Suggestions for Improving Game Balance and Mechanics

Hello Retold players, I would like to share my thoughts on game balance and improvement suggestions. A little about myself: I have a rating of 1400-1500 in both solo and team play, and I’ve spent over 700 hours in online battles. I understand and know the basic mechanics of the game, and perhaps a little more.

I know not everyone may agree with what I’m about to say, but here it goes:

Norse

It feels like the developers have favorite civilizations, namely the Norse and Egyptians, while the Greeks, in my opinion, are not in favor.

Berserkers and Hersirs in the 4th Age with full upgrades can easily destroy a Titan due to the huge HP drain of the Berserkers. As the game states, the Titan is a deadly weapon meant to destroy everything in its path, but 20 Berserkers and 10 Hersirs easily take it down.

There should be a training time for villagers to become Berserkers. Why do Atlantean heroes take time to train, but here we get killing machines instantly? Berserkers should be nerfed: reduce attack, movement speed, or armor, or increase their cost. The “Walking Trees” ability is too strong, especially in solo play, where it can demolish your settlement in just a few seconds. Reduce tree damage by 50% or decrease their armor.

Thor’s Gold Mine should have a radius of action within which it cannot be used, a specific restriction radius around settlements.

“Winter of the Fylbuntur” is an insanely powerful ability, especially in team games (3v3, 4v4). The duration should be reduced, the wolf damage should be lowered, or the number of settlements where they appear should be decreased.

The mass spam of buildings in the later stages is madness. Something needs to be done about this, otherwise, players just keep building settlements.

The cavalry speed with bonuses shouldn’t be 6.6. It’s too fast, especially when Freya’s cavalry is faster than Poseidon’s cavalry with two Hermes upgrades. After all, Poseidon is the god of horses, not Thor or Freya.

Egyptians

Egyptians are a very strong civilization in the hands of skilled players.

The free upgrade for towers is too strong. These guys can sit on their base until the 12th-13th minute.

Buildings should cost something. Otherwise, they can fully defend their base with smithies and markets.

Egyptian infantry (Axeman) is too strong despite its cheap cost. The modifiers should scale with the ages (for example, x2 in the 2nd Age, x3 in the 3rd, x4 in the 4th).

The damage of the Son of Osiris should be reduced, or its armor should be decreased, as with proper micro and a mobile tower, it’s hard to destroy it.

Chariot Archers should be nerfed: reduce their damage or modifiers, or decrease their speed.

Camel speed is too high (7.2 with upgrades). It needs to be reduced.

The Ptah farm upgrade should be more expensive.

Atlanteans

The number of villagers should be increased to 60-75, and their efficiency should be normalized in terms of overall balance. Atlanteans have a huge economic boost in the early stages thanks to heroic workers and Prometheus’ improvement.

The transformation of villagers into heroes should not restore their health.

The cost of Hero Ballistas should be lowered.

Kronos should not get two mythical units when advancing to the next age. This should be balanced (for example, 2 mythical units in the 2nd Age, 1 in the 3rd, and 2 in the 4th).

The transformation of villagers into heroes should be more expensive for all civilizations.

Spiders should not give vision when underground.

The cost of cavalry reduction for Theia should be less in percentage terms.

Reduce Gaia’s regeneration to 0.5 or make it so that her regeneration doesn’t affect buildings.

Greeks

The damage from Hades’ Watchers should be reduced, as 20 damage is too much, especially when there are many of them.

Poseidon’s first ability should cost less grace when used repeatedly.

The cost of Hoplites should be reduced by 5%.

The speed of Minotaurs should be increased.

The crushing damage of Hydras should be increased by 5 units.

All Greek heroes should have higher movement speed.

Greeks should be given a building for producing catapults, as is done for the Egyptians. In long games (60+ minutes), this would give a big advantage, as Egyptians can produce catapults from cheap factories, while Greeks need 600 resources for a fortress.

Cavalry should have a higher movement speed.

Hera’s Lightning should start working without delay, otherwise, it’s very easy to avoid it in a garrison.

General Changes

Lower the cost of caravans.

Reduce grace acquisition for all civilizations, but increase it for the Greeks.

All Greek heroes should be faster.

Additional Suggestions

Limit the use of strong abilities in team games: you could introduce restrictions on the number of times these abilities can be used in a given area or at a specific moment in time. (Mass wolves)

Increase the importance of tactics and maps: adding new types of terrain, such as forests or mountains, which slow down cavalry and require players to employ more flexible strategies.

Economic balance: you could introduce more significant trade routes or upgrades for trading, making the economy less dependent on one resource source.

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Overall, I really liked your ideas! Especially the one about creating a specific building for siege works for greeks. There’s one positive and one negative point: the fortress would no longer train siege units, but at least it wouldn’t be necessary to build a fortress to create siege weapons. It’s a really cool idea.

We’re all tired of talking here on the forum about how ridiculous the power of Fimbulwinter has become. In the classic game, the developers wisely limited the number of Town Centers where the wolves would spawn, for obvious reasons! The wolves are way too strong, and the most absurd part is that they even appear at abandoned Town Centers. There’s no way to hide the caravans—when two enemies use Fimbulwinter, it means all your caravans will perish. And that could be around 30 caravans. Killing 3,000 food units like that with a god power, while also leaving the enemy without resource collection for a long time, makes Fimbulwinter the most powerful god power in the game, as well as the most unbalanced.

The only way I see to solve this is by increasing the cost of buildings once they reach a predefined limit: When you build 5 Barracks, the 6th Barracks could have, for exemple, a 5%-10% cost increase. This could be applied to all military structures: Fortresses, Towers, etc. This way, it wouldn’t be necessary to limit the number of these buildings, or at least the limit could be increased, as they would become so expensive at a certain point that continuing to build them would be unfeasible.

Here we agree: If Fimbulwinter, Nidhogg, Earthquake, Tornado, Meteor, etc., have no delay in their use, why should Hera’s power have one?

And I would add the Myrmidon’s attack speed here: It’s a unit that is no longer worth it for the Greeks in the late game since its attack speed is too slow. The Berserker lands three attacks while the Myrmidon is still on its first.

Beside changing one of the points mentioned regarding Fimbulwinter slightly you could also add a much higher CD to it for wonderage.

Regarding the other GPs mentioned also in comparison to lighting storm:
Meteorstrike and Tornado are more unprecise than lighting storm. Also lighting storm does way more dmg than in old AoM (which is a good thing!) + it now does dmg to buildings too and it’s effect area is relative large too.

If something needs a buff than it’s Nidhogg/GPs which summon creatures

I’m not sure, but I would like confirmation: does the Nidhogg dragon occupy population space? Because the other day I played a match where the guy made 20 dragons in Age V. It was impossible.

No pop space Nidhogg | Age of Empires Series Wiki | Fandom

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the only pantheon that really needs a nerf is the atlanteans, all other pantheons need buffs except the atlanteans and except the hetaroi unit which is broken unit in the game. ps: the atlanteans always ruin team games with their hero spam.