Those are my fantasy patch notes to better balance the meta. It covers what I think are the most pressing matters at the moment. Note that it doesn’t cover HRE nor Delhi because I believe those two civs need a number of reworks in their mechanics and landmarks and I already shared my suggestions in another thread. I’ll also leave the Mongols to someone that has played more with and against the civ. I didn’t touch the Rus because I think the civ is overall pretty balanced as it sits in the middle of the pack.
General
Keep cost increased from 800 stone to 1000 stone
I don’t think Keeps being spammed left and right is healthy for the game.
All land units damage against siege increased by 50%
Knight/Lancer charge now works on siege and deals twice the damage.
Springald range increased by 1 and Culverin range increased by 2. Culverin base attack reduced by 35 and bonus against siege increased by 50
Bombards now only have 50% accuracy when attacking land units
All those changes aim to curb the late game bombard spam that is currently the meta in imperial. It looks like in all brackets the only way to counter siege is to spam siege yourself and that isn’t good for the game in my opinion.
English
Farm bonus reduced from 15%/20%/25%/30% to 0/10%/20%/30%. Farms now cost 45 wood instead of 37.
The English now have an easy and safe source of food that is also extremely efficient. I think we need to at least reduce it to make them slower if they opt for early farms.
Armor Clad now moved to Imperial and cost increased accordingly.
This tech is just absurdly good for the cost and makes the English have by far the best MAA in the game. A bit too much considering how well rounded the civ already is.
French
Faster villager and Scout production reduced from 10%/15%/20%/20% to 0/5%/10%/20%
Economic tech discount removed. Now it increases research speed by 50% instead.
Drop-off building discount reduced from 25 to 15 wood.
The French have proven to be the strongest civ on the ladder and I believe it is due to their ability to boom while being extremely aggressive. Reducing the villager production bonus will probably slow them down a bit so the civ doesn’t feel so overwhelming.
Chinese
Granary bonus increased from 10% to 20%
10% doesn’t feel like it’s enough for a building that costs 5x as much as a mill.
Zhuge Nu food cost increased from 20 to 35
The unit is just too good for the cost and making them so cheap on food makes it extremely easy to mass them early.
Reload Drills removed.
Chinese bombard is already extremely oppressive and having this upgrade only makes matters worse.
Grenadier hitpoints decreased from 150 to 120.
This unit already has absurd damage so making it a bit less tanky would probably be healthy for the game.
New Feudal age tech: 100 wood / 250 gold, villagers get +2/+2 armor.
Abbasid
Preservation of Knowledge now decreases tech costs by 40% instead of 30%
Culture wing in need of some love.
New tech available in the siege workshop in Castle Age: increases the damage of mangonels by 30%. Cost 400 wood / 500 gold
Abbasid was hit hard by the mangonel nerf and I think they need a tech like this to be able to deal with infantry spam from other civs.
Composite bows now reduces the reload time of archers by 35% instead of 25%.
This tech comes late in the game and is expensive for what it offers.
Knight/Lancer charge attack now can’t be used when under the effect of the Camel Fear ability. The unit auto-switches to the sword attack.
I don’t think Knights and Lancers should be bursting down camels with charge if the purpose of the camels was to be a hard counter.
You are pretty much removing french from the game. The whole french revolves around early aggression and no one needs faster villagers production in castle or imperial. At that point you can have 2 or 3 more TCs to replenish any villager difference.
Again same. You are pretty much punishing these civs for being popular or having straight forward bonuses. There is no point having a civ that have no civ bonus in dark age. Every civ has some bonus that boosts their dark age. Mongols with double production, French with villager production, English with farms, HRE with increased gather rate, China with faster building and IO with faster gather and faster army production, Dehli with free techs and so on and on. French and English are easy civs so they get less buffs but totally straight forward.
I think proper way to balance game is to not mess with civ uniqueness and focus more on what units causing imbalance. For china its late-game Zhuge Nu and granadier. For english are MAA with faster production time and with much higher armor. Mangonel needs to be buffed to counter mass crossbows especially of french. etc etc
Well does are many changes. Some would change the civs quiet much i think. Wont comment all. And some civs i dont know good enough to comment.
Keeps should be more expensive but in my view also have more hitpoints. So if 1k stone => 25-30% more HP.
siege dmg from units is fine in my view. At least 50% is way to much i think
Charge should not be applied. Knights are worthy enough already.
