I’ve literally fixed your math and included things like pop which you refuse to calculate so i dunno bud, seems more like you want tforce buff this over an actual talk about the value which is inclusive of these types of factors.
it preforms better on several metrics when you are honest about cost such as pop, aoe, scaling through ages, speed/accessibility, utility, and its role in the Ethiopian composition and range (2 is the differnece between dying to forts and TCS and being able to react to things thanks to LoS). Again, this is part of the cost whether you like it or not. If you, the player, fail to take advantage of these that doesn’t mean its undercosted. It means you the player failed to take advantage. If you cant find a way to take advantage of these, dont pay for it. Its that simple. Not every player can take advantage of every unit; hell i tend to stick to skirm goon cause glass cannon gascenya are micro intensive and macro juggles. but i understand why gascenya are good. same with the mortar: i dont send it every game but when i do i sure as hell use it as ive described and get my value.
At the end of the day, you clearly prefer 2 falcs ease of use and lack of apm needed to get results. So go use 2 falcs. when you gain the ability or skill or want to mix this into comps (btw, placing a tower/ palace mid map vs house eco or passive civs to set up timing attacks or containments isn’t “winning conditions” its basic game skill of map control) and understand how to use it you’ll have a better time with it. Cheers!
Not everything about the unit has to be balanced around a single age 3 shipment. Sebastopol should cost 900 influence OR cost 7 pop, Heavy Cannons from Hausa Palace cost 800 influence and they’re 7 pop.
I forgot one multiplier for walls that you didn’t actually correct. I caught my own mistake on Falc siege which was greatly underselling Falcs vs Sebastopols. That makes your arguments weaker.
4 AoE on 1 Sebastopol is not better than 3 AoE each on 2 Falcs.
Here’s your math for the pop:
5+5=10 and 10 > 8
Big whoop. It’s 2 pop less for something that sieges as well as 2 Falcs when Falcs are primarily anti-infantry, not anti building. For Mortars, 2 are also 8 pop and cheaper.
Forts do 28.125 damage per shot to a cannon. That’s 8 shots to kill a Falc. Hardly a huge threat. Sebastopols have terrible LoS. It’s the same as a Falc despite the extra range. So if you don’t babysit them, often they’ll try to chase after things that run beyond their LoS and get themselves killed on the front lines. You’re just bringing up another thing that should be buffed.
This is not a matter of “you suck, get gud”. It’s objectively a terrible unit. I use the age 3 shipment of it because it’s better than nothing and a shipment is way more convenient than building a Palace, buying a tech, and then training units.
When you get to age ## no one in their right mind trains them. They are literally half as good as training a Falc and a Mortar but twice the price. Everything except pop and bombard mode speed is worse.
Falc + Mortar:
950 cost
9 pop
500 health
26 range (Falc) 30-40 range (Mortar)
80 dps vs inf, 27 dps vs cav, 27 dps vs art
133.3 dps vs buildings 154.2 dps vs walls
Sebastopol Mortar:
1000 cost
8 pop
475 health
30-34 range (age 4)
50 dps vs inf, 25 dps vs cav, 12.5 dps vs art
100 dps vs buildings 125 dps vs walls
Is this age3 falc mortar for8 pop that has no set up in the room with you now? Can we see this creature on the wild? Cause you i havent seen this cyptid but ive seen its supposed relative the Sebastopol
Again, “objective” its ignring facts to force a narrative. Your math was trash cause it maybe on purpose didnt combine pop weight, time of attacks, and different firing times. And you continue to refuse to acknowledge harder to math things like heal to take 5th culv shot being minimal, no set up, and being safer to use vs buildings. Mines did and explained where and when its better. Then i disclosed its use and your response is “well buut it cant stop 2 falc pushes” as if shipping mortars was meant to do that.
Last reply cause i think i figured out this isnt a genuine place.to discuss its value its you pushing for buff of a pretty balanced but niche unit due to poor use of it. Other than maybe reducing cost a pinch for late game use, its a high skill high reward unit. Just as dopps, bolas, mantlets, grens etc not every unit espcially hybrid ones are meant to be 2 in 1 perfect unit replacements of what they are mixed from. You use the utility or you waste cost. But its “objectively” costed between a mortar and falc while having other spots and until you learn to use it, i guess call it trash and let better players have fun with it.
