Swede and Inca need an overall redesign

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
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The Swedish and Inca controversy is clear evidence of how indifferent the production team is to the game.

This game is not Starcraft or any other RTS. Sweden and Inca have distinctly destructive personalities from existing civilizations, and this individuality makes them feel different from existing ones.

  1. All-rounder units

The Carolean and the Hackapelit were designed as all-around units. How wrong this is to think that all-around units can make the civilization itself weak with minor balance adjustments.

Carolean’s nuff made Sweden’s 2age vulnerable. Leather guns are not as efficient as their prices are, and Sweden has no Light Infantry units to supplement the Carolean. After all, those many Swedish players don’t play Sweden.

The Age of Empires series has traditionally been a game of multiple units. The civilization will always be controversial if it fails to adjust the perfect balance for the all-around unit.

  1. Buildings that automatically generate resources

The production team learned nothing from the controversy over Shrine in Japan.

Seeing such a powerful resource-generating building, the crew created another OP building called cancha and Torp. Neither will the Mode team.

  1. Concept controversy

The Swedish mercenary and Inca Town Center are reminiscent of other civilizations.

The production team should not forget that before nuff Sweden and Inca had more powerful and efficient capabilities that civilizations that originally had those abilities were not well-received now.

  1. Special ability
    The ability of a chimu runner and a jungle archer creates a sense of alienation in other units. Especially, being interrupted by the speed and melee attack, which are faster than the words of the Chimu runner, is irritating. The jungle archer can also cause more damage than the damage marked by the poison attack.

Carolean also completely degraded his assessment of them by adding a strange ability instead of a melee attack that allowed them to move faster.

If there’s a controversy with the unit, adjust the numbers, not make them have weird abilities.

If the production team so wants to create a useful ability, also give it to existing civilizations.

Sweden and Inca have to redesign similarly to existing civilizations. Their abilities will continue to stir up controversy with minor adjustments.

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I just wanna say, stop giving new civs strange or op bonus because only they are new and have to be special.

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Inca has cards to reduce the cost of mallet soldiers
But I can get it for free from the ceremony, right?

The Peruvian dog has enhanced cards but i disagree. Because Inca has no related stories or mysterious powers, I can’t be persuaded. Inca should be consistent with other countries.

I think Sweden should provide a collective effect of mercenary reinforcement
The Swedish Musketeers can charge the enemy
But it seems more common to escape

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Civ bonuses:
I’d say torps are fine because they are essentially villagers and they still need to consume natural resources. However I think they should be assigned to a specific nearby resource rather than automatically gathering all of them. Also give Swedes a smaller Villager limit just as any other factions with special resource generating buildings.

Canchas are ridiculous (and very lazily designed) and they don’t even depend on natural resources! And see how many bonuses on houses we have so far. There are so many other parts of the game mechanics you can play with. Simply throwing in two new factions, both of which have buffed houses, seems lazy to me.

It’s like the Civilization games where you have added too many factions and to make new ones unique you’ll have to design ridiculous (either extremely overpowered or extremely underpowered) mechanics and traits. However Civ games are never meant to be balanced.

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Units:
Poisoning is fine. Give them to some other units also. For example archers and blowgunners from native settlements.

Carolean seems to me a very strange unit that functions as a reduced musketeer in the early game, and in the late game it becomes dragoons, and its range can even be buffed from 10 (shorter than most infantry) to 17 (even longer than dragoons).
I’d say a good unit design should stick to its original purpose: if it is a long ranged unit, then it remains its range advantage over other units at the same stage. It can be outranged by some more advanced units, though, but it’s not a good idea to have a short ranged unit gradually gaining extremely long range and eventually becomes a different unit.

One other unit that the OP that did not mention: the Nizams. It’s fun to play with them though but they are so weird (not so much unbalanced because it is not very easily accessible). The Nizam-i-Cedid were basically imitations of the standard European Line Infantry at that time and I don’t see the point of giving them such a strange ability.
If you really have to dig into the rationale of this, every unit can have different bonuses at different formations (that’s what formations were for). Then the counter system could be removed. But this game is not Total War. You cannot faithfully represent formations.

Not talking about balancing, just the designs.

