It is old problem though. All mathematics enthusiast AOE2 fans knew this problem. For instance, Samurai had +12 bonus damage + 33% attack speed to really counter unique units. On the other hand, Jaguar has +11 bonus and +4 damage from UT to countering infantries . Without attack speed, +11 bonus damage isn’t huge.
For instance, Elite Jaguar Warrior kill all non-spear line infantries in 3 hits (exception are E. Karambit Warrior and E. Shotel in 2 hits, E. Kamayuk and Obuch in 4 hits, E. Sergeant in 5 hits, E. Teutonic Knight in 6 hits) and die to them in 7 hits (exception are E. Shotel and E. Teutonic Knight in 5 hits, E. Berserk in 6 hits, E. Karambit Warrior in 11 hits). If you ask what is your solution for Jaguar Warrior, I would answer decrease food cost to 50. 50 food 30 gold is deserved cost for Jaguar Warrior. Jaguar Warrior would need additional buff unless Aztecs wasn’t top tier civ (I hope use unless correctly).
I don’t like that these forum guys are so influenced by pro players matches and opinions. For instance, Viper won a game with Hussite Wagon after that all guys started to complain about Hussite Wagon is OP. In reality, Hussite Wagon is trash. It is tank though but it has very little damage output and so clumsy (it wait a lot to throw projectile). Now, Hussite Wagon is same as Siege Ram. Hussite Wagon has damage output but it is very little. On the other hand, siege rams can destroy buildings. 50% damage reduction is unnecessary because even pros couldn’t micro units behind Hussite Wagon or old siege rams. Hussite Wagon answer a problem that never exist.
Now, Hera and Viper played some successful games with Longsword, thus forum guys started to say Longsword line became fine with last change. In reality, Sword line is still trash. With cheaper upgrades, going Longsword is much more affordable than Longsword but it still heavily countered by knights and crossbows, besides, crossbow and knight upgrades are still cheaper than Longsword. Best usage of Longsword is Longswords + Pikemen + 3-4 Monks (for big number of Knights) with siege rams. Vikings (Vikings has better farmers than Celts and more flexible civ overall thanks to insane eco bonus), Poles (Poles has best champion which is Obuch) Celts, Japanese (worst among these 4) are best civilization to execute this tactic. It is game finishing combo if you ahead in the game. Longsword still need additional buff though.
I guess it’s true that the Hera video brought attention to this topic, but rightfully so! The latest buff to the Longswords means that Jaguars are way less effective against them now. A simple +1 bonus attack vs Infantry for the Castle Age version would make Jaguars work as they did just before the last patch.
This is not true. Armor upgrades are only upgrades are made in Castle Age since 1999, and fully upgraded infantry is almost impossible to make in Castle Age, thus old Jaguar kill Longswords in 4 hits just like now. Before this patch, Jaguar must make 2 damage upgrades in order to kill Longsword in 3 hits. Main buff is Supplies (75 food and 25 gold less) and Longsword upgrade which is 50 food less.
This last change had Longsword shined over Unique infantries (they are already useless by the way). I proposed to give +5 hp, +1 damage to all unique infantries (70 hp 9 damage Woad Raider for instance) except Huskarl, Throwing Axeman, Karambit Warrior, new Obuch in Castle Age. Elite unique infantries are fine but Castle Age infantries need buff like I proposed.
Jaguar has only 50 hp and Jaguar is 33% (1/3) expensive than Longsword. Most of the time, Jaguar take 6-7 damage from Longsword due to expensiveness of blacksmith attack upgrades (getting attack upgrade doesn’t worth to invest 90% of the time), thus Jaguar still counter generic Longsword. However, Jaguar can’t counter Japanese and Burmese Champions (edit: I wrote wrong. Logsword) for instance. In Imperial Age, Goth Champion actually beat Jaguar Warrior cost efficiently.
Problem is not Aztecs not needing buff, problem is Jaguar is “it has no usage” unit. No usage unit is either need to be changed to be useful or get removed from game. In conclusion, Jaguar need change.
And aztecs eco could use just a small nerf. I think you could take away the 50 g in the beginning and aztecs would still be a solid civ. In the exchange the jag could be changed to be more useful.
Their eco isn’t great after the nerf from +5 to +3 carry capacity. The 50 gold supports their infantry identity by allowing a better 5 militia drush or 3 MAA rush without mining gold. This is important before their Imperial Age Garland Wars, because the only other military bonus is 11% working speed on buildings.
+1 when i saw the video of hera about jaguars i was sure that they will be a post on this ahah and jaguars being bad is not new at all, i feel like some players are unsure about certain things and take opinion of better players as true by default, i will always encourage people to get their proper opinions even if its false that is how the game’s general knowlege improve and so make players better by confroncting different opinions.
