It is actually a major buff for French I will say.
Rus and French still able to prof scout to pick hunt without much problem, on the same time civs like HRE that can’t age up early and train scout quicker and easy to deny.
It is imbalance due to:
- French and Rus able to mass scouts without making a stable
- They are one of the quickest age2 civs and able to get prof scout right away (~4mins)
- Knight are the best units to kill scouts, on the other hand horseman you are unlikely to do it and lost to knight.
- Even possible for them to get map control and “late” prof scout.
If you play HRE or others, you are still not likely to stop French/Rus to pick up at least 2 pack of hunt, but they could stop you with knight and more scouts if you try to do it.
For example, old HRE vs Rus HRE should able to get more than one pack, right now if Rus went Knight you may not even able to get one pack.
There should be more changes on prof scout. On open map except mongol, French and Rus still have massive advantage over other civs by looking at tournament games.
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I have been saying this the moment I saw the change in patch notes. Its nerf to prof scout in terms of how quickly deer is delivered and removed whole “yoinking” tactic, but massive buff to rus and french, because those are now only civs that can very comfortably defend their deer camps and got really good map control early on.
Any other civ is fighting against early knights which means spears are required but the moment you start sending spears to control deer, they just sent knights to your base and you’re playing constant pingpong
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I still try to use Pro Scout as Delhi, but it’s really hard to contest the packs for myself. I often get enough to payoff the investment in team games, but 1 vs 1 against Francia & Rusia? No.
You missed the whole point of nerf. It’s nerf to stealing hunts/relic not a nerf specific to civs that use pro scouts. Now its possible for everyone to secure hunts on their side. You can put barrack in Age 1 and counter knight push. Pro scouts can be chased using spears. Of-course you wont be able to take their hunts.
You are not supposed to counter pro scouts using horsemen you can do it with spears and defend against knights. Thats why their speed was nerfed 35%. For RUS monks you have to use horsemen.
Also this is civ specific advantage. English gets free archery range, China gets free siege in age 3. With new nerf you can take hunts on your side.
You can still protect your hunt, most of the time. Pro Scouts take enough time to be researched that you can field a small force enought to kill opponents scouts, if he tries to steal from you right away.
Besides, again about civ advantages, some civs don’t even need to bother about the hunt. England can move to farming super early and cheaply, and yield faster than deer with farms placed on influence of mills. HRE can move vills, a prelate and some spears into a camp, if really wants to, and quickly eat all the deer, Delhi and Abbassids have berries, and so on and so forth.
Specially, if your opponent is making scouts, he is not making army. If he makes one knight, scout its position and have one or two spears in your base, ready to intercept. If one knight can easily be trouble, then you are most likely missing something here.