Two changes to Supplies

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

One of the biggest problems with Supplies is that it saves food, but costs food. Food is very valuable in the early game, so in practice, you need to make a LOT of Men-at-Arms to pay for it.

So my first suggestion: why not just change it from food and gold, to wood and gold? That means it becomes more like a farm than an investment, and it should. E easier to justify earlier on.

Now, the other issue is, what if you’ve already made some infantry? Supplies is exclusively a long term tech right now, and with how precise and efficient the early game has become, it’s really hard to justify a tech that only pays off much later and only for one thing. Especially since MAA are basically guaranteed to take damage, as their resistance to bonus damage is one of their most notable attributes.

Another aspect is, I think infantry are the unit which benefits the MOST from healing. Knights can lose 2/3rds of their hp and still get off 2 or 3 attacks. If Infantry lose 2/3rds of their hp, they can often die before doing anything but block other allied units from doing damage. But from a cost standpoint, healing them is not very efficient right now.

So what if if Supplies would give a bonus to the healing rate on garrisoned militia; something like +16? Make it a flat bonus, so they can heal in towers, too. That way, an early force can garrison and heal up while new units are being made. This restores their value, helps maintain a force of infantry, and helps to justify blacksmith techs, which in turn justifies further militia investment.

4 Likes
2

supplies for both food/wood cost could make sense as its needed for transport and man power, as to which im ok with either

im not too sure about the healing probably mainly cause infantry play rarely ever returns home and usually used as an exchange of units or tank for skirms/archers. even if say their base speed is boosted i just can’t see player would bother bringing them home, maybe we’d see more militia + tower play on the other hand and teuton might be good here

i’d want see them being used more in late feudal to early castle or possibly even mid castle against mangonel. something like taking -10 less damage when hit by mangonel but still take full damage from scorpion and we might even see more scorps play due to more militia play, just my 2c

3

The thing is, they are already quite tanky. The problems don’t really arise until they lose a portion of their HP, then they just die like nothing.

That’s what led me in the direction of healing, instead. Towers, are exactly the sort of thing I was thinking about, although other buildings could be used if they were built defensively. Infantry are actually relatively decent at taking out Siege, they can just only do it once. The healing would serve to get them back up over that critical threshold, and allow them to do it again, which would multiply their value in the long term.

1 Like
4

LS upgrade, supplies, gambeson and squires all food cost change to gold cost and takes only 20s to research.

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5

Just make supplies free

6

I think that would make men at arms rushes too strong. There needs to be a delay and a cost to it, it’s just that the cost is too steep right now, kinda like how they changed so many things that had stone cost to wood or gold.

7

Is not that good?
Make the militia line good?

8

MAA rush is honestly pretty balanced atm, it’s the aftermath that’s the issue.

This would allow existing MAA to be healed for use in other combined tactics, and encourage longer-term use too. Like mixing them in with your skirms to soak up some fire.

9

At least Speed buff is necessary for m@a for fighting spear+skirm combo.

1 Like
10

You could be right, but I’m focusing on just Supplies here; trying to make it more viable early on, and giving it an immediate benefit to justify that cost even without knowing how the game will go.

I think this would be a good incremental step.

11

Agree on supplies even if i personally would like to see militia line chaper by default and less cheapened by supplies (like 50 food from the start, and -10 from supplies) or added HP on the unit, but i agree on the cost that wood would make it better, but would not be enough to buff militia

I would look at gambeson as well and make it add +1/+1 to both armor and not just PA to make militia same armor as knight behind a paywall and with much less HP

2 Likes
12

That sounds pretty good militia line cost 50F 20G, gambeson gives +1/+1 armor and perhaps add small damage bonus vs scout line:
MAA +1
LS +2
THS +3
Champion +4

13

Agree, I already proposed several times too.

I don’t like it. It sounds very impractical. In some way force you to play defensive or go MAA+Tower, which a very niche strat.
I would prefer address it in another way. Some options:

  1. Change militia-line’s base cost from 60F 20G to 30F 50G and then Supplies changes to 60F 20G.
    This way, militia is easy spammable in early and mid game, draining your gold in exchange of playing very aggresive (similar to archers, or eagles). Then from mid castle age onwards when food becomes more abundant you can switch to a food based militia and spend gold in siege. The key is timming in the transition.

