What’s your opinion on the nerf? Villager carry +3 instead of 5+. I think it’s a very slight nerf, it’s not very big at all I find. They still should be fairly strong.
Edit Granted no game has been tested with them as of yet. Since the one year anniversary update has yet to happen.
How are you able to tell that it’s only a very slight nerf ? Were you able to try it ?
By the sheer number. Basically minus 2.
Unless there’s some other nerf.
Its a good change nonetheless, compared to the kind of balance changes we have gotten in the last few balance patches. inb4 “Your points are always flawed”
imo its a pretty big nerf but we’ll find out. tbh i’m pretty much against it
Does not seem like a hammer slam nerf. I find.
Are you 1650+ Elo ? Because otherwise, Aztecs are a balanced civ at your level. I support this nerf, but again, you make it sound like the game is unbalanced and in need of urgent changes, yet the change you point out will have absolutely no effect at your level of play.
(Source: Aztecs winrate on aoe2stats is 50.5%)
An aztec nerf was needed since their picking rate in basically all pro tournaments was almost top 1.
The question may be if 4 carry capacity would be better than 3.
I think Aztecs will remain much stronger than several civs, however they may fall to the level of Vietnamese or similar. If so, they can just buff the carry capacity to +4…
I agree with @Sylux1000, decrease to +3 seems a very huge nerf, maybe it would have been better to only decrease to +4. They lose like 5% of their farming rate before wheelbarrow or so? I hope the squires buff complements that well
I hope that they have tested this change very thouroughly, as a 40% nerf of the Aztec eco bonus is indeed huge. Remember that they already have nerfed the military unit creation time bonus from -15% to -10%! Also the more open Arabia generations could be seen as a slight nerf for civs without scouts.
I don’t expect the Aztecs to be a top civ anymore. It resembles the Slavs’ farming nerf (from +15% to +10%) which made a former top civ to a mid tier civ…
I am not sure, if such a nerf of the Aztecs was really neccessary, as their winrate was not too great on most maps. Yes, they were picked and banned very often in KotD3, but the pros’ civ preferences are oftentimes very trend-based and not objective quality indicators. Just think of the Huns, who fell out of fashion without them having been changed (despite that cav archers somehow ‘feel different’ according to some players, which has never been confirmed by test results).
This nerf ist not huge at all. Aztecs were one of the very best 1v1 Arabia civs in the game. Now they they lose basically just some % of their farming speed. It will result in them clicking up the Castle Age 1 vil later than they would have before. They will still be far above average in that regard though.
Also their very common Eagles + Pikes strategy has received a 5% speed buff. That’s arguable more of a buff than the -2 carry capacity is a nerf.
I think the change to this bonus is very good. They will for sure remain at least high tier, but they received a small nerf, because they were extremely dominant. Also nothing about their playstyle changes. That’s how nerfing should be done.
If you doubt that, think about how Incas can perfectly well play a standard M@A -> some Feudal Age -> Castle Age with Eagles and be competitive with it. Aztecs are still going to have the better bonuses for that strategy.
Squires buff is dope for all meso civs. They benefit most.
Aztec nerf is perfect at +3 as far as I’m conceerned.
In fact, I believe Eagle Warriors themselves should be nerfed and Jaguar Warriors must be buffed to viability outside of countering Infantry.
Not to mention when it comes to Eagles, Mayan El Dorado is just an OP technology, which TheViper, Nili and Hera have also agreed with me to reduce to +30 HP instead of +40 HP.
In Short: EAGLES ARE GUNNA BE OP with Squires buff. They will benefit most, of any unit line, of this insane change.
Wow, that must be kind of a crazy tech indeed. Not just TheViper, Hera and Nili, but Parthnan also says it needs a nerf.
Look at this Parthnan, I found this Reddit comment, which is 2 years old and also suggested EXACTLY the +30hp nerf !! That is, before DE even happened. Isn’t it kind of crazy ? Do you think Viper and darthsasuke agreed on the change ??
Yes, they agree with each other that the exact same change is necessary.
Assuming none of them is lying when they declared their support for this very important and necessary change.
Ok, but please: from now on, when you say that TheViper suggested to nerf El Dorado exactly like you did - please also mention that darthsasuke suggested it first. I think that’s pretty important info to the reader.
It doesn’t matter who suggested it first. This forum isn’t exactly a Research journal, in case you missed it.
Ah sorry. I might have been confused by your constant reminders that you suggested exactly this change as if it was strengthening the validity of your point.
It won’t realistically affect farming speed very much, or food collection at large for that matter. 13 food per trip is exactly what a civ with Wheelbarrow gets, and wheelbarrow has a marked improvement over farming rate as opposed to Hand cart, where the bonus from hand cart can practically be boiled down to the movement speed bonus entirely and very little to do with the carry capacity.
The actual restriction to food gather rate is the farm production rate, and the edge for aztecs keeping up with that, especially with slow villagers, will still be quite meaningful I’d wager. If anything, while this will be a slight economic nerf across the board, it’ll also make the initial ~6 minutes where your villagers hold onto resources for longer than you’d like to be a little less micro-taxing to overcome.
That being said I don’t think they needed a big nerf. Aztecs aren’t god tier. They’re really good but we’re not in Aztec Matchmaking Auto Pick Era for a reason. That reason being they aren’t strong enough to warrant serious action. Remember when we had that era for Persians? I sure do.
It does. Villagers without any upgrades farm slower than the farming growth rate (or whatever you want to call it). And that’s where to Aztec bonus kicks in (and normall wheelbarrow would). The reason hand cart doesn’t improve farming as much as wheelbarrow is because with wheelbarrow villagers are already pretty close to the maximum efficiency of farming - not because the bonus itself wouldn’t help with that. So it will affect Aztec farming, especially before wheelbarrow.
I do agree with everything else you wrote though.
Especially that. Aztecs are at the very top, but they’re not oppressively good. That’s why I think a very slight nerf (like -2 carry capacity) is a good way to go.
I don’t think it’ll be as much of a hit as you’d expect. Getting the chance to test it in game will be the only way we’ll actually know for sure, I’m not saying it won’t be a hit (because it inarguably will be) but the offset will be “they already gather quite a bit faster with the extra carry” and “the food will be in stock sooner, even if it’s a bit less” and I think it’ll pan out to be broadly not a huge deal with food specifically.
It’ll certainly make inefficient gathering of everything more substantial as a hit, but I think that will be the main effect of the nerf, not a substantial dropoff in farming speed. That’s my bet. 40 doubloons.