Too much range. Especially for culverin. Already has insane range. And balance problems occure as only view civs have them. Maybe reduce dmg by 35 and increase bonus siege dmg also by 35.
Accuracy maybe a good thing to be applied to all siege units which got no aoe. 30% would be fine as it is flat out dmg nerf.
The intend to start the bonus later is fine in my view. But this nerf will bump english back to the bottom without compensate and if it is this huge. Maybe go 10/15/25/30 and cost 40 and give some small buff elsewhere.
armor clad is fine as it is i think
*Changes are too huge. I see also a design pattern problem to be super aggressive and have this fast vill prod. Economic tech change could first small nerf to see and make drop-off buildings less cheap. But dont think vill prod first as this will impact too hard. (More expensive keeps would be indirect nerf aswell)
Cannot agree with any of your suggested changes to be honest.
You are punishing the popular civs too much because they are too popular? Players like to use them because they are easy and dominating the early game.
On the contrary, we should give weak civs some more balance on the open maps. The current balance is okay with HRE and Abbasid at the bottom a bit far. I will write a post myself.
I always find it hard to suggest balance. People play at different ELO ranges and especially people who tend to main a specific civ are highly incomplete or biased. So, as a random player (wink) here are non civ specific balance changes that I think that would help.
(1) Religious units to not be selected into select all army. Exception may be made for the Rus Warrior Monk.
(2) Religious units to auto heal and inspire allied units when attack moved.
(3) Packed Mongol buildings to not be selected into all army. Exception may be made for the Kurultai and Deer Stones.
(4) Villagers to no longer be interrupted by scouts when attempting to drop of resources.
(5) Walls being easier to place. More clear indication if it is connecting with a forest or river.
(6) Able to connect walls with allies. As well as build gates into walls of allies.
(7) Fix the bug where building placement, most notably walls, are reflected through the fog of war.
(8) Amend the sometimes massive, massive amount of red flares and war trumpet to prevent the minimap from clogging up into Kandinsky his colour studies painting.
(9) Villagers to exit a garrisoned building into the direct of the rally point that has been set. Currently always pop out on the north side.
(10) Return resources should work for villagers who have received move commands when raided: action should send them back to last attended resource gathering.
(11) Able to shift click a religious unit on to relic, religious building, relic, religious building and it executing those. Currently the drop off or pick up command can only be executed when (not) holding a relic.
(12) There seems to be an issue where trebuchets have trouble passing through palisade gates
(13) Range of buildings to be reflected more accurately. Circle seems to be calculated from the centre of the building. Actual range seems to be calculated from the edge of the building.
(14) Option to toggle the formation walking. When selecting all army to accrue a fighting force, rallied units will slow down to defend slow siege. Causing cavalry to be late to the battle.
(15) Random players to have a dice or question mark in the loading screen to inform friend and foe of their random selection.
(16) Show the map in the loading screen.
(17) Show the name of the map in the player trade menu in game.
(18) In the loading screen make a clear split, top or down, left or right, which team is playing vs which team. Always put own team on left or top side.
(19) Allow shift clicking with boats. E.g. transport ships to drop off an unit and shift click back will result instantly going back. No idea why this is different from land units.
The only civ specific issue I’d address is that French seems to be able to spam tons of knights out of the gate from feudal onwards into imperial. No other civ has an unique unit that is this well rounded. An unit easy to get and easy to use due to its speed, armor and notable DPS. In every age from 1on1 to 4on4. I have no solution to this. It might not even be imbalanced at all ELO ranges. Just pointing out that at many ELO ranges this is easy to play but difficult to counter and as a result the civ seems to lack any and all diversity in play styles. It is unidimensional and therefor boring with debatable balance issues.
don’t forget being able to rally pro scout to pick up carcasses drop them off and go back again.
Also buildings need the ability to shift click multiple targets
villager 12 attack bug needs to be fixed.
ALL BUILDS should allow units to ungarrison in the direction of the rally point.
Range attack priority system needs optimization, ships shootings docks instead of boats… archers firing at buildings/rams instead of other units…
That’s a funny way to say balance patch. Because that’s what every balance patch ever is: you make what’s strong weaker and what’s weaker you make strong. It’s ok for people to like one civ, it’s not ok for 80% of your games on the ladder to be against the same two civs.
