged cav more effectively? please…

I also don’t think rus needs any precise nerf right now until we get to see them rocking the High % win ratios. That is the only moment when you actually nerf anything, based on Data not only opinions and for what I’ve seen with current data they are at the bottom when it comes to win %

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  1. Cows should be available for training in the Livestock Pen by default.
  2. Ranching card should provide training of farm animals in groups, e.g. 5 Sheep and 2 Cows. This would speed up the production of these animals. Additionally, it increases the hit points of this building.
  3. Stockyards card should should automate the production of livestock animals.

Additionally, I believe that more possible farm animals should be added to this building - Pigs and Chickens. Pigs would cost 150 food and provide a maximum of 750 food, but their cap would be 10. Chickens would cost 25 food and provide a maximum of 75 food, but their cap would be 40.

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This is great, Automatizacion helps toward its usage

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cows are, at least for Europeans, natives and china, are treaty cards, not supremacy cards.

buffing cows will have an impact on treaty even if you might be on the light side, if i take one or 2 cards less for cows as British then right of a sudden i can fit 2 other cards into my deck, making the faction stronger. therefore changing stuff like this has to be done carefully.

its okay for cards to exist that aren’t equally useful in every mode, it is okay for cards to exist that are genuinely bad, its worse to have a card that seriously over perform than one that underperforms.

i do think this is a cool idea.

russia has artillery and buildings, they can deal with musketeers with little issues.

frankly russia is fine lategame, massive buffs esp by making strellets more generics is a mistake IMO.

seems more like ERK need a nerf then.

this is a bad idea, the unit is cost effective, its cheap, it has a lot of upgrades and does its job. its also just extremely clunky to make units half pop cost, it adds too much clutter to the game.

Russia is a cavalry civ, their strength is not the infantry, you need to use cavalry more. Cossacksa are already under price in pop, being much better than uhlans and almost the strength of a hussar, Russia does not need more population tricks.

range cavalry isnt that good lategame generally speaking, they are good early when you can dictate engagements but by lategame buildings, numbers etc. limits them and right of a sudden their low hp and damage output becomes an issue.

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Remember that changes can be made CIV specific in case they are too strong for one another[ Quick example they took away 7 cows for ports in age 2 due to how good it was]

I understand your point and I respect,it And I belive there isn’t really any extra card that is so op that brits could add in case STOCKYARD was replaced for a tech or merged into the cow one. I’ve played treaty and most of the needed cards for brits always did fit. So I don’t think this necessarily break this

While you’re right not everything shouldn’t be made workable that I agree however What I’m saying here is making them more accesible, Not precisely META and if anything changes can be reverted

I point out cows because they equal like 2 to 3 vills on food when you’re on it depending on upgrades and in the early game, civs like Russia could use cows not for meta but for an option to have a resource that can equal out other civs eco bonuses while at the same time making some of its feature accesible for all civs like rally point for fatten and Automatization

I don’t think the game breaks if strelet has 16 range at Fortress.

While you point out buildings. There is a stage in supremacy of fast moving and fighting here and there that there is very high chance of messing up a fight vs musk where as if there was that extra 2 range in the fortress mistake is less likely to happen

What will you nerf from ERK? They had already received a nerf. Is it the range? That would be a huge nerf to them then where as simply having 18 range strelet by Industrial fixes the MU to where aztec still has a huge margin of wining [ aztec vs RU is Heavily aztec favored like 95% aztec favored ]

Where as nerfing aztec damages something vs most of their MUs, allowing strelets to have 18 range by industrial gives opportunity in the matchup without breaking anything outside of it.

I would be ok with Eagles having 14 rangeI don’t think it is the right take though
In fact, let me clear this up If russia had the current 18 range they get by imperial but just 16 fortress and 18 ind that should be enough as eagles have 16 range though a little difficult as the aztec just constantly spam the HERO

The only way in which we can know if this is bad if it is put to test this doesn’t make strelet stronger just more usable if anything

You see while the game is very unique saying things should not be equaled out is wrong. For a eason we have given sioux walls and mortars because they lacked those and were heavily unfavored the moment a player went walls + canons .

