Spain is so strong in 1v1 that Malta dominated them by spamming the worst musketeer in the game. Ten dogs got two kills in one game (Explorer and Hussar). Jajaja
Okay, are Spain really strong in 1v1? Okay, KONSENSUS can’t play for Spain. Let’s look at someone else. I didn’t think it would be so hard to find a winning match for Spain in 1v1, so I’m just browsing through the first few videos I see on YouTube.
I trusted the consensus that Spain is strong in 1v1 situations. But I don’t see it that way. So far, nothing but defeats.
Another defeat. I’m starting to get tired of this, I’ll just look for a game where Spain uses the pike/bow strategy.
I found a Spanish victory thanks to the rodeleros. The German army consisted of 80% wagons and hussars. The Spanish army was 100% skirmishers and rodeleros, countering the wagons and hussars. Who would have thought — Germany lost to a full counter comp.
A brilliant rodeleros play. But I never denied that they were working against the Aztecs and the Incas.
Spain still lost with 4 TP. I don’t see where they’re strong 1v1. I also haven’t seen dogs being overpowered in any of the games I’ve watched (and there were more than I’ve posted here). In the pro scene, no one uses archaic infantry at all. Still not convinced. Quite the opposite, actually.
I wasn’t going to reply again, but this post is egregious. Not commenting on something doesn’t constitute an endorsement. I skimmed your post and commented on the most obvious issues. I missed some things. And regarding the post where you find Spain losing, you used some poor logic. No one said “Spain never loses at high levels” so pulling some random examples where Spain lost is silly. Since you didn’t bother pulling any tier lists I got 3 from high level players.
All show Spain in either A tier or S tier. I’m not an advocate for any nerfs really, and you’ll notice I haven’t suggested any really. Spain seems pretty okay at the moment and you kinda want a lot of civs in A tier.
This is a mischaracterization of what has been said.
I agreed Spain struggles in prolonged team games, that’s it. And it’s going to be extremely hard to fix that without throwing off 1v1 and treaty balance. And having said that, Spain has team 1 falc and team 1 heavy cannon making them pretty good for shorter duration team games (so just try to end the game faster). Also, in a prolonged team game once you get your eco fully running you do have the ability to get 4.6 speed skirms with Unction. It’s not the easiest to get set up, but it’s also common for civs to have weak points. Portugal basically can’t play age 2, Russia is weak in the mid game, India is weak in the late game. Malta falls off pretty hard when the map’s wood starts to run out. Aztecs fall off late game due to issues killing huge skirm masses. Etc.
Also, unless they change course from the Bata, Spain will probably be S tier in team with unlimited conquistadors costing pop. 50 Conqs will wildly outperform regular dragoons given the AoE. Not to mention that they can get discounted by 25% (being Native Warriors), +15% attack and hp, +5% speed and Unction which will make them pretty insane.
Again, you mischaracterize, not everyone agrees that they need buffs. But this is also a horrible solution. Multipliers against shock infantry are intentionally kept lower than against cav because cav has more hp and there are very few shock infantry units in the game (not to mention this is basically a random “Spain stumps Aztec and Inca”). 20% RR will make them nightmarish in 1v1 because it will dramatically improve how well they do against their counters. +2 base damage worsens this even further and the bonus against natives is frankly very random and will create unforeseen issues somewhere.
Rods are a tricky unit. The speed (which is a stat you are paying for) makes them very good for anyone who can micro them efficiently. At lower levels they aren’t as good because the micro isn’t good.
That’s a terrible idea. 1v1 Spain doesn’t need that nerf nor does Treaty Spain need the buff.
Sure. This is probably fine. When are you applying it though? With Spanish Gold would feel bad imo. Sometimes it’s useful to save the coin as mines begin running out but you could absolutely add this to the Pike square card.
You speak with such confidence about something you seemingly don’t understand… I’m not saying they need to get nerfed, but they are absolutely significant in 1v1. Even if you take a minimalist view and say only the free dog in age 1 matters (not true, but pretending for the moment), it is better than +20hp for Otto (or +1 melee attack for Sweden, or +1 Ranged attack for France) for gathering treasures and the knowledge that you have a dog can force your opponent not to go for some treasures because if their explorer gets caught with low hp they will lose it to your explorer and a dog. Removing the +20% attack and hp from the card and upping the Build limit to 8 or 10 would probably be fine, it would be a revert back to an older version of the card if I recall correctly, but stop with the “dogs are too weak” nonsense. Even if they fail to kill anything for the entire game, they still absorb shots which have a nearly 0% chance of having a bonus against them. There’s opportunity cost to shooting the dogs with anything that has a bonus against anything else in your army.