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Sure torps are not fine. That makes Sweden remains tier 1 even more powerful than Japan in team game.

Anything that can boom quickly without risk and and its speed is far away from normal training vils should be banned from Japan experience.

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Okay, I’m not really a huge fan of this post, so I’m gonna play the devil’s avocate to show where I think you’re wrong.

No, they are. They’re efficient in some matchup, situation. They’re like a age 2 falconnet shipments, but weak against building (which is fine because Caroleans are strong against buildings :))

You just said above it’s just numbers. What made Carolean weaker in age2 is a good change, since they get more and more a powerspike as the game goes on, because of the “house game design”. Btw you’re supposed to rush them then as soon as possible, and since I can do that with non-meta-Aztecs, I think you can do it too.

I think it’s just most of players, and maybe you, don’t know they need to attack them in early. It just offers other gameplays and game plans than the casual “Making vills” => “making army” => “go boom”. And if it’s well balanced, I feel totally fine about it :).

Swedish mercenaries didn’t steal the “mercenary” side, since many civilizations now have access to the new Mercenary Politician.

Since now they cost gold, it’s either Incas in age2 goes for them, or goes for Lancer + archers. It’s harder to mixt them due to their cost change. So it’s fine. And in Age3, you’re supposed to have counter to Chimus, and had time to wall against them, or put heavy infantry at least near where your villagers could be hurt.

Again, in age2 they have 16 range, where all other skirms have 18. They need the upgrade of age3, and get stronger and stronger for each of their 3 shipments (poison damage, ranged damage and temple gold uprade). That said, they still have a incredibly low hp pool.

Because it was too efficient at the beginning, you said it yourself. Now it’s balanced, and situationnal. Of course it’s a nerf, but a deserved nerf.

Sorry, but no again. The goal of game design is innovating, bringing stars in your eyes in the players that plays your game. And I can see what the game designers tried to do. It’s just so hard to balance when you bring a new mechanic to the game (auto gather - even if it was there before, poison, etc etc), but with time it wille get better :).

I think you’re overreacting, and you don’t play the same game as I do, or you don’t watch the same pro games as I do too.

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Other parts I have no comment, but sorry I totally disagree this part.
Sure all guys don’t want these OP building to be nerfed saying like what you said.
“just send some pike they will down” “even these buildings can’t move how do you raid the vils” etc.

Please let Az/Russia houses generate 10f/s+10w/s+10g/s and keep your guys method to that. <<These two civs are at the bottom tier, they worth it.

In fact I dunno what is supporting you guys saying the most OP element of top tier civs is fine.
So that is bottom civs’s fault?

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The problem is, thoses civs are balanced around those houses, at least in earyl. They’re very dependant of them. So taking at least one or two down, just like Japanese’s sanctuary, you will hurt them quite strongly.

Incas units for example cost 100f for Plume Lancer, and 90f for Jungle Bowman. It’s a fine cost if they have 8 to max Cancha house, which they can have quite easily in early age2. It grants them a feeling of infinite food.

So imagine you take down 50% of those cancha houses by sieging them down ? You will hurt badly his production and eco, and lead you to win.

That’s true for Japanese and Swedish, and all sort of “auto-gather” building.

I’ve never said that, and I don’t really want that. Sorry if I expressed myself wrongly, but it’s not what I implied.

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If the leather gun was efficient, it would have been used on age 3 to replace Falconet. But they’re not. They’re easily incapacitated by a lot of hussar attacks, and they’re killed in Culverin all at once.

The controversy over the resource-generating building cannot simply be neutralized by an initial attack, and the enemy cannot stand still in destroying a building with a capacity of 1600 hp per 75w.

Haha, I wonder why you chose to abandon fast-age up, TC, and units. I’ve never seen anyone choose that age up at least in esoc games.

They used up wood before they got nuff. And their feet don’t slow down on any attack, and they can use it to attack and break away only important units (such as Falconet, for example). Why isn’t that OP?

Skirmisher doesn’t appear in age2, except in the Netherlands.
Even against the crossbows, they have an advantage in the range, and if they are at a disadvantage, they can build walls or hide in buildings.

