Every spain strat in the last 2 years have been nerfed due to them being too strong and not so easy to counter.
-Xbow/Pike FI
-Logistician
-Naked FF with Spanish Gold
-Peru Revolt with grenades
-Chile Revolt with Hussars
-Soldado FI
Considering most of them follow the same build order, ageup politicians and cards, nerfing the strats wasn’t the best solution. In this post I will try to resume my idea on how to approach the root of these problems.
Currently, Spain has the fastest xp curve, positioning you up to 3/4 shipments ahead of your enemy in a regular game, this is a very strong feature that kinda falls off in later stages of the game. Sending the right shipments at the right moment is what makes spain strong, but having such fast shipments, and so little xp required makes any strategy strong at first glance.
I don’t think the problem was the units, cards or age up politicians. I think the true problem is their XP curve, without that most of their strategies are really slow to perform. That being said, if we lower their xp curve, and give them a reliable tool to perform better at mid stages of the game, we might get a civ that doesn’t need to rush a build order, rather to play a standard game, reacting to the opponent and such.
Let’s say we tone down their xp curve, but in return we move Spanish Gold to the 2nd age, or add the effect to a politician. Also spain was considered one of the archaic civs of europe, I don’t think it’s crazy to give them the Steel Bolts cards, which might add some diversity in their armies.
With a slower curve, and a more stable economy, the civ might withstand a game in many ages, witouth the need to FF as a crazy bot.
Also, why missionaries don’t have unction as default? Considering we now have diferent priests/healers with special abilities from default.
I’m not going to lie to you, I think the problem is not Spain or the FF in general, I think the other civilizations are the problem, they weakened Rush’s strategies so much that currently any defensive strategy is difficult to counter, in my opinion you have to ask for buff for these strategies.
In addition, the cards should be worth based on how easy it is for you to obtain them, that includes the experience speed of the civilization and it is something that is never taken into account, obviously Spain is an exception, precisely that is its advantage.
My only concern is the domino effect that would end up affecting the always forgotten revolutions, if they are going to weaken any civilization they should improve the revolutions so that they are not affected.
If you nerf the cost of experience of shipments from Spain, which is its only bonus, it has to be for another bonus or characteristic that is really worth it, I do not think that those strategies of Spain have been strong because Spain obtains a higher rate of shipments, but because those strategies were basically broken, if we analyze and replicate that in other civ it would be the same, the papal politician improved your crossbowmen to fourth quickly without spending resources, the rev of Peru was too strong at the beginning the revolutionary with the card had no counter , only machine guns or real cannons could counter it and it is very expensive, the rev of Chile is very good but it is so difficult to execute without having difficulties that I think it is not a viable strategy, most are incomplete, you get to do the rev so rushed that it ends up going wrong, it is used more than anything to finish off or when the game is fought and it is decided with a battle, the logistician was 700 of infinite resources that arrived so fast and without the need to send villagers to collect the crates that was too much op, Spain has very good things that are not used much like the missionaries and war dogs in late should do things to encourage their use but it is too difficult to balance, I like the idea that they nerf the bonus of Spain in exchange for other improvements or mini bonuses that give it more tools, I think it would be a good idea, that it has a unique Spanish arsenal, where the archaic and war dogs could be made more useful in late As long as they are original things and not copied from other civs, it is very complex to make changes to Spain without screwing it up, but I feel that it is the best thing that can be done to cover the problems that Spain has been having for a long time
Now benefits all Exploration Age shipments as well as
Improved Buildings, Hot Air Balloons, Native Lore
, and
Extensive Fortifications
.
The
Papal Guard
politician has been adjusted as follows:
Now enables
Guard Crossbowmen
and
Pikemen
upgrades to be researched at
no cost
rather than activating them and their prerequisites instantly.
Reduces the cost of the
Royal Guard
upgrade from
1000 wood, 1000 coin 300 wood, 300 coin
.
Where applicable: reduces the cost of other Guard upgrades for Hand Infantry—such as those for Halberdiers and Doppelsolders—to
300 wood, 300 coin
.
These changes to
Papal Guard
affect all civilizations, but are largely aimed at reducing the strength of the Spanish “fast Industrial” strategies while simultaneously improving its usefulness to other civilizations. As always, we will be watching to see the impact this has on gameplay.
There are the patch notes so you can see that this politician was much stronger because of that detail of instant improvement, the others have to pay and investigate the improvement
Team archaic infantry training is insanely good you don’t need steel bolts on top of that since with liberation march and church research you have an instant army.
If any civ needs a boost for crossbowmen it’s swedes because of dragoons, and even then steel bolts would be overkill they just need the guard/imperial upgrades.
Brits, Dutch, Swedes are protestant
Russians and Ottoman are orthodox and islamic (BTW ethiopia is orthodox as well).
No papal guard for them since they’re not catholic civs.
The vanilla Spanish meta was totally different and more fun for me. I would say that with a Spain ep9 it is with Spanish gold at 360 or even 350c Spain would be perfect, it eliminates redicules fi of bow and pike and stupid invaders soldado without skills and logistics and Spain is again normal.
Indeed, the ep version was a straight FF, to be most of the civs in EP were FFing. We can break that cycle if cards like Tercios and Reconquista get reworked. Maybe even adding a euro nat shipment in age2.
It was ff because the players wanted to play but Spain can play safely in 2 ages and force the opponent to stay there, not all civs obviously every match is different on different maps. Obviously Spain has its maximum power in 3 ages like China so we play strategy. Tercio and reconquista should be redone from 0 because they have no purpose, reconquista is simply stupid, at high levels you have to lose as few units as possible and reconquista says the opposite and then the conquistadors are not needed since Spain has 3 units of ancient age in 2 ages.
Spain’s civilization bonus eventually becomes meaningless, but of all the original civs they’re the one with the most unique units. The Rodelero, Lancer and Missionary they also the only civ to have 3 royal guards without a card or politician.
No spainish are still ahead we both forgot about dogs, spain has 4 unique units and 3 royal guard.and they’re only missing grenadiers.
Also Spahi Nizam and great bombard are shipment only, So that leaves only Janissary and abus gun but that also don’t have halberdiers, pikemen and crossbowmen or anything equivalent. So it’s a net loss
Germany is also a net loss, France is net 0.
My point still stands spain have the most unique units and royal guards.
The spanish royal guard are a shit. The useless pikemen, the rodeleros do the same but instead of siege they run.
They could have used a royal guard for musk or skirm.
300 wood, 300 coin