I think the latest patch was the best patch by far:
Removed the water maps from QP that everyone dodged.
Siege can now counter ships.
Siege units feels more balanced, just massing non-stop siege does not work as good anymore.
Abbasid is finally playable and fun to use.
Fishing has gone from OP to more balanced.
Basically I have non-stop fun now, game feels much more interesting to play now. Just give China their second landmark for each age at half the cost, and some slight nerf to Mongol/Delhi and the game is more or less balanced.
Sadly this depends on perspective. From abbasid point of view. Great patch. Basically from point of view of winner civs its great patch and from chinas perspective its â– â– â– â– patch.
If we look statistically speaking it was worst balance patch so far made by relic. Game is more unbalanced because winrate for lowest and highest is much wider than ever before
Loved this patch and can’t wait for the next one which is the big one where we get all the features, scenario editor etc! Game has come so far and is amazingly fun!
I agree on abbasid, tho i fell the civ is still TERRIBLE early and mediocre at best late game. Even pros are fighting to survive early game. The age up buff is nice, but honestly it at best lift abba from trash tier to bad tier Or i just suck with them bad which is also a possibility
I agree. It is good to see even in pro games we are getting real mixes of units rather than just spamming one. The changes to fishing and anti-ship were also really great in diversifying game. We are getting there.
I think Chinese civ got an issue due to its too high reliance on gunpowder sieges they have. And that was against Relic’s complex unit composition as the Chinese were just spamming sieges. I believe they will fix its focus in the next patch.
They relied on their strengths as gunpowder civilization even then I never saw during my +1300 chinese in 2v2 games anything like which been described on forums which is 20-30 bombards. Closest that I can say was HRE & Mongol going like 15 culverin and mangonels.
And thats lots of bs. Im sry.
Lets look at the 3v3 pro tournament. EVERY civ was spamming 1-2 unit type. EVERY. In pro games and high elo games China focused on bombards which is true but they were hardly ever going for pure bombard setup and army supply was always more favor to infantry or cavalry. 5-10 bombards is only 15-30 army supple and 50-60 were something else.
I can tell you in fact that I saw more french, english, delhi, mongols, rus, delhi spamming single unit than I ever spammed after pro scout / FL nerf patch.
And who cares IF they may address it in next patch. It might be in month or two months or three months. It doesn’t remove the fact that developers went ahead and blindly listened feedback and implemented changes poorly and removed identity of civ and in process made it unviable civ. And yes I don’t care what players with 500 elo got to say because game balance never mattered to them because they lost or win because either themselves made more crucial mistakes or opponent made. All they had to do to provide compensation buff for china, but they refused to do so and they even went ahead and made hidden nerfs that were NOT recorded on patch notes which even further made china weaker especially early and mid game which was their WORST age. Meanwhile it was alright to buff delhi with berries, HRE. Now delhi is stronger than ever before and HRE is the new uncontested late game civ. Previously it was china + HRE
If the unit comp is so important to devs then they should stop french spamming their knights, english making masses of longbows or HRE spamming MAA, but none of that matters to anyone because issue was solely chinese siege that was mid tier civ and no other civ needed any form of nerf.
Hope Relic wont hire you to the balance team. One win means nothing, look at the winrates, listen to pros instead of saying “Grubby won this game so china is OP” LoL. Besides the video is old and we discussed it earlier. And y know what? Beastygt won as china vs mongols!! NERF TO CHINA BUFF TO MONGOLS!
The video is recent… just last Tuesday, 4 days ago. Chinese were OP last patch especially the Imperial Age Bombards. Infantry/Knights cant kill them. Now, it’s corrected. It dies to its counter units. But this nerf doesnt make China unplayable. Enough whining. Keep playing.
Data disagrees with you, winrates disagrees with you and pro players disagrees with you. Do you have anything to backup your claims ? China was OP ? Really when ? Where ? What patch are you talking about
I have seen that match and this is why ppl with low elo players shouldn’t concern themselves with balance discussion or anything.
Firstly - Grubby played AMAZING game he completely shut out HRE. This is player skill not civ strength.
Secondly - HRE had 1 relic
Thirdly - Can you see that wall city of stone walls. So are you suggesting that china has to wall off whole map everywhere just to get enough time to reach imperial + age which cheapest way costs 600 + 1800 + 4800 + 7200 resources. I remember this forum being “omfg cant wall against FL” so same argument.
Thirdly - HRE had no counter to grenadiers. Spears against grenadiers???!?!?!? PLS. 5 mangonels and grenadiers would’ve died.
Grenadiers are strong unit but its not viable strategy to go on because you cant reliably get into ming dynasty
There is enough evidence to support the fact that China is unviable civ. Low elo players do not have to concern themselves with winrates or balance just focus on improving gameplay first. Its most important aspect which increases players chances of winning game
Go to my replay’s, 1vs1 i run out of time on one game, 2vs2 with my mongol buddy we have been owning the last 3 days.
(Me as chinees) they rock, (yes they have some bugs, i will make a report today)
And yes, china does need a buff for feudel, but …unplayable… Lol
At low elo anything works and is not relevant to balance. I remember seeing you saying you got 800 elo. Keep practicing and once you hit higher elos you will learn that then the balance matters
Im not saying you cant enjoy playing civ. Enjoyment and fun is completely subjective matter.
But its fact. Lower the skill level goes less the balance affects players because players at that elo needs to improve their gameplay, knowledge of game, micro, macro etc. Its nothing to be shamed off. We all started somewhere, but understanding this is very important when things come down to balance discussion. Even I whose been very vocal regarding certain changes in AOE4 has lot to go and things I need to improve and get better at.
For same reason lower elo player concerns for balance are not valid. Tho they can say “its not fun to play against pure siege set up” or “its not fun to be forced to play with siege” etc then it comes down to redesigning something and not balancing. Balancing is always about finding the sweet spot that unit or thing has enough counters but its not useless. While redesigning is something that changes how something works and balancing it comes afterwards.
Edit:
I watched one of your replays out of curiosity. It was 1v1 against mongol on king of the hill and I can tell you balance played no role in that game. Only watched from your perspective and didn’t pay much of attention to mongol, but game should’ve ended at first rush mongol if you faced higher elo mongol.
So from the last 15 games where i played China, you picked the only one 1vs1 where i lost. And you deny the other 14 games? …?
Once again, go whine with the pro’s and go back to AoE2 oe 3.
Or i just suck with them bad which is also a possibility 