  2. Make Supllies return some % of militia’s cost when die.
    This way you don’t buff drush or MAA start but reduce the damage in eco if choise to keeping training militia.
    Taking in count that survivality is not the thing of militia-line.

1 Like
14

What I’m trying to achieve is to make supplies fulfil its purpose and encourage longer-term infantry use.

I’ve thought about the first idea, but I’ve come to the viewpoint that you can’t really change the base cost without unduly influencing their rush potential, which is already almost perfectly balanced. And making it a cost return thing, while a good idea IMO, doesn’t fit well with Supplies; too much overlap with the existing cost reduction, AND it basically just encourages suiciding or even deleting any remaining infantry, rather than preserving them and continuing to use them throughout the game. I’d really like to see cost returning infantry at some point, but not for Supplies; perhaps as a UT.

Healing IS a relatively niche strategy, I’ll admit, but remember, the goal here is long-term; right now, if you have three MAA at low health left over from a failed MAA rush, you basically just forget about them and suicide them at the enemy. With this change, you could bring them back home, garrison them in your TC for two minutes, and then mix them in with your new army. Or, if you already did a tower rush, you could garrison them inside and heal them up there.

Having three MAA to support other units won’t always make a difference, but there are definitely some cases where it will, such as going into skirmishers or spearmen. In those cases, it will allow for far more long-term infantry investment right from the start, especially with the ability to repeatedly top them up via temporary garrisoning.

This also increases the long-term potential of towers, as they could serve as healing stations for infantry, especially in tandem with Herbal Medicine, another tech that rarely sees use.

Basically, I don’t think it needs to be too powerful to have ripple effects throughout the rest of the game.

15

It should return 15 food for militia units which are alive too. It will give players to keep more of them around and upgrade them.

16

Remove supply. Buff base stat - HP and/or speed.

17

I felt that way at first, but MAA rushes are already almost perfectly balanced. You can’t really change the base stats, or you sacrifice that for nebulous future benefits.

That’s why I felt healing would be a better option, allowing for more indirect long-term use, without impacting their combat effectiveness directly.

1 Like
18

I wouldn’t say that.

Why?

Cause the thing with MAA Rushes almost always is the inconsistency. Sometimes they ive absurdly high value and win the game in an instant. Sometimes they give little to no value (when the opponent expects them and deals well with it).
Also partially due to the changes to walls, they are too expensive to get up before maa arrive, and quickwalling, if not at the very top level, is a very inconsistant skill.
And if you prepare for maa and they don’t come you usually have to sacrificy your own aggressive timings and can have big issues to a lot of different other openings.
This also because of the current deer push meta, as you can’t really get the information about a maa rush unless you luckily see them when going forward to look for the opponent.

There are so many factors whcih play in that, that are so highly volatile, that I wouldn’t speak of “balance” here. It’s just that from the expected results maa seem to be a viable and probably even quite good opener these times. At least in mid to high-mid level ranked.

I think the best way to solve this volatility is actually to somehow “fix” the “deer push” meta. And then we see where maa actually stand, when you can actually scout them.

3 Likes
19

I see where you’re coming from, but don’t you think that’s also a significant part of what makes the early game interesting? True, they do occasionally result in games that are unfair in one way or the other, but that sort of Randomness is exactly the thing that keeps the game interesting, throws a wrench into memorized build orders, and makes for a significant part of why this game has lasted as long as it has.

And in the long term, it does average out. On the whole, I think I would consider it a plus.

The real issue, I think, takes place more so after the rush is over, and is a big part of why infantry see so little play in the mid game. And I think that’s what this would attempt to address.

20

Well I don’t see any buffed MAA like Vikings, Malians, Romans, Malay, Bulgarians, Celts, Burmese, Japanese on a strong state. If anything some are in perfect state like Celts and Vikings. So either HP or speed buff won’t make anything at over powered state. Maybe only 5 civs which can be nerfed.