Just want to state, I did not say they couldn’t have more food (maybe coin is better) added to starting crates and then that opens up a market start potential. I intentionally left it open for discussion. I do suspect it would be too harsh to simply cut 100w but haven’t given it much thought.
3 vills would be inconsistent game design, so I highly doubt that will happen.
If it’s determined that the 12/10 is OK but the royal musk is actually the problem then sure maybe -100w is wrongheaded and it’s the unit that needs to be balanced. Maybe it’s both.
fair enough, gotta start somewhere
there are probably a myriad of ways to change the start if its still too much.
Still, given DE habit of new card breaks old meta>break old meta builds> nerf card later> leave civ in bad spot till next new card cycle, I’d rather nerf the card first and see if the meta shifts due to the change (plus usual round of other changes) then examine if the 12/10 or even 13/20 14/20 builds, tried and true (and accessible) builds of over a decade now, get changed. I guess my bias is firmly in the “change the problem cards before changing civ openings” that may or may not need to be.
Thinking about it, if you nerfed France’s starting crates (again), the next logical move would be -100w +100c. Similar to Germany who is designed for market start rather than a TP.
Edit: not advocating the above, just pointing out an option since there’s discussion about starting crate nerfs (which even though I liked a couple posts about, I’m unsure on the importance/my opinion of).
Also, how much faster does France build TPs, and why is that a thing? +1 ranged attack was already a big deal, and you get the native scout, and can train more (from the TC). Ports got nothing new for their explorer when French got some nice boosts despite having an advantage of similar or greater value than the Spy Glass or Envoys (Scout and +1 attack). At least they could have improved Spyglass recharge by 5-10% or given +1 hero LoS. Rant over.
I think 2 or 4 seconds faster? Fast enough that it throws off the balance on some maps where you’re not supposed to be able to get the first pass on certain TPs.
So a fun graph from big spades and the civ grid guys before I go to sleep (kiddo willing). Data here is freely available through the discord for those interested fyi.
Before people get into arms this is using hellpunches API to pull every game from 1v1 this patch, then breakdown per civ and length of game. For reference a steep slope suggests a civ wins or loses heavily in that game timeframe: a gentle slope suggests not huge difference. The end tail is us lumping all.40+ minute games into 1 to save space. This is not a statement op or not, but a question of "if france is unrushable, but it’s self not a huge rush civ, they should have higher than normal amount of games end sun 10 minutes right? Ill let people make heads or tails themselves
Now to be 100% accurate we’d have to further cross reference win rates vs rush civs, and losses vs rush civs with general game time. I dont think we have enough data yet this patch. But, last patch when frances win rate was 48% at 1550+(4700 games) and 44% at 1900+ (1300 games) france had an above avg game length during a win, but less avg game length on a loss vs lakota india haude russia and well just in general.
The suggestion is france deals with rushes well, but then struggles to translate that into a win taking longer than avg to close it out. More data/evidence would be needed ofc but id guess its cdb defence helping vs rush but frances eco and units not being especially powerful to close games out before settling into the long haul (where very long games, concensus is france does pick back up)
French is generally fine. The only problem is the royal muskets card, which also translates into faster training infantry, allowing France to snowball. I think adding 100W cost to that card should fix it for good.
