The Hindustanis nerf is perfect. The Gillham 55 HP, Elite 65 HP. Considering how cheap they are (45 gold, and 30 food), I still think they will be effective vs archers, combined with the nerf to archers. The Gillham used to be good vs more than just archers. I still think they will be okay vs non archers. It means units from the militia-line such as champions can fight them much better. I don’t think they may need to be nerfed even more. Before this nerf, the Gillham was like a super Eagle/Huskarl, who can hold their own vs champions.
Lack of Halberdiers gives them a clear weakness, which they didn’t have before hand. They at least have a hole in their tech tree.
Before this nerf, Hindustanis could answer every unit in the game. Even with this nerf they are still very powerful. Those hand cannoneers are monsters, and demolish infantry. Their camels murder cavalry. Tanky Bombard cannons, more gold from allied trade with their Caravanserai building. Ram elephants. Hussars. Elite Skirmishers, siege engineers.
Yes absolutely. Your previous thread was seen and the exact changes you proposed got implemented. Now be the hero we need and make suggestions for Franks, Mayans, Britons.
Franks simply just remove the berry bonus. Free farm upgrades should suffice. Many Frank players may scream at me for such a suggestion. Maybe nerf the berry bonus to 5% gather rate.
Mayans are a bit tricky with the recent nerf to archers. I not sure if I should touch them. 10% from natural resources, eagle warriors cost 10 extra food. However nerfing eagles may force the three civilisations that have them to be buffed in some way.
Britons may be significantly weaker now due to the recent nerf. Anti archer civilisation civs such as the goths demolish them in the late game. Simply removing the halberdier would leave them more prone to cavalry. A wall of longbows with pikemen in front of them should be still quite strong. Then again that leaves the Britons with no fully upgraded trash unit.
I’m not sure about nerfing these two civilisations since we could just both the skirmisher to counter them.
Franks are not OP, they get worse and worse if you haven’t managed to gain a lead in Feudal/early Castle age. I am fine with removing the Berry bonus to tone down their late game, but then they need something to compensate this and make them viable in the late game, such as last Archer armor for example.
More generally I also think Franks aren’t OP, and just very easy to play, which explains their good winrate. Their tech tree is decidedly average, as a Cavalry civ with no Camel and a subpar version of Light Cav I dare say even lackluster at times.
Their Archery Range is basically unplayable and their UU is very mediocre when you compare it to some of the more recent/DLC UUs like Obuch or Mangudai or Chakram Thrower and rly only has cheapness as quality going for them (which is generally not what you want from a Castle-produced unit).
Their non-Bombard Cannon Siege is also decidedly mediocre, no SO, no SR, iirc they lack even Heavy Scorpion? Adding SR, for example could be a nice little improvement to accompany any early game nerfs without breaking the civ too much.
But really the 1 glaring weakness Franks have is that the moment your Paladin powerplay doesn’t work, you are stuck with CASTLE AGE Skirms in Imperial that die to… anything. Most archer civs have a rly easy time defeating Franks provided they can prevent or reduce the impact of the early Imp Cavalier/Paladin power play.
They are currently sitting at a 57% winrate, despite two civs specificallly designed to counter them being added to the game.
easy to play wouldn’t make them so dominant at the pro level.
yeah they have subpar light cav and no camel, but they also have throwing axeman and cheap castles to support their cavalry with.
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their uu is not meant to fill the same role as obuchs or mangudai or chakrams. they are their to compliment their cavalry and cover their weaknesses. that said many believe those uu need nerfs as is.
they have SE, BBC, and Trebs, why would they need SR?
Franks lowest winrates are against Chinese, Turks, Bohemians, Hindustanis, and Slavs at the highest levels of play.
the lowest Archer civ that isn’t Chinese is Mayans, who franks have a positive win rate against.
Do I think Franks are overly problematic at the moment? no. But with Both Gurjaras and Hindustanis getting nerfed, and archers taking a small nerf, they are going to shine even more. the Franks are the defacto winner of this balance patch with the following
Cheap castles admittedly are nice, but Franks are NOT dominant at pro level. In fact, I have watched most recent tournaments (not full games), but I always looked at what civs people picked. And Franks are NOT a favored civ for 1v1 on Arabia-like maps. Main reason being, imo, that if you don’t find any early damage in Feudal, Franks aren’t great. It seems pros prefer a “safe bet” and going for civs that, even if you find 0 early damage, allow for a smooth boom and a great late game (Chinese, Mayans etc.)
Franks are a rly strong TG civ though, and there, you see them spammed a lot, yes.
I would like for us to depart from winrates, or at least use them critically and not like a discussion-ending piece of information. Just to explain through an example why I think winrates are misleading, you are probably aware the 1400-1600 elo is a cavalry civ spammers fest. Would you balance around this elo, where people don’t quickwall properly and don’t use Monks properly? Even at 2k elo, where we use our analysis (allegedly), I am not sure the game is mastered enough to nerf Franks only because people die to gaps in their walls or early Castle all-in pushes.
Lastly, do we REALLY want to nerf one of the few civs that can play an aggressive Castle Age? Aggressive Castle age is interesting, already now most games are 3 TC boom into some killer tech in early Imp among pros. Would you like every game to be like, Byzantines vs Byzantines, 5 TC boom and 200 pop slog? If you wanna play that way, you should play Arena no? I for one find civs that can gain a lead in Feudal/early Castle more interesting for Arabia, I am sorry if Franks stomp Turks on Arabia but Turks aren’t an Arabia civ anyway so I don’t see a problem with this, if it bothers you to roll random Turks just civ pick something strong for Arabia like Ethiopians or Aztecs.
