No, you may misunderstand my meaning at free advance arsenal.
This is one of Sweden advantage, but if we take this point only to talk, I will not consider this is OP also. However, Sweden has many advantage without costing them any negative bonus, this becomes OP.
So in this topic is summarize and has conclusion to all Sweden advantages, not only single point.
How does nerfing it to a more acceptable state equate to making it garbage?
Has anyone really done this?
If you come to think about it, this is actually different.
The reason why Chinese does not do well against cavalry is because they have mediocre cavalry counters (especially in the early game), not because they do not have cavalry counters.
Similarly, people have been talking about Brits being bad against heavy infantry in late game because longbows are not so efficient and their artillery are average, not because they do not have infantry counters.
Swedes weren’t bad against dragoons before the second last patch because they have caroleans which used to counter almost everything except artillery and have ranged resistance. Now they no longer counter dragoons, which makes Swedes lack dragoon counters (mercs are too expensive). Then the devs gave them crossbows to compensate for that, which is actually a nice change. But they still totally lack dragoons, and they have a musketeer that acts like dragoons—and a unit with too many roles is usually either overpowered or master of none. That’s why they weren’t really competent in a goon-skirm war.
The difference is between a civ that is not good at a particular function, and one that lacks a particular function.
I used to defend the game against some die-hard RTS design expert, who said Ottomans are unplayable because they only have one infantry, by pointing out that they do not actually lack any unit type in the game, it’s just that their skirmisher is trained in the artillery foundry — and note abus gun is still counted as infantry rather than artillery! In the Warchiefs expansion, the devs tweaked the tomahawk to a musketeer-type unit, which was very counter-intuitive, just to give the Iro/Haud a proper heavy infantry. Even the Aztecs, who had neither gunpowders nor horses, have all unit types with their distinct functions. Now it’s the devs themselves who officially introduce a civ that really lacks certain functions.
Edit: I don’t really imply Swedes are too overpowered or totally impossible to balance. I just think the design is absurd. Of course if we spend enough time investigating how to balance it, we may reach a more balanced state of the game. But the design is still absurd.
Right but then if we want to talk about all the advantages, then other civs have a long list of those as well.
If we are just talking on paper, there is a large list of things that other civs can do as well that would seem absurd.
Spain can get the strongest units in the game by going unction
Lakota has the fastest hero in the game that can snipe other heroes right in the early game.
Let me just put it this way, are swedes strong? yes? will they probably be nerfed a bit? sure. But as it stand they are not the dominant force that I think you make them out to be.
You can play RE right now 1v1 and get otto or haud rush and see what that feels like.
To me aoe always have had a design philosophy of a base + weird bits.
Look at aoe 2, they have had progressively more mechanics at units that break the traditional archer cav infantry mould, basically every unique unit breaks it somehow.
Same with aoe 3, the vanilla game introduced a base with potential for tweaking, even then it had some significant variation within it, with what I would call the core vanilla civ being france, brit and maybe german, the rest had various strange units that breaks the mould like lancers, cossacks, strelet and so on.
the expansions added stranger units as well, goon that was also a skirm (lakota), goon that was essentially a musk(ERK)
I also don’t think that swedes really lack particular functions either, they can counter goon, just not well since their options are either jeager or xbow, which is either expensive or weak.
Caroleans are not an issue with Sweden. They are just unusual, but can be countered.
The advanced arsenal or more powerful mercs are another bonus, that on its own isnt a biggie.
The biggest issue is the Torp imo. It makes Sweden absolute beast in 1v1. For those who dont play 1v1, it is more fast paced, and usually game ends by age III. Sweden is arguably super powerful, if not OP in the second and third age.
Main reason is unraidable economy. - Raiding a booming civ is extremely important in 1v1. Since Sweden has torps, that collect even while under attack, you cannot raid them. The closest equivalent is Japan, but the shrines collect slower and are more vulnerable, as they have to be dispersed far from the base. Not that this argument helps much, becuase Japan is powerful thanks to this on its own and people have been complaining about them for ages. Now Sweden was introduced, its basically Japan on steroids: Slap down houses that give you resources, and just spam units. - This is not only powerful on paper, but in practice too, as you dont have to pay too much attention to your eco and focus more on micro.