Changing Hand Infantry attack to “Team Archaic Infantry attack” is actually a decent idea, though I’d actually lean towards a swap “Team Archaic Infantry Hitpoints” (+15% hp and +5 for Rods), and then give Spain “Archaic Infantry Attack”. Don’t need to be giving Longbowmen and Maltese Xbows more attack. Spain shouldn’t get crossbowmen with a range higher than 18 though (with 19-20 range they would be better than Maltese crossbows given the Unction damage since you can’t assume Crossbows will be the first thing getting shot) and that goes double if you let them cost coin.
Probably a bad idea. You’re buffing the entire team’s pikes. Unless of course you remove the “team” portion of the card in which case it’s probably fine.
Assuming a normal return rate, this would be fine. 10c if he kills a musketeer isn’t going to be a big deal.
Not sure you can do team +75% attack on heroes. Mostly thinking of Japan where it might improve Divine Strike, but depending on the wording of the card it could generate a few issues for some other non-Euro civs as well.
Spies aren’t really a Spain problem… Spies are kinda sketchy overall. They have some niche uses in 1v1, but that’s really it. I don’t think a detailed spy discussion belongs in this thread.
Or logistic, where you have an unlimited shipment of almost 1000 resources (If you put in an infinite drawer of resources). In the long run, it becomes more profitable than lancers because they aren’t blocked by the pop limit, and you end up earning more shipments than you can use.
Probably depends largely on whether you are generating enough xp that shipments are stacking. If they are, then absolutely. If not, the lancers let you overpop by 13 and you should have outposts at the front to deliver to.
You’ve already finished the conversation. Since no one else joined the discussion, I summed it up. I hoped that the discussion was really over.
If you’re not interested in reading my post, or you’re not interested in some of my suggestions, you can simply not discuss them. I’m not forcing anyone.
I wasn’t cherry-picking, I just went through all the new videos from 4 to 9 months ago. I’m really happy for Soldier, Lion Heart, and the rest of the guys and their opinions. No one in this thread is discussing Spain needing buffs or nerfs. You apparently skim-read all my posts, so you’re all freaking out for no reason.
If you wanted to respond to my post with the video, your reply is accepted. But I wasn’t arguing with Spain’s strength.
I was hoping to avoid the argument cycle, but it’s very difficult to do when they’re being ignored.
My idea was to address a Spanish build that isn’t used in the game. Of all the points related to classic Spanish play, only the Rodelero was touched upon.
The Conquistador and Destreza cards aren’t used in Spanish meta builds.
Since you’re skimming my posts, I’ll be repeating this several times.
MY SUGGESTIONS DO NOT AFFECT ANY SPANISH META. THEY AFFECT THE USE OF TERCIO, CROSSBOWMEN AND SPIES, AS WELL AS CARDS THAT ARE NOT USED IN META DECKS LIKE CONQUISTADOR AND DESTEZA (or whatever it’s called now, its name is constantly changing).
I’ve highlighted it in caps to make it easier to see.
First of all, I would like to get an answer to the question:
Second: dogs don’t objectively change anything. As you said yourself, the melee fighters in this game suck. I haven’t personally seen them decide the outcome of a single game. That’s why they don’t take the Conquistador card. My plan is for them to support the build with archaic infantry.
This is an outrageous distortion of the facts. All experienced players know how the House of Bourbon works for France. The Conquistador will work exactly the same, only without the upgrades of those natives. Not to mention that these guys don’t help Mexico win at all. Mexico wins with other units. But the discussion of adding Conquistadors (LET ME REMINDER THAT MEXICO HAS ACCESS TO THE FULL SET OF UPGRADES AND THE CONQUISTADORS THEMSELVES, AND THEY WILL NOT GIVE SPAIN ANYTHING SUPERNATURAL BENEFITS THAT THEY DIDN’T GIVE TO MEXICO) I’ve written another important message so you don’t miss it.
Conquistadors are not relevant to this topic, because they are not improved by the Conquistador card, the Destreza card, the Assassins card, or the Archaic Combat card.
I completely agree with you. I don’t know how to improve it myself, but I do know that it should serve a different function than pikemen. I’m 100% sure of that.
I disagree with you. This isn’t a nerf. With S Tier civilization can handle this problem, and in other situations, it will only benefit.