I feel like eagles being “op” started with EW introduction , my theory is because the pro started to say eagles op for EW ,because it was true some peoples began to think the same on RM as well and there is many cases like this.
I absolutely think jags need a small buff of like 5 health. But even a small buff won’t make them see much play in castle age due to castle requirement and their role still being niche. People should stop discounting the speed advantage they have too.
What?
Have you seen the Daut game where he won with only hussite wagons? I mean they have 200 HP as base in castle age, and in imperial they have 250 HP, thats just too much, on top of that they have quite good speed so they can even micro vs mangonels, and in maps like arena is almost impossible to stop a player to get them because of the free mining camp techs. Is too much and even unfair to play against.
I think as well that jaguars need to stay a niche unit but i think as well that it shouldn’t compete with champions jaguars could stay a unit that destroy infantry but is really bad on other task that is fine.
But it need to win vs infantry first.
I had seen Daut’s game with Hussite Wagons but I don’t remember how much effective Hussite Wagons in this game. I also said before I don’t make a judgement with only seeing one pro game match. Coming with a pro game to me is not understand my point. Anyway, I’m not sure about the effectiveness of the wagons (maybe I shouldn’t speak so confidently), but I’m 100% sure that Hussite Wagons are the most boring unit in the game. Slowness of its hit (Even War Wagon has attack speed of god comparing to HW) drive nuts to me. Invading enemy base with HW feels very good at first and feels I won the game. But afterwards, they give very little damage to enemy that it feels like I am punching someone in a dream. I am hoping to hurt my enemy but my punches do nothing to my enemy. That’s the feeling Hussite Wagon placed in me.
12 knights with feudal bs ugrades without bloodlines win quite convincingly against 10 hussite wagons.
Don’t know why anybody declared this unit as op at some point, it’s quite bad in combat and has comparably slow damage output. It’s not even a threat until you have crazy numbers of them.
Ofc you can’t allow the bohemians player to mass these numbers, but this is true for most ranged military units actually. You also don’t want allow a mongol player to mass his mangudai, do you?
I don’t know how it would happen. But I feel it’s only natural for tweaks to some UU infantry to follow the Long Swords buffs. I can see how Knights became the undisputed best generic melee unit in the overwhelming majority of cases after AoC introduced Bloodlines, and even more undisputed when AK buffed Husbandry. But what huge changes have Swordsmen gotten since Bloodlines’ release over 20 years ago? I’d say the game is only just now starting to finally balance around core gameplay mechanics, like Bloodlines and Thumbring, invented in this game’s first expansion pack, which is a good thing. And I hope UU infantry get a little love next.
I did a little testing in the scenario editor. In Castle Age, with equal resources spent (2520 food/gold), 28 Aztec Jaguar Warriors lose to 45 Goth Long Swordsmen. If the Jaguar Warriors get +1 attack, for a base of 11 then they win that fight (as they should IMO, given they are an anti-infantry unit).
In Imperial Age, assuming Garland Wars is researched for full upgrades, 26 Elite Jaguar Warriors cost the same 2340 resources as 45 Goth Champions. This one can go either way depending on unit pathing. I also checked what would happen if the Elite Jaguar Warrior got +1 attack to match the Champion, but it made no difference because they kill Goth Champions in 3 hits either way. I still think the 13 base attack would make them more versatile, and a better champion replacement for Aztecs with plenty of Castles.
Balance team started to cause some inflation in unit stats recently and this can go into a spiral but still jags have same bonus against infantry as hand cannoneers and are almost viable even against Teutonic knights. It should have 0 issue killing Goth infantry.
Goth Champion kill Jaguar in 7 hits while Jaguar kill Goth Champion in 3 hits. Jaguars destroy Goth Champions in equal numbers but Goth Champion cost only 39 food 13 gold and created insanely fast while Jaguar cost 60 food 30 gold and created very slow. In an ordinary match, Jaguar Warrior struggles against Goth Champion spam. For instance, Cataphract doesn’t struggle against any infantry unit except Samurai. Both Samurai and Jaguar Warrior on weak spot now but even Samurai is better than Jaguar Warrior (Samurai is better in Castle Age. Japanese player can delay Elite Upgrade because even non-elite Samurai beat Elite unique melee units. Samurai’s and Jaguar’s problem is against ranged units. They die so fast to ranged units).
Jaguar doesn’t need buff because Aztecs is top tier civ isn’t concrete argument because Aztecs still have fully upgraded Champion + 4 damage over Jaguar Warrior so uselessness of Jaguar Warrior doesn’t hurt Aztecs because Aztecs have better alternative. Some may argue that why you think Jaguar is worse than Champion. Because it is 33% more expensive and it has only 3 advantage over Champion which are 11% speed (0.9 to 1.0) and +11 bonus damage and faster upgrade (Elite Jag upgrade is 45 seconds and Champ+Two-handed Swordman is 175 seconds).
