Regarding Brits From Competitive Approach

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
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This thread is focused on discussing the brits and answer to most of the assumptions/beliefs that are rather explaining all the issues and offering a constructive solution. Because when it comes regarding balance about brits, There’s a lot of speculation going on. there is exaggeration. Or some things are overplayed. The thread is not intended to make self promotion so that I am not interested in giving my rank, but I am a competitive player in this game.

Brits are designed to be the best economy civ in the game, with average units compared to other civilizations in the game. If you look at the best cav in the game, it’s not the one brits have, or the best Musketeer type doesn’t belong to brits either, there is always another civ with better units than brit has as average, what does give brit the power? It’s economy and good macro based management, has been the same since the day Aoe3 is created. For short question and it’s answer. Brit is defenitely far from being broken, there is realisticly no chance of a broken civ not being discovered in those 16-17 years.

Brit has gotten 140 wood manor houses back in the days where there was a player made fanpatch, it turned out brit had the lowest win ratio for a long time that the 140 wood manor houses has been reverted back to 135 wood, one exception that there were no fixed crates globally for any civ back then.

Every civilization has their unique strength and weaknesses, here are the remarkable points we can make about brit.

Strengths

  • One of the great economy civ in the game There is a misunderstanding of brit being the best economy civ in the game, for scaling it’s not accurate, brit boom stops when they reach 20 manor houses, while sweden or India or ports can keep booming for the entire game which leads those civs to get a better boom than brit gets, civs with a good TP boom can also get better boom than brits

  • Longbows have great DPS against light infantry Longbows are great against light infantry, with the recent -1 attack nerf they aren’t that much of a problem for heavy infantry to counter before shipping some of their range shipments from homecity and arsenal upgrades

Weaknesses

  • Weak against timing push, raids. Brits are generally struggling to hold against timing pushes or strong semi-ff plays from certain civ, or raids

  • No 400 wood age up, which is functionally is the best age up politician in aoe3 and lacking it is a big disadvantage especially for the civs that come from the vanilla game.

  • No Exiled Prince option. This is one of the biggest weakness a civilization can have in Aoe3 from competitive approach

  • Weak against strong mercenary focused strats Because brit units are rather standard, they find hard time dealing against mercenary focused strategies.

What creates the belief that Brit is strong?

  • Brit early economy can be rewarding a lot under the hands of players that know how to play it This results brit being mistakenly considered to be a strong civ despite it’s because of the opponent’s lack of activity and playing with wrong build order which allows brit to scale better. Adapting against brits and pressuring generally works on it in a clean way

  • Some balance changes in the game are achieved by being manufactured rather than being an actual issue *

This results on the unjustified exaggerated demands lead which has not objective approach nor reasonable basis such as 150 wood brit manor houses, which objectively would make brit as the worst civ in the game for the future months, or certain suggestions such as reducing the economic bonus or changing the main structure of brit which has been the same since 2007 patch.

What could be done?

  • The changes should take place based on objective metrics, such as winratio.

Aoe3 is a rather causal game compared to other RTS games of this franchise, which results to non-objective outcomes when it comes to game balance sometimes, Before taking the necessary steps on balance issues, as a competitive player I suggest to connect more closely to objective data To make work on balance concerns, If civs that have been the same since 15 years, which are the basis of the game, are changed in an inconsistent way, the balance part of the game can go in a way which won’t be in a satisfactory way.

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Their units aren’t average. All of their units are extremely upgradable. They don’t have any one standout unit, but when you have the best eco and 2nd or 3rd best of every kind of unit that is extremely powerful.

And I don’t see why this doesn’t belong in the other British thread.

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This is inaccurate, If we are to talk about treaty cards it’s going to another topic of discussion, in supremacy it’s not possible to afford having all unit upgrades in deck. Brit economy isn’t the best either, it stops at one point while good amount other civs can start outscaling brits starting with early mid game

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You don’t need to get into treaty situations for their strong units to come into play. The cav cards alone give them some of the strongest Hussars and Dragoons in the game. And their eco is top tier in supremacy even if they can be outscaled in treaty.

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Brits economy is really only strong in late age2 to mid of age3. After that most other boom civs will have caught up. Brits typically dominate early age3 play in supremacy if they managed to boom fully in age2. Since most people prefer semi FF, this gives Brits plenty of time to boom unhindered. They are kind of like japan, but weaker to timing pushes. Some of the nerfs people have been suggesting in this forum are outlandish. The only reasonable nerf would be to remove the 4 villager card in age2.

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It is not possible to fit all those upgrade cards into a deck in competitive games, there are more important cards which needs to be added first. So that it doesn’t work in that way. As base stats brit units are completely average, even with upgrades they don’t get the best units.

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But that’s the most advantageous moment to have an economic advantage. I agree that likely all that is needed is removing some of their villager cards, but it’s disingenuous to say their economy is not top notch or their units are just mediocre. A starting economic advantage with fully upgradable units to back it up is a potent combination.

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Nobody has stated their units are in a bad situation, it’s just the reality that brits have many weaknesses and not any strength which are not practiced well by certain level and creates the clear false belief of brit being a broken civ, it’s not the best economy civ either. Currently the civllization is not in a place of needing any nerf for competitive level. Unless there is an approach which is more likely to be non objective, hopefully won’t be the case, which would put a big question mark in the change.

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That’s your opinion, not an objective fact. Just because Brits don’t have any one stand out strength doesn’t mean their combination of strengths in all categories doesn’t add up to being exceptionally strong. At the very least they should be in line with other civs who do not have access to villager shipments because they have a villager production bonus.

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Interesting thoughts sir. We have to take them into account. Likewise, I would like to know your opinion on what things could be balanced with British. While I agree that some nerf requests are wildly exaggerated, I also don’t agree that brits is 100% balanced.