I think the mortar should be better than it is in age 3, like give it the full age 4 stats or something because it’s a 1 time shipment, you can’t make any more until industrial while any civ with falcs can. It’s also considerably harder to get 1k influence and train them and you can only train 1 per palace at a time while other civs just chuck everyone on coin and you can get 5 falcs out of 1 foundry. Only good thing is it shadow techs but artillery upgrades are cheap anyway in age 4.
As you can see, it’s the same dps. Versus units, it will be much, much worse.
That’s not math, and I absolutely responded to everyone of those points. All of those elements are extremely marginal and are poor compensation for having half the dps of comparable units.
Abun healing is a valid point, but also applies to Ethiopian Falcs so that’s not an argument for or against.
That’s exactly the spirit of what the design is aiming for but obviously falls flat. The fact is that in order to justify making a Sebastopol instead of 2 Mortars or 2 Falcs or mix of both, it needs some niche advantage. I’ve clearly showed how its dps is about half that of those units and every other parameters is roughly comparable. You’re just being obtuse if you’re going to deny that being underpowered.
Costed between a Falc and a Mortar is 475 resources. It’s definitely not costed between them. Its function is between the two, but cost is more than double. But if you’re so against the role of a Falc-Mortar and keep pushing that it’s just a Mortar, then it should realistically have more like 500 base siege damage and 900 cost to be 75% as good as 2 Mortars. Then it would actually be pretty good in the role you’re describing it having.
Guys. Stop doing math on mortars. Ethiopian mortar is okish. The real weak one is flying crows. We need to buff flying crows first, especially age 3. Also in late game they need to send 3 cards to achieve a similar level to other cannons without cards. They also have terrible animation, moves super slowly, and missing infantry multiplier, take up 7 pop despite costing 600 resources.
Flying Crows are more or less in line with other similar artillery units. They aren’t quite as good against infantry, but they’re better against artillery and buildings. All that needs to be adjusted is reducing their pop cost and giving them a little better range to begin with. Their firing animation could be improved too so that it’s attack isn’t just cancelled if the target does before the shot is taken. Maybe have the rocket loiter for a few seconds in the air while a new target is acquired.
Basically this:
Population reduced from 7 to 6
Range progression improved from 18 → 23 → 28 to 20 → 24 → 28.
you cant heal a falc to tank another shot fast enough in a push. also its just as efficient after 3-4 culv hits than 2 falc or mortars since its still 100% damage. these are ofc more advanced thinking tho which i don’t think you want to do.
10 hp on mortar = 5th culv shot to die (effective 485 hp) this is why it was nerfed from 500 base hp btw at least this way ethopian player has to commit an abun. you aint healing 45hp off a falc mid battle. so for abun which you should pull anyways, very reliable to get 5 culv shots to kill mortar to the 2 falcs 4 to die. this is basic ehtopian strategy when using this. you also purpsoefully ignore the falc/mortar age3 doesnt exist either, which shows lack of game knowledge past basic stat making 2 units smash into eachother. aoe3 is not a vacuum nor is it always 2 armies z moving into eachother. you have to calculate all factors even if you the player lack the skill to use them and therefore dont have these extra factors helping you in every fight.
also for equal res, its 80% pop. 20% more efficency than falcs. from safety which i get you dont know how to leverage the range but many players can. that fort/TC chip damage you think is “non essential” is the difference between getting sniped by a stray huss, or skirms shooting it. it also again, unless there are culvs, forces the opponent to push out of their base. this is a metric I’ve realize is hard to quantify but is what separates good players from avg players: the ability to force decisive fights. the pressure of the cannon vs passive civs is enough they have to do something, cutting into their boom budget. 2 falcs are pretty easy to clean with units like chimu/huaraca, organs, and defensive 2 falcs when defending. having to push out cause the dodging mortar is seigeing or pay alot of res in culvs, more than fatty cannon (2 culvs is not enough vs a skilled Ethiopian player) which then culvs do nothing vs the army of eht, is strong. forcing them out of the base which neagtes any res, TC fire, and minimizes attacking reinforcemetn time and increases defender reinforcement time all work in tandem. all thanks to a mortar then then can contribute to the fight. all over a shipment.