All you have to do is set the speed to 4.5 or 5 in a batch without adding any strange abilities. Due to the severe nuff and strange ability, the Carolean’s 2age has been completely weakened.

I’m not talking about a game balance. It is said that there is a problem with their design of civilization itself. If you want to talk about their balance, you’d better find another thread.

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Sorry this is design failure.

Their age up are same cost, their vils are same cost, etc.
You can’t give them OP bonus only because one of their unit is a bit more expensive than normal. They should give that unit another bonus.

In fact is these house have many bonus, imbalance crazy speed booming, won’t get raid, only 1 vils to go around the map, won’t be idle, cost only a bit even not cost more, etc. those many guys complaint already many many times.

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You mentioned ESOC games, but I guess you didn’t see the recent tournament. Age2 leather guns are strong, and were quite efficient in one of the games.

Then if they have “too much” hp, it’s good to nerf this value. It’s what I meant by “aslong it’s well balanced I’m fine with it”. You said it there, it’s not the “auto gather” the problem, but the HP of the house, or at least it’s how you feel.

Maybe because the politician is not really meant to be used in 1v1, and doesn’t give you something right away, which can be decisive in 1v1. But Dutch still do it and they do it well. So can portuguese with their booming and their expanding.

It’s not OP because, they don’t have any other counter to artillery. Artillery in this game is key, and already Aztecs, that are very similar to Incas, struggle against artilleries. Incas is even worst against them, even with the Chimus. A proper macro with some musk/heavy infantry, and they can’t really hurt the canons, otherwise it’s you who’s wrong there, and your missplay.

I meant by Skirmisher all light infantry, that is efficiant against Dragoon and heavy infantry. So Crossbow, longbow, and skirms. And many civs have that. Longbow for example outrange and kite very well those Junglebowmen. You can do that too with XBow, this is why you should not engage on a trade against them, not until you have the age3 upgrade that will boost their range to an equal 18 from 16.

You just replied to me with numbers and balance issue, but okay. Then still, as a game design it’s fine and not toxic, there is counter play possible. And if it’s too strong, then balance comes to make it fair. If it can be fair and balanced, then it’s not the game design that is wrong.

The game design is wrong when, whatever balance you make, it would still be toxic and impossible to balance. If you play league of legends, I’m thinking about Akali that could go Stealth under the Turret. It was impossible to balance, and toxic for the game. :slight_smile:

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I was definitely talking about the design of civilization, not about balance.

If you don’t think there’s a problem with the design of civilization, you should talk about why there’s no problem. Don’t blur the point by talking about the wrong thing.

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If you don’t think auto generation is a problem, that means you don’t need to raid others vils, military you using is strong enough for you to push other’s base.
It doesn’t mean that no problem.

Otherwise why can’t let the bottom civs have these OP bonus? Just like you said they are fine.

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Then answer to me on this, because I still don’t understand you both :

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I think my reply is able to answer your question.

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Sweden has no other way but to train light units and depend on the versatility of the heavy unit.

Inca solves unit’s laxity with special ability and hiding in buildings.

Many other distinctions will continue to stir controversy with simple numerical adjustments.

If you want to keep blurring the point, you’d better find another thread.

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not really etc, that’s the only thing that cost food only food.

Well as I pointed out earlier, it’s only meant for military. 100f and 90f military is expensive. But it’s more than fine with Incas because of the Cancha’s house.

If you prefer, the game design is “house produces food, but 1/ military is expensive to compensate 2/ you need TC to reach 200 max pop”. Raiding them is then efficient, taking down building is hurting them way more than destroying a simple house for any other civ.

I think you should watch this, whenever you have time of course, and all the other Incas game this channel has. Tournaments show that very well too.

So, I don’t think you’ve validate that it’s a “design failure”. I’m not convinced :confused:

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You wanna show me the Inca player still have food income even they have 0 vil to collect food? Have you tried Russia 0 vil to collect food? And you also wanna show me the Inca player vils didn’t leave the TC area too much until end game? lets see other civs?

More example? Sweden has same cost Hussar, same cost falcs, same age up also need food and gold (not only food as you said), same cost merces…OMG this is not enough?

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If you still not understand, try to use Lakota vs Japan (at least 1300 lv), after come back and say what is your feeling.