Torp is also basically free. You pay 100 wood for 10 pops as usual, but then you pay 25 wood for 150 free collectable food. Paired with blueberries, its insane in 1v1.
Decreasing villager pop cap will not help. It makes civs less powerful in longer games and has no impact on early game. That is where Sweden shines. (like a thousand suns)
Sweden also gets 2 cannons in age II. Yea, less powerful, but still very powerful.
To balance Sweden, we have to focus on it’s early game. 1v1s possibly 2v2s. In Treaty or 3v3/4v4 Sweden is an OK civ.
These two scenarios are actually different:
(1) Spain has mediocre dragoons, skirms or artillery, but they have an unction card to boost their stats universally.
(2) Spain completely lacks dragoons or skirms, etc., but they have an unction card to give their musketeer, etc. good against everything.
True, but Lakota lacks neither skirmisher nor dragoon.
ERK is essentially a dragoon because it counters cavalry with range, and is not vulnerable against artillery.
Special units with distinct functions always exist since the base aoe3 (lancers, etc.), but it’s not a good idea to replace regular units with the them. They should come as an addition to the base unit types just like in aoe2.
In aoe2 unique units are either (1) a regular unit with modified stats to make it particular strong in some ways but weaker in some others (e.g. longbows) (2) a unit with very distinct functions (e.g. huskarls), but they don’t replace their regular counterparts, and cannot be trained very efficiently because you need castles.
In aoe3, however, most UUs are of the first type, and those belonging to the second come as an addition, not replacement.
Edit: I was talking about not only strange units, but also strange units with too many functions. Even in aoe2 that is very rare.
Right but your point was that the devs hav added civs that lack certain functions. Currently swedes don’t really lack any functions that I can think of that other civs have.
If anything the civ that lacks the most is aztec since they don’t have any real counter to cannons.
My main point is just Sweden gets many bonus and these bonus are almost above other civs, as topic said, better military & eco.
However, I think our concept are basically similar. I never said as what Sweden protectors slandered me “Sweden need to be bottom civ/Sweden have to be dead civ” something like that. I never said all of these elements I mentioned have to be nerfed below all the civs level. Just they are getting too much bonus.
That’s why I have used adjusted well in the previous patch but Sweden protectors made Dev mess balance again. So now they should get nerfed again.
On the other hand, I am not hating Sweden, what I dislike is only those protectors only showing their feeling to prove Sweden is fine, which failed and they are beating themselves as I showed in another post, and they like to complain my personal only, with AOE2 and Japan.
This post is also required by them.
Last, after this balance patch, some functional defects and the bugs accumulated for a long time. This Dev seems not ok that’s why I also mention in another post if someone can teach me how to refund, I will refund if they are possible.
They do not have anything like a dragoon. They used to completely lack skirms, but now they have crossbows, which is nice. They also have mercs of course but mercs are not really practical at a current stage. It would be nice to make mercs viable for Swedes so they have regular units as skirmishers and dragoons, instead of having one unit doing all the job.
They have arrow knights, which are essentially culverins+mortars but in practice not really effective, which is also an absurd design, but in a bad way. What they really lack is anti-infantry artillery, so they have infantry countering infantry (jaguars) but they still do not replace the regular melee infantry (pumas).
Again, I’d like to distinguish “being bad at” and “completely lacking”.
Right but even in the lastest patch, the only real change compared to when swede was considered ■■■■ was the larger time window for blueberries.
Swede isn’t that powerful compared to their peak power imo with the 1 gold per sec torps and 500 food starting blueberries. Heck caroleans no longer counter light cav. People figured out how to beat that one and while this one probably needs a eco nerf, they are not an overwhelming force
They are not only unusual, they have faster speed, range multiplier to cav, better resistance, and is able to equip with 2 OP shipments.
if you want to talk they even have higher melee attack but no multiplier to cav, this still may be ok, but others are too much.