The Spanish square is a junk card, completely useless at age 4. Its ability can be transferred to any non-team card, or to a team card, but, similar to Italy, I’d make this bonus exclusive to Spain.
I understand everything about this dogmeats. They don’t make any impact on the game. None at all. The fact that they absorbed 20 shots for 425 food is nothing. That’s why both the +20% bonus and the limit will be increased. I want to see this card included in some decks.
MY GOAL IS TO GET CONQUISTADOR AND DESTREZA CARDS IN THE DECKS.
Good clarification. But if you don’t do this, the team card will continue to be ignored.
I even attached a screenshot to my first post. You said you didn’t read it, but were you able to see the images? The Imperial Crossbowman has a range of 16. But you’re right about the team card. Additional functions could be added. I already referenced the Italian TEAM Cavalry Attack card.
It is possible, but I am not an expert on other civilizations, what they have with spies. brought up the topic of spies here because they were supposed to be a standard unit for Spain. This is unique to Spain.
There’s no other logical place for It. And I don’t see a problem. You don’t need to hoard coins. You don’t need musketeers and skirmishers; those roles are already filled.
Even with the hand infantry cards for Spain I disagree that this is mainly a Spain unit, it’s generic, but given those cards buffing the unit would be another way to make Spain stronger by comparison…
Btw, Ports had the strongest spy for a while due to the melee combat card in III for a while. It created some issues due to getting a higher attack and having fairly few tags which made it hard to counter. The whole Spy/merc balance topic is an issue where I totally agree there is a problem, but again I think this isn’t the place for it. It should have it’s own thread. I’m not sure spies actually have a place in the game. Mercs simply need to get less upgrades so that regular units overshadow them over time. That was how it was in the base game, and improvements to Mercs has complicated balance a lot. A unit which counters units of random classes needs to basically have no counters which will always lead to it being op or trash.
Sounds like you want to make it stronger…
What does “+1 to range from any line upgrade” mean other than +1 range with Vet, Guard, and Imperial? If you’re talking about the archaic cards impacting them it’s the same thing only earlier in the game. Sounds like you want to make it stronger…
My point in ripping your posts apart like this is to point out where I was coming from. I know Spain is roughly top of A tier from the types of tier lists I sent over, and the sound of almost every piece of that first post sounded like requests for buffs. And of course, buffing parts of a civ that aren’t currently used are buffs to that civ. If you buff something to the point it’s better in a situation than whatever is currently being done then it’s obviously a buff.
If I said, “Portugal should get Cassadors starting in age 2”, I couldn’t then say, “that it isn’t a buff, it’s just trying to make age 2 plays more viable”. Making age 2 plays more viable would be a buff in it of its self.
Saying something like, “I wish Spain’s xbows were their go-to light infantry instead of their skirms. What could we change to make that happen?” would have probably landed you with something like removing the age 4 skirm card for some xbow buffs. You’d be losing the higher anti-heavy infantry damage and extra range in your main composition in favor of more base damage and a cheaper unit. It would probably still end up being a buff, but at least it’s a trade off.
Now, I’m not going to reply to everything, but I am going to defend myself a little:
You made it sound like everyone agreed with you. That wasn’t true.
I actually don’t think I’m distorting here. Unless they changed something last minute, I don’t believe it works like House of Bourbon, they gave Spain no build limit on them. 12 conqs are good, but 50 is way better. AoE is a big deal, and AoE on a ton of ranged units significantly improves damage distribution.
Otto grens, were able to kill a lot of their counters because the AoE was good for killing low-hp units like skirms which they could outrun. Do you remember Swedish Hakkas from a while ago? They outperformed against a lot of things because the AoE allowed for really solid damage distribution to infantry. These will only cost about 120 resources, and have more speed, and more range…
Now, earlier I may have misinterpreted some things you said as you arguing in bad faith, and I responded a bit more aggressively. And for that I am sorry.
I’ve said everything I needed to say. My proposals are clear. If you still think I’m asking for blanket buffs, you haven’t read my posts — and I’m not going to repeat myself for the fourth time.
The alternative is buff them into some sort of unique niche unit which I wouldn’t hate, but could be a balance concern. Shock infantry lets Spain have 1 pop cav without stables, which needn’t be OP to be used.
TBH the Rods should have been changed to shock hand infantry when Warchiefs released. As you we progress there are many more units that are fast sword and shield guys, like Shaolin Rattan Shields (awful name, incidentally,) and now the Scottish Clansman.
