I’ll start the post here but I’ll have to revisit it with details.
But the simple idea is momentum or tempo. It’s a get going and never stop going, always trade even if the trade is a bit subpar.
The good news is cataphracts and the byz maa are actually good for this concept, especially cataphracts with timely hippo usuage.
To be continued…
More testing needed, but here goes!!
If you can safely gather all your in base berries AND have sufficient sheep under your TC unitl at least the 9min mark, you can safely execute a Hill of th First cistern FC and delete any civ that CANNOT hide indefinitely in their base (in other words this doesn’t work vs Mali, Eng, Rus*, HREs*[if you let them get 3relics], Otto).
In order to insure you’ll have sufficient food, you need to open 2 scouts AND you need to immediately start gathering berries to save your sheep. The other thing this does is if you absolutely need a tower, you can place it on your gold and be able to gather everything safely.
This strat isnt new. You’ll sell your oil for gold to age and sell even more to get sufficient gold to make cataphracts and MAAs. Next you do NOT want to engage the enemy’s big feudal army, rather you want to raid his exposed resource depots. The flask ability now is actually OP went used on armored units. 1 complete usage of flask offsets 600 damage!!! Let that sink in, if you had 1 cataphracts fighting 2 feudal spearman while flask is activated the cataphract would effectively take no dmg and have killed 1 spearman by the time the flask was used up.
The smaller the engagements the better it is for your micro of flask and of course castel units > feudal.
GG go next!! Fyi it’s gonna get nerfed.
I prefer it over Golden Horn in terms of gameplay, but it could use some QoL patching. Selecting individual units is tough, especially when the quantity of flasks is limited.
I wonder if spreading out the healing slightly could be a good idea. Say I heal one unit, and in a small radius of one tile or less, units get 15 health in total over 6 seconds.
If I then pop the flask on 4 more units, the surrounding units will have healed for 75 health in total as a result. Of course this number should be tweaked, but the point is that it will allow for more meaningful healing at this stage in the game. Tracking what units to spend 20 flasks on when you have 100 units is weird and just not very feasible.
Additionally, the rate of which flasks rejuvenate should probably scale with your Cisterns. I’m kind of surprised how little the Cistern landmark actually interacts with Cisterns by the way. I think one way to help it also, is to let Flasks focus healing the lowest health unit of many selected units, you can’t currently hold down the button as it will try to top off units who has taken 5 damage over injured ones.
Also I hereby request a potion drinking animation. It’s be so cool!
The Golden Horn could perhaps be updated to act as an Outpost (Since the Golden Horn was a watch tower). The Golden Horn can still be slowly creating mercenary units for free while being a defense Landmark.
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I still need to update the main post but it would be a great idea if the cistern level influenced the maximum flask you could generate. Right now the max is 30. They shpuld have it where level 4 increases the max to 45 and level 5 makes it 60 maximum flasks.
Now ultra late game when you have 70+ units with auto flask the landmark ability will be impactful during key engagements.
Off topic but paladin? School also has no interactions with cistern aura. The school should double as a English like castle where you can train every single standard byzantine unit. The 30% chance of spawning a unit should continue to instant spawn even while production is queued.
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At castle age with those flasks catapracts dont die and if you have crossbows with trample ability they kill them so fast.People dont realize the potential but i exprienced it just need time for people to realize i guess.
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Golden Horn should be a castle where you could produce periodically any mercenary available, no matter if you have the contract or not.
Byzantin is a civ awarded if you up age 3 and even more age 4. So the golden horn tower change should help to stabilize against early aggro civ / mid range civ.
Perhaps that would be a good idea for the Golden Horn to act as a Keep.
Golden horn is still the preferred and most consistent resource generating landmark between thr 2 castle landmarks. I dont think it needs a buff.
I think starting berries should allow for 2 batches of any standard merc feudal units WITHOUT the need of winery.
And the Hill of the first Cistern should scale maximum flasks as i suggested.
If anything maybe make the cooldown between singular unit reused contingent to cistern levels as well!!!
You should be greatly rewarded for executing optimal micro especially in contrast to the simplicity and power of the passive resources generation of the HORN.
WHY WORK SO HARD TO SAVE 1 UNIT WHEN YOU CAN RATHER GET 3 MORE FOR FREE USING THE HORN LANDMARK???
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This is why I’ve been suggesting that they add a radius healing effect to it too. Say 5 to 10 health over 6 seconds to units in a 1 tile radius around the one drinking, allowing it to stack with others who also popped the flask.
The idea is to spread the impact and make it less of an all or nothing mechanic, making it easier to balance mechanically as it won’t rely as much on direct skill to determine. It also works well to top off nearby units that have barely taken damage, as to not waste more flasks if you decide to just hold down the button.
Popping 5 flasks would heal units near them for 25 to 50 health for instance. I think this would just make the feature feel better and actually justify it over the Cistern.
I’m actually loving to use the Cistern right now with the exception of how difficult it is to plan to place for an age up, often needing you to move your units far away, which is not always feasible if you’re under attack. But, it definitely falls off later into the game as it doesn’t scale with your cistern for some odd reason and healing individual units feels alright but could feel better. For instance, it is rather difficult to select individual units in this game from an army, which is a larger issue in general.
They should also make so the flasks prioritize lowest actual health units so you can blindly hold down the button. And give them an actual flask and drinking animation while you’re at it!