I’m not changing their aggression capability. I just don’t want them to be able to be hyper aggressive and boom at the same time. Because there’s no counter to that. I don’t think that would kill the civ but if it does then maybe we need to think of other eco bonus because faster vill production obviously is too strong in an aggressive civ.
They still have a bonus. 45 wood is still a cheap farm. What doesn’t make sense to me is to give the civ a food printer that they can safely set up from Dark Age without even being slowed down. When you gather from berries or hunt you’re exposing your vills to raids that could end your game before the 10 min mark. If the English can get farms as early as the Dark Age that should at least slow them down.
You think those are important but decided to not coment on them. Anyway, the Arbalétrier certainly isn’t the only thing that makes the French stronger than the other civs and buffing the mangonel won’t make the civ less oppressive.
That’s the whole purpose of a balance patch. In every game ever. You can say that or say you want to make other civs more attractive by nerfing the ones that feel too strong. Either way it always feels “punishing” for the people that play what was nerfed.
If you just want to make other civs stronger in order for them to catchup it’s a totally valid approach. I however think it’s better to bring the top 3 down than to bring the bottom 5 up.
So you think siege is in a healthy state or you have a better idea to fix the problem?
I believe that each civ’s character has been preserved. The differences in gameplay are still there as much as before.
The problem with the “no nerfs only buffs” approach is that you’ll be forever powercreeping every civ in the game because balancing is always a continuous, perpetual process.
Scout harassment is an intentional mechanic and although I don’t particularly like it, I don’t think there’s a strong case to remove it.
All your other suggestions are bugfixes or QoL improvements so it is important but beyond the scope of a balance patch.
When the *** did french got buffed? French only received nerfed since the release of the game and had its ups and downs. If french was that god civ it would have always been dominating. Why was it struggling a few patches ago. The civ itself isn’t the problem. Its changes made in other civs or units that have caused imbalance.
Same with english. It always had cheaper farms but the power struggle changed when they buffed MAA. English was considered the worse civ few patches ago. Mangonel nerf did indeed caused imbalanced and with new patch we will be able to see much more diversity in units.
To be honest a bug fix can still notably affect balance within the game. The thing with these suggestions is, they are generic. They are free of bias. They are free of elo ranges. At least, vastly more than most suggestions tend to be. It is often quite easy to spot if someone mains a specific faction based upon balance suggestions. Which makes the entire balance suggestion worthless. I tend to refrain from that
I main English and Chinese and I’m suggesting nerfs to those civs because I’d like there to be more variety in the game. I’ve been gaining MMR by only playing English in the ladder but I’d like to be able to play other civs without feeling like I’m at a disadvantage. Same thing for the Chinese, I’d like to play the civ without feeling pressured to spam siege for an easy win.
French is top civ since the release, it was just hidden behind how OP mongol was, but still, French isn’t just royal knight but thousands of passive eco bonus. It receives only nerf, because it is OP, and it was not enough.
Games are just English, french,; english, french, sometimes mongol, there is no room for other civs due to how strong these two are in feudal. The game is already dying and it’s due to refusing to nerf civ like french.
Yeap. Remember French singlehandedly ruined water maps with their Age 2 Hulk. It was so bad that people basically gave up on water games and they became irrelevant.
I suggest making stone walls stronger. Otherwise no one uses one of the few new features of AOE4: Placing units on stone walls. Bombards should be weaker. Cavalry should make more damage to them and should not be that easily be killed by Bombards.
The only thing I agree here is giving Abbasids a mangonel tech like naptha to increase their damage by 25%. No to any of the other Abbasid changes. I honestly don’t see English being that strong. Their win rate is like 50.7%. They aren’t a hotly contested pick for tourneys as well.
Keeps are fine, they’re supposed to be very strong. There is only so much stone on the map. Come imperial, their durability drops off significantly.
CKN still die to Horsemen/Archer comp or mangos. Hard pass on any of the siege nerfs. Only Chinese really gets away with spamming bombards and bees but thats because of their civ design. Knights/Horsemen already deal 40 torch damage to siege. Melee units do 20 (which is way more than their melee attacks). Siege units cost from 500-1000 resources. And even now, they are effectively countered by having springalds/culverin and horsemen.
This is why I agree with the devs approach to balance with more conservative changes.