If we go that route, would that mean the Rodeleros are switching to upgrades from cavalry cards, and we’re removing the Hussars?
We’re also depriving Spain of melee infantry, because, let’s be honest, it’s impossible to spam wood units without losing tempo. The reason I’ve always been against it is because shock infantry chains up a bunch of other unpredictable changes in other places.
For example, rodeleros will die in battles with pikemen at age 2, lose battles with hussars, and be decimated by dragoons.
I had the idea of giving them 10% ranged armor and decreasing their multiplier against cavalry. But the developers dumped the armor bonus on pikemen. At the same time, they did not fix the wood production and did not convert wood units to gold.
Ultimately, nothing changed. People simply continued using rodeleros to maintain tempo.
That’s fair. I like the direction with the 10% ranged armour and decreased cavalry - giving it more of a focal point of getting in the melee with other infantry, whilst being more vulnerable to cav than a traditional Halb ‘slot’ units (fitting as cavalry was one of their historic vulnerabilities). I mean, with this focus, I’d even lean into it being an anti-heavy infantry unit - kinda like the Jag knights but actually being more specialised in dealing with infantry, balanced with far less useful cav bonus. That way you’re rewarded if you can get Rods past the musketry, into the melee.
I would avoid altering anything else in the roster. Let’s not fix what isn’t broken, eh?
As for shock Rodeleros, I’d give them stats which vaguely align with other shock infantry. I’d intend them as a lower investment but lower ceiling option to the cavalry.
I’d therefore want them to feel very capable early on (which is natural even if not statistically amazing, because no stable required), but less capable compared to hussars with cavalry combat card, cuirass, etc. And while in a different role than a lancer, certainly less ceiling than a Caballero’s lancer.
Good design encourages difficult decisions, making for games with variety; if I have 50 shock infantry, I know they’ll never be as good as lancers, should I invest in their upgrades? What if I have none? Different situations can warrant different compositions. This is good game design.
My alternative suggestion would be make them the absolute worst shock infantry in the game, but have them shadow tech. Turns them into an excellent zero investment emergency “I need to deal with cannons and skirms now” option, despite making them poor value for money over time.
EDIT: My alternative, alternative suggestion, would be make them the game’s first shock infantry lancers. Extremely high ranged resistance, no siege or hand resistance, very, very low HP, solid multipliers vs infantry. This would actually make them supremely realistic, as they’d counter pikes, muskets and skirms, but be vulnerable to melee cavalry and cannons.
I don’t quite understand what you meant, but I’ll try to answer anyway. Currently, the Rodelero is a very poor pikeman; it can’t destroy buildings, has no protection from ranged damage, but is very fast.
They lose in combat against any heavy infantry, skirmishers, dragoons, lancers or artillery. That is, everyone except the hussars. I’ll write this again separately: they either kill the hussars, or it’s a meat shield against the halberdiers’ spam. That’s all they use.
They have the same HP as a skirmisher, but only 3 more damage than a pikeman. So, to use this unit, you need to fill it with 4 cards, or better yet, don’t build it at all and use musketeers, which work great right out of the box and also free up 3 deck slots.
Regarding your suggestion about shock infantry.
Your point would make sense if rodeleros didn’t require line upgrades.
This is the same option, only taking into account my last comment. The problem is that it will be a dead unit. No one will invest in something that works worse if there is something that works better.
I don’t quite understand how to make them non-heavy infantry and still give them resistance to ranged damage separately from artillery resistance.
Make their HP even lower than that of the Skirmisher?
I think it’s better to keep them as heavy infantry for this proposal.
They’d need a total rework then as for starters brits would just monocomp 50 musk and right click spain as rods are a big part of this m/up
France would also be a nightmare. Or ports. Any goon civ would stomp spain. Since there’s no ranged infantry shipments till late, goons would be a serious issue or musks since rods do “ok” currently.
I like the change for consistency but we’d need a serious rework of spain which I fear might have passed. At least rods are good in most modes as is.
I did some testing…The units that get the most card upgrades are Pikemen, Rodeleros, Lancers, Hussars and Crossbowmen though the later is mostly incidentally you’re expected to phase crossbowmen out in favor of skirmishers.
Rodeleros need help right now 4 times out of 5 Pikemen are just better…keeping with the spirit of the unit without changing anything too drastically their HP total is too low…It should at least be buffed to the same of Musketeers: 150 HP. Their perk other than their speed is their huge 40% melee resist.
Another change is make it so their have full damage even in cover mode.