They don’t have to be precisely the same but should given for an equal chance at most stages

If we had a game where pathing was not buggy, Movement was clear. I would say better usage of cav could win most scenarios, But this is not the case and even then Current cav from RUS loses to all other cav unless you’re at that stage were you have been able to survive to be able to make mass Cav archer or cossacks, At which point infantry eats you and we have to wait to play canon+walls as rus infantry doesn’t really beat other infanty cost effectively even though they are cheaper

The issue russia has is not really the cheaper, is having to get the economy to spam the cheaper as you’ll be losing a lot of them. Then it comes to a question of is it really cheap when you lose more than what’s needed to fight.

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Honestly, the strelet is what is called a “Trash unit”, this means that they are units to sacrifice. I think that currently as the strelet is, it is perfect, because it is by far the unit that can be mass most in AoE3, and the fact that it has more range allows it to generate more damage against its targets, I think that giving it +1 or +2 range in ages such as fortress or industrial, will cause the strelet to become the most powerful unit in AoE3 (Yes, without fear of being wrong).
I think that you have to review is the Eagle, before giving buffs to the strelets, which in itself is a problematic unit, especially in team games.
Some special mechanic could be added, just in the Imperial age (thinking for treaties or team games that became too long), where strelets get stats more similar to regular skirms, but their price increases considerably to compensate.

In short, “Trash units” can’t be as good as regular units, unless they get priced up at later ages.

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The term trash unit does not necessarily apply to AOE3 as food/coin is somewhat infinite. I would say they would be unique as wood is more important

I like your idea and I wouldn’t be opposed to a price increase because they actually needed. Not everything can be won through canons only [ the very same example here vs aztec ] You can’t make canon vs this civ. You can’t make cav vs this civ as well and then you are left with only infantry and Rus infantry has 0 chances at wining any fight. This is the primary reason as to why the change is being requested.

I pointed out the Sioux getting needed changes. Here in this MU without strelets getting more range the MU will never change too Aztec favored Better words, Without strelet getting more range than ERK and ERK gets 16 by Fortress it then would never change for RUS

Lemme break it down
age 2 rus don’t really win vs aztec
age 3 if you didn’t play properly chances are you won’t touch IV to get more range
age 4 if game is not done by the aztec you’d be facing spam of Arrow knight + ERK without a single chance of surviving unless you reach age 5 And we all know Imperial games are very rare in supremacy at which point is when russ then starts to win the MU

I would be ok if strelets did get +2 range per age up tech, But at the same time their cost increased in any % necessary alongside their stats.

Do keep in mind wood is very scarse and in the lategame most civs run skirms on Food/coin they even changed Longbows to Rangers and Macehulatins to Food/coin So realisticly there is no skirm in lategame right now that costs food wood. As this damages canon fights.

To that I would also say the moment that lategame stage arrives strelet as they become stronger and expensive their price changes to food/coin through any way possible Or just allow rus to train skirms from IV and forward xD

On the other hand if range is nerfed for ERK. How can aztec deal vs skirms they struggle against 20 range skirms as they lack aoe Splash canons [ Me thinking imagine how crazy it would be to give coyotes Splash damage in the late game and bonus vs skirms xD]

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I think, that at least at the beginning of the game, the strelet is an example of a “trash unit”, obviously with the passage of time, the wood becomes more valuable and the strelet no longer seems so “trash unit”, but The idea of the unit, as I said above, is to force good trades with cheap and bad units.

On the other hand, I don’t see a good thing about making such a strong change to a specific unit, just because the civilization has a bad match up against another civilization. Buff to strelet is going to give Russia too much advantage in general, not just vs Aztecs. That’s why I insist that the strelet receive good updates, price increase (exchange of wood for gold in cost) and maybe only keep the training of groups of 10, but all applied from the Imperial age. We might have to ask JulianK or Jagerchere if buffing russia lategame is a good idea.

It’s already a bit difficult to deal with spamming strelets in 1v1 from fortress age, by the time the Russian was already able to establish a proper economy.

Another reason why I don’t look favorably on giving strelets buffs is that they have a tendency to avoid overkilling enemy units, thanks to their low damage and high amount of units that can be massed, which allows a better distribution of damage, if you add more range to that, well, they will have greater efficiency in combat, which already becomes unfair to me.

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strellets in most cases can beat what they counter pop for pop, only real exceptions might be caroleans and grenadiers (who counter them back anyhow, so not that surprising), and caroleans where simply overperforming in the early patches.

i guess its possible the mexican super musk might also do well, or lakotan bow rider but they are generally outliers and when it comes down to it strellets point is to flood the field with expendable units that allows their cavalry and artillery to do the work.

even if wood is expensive in AOE3 they cost 10 wood per pop, with 2 factories and the passive wood income russia has about 15 wood a second and they arent really your frontline anyhow.