PS: For those who don’t know, @FoggierWizard41 it’s Revnak, one of the best players in the world and perhaps the best main brits player in the world.

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Brits aren’t exceptionally strong, the comprasion with the civs that don’t have villager shipment is just not a way where game can be balanced, then one can claim why brit doesn’t have option to fast fortress? Or why brit doesn’t have skirmishers early game without needing to ship cards or shipments for it? This is not the right approach to balance the game. I am not delivering an opinion, trying to be as objective as I can that’s why the thread containts many data about Brits.

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Currently, Brits should be around top 6-10 range which is rather good than average, but not in a danger zone of needing a nerf which would potentially be for top 1 to top 4 civilizations, the correct approach is always having civs in a similar level and close to each other, but unfortunately because of rather close to average civilizations are being target rather than actual balance issues, the direction of the game balance overall isn’t going in the direction where it’s going to be beneficial for competition purposes. Of course some parts of Brits are good like any civ where mastering them grants you in the long run, there are multiple ways to play against brits and I can gladly show it in the DM if you are interested, since the thread is about Brit balance I prefer to continute helping in Direct message for which parts you are finding it hard against brits.

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Yes you are. Just because you are trying to portray it in a neutral tone doesn’t make it not an opinion.

This is a way that the game is balanced since it is done for every civ with a villager production bonus other than brits.

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The thread isn’t created in intend to deliver an opinion based approach, rather discuss based on data.

It is not an healthy way to balance the game by trying to break things that are working without a problem since 15+ years based on a rather far from data based approach. Aoe 3 is a unique game which many civs have their different aspects rewarded, one can claim why otto has the worst economy in the game and ask buf for it while it’s actually design of the civilization is in that intend and that it’s currently one of the strongest civ despite having the worst economy is an example to give about why different civilization mechanics can’t be compared as a balance metric.

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I’m casual player, definitely not a pro, so your perspective is different from mine and that is ok.
On the highest level, when everyone is able to use even the smallest weakness of a civ and smallest advantage of a civ, maybe Brits are not OP. I don’t know.

But from my experience, if I play Ottomans/Lakota/Aztecs (civs I know best) against British player on the same ELO as mine, I will lose every time, no matter if I try hard rush, semi-FF with pressure or FF. If you are not using other booming civ (Japan, Dutch…) you are forced to play pretty much flawlessly to stay alive in the game and have a chance to beat British. Brits just do their boom in every game and they don’t care.

They don’t need water, TPs or anything. They don’t even need to scout you much because they can create a lot of military units + making Manor houses behind and wait.

I believe general balance issue currently is not specifically for British but boomy civs in general. Aggressive civs are currently to weak compared to boomy civs (or boomy civs too strong - as you prefer).

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But their units are mediocre.
Their hussars are outclassed by delis and swedish hussars. Brits may have more attack then sweden e.g. but for calavry, HP is what you are looking for.
Their muskets are basically the worst RG musketeers out there. As of the latest patch, probably on par with french muskets. Ports, US, Mexico, Japan, Indian, Affrican muskets are all better, and this includes the 3 cards. If we look at it, only rustkets and spain do worse in this department.

Rangers and longbowmen are in a freakish iden#### crisis which makes you choose which part you don’t want countered: Dragoons or HI.

Their artilery is average at most, no interesting upgrade cards. The rocket is a weird unit.

Do I need to go on?

That really depends on the match up. But they are not the only civ that has an economic timing there: Sweden has the better edge, Japan has similar timings, dutch are only a few minutes late, US and Mexico can adjust their boom to hit the optimum just around that time, Hausa can also do the same. Most boom civs boom around the same time. Which is why booming is countered by a rush.

The key take away is to not let brits boom unhindered. Their boom requires copious amounts of wood, which is a slow gathering resource. If they send wood crates they will have little defense in the begining of age2, if they send muskets they need to gather wood. Brits aren’t unbeatable.

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Thanks for the inputs, I see where you are coming from. It is not easiest part of the strategy to adapt certain civilizations that are good at booming. Especially if they aren’t pushed in a right way or got idled early on, they can outscale very fast, which results the belief of boomy civs being too strong while there are many windows where opponent can use to advantage to stop the boom, but untouched boom just outscales very hard. Especially the civs you give as example are known for their aggression and timing push strategies, so that I can see why there is a struggle. I can offer to help regarding certain strategies in DM if you are interested. As much as I respect your input and thinking they are necessary, I think the balance part of the game should have more focus at the competitive level since it’s the era which plays the game based on a fair balance and should have more accurate outcomes when it comes to balance.

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Do we have statistics to go along with this? Without that cries of OP or not seem to me like personal experience.

The last tourney I saw had Brits around a 50% winrate, which seems perfectly balanced to me?

I assume the devs have acces to regular winrates, and the lack of British nerfs seems to indicate they are just fine.

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Hi @FoggierWizard41. Firstly, congratulations on your recent tourney win! Happy for you.

However, I find myself disagreeing with your opinion. Could you explain to me, if Brits really are fine as they are, why were they IIRC almost always civ banned in the recently concluded legacy tourney series?

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That’s very kind of you :slight_smile:
I think it is quite unusual for pro players to came here and listen what casual players says (Kevin is the only one I recognize who writes comments here quite often).
I agree that balance should be established around pro players who knows the game best. On the other hand I think the devs said at some point that they are looking into winrates in different ELO ranges, no only total one.

Btw. you wrote absolutely fantastic British guide on ESOC page:

It had to be a lot of work for you to create it, but guides like this are priceless for everyone pretty much. I’d love to see similar for other civs too. I will contact you directly for some tips about how to play against Brits :wink:
Thank you!

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