People keep talking about the xbow upgrade nerf and it got only +50/+50 which is not a big deal at all.
Xbow upgrade and Arbs upgrade nerfs were needed and they may even should cost more especially xbow but it is ok for now.
Nothing need to change, and if should, then only pike upgrade need to be cheaper a little bit and reduce the upgrade time, maybe Eskirm upgrade as well, but I personally don’t think we need to change anything.
It’s more about the dominance of the knight line on the ladder. A single type of unit shouldn’t be seen so consistently across matches, because it likely means the counter to it is either not common or effective enough and/or the unit itself is too effective to not produce
The xbow nerf was needed, but that doesn’t mean knight line nerf isn’t needed. The two can definitely coincide
And the dominance of knights isnt only at mid elo, it rides all the way up the ladder
Knights need no nerfs.
It is only 50 gold. Probably 5 seconds of time in Imperial. All those units will be fine. And those who need buff, can be buffed regardless.
The one that unlocks “new powerful” units also has huge research time. The attack gain from two expensive techs is nullified by one cheaper tech. (Technically we need all 3 armor techs to completely nullify the 2 extra attacks. But Cavalry armor being the most important looks too cheap.)
Exactly. Or I can rephrase it like this - The xbow nerf was needed, but that doesn’t mean every single “Archer” civ was needed nerf.
Long live castle age knight spam meta.
lol we’re at it again 
got to love these types of discussions
yeah i understand, but again, my point is, the armour tech isnt the problem. the attack tech is gaining range as well as the damage (which the armour nullifies), the range isnt nullified, the armour has no affect on it, if we were gaining speed as well as armour your argument would stand, but we dont. if it were only damage, instead of range as well, then yeah again, maybe there would be some reason to it.
and even then, its not the armour thats the issue, its 2 specific units, we can just target those 2 units instead of having to buff all the others even more, simply because we nerfed their armour to nerf 2 other units, it just seems an unnecessarily long process
tbf all it did was exasperate an existing situation, those civs arguably needed buffs anyway, and the logical global nerf (even to cav civs) simply drew more attention to an existing situation
Against knights, I would like to buff pikemen and camels as following:
For me the pikeman upgrade cost is fine if I do not have to invest into the melee attack upgrades to properly counter knights.
And I would like to decrease the cost of thumb ring down to something similar to bloodlines (so for instance 150f/100w instead of 300f/200w). If people feel it would be too strong, I would be happy to balance it as following:
Then the knight spammers are happy that knights are stronger than ever compared to crossbowmen, and crossbow spammers need to ressort to some other counter units like pikes or camels when facing knights. And I am happy that civs without thumb ring get a harder time playing crossbows, similarly to civs without bloodlines having a hard time playing knights.
And sorry for the Viking’s late game, they still have a good win rate anyways.
Considering we have 2 OP Camel civs, I won’t buff Camel. Camel is in fine spot for most of the civs.
But you actually need to do so. If pikeman attack upgrade doesn’t match knight armor upgrade, you will need 1 more hit to kill a knight. So if anything you should ask to increase pikeman bonus damage against cavalry from 22 to 24.
Fine with me.
Even though I would find it more interesting if gurjaras and hindustanis put you in a situation where you don’t want to go knight in a 1v1 against them.
But maybe it requires too many balance changes to make sure that these two civs are not very strong once camels and knights are out of the picture.
Yeah, that is what I tried to say here:
I don’t care as much about the cost, i just want Vikings to get their thumb ring back
Because vikings need buffs…
I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic, but Vikings would be fine if they lost free hand cart and got their thumb ring back.
But that just kill the vikings identity of super good economh and again be completely played as another fast imp arbalest cov, right now people is bothering going for berserks.
Vikings don’t need more changes (except, maybe reducing Chieftains cost again) and if anything they need a nerf for water maps.
No it doesn’t. Free Wheelbarrow is still huge advantage. And going for crossbow / arbalest was just as much a part of their civ identity and yet that was nerfed.
Man, a civ focused for infantry that could end most games with fast imp fully upgraded arbalest and no even bothering going for infantry wasn’t good, was stupid. And a thing, you cam still go arbalest, even without Thumb Ring is worth, look at Aztec and Khmer, both lack thumb ring, and that stop players going arbalest??
that’s more a problem of the design of skirms (and to some degree even siege)
I think we should talk about different concepts to reduce the knight powerspike. Imo it would also be sufficient to just increase the speed of spears so they can chase down the knights better.
Also there were other ideas eg giving certain defences bonus damage v knights.
Honestly, there’s no need to increase the Cavalier research cost because the cost of this research isn’t a bad idea. Meanwhile, a slight increase on the Paladin research by increasing it to 1400F and 750G would be a better option. I do also think that the cost of both, the Archer-line and Cavalry Archer-line should both cost Food and Gold instead of Wood and Gold. For the Archer-line, if we change the cost to be Food and Gold, we could compensate for it by having the upgrades of the Archer-line cost Wood and Food (or Wood and Gold) instead of Food and Gold.
Agree the big powerspike of cavalry is knight, not cavalier.
Also Paladin is fine with the high cost + time (though probably for TG balance the time could be even higher)
That “problem” is not unique to Vikings. It’s the same reason why other unique infantry units Samurai, Shotel, Teutonic knights, Jaguars etc. are rarely seen in competitive play. Infantry in general is always going to be niche and situational. Can be a great way to end games if your opponent is unprepared and hasn’t scouted. Militia line already got buffed this year. Vikings weakness has always been their lack of mobility. They need thumb ring to compensate for this and make their crossbow / arbalest viable. Free wheelbarrow is still good. Not just the cost saving but also the research time meaning it kicks in instantly and doesn’t slow down your vil production.
Why are soo on this, you can go arbalest fine with them, what’s the problem? Is a civ designed to have insane eco but bad late game, is fine.
Vikings lategame is not that bad in 1v1s. Only for TGs they are bad.