Russians IMO is one of the best designed factions in the game, they do things entirely different from other factions who generally focuses on a few strong units while russia focuses on being able redeploy units at a short notice replacing loses and countering the enemy. the only badly designed unit IMO is the Oprichniks.

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Carolean 15 range by fortress too it is just a nightmare And you can’t simply tell mass cav… when caroleans counters every single rus unit and is able to outrun strelet

You have given another examples which are also unfavorable for strelets, if game was not as laggy and had a clear unit pathing we could argue that Doing a lot of units might work, But this is not the case. The more units the clunkier and Also means that you have to get too close at which point Strelets trade innefectively and that’s where they lose. Due to 14 range if you have 30+ strelets you have 3 lines at which only the 1st line might do damage the rest either walks aimlessly due to game mechanic or just die to whatever other unit there is unless you go too close at which point what is 14 range truly doing?. There is a reason as to why I’ve said fighting skirm goon is just pointless now with Pandour it isn’t as pointless.

Then due to above reason why are we still with 14 range by fortress while range through the ages can make the unit effectively kill its counters and or things they should be killing without the argument of we have to wait until canons which not always work or we have to mass them which makes them trade inecffectively

strelet won’t have suddenly have 20 range unless imperial, It is still a unit that wil scale through ages at fortress16 range fixes most of its fighting issues, at IV 18 you don’t have to force yourself to kill what you’re meant to and the 20 Range if it is too much by imperial could not be added would have to see how it does in lategame having 20 range I really still think they would not be doing as great. They might still hard lose to other skirms

The longer the game goes the more walls are to be used and the less effective cav becomes.

Like if anything we already have 18 range strelet, Just at stages that are not easy to get, Game is mostly over by fortress rarely Industrial and if it goes to imperial something bad is happening

To this if you told me what I was asking was to a high win ratio CIV sure, but that’s not the case. Do remember that there is testing that can be made given that something comes out strong. rework or re-twerking the change is also possible

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I would like a change for the cows in this sense, I’ve been saying for a long time that the range must be given as a technology in the fort from the 3 age or when you develop the strelets to a veteran giving +2 range per age, in imperial having 20 range seems too much perhaps 18 maximum is ok or if still too strong leave it at 16. Russia already has to invest in too many cards so you can’t have all those cards in a deck and even if you keep them it’s difficult to send them all so I would eliminate the strelets range card or I’d just take the 2 range off that card and put it in the blockhouse as a update. Boyards also affects opri and giving -15% less stats for opri is not the best, they are used a lot in team games, it is one of the main mechanics of Russia in team or in 1v1 against the Japanese :joy:

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I propose the following re-work :slightly_smiling_face:

Cards that should be technologies from the Livestock Pen

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For Spanish and Portuguese.

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Llama Ranching. (Age II) Cost; 75 food and 75 wood.

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Stockyards. (Age II) Cost; 100 gold and 100 wood.

For the rest of civilizations.

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Ranching. (Age II) Cost; 100 gold and 100 wood.

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Stockyards. (Age II) Cost; 125 gold and 125 wood.

New card.

Slaughterhouses. (Age III)
Effect: Livestock Pen automatically gathers up to 1 fattened livestock in a radius of 15 at the gathering speed of 2.0/s

Changes to the Naturalist

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Germans: Ships 1 Settler Wagon and Cattle are trained “semi fattened”

The rest of civilizations: Ships 2 Settlers and Cattle are trained “semi fattened”

Clarification on Semi fattened. Actually they only bring the amount of food equivalent to their cost, for example, Sheep cost 100 food to train them so they start with 100 food, this is so that they are always a benefit.

Visual Example
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PS: I disagree with the idea that not all cards should be competitive, I believe that all cards should be usable at a competitive level.

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I would usggest these changes for Livestock nothing too game altering in order of least radical to most radical.

  • Cows/water buffelo available at fortress age by default.
  • Livestock pens cost 100 wood
  • Hunting upgrades also increase livestock gather speed .

Personally I just find the Ranching card to be a bit of a chore since it has no immediate impact. unlike virtually every other card.

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Yeah I agree, The caard just has no immediate impact

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@EliteRiflemann @jonasnee4671
here a video where I show examples explaining more as to the suggestions I had writen in this post