I mean I agree with some points you make in your post but this is a very peculiar way of finishing the post with some conclusion that has to be proven, imo.
For example, let’s take Burgundians. The build I normally do with them involves doing 2x bit axe at 15-16 pop and Bow Saw in early Feudal. 10 extra food for 2x bit axe in Dark Age, I hardly see that as a problem for my BO. So yeah Burgundians got nerfed but it’s like a 1% nerf. Main issues with Burgundians on Arabia (and I’m not 100% sure they are THAT OP on Arabia) are early Bow Saw, early Paladin, and Flemish Revolution. Of these, Flemish is unrealistic on Arabia most of the times, early Paladin is probably a fine power spike, and early Bow Saw is too strong.
Gurjaras, we will see how the mill change affects them, but I stand corrected on my initial impressions about them, their Shrivamsha Rider is absolute bonkers, and I don’t see that changing. +40% bonus dmg Camels also will demolish cavalry-based civs, like before. Their late game killer comp, Shrivamsha/Hussar + Chakram, which they can spam with as low as 100-115 pop, is also basically untouched. Also you forgot that EA got a big buff this patch, I expect we will see a ton of EA next patch and Gurjaras have access to them.
Hindustanis, sure losing Halbs hurts, still killer eco, still killer Camel vs cav civs, now Archer civs should have a bit easier time vs them. Easily top 10 still. Still a far better Byzantines in my book. I can picture in my mind at least 20 civs that if it comes down to an early Imp even fight, will struggle massively vs them.
Overall though, a tl;dr: for you is that as long as pros tend to shy away from Franks in 1v1s and favor Mayans/Burgundians/Chinese for Arabia-style maps instead, it means to me that Franks need to do something to gain a lead early, and pros don’t like that and prefer civs where if you find 0 damage you are in a good spot still.
Are Franks the most opressive Arabia civ? no. Are they the most Oppressive Arabia civ that didn’t get some type of nerf in the recent patch? Absolutely.
I think 1600+ is fine for balancing 1v1. 1200-1600 not so much.
What are you talking about? I see plenty of civs playing aggressive in castle age.
and most the civs i saw going 3 tc boom just got some sort of nerf.
depending on your build order that 10 food might make it so you have to wait a little bit longer then you would think due to villagers. i’ve seen some tight build orders that will be thrown off by this change. honestly though i think burgundians should also see their stable discount reduced to 33%. I also believe they aren’t done. 50% - > 40% for them and gurjaras isn’t that big of a nerf, admittedly, so i think this is more leaning into the testing side of the PUP and we might see more changes before the patch goes live.
33% reduction on their shield recharge is pretty heavy nerf. the mill nerf means you either invest more early into mills then you normally would (Setting you back) or get less food. either way you’re spending more resources.
Remember these numbers are also not final, I’m expecting a little fine tuning.
Yea I’m also curious why Mayans are still so incredibly strong, while Hindustanis will get nerfed quite strongly.
Both civs are very gold dependant but Mayans have such a strong double gold comp that their weakness, very late imp, usually doen’t matter. Especially with 15% more gold and super cheap archers.
Franks I don’t know, they are just annoying but I don’t think they are necessarily overpowered. Mayans on the other hand could recieve a tiny nerf in my opinion too
Perhaps would still be a good idea to give the Hindustanis, Elephant Archers and have them use both, Cavalry Archers and Elephant Archers and perhaps the Elephant Archers can be in a different slot rather than taking up the same slot in the case of the Hindustanis.
When is the last time Mayans got nerfed? And Chinese? (I don’t consider moving the farm bonus from 45f to like 20f a true nerf, it’s like Burgundians, a 1% nerf that doesn’t rly slow you down or prevent any strat that was viable before). What about Poles? Mongols? Khmer? Ethiopians? Britons? Aztecs? Huns? Tatars? These are all top Arabia civs, can’t recall any of them getting nerfed in like forever.
I personally consider 2.4k+ a good spot for making balancing. Below that is “git gud” territory. I don’t see any difference between 1400 and 2k in qualitative terms, both have a ton of “git gud” to do, obviously the 1.4k more, but you can’t balance around 2k in good faith, either, when tons of mistakes happen in that elo, and people go for wrong tech switches/openings ALL the time.
I meant 1 TC plays, the token 2 archery range Xbow spam with some Mangonels + Knights mixed in, I don’t consider that aggression, both players have booming still as primary goal, the army they make is more for map control + forcing mistakes
When is the last time they nerfed Britons, Mayans, Huns, Ethiopians? All 3 TC boom civs that haven’t been nerfed in like forever. Then there are mid-tier ones that are fairly good still, like Byzantines, I gotta wonder how you defeat a Byzantines player in Castle age, cheaper counter units, Redemption available, better walls, Town Patrol, is it even worth to try and beat something like Byzantines in Castle age?
Game is already very defensively-biased, I’m not talking about your random 2k game I’m talking mostly about 2.4k+ players playing in tournaments, not trolling on ladder. You see 3 TC boom behind walls basically every game, but yeah let’s nerf Franks
let’s hope Camel bonus is +33% and they get buffed in Imp with something like Blast Furnace in return (Chakram adjusted accordingly). Mill bonus as far as I understand, with 4 or less sheep in the mill, it got buffed.
I really fail to see how Franks are OP, they have nothing going for them besides a very strong Feudal Age + fast Castle timing. If you think that’s OP, then in theory Huns, Khmer should be OP too, those civs also have aggressive openings + save tons of resources from their eco bonus.
No, that just make their eagles in imperial too bad.
Nerf El Dorado cost (or hell even then the HP boost, nerfing Ghulam HP while lefting El Dorado as is is beyonf dumb).