Torps totally agree.
Team game players don’t want to talk about balance in DE
I agree, so I said Sweden is from S+++ to S++, may be S++++ to S++, it doesn’t matter.
To them, sure Sweden got a huge nerfed already, but this is just Sweden was too OP.
I mean you can say the same about china, as Hakkapelit are essentially meteor hammers with splash damage ( oh how I wish for that). They can counter cav with their massively buffed pikeman which is also a guard unit.
While mercs as it stands with swedes maybe considered non-viable due to their massive costs, swedes can still get cheap-ish jeagers from the church tech + the regular merc shipment. I think they have enough options
While China has keshiks, they have never been part of a viable china anticav comp, which is why china is considered to be “bad” against cav.
They still have keshiks, and they are not replaced by meteor hammers. That is very different. And they’re balancing towards encouraging the use of keshiks (9 keshiks to 10 keshiks)
Or I’d like to modify my argument a little bit: It’s not that Swedes completely lack skirms or goons, because they have mercs. It’s a better idea to the make mercs more viable for them, rather than having the caroleans do all the job. The last two patches seem to move towards that direction, but mercs are still not viable.
And of course there is a lazier solution: just give them dragoons and move hakkapellits to the same position as every other special melee cav (cuirassiers, lancers, opri, etc.) but that might make Swedes more op.
But whatever the devs do, I’d suggest making carolean a regular fusilier, that is already a huge deviation from the regular counterparts, rather than giving them another strange unique trait like melee counter to infantry or ranged resistance.
As with most merc strats, you never want them to be too spamable, I think the devs want to test this out since we are talking about an unit with 40 range resist and imp stats right out of the gate.
I think their viability is up for debate right now, as people will still need to figure out how many is optimal due to all the overkill.
Late game, I think the comp is going to be something like 1 jeager for every 5 caroleans which allows for enough anti infantry/goon fire while caroleans keep hand cav away.
I think caroleans are fine as they are. maybe too spammable but their stats and roles have clear weaknesses
They can be fine if we adjust the stats after many trials and patches. But still I’d prefer a unit with modified stats from their counterparts (janissary, etc.) or at most one additional special role (jaguar, etc.), not one with too many special traits and functions.
I think we are way past that point since we have already have units with tweaked stat at just about every type.
The elephant in the room here is inca with tech that increases armour (though china already broke that), units that cant be snared, damage over time and units with ranged snare.
Not really. Even AOE2 with 35 civs and fewer mechanics to tweak has not reached that saturation point. We can list out all unit types and stats to see how many possible combinations we can get.
Some that I immediately come up with: musketeer with higher damage but lower hitpoints, dragoons with higher melee damage but lower ranged damage, etc. I’m ignoring natives or mercs because they are not very accessible.
As for Caroleans, there is at least one unit they can directly copy: the fusilier, who really lacks a regular counterpart. They have ranged bonus against cavalry, but not a faster ROF, very long range or ranged resistance — these can be given to at least three new unique units.
I feel the devs had the compulsory to make everything new special, and they stuff all possible new ideas into the two new civs. That’s too much. Save them for later additions if possible.
Inca has not been a heated topic of debate perhaps because they are not really so annoying as Swedes XD.
It is actually one of the most effective units in its class.
It has distance resistance grid, it is effective pop, micro easy, it costs only one type of resource so its gold upgrade is worth double, it has AA by default, it has an upgrade in the church, it has an attack upgrade card and hit points in 25 % that also affects other units, has 20 small gold factories (torps), is guaranteed 100% of games in the salon, and after sending the card you can produce them in the barracks.
Put all these benefits for civilizations that do not have a musketeer, (allowing the creation of musketeers with the same benefits), then you end the civilization’s weakness.
In fact, Sweden having no skirmish and having jaeger in its place can be a strong point.