No matter how bad you fail to understand this, it really is skill issue that part of the mortars budget is tied into these factors. you can ignore all these calculations over and over and just look at raw stats. so will others and prehaps a better conversation would be “can we make it user friendly?” im not opposed to lessening the apm burden for some units if only top players or a few can. but if you buff its raw stats while not addressing the parts of it you the player fail to use, it likely becomes op again. like it was on launch. we see this with huaraca right now deleteing everything cause players couldnt kill cannons easily but now their anti other unit strength allows them to kill everything. This is the core issue- for you its not worth it to have to actually think how to use the utility of this cannon. prehaps it can just be a glorified mortar. but it cant be strictly better than 2 falc and 2 mortar thats op in age3. and if its cost of range, aoe, no unpack animation, health, better scaling stats than just hp/attack, etc isnt worth it to you, its still part of the budget of cost. so you gotta take from these factors there to buff it elsewhere or youve just made it overpowered.
Or you know, as ive said which i know comes off rude but its true, if you cant take advantage of these parts of it dont use it. let the players who know how to have fun and dont overbuff a strong unit due to lack of game skills. the dumbing down of a unit doesnt mean its better, just means less dynamic. ship 1k infl and cannon away if the z move is your style. there is nothing wrong with accepting limitations as a player instead of making a facetious post over and over striaght up refusing to account for parts of a units budget. no matter how deluded you are, its how units are designed and you have to account for all parts of a unit, not just dps in a z move fight. or cav would loose to musk every time when players dont micro etc.
You can’t train them that early and you shouldn’t train them ever. Sebastopols aren’t trainable until Industrial, and once you get there Falcs and Mortars are so much more cost effective that you should never train a Sebastopol.
That would be a good point if your numbers weren’t wrong. 3 Culv shots is 480 damage. Best case scenario you make it last 4 Culv shots with an Abun. So with an Abun you bring it up to par with what 2 Falcs can tank by default.
So you factor in a 2 pop 150 resource healer above and then ignore it when you talk about the cost.
Why don’t you take a closer look? Falcs have a faster RoF so you’re going to be able to get off at least 2 shots before one dies. With 2 Falcs that’s 4 shots before 1 dies and then 2 more for the remaining one for a total of 6. Sebastopols have the same firing rate as a Culv and way less range so they aren’t going to get the first shot off. That means the Culv with kill it before it fires a 3rd shot. So both are able to dish out the exact same amount of base damage in that timeframe but Falcs have extra multipliers meaning they’ll be doing 2-3 times more damage. It’ll be a similar situation for 2 Mortars, but they outrage Culvs so will get their shots off before. If you factor in an Abun giving it an extra shot you’ll do more base damage, but with the extra cost of the Abun.
Stop accusing me of purposely ignoring things. Everything you said I ignored above is either wrong or shows that regular Falcs and Mortars are superior.
I have acknowledged every advantage that Sebastopols have. They have slightly better range, can tank more damage in some matchups, and have better mobility in bombard mode. That is not enough to make up for the fact that they have roughly equal or worse dps of units that are half the cost.
I never claimed that. In age 3 it has 28 range and 120% of the damage output of a single Mortar for more than twice the cost. And it doesn’t come close to the damage output of a single Falconet versus units.
But it should approach the effectiveness of a Falc and Mortar in age 4 otherwise there is no reason to train it instead of them. And guess what? It’s nowhere near as good so you should never make it.
What are you smoking? Where did I say it should be as good as 2 Falcs or 2 Mortars? I’m asking to make it as least as good a 1 single Falconet. A unit that costs half as much. That’s not going to make it op.
Huaraca are one of the worst designed units in the game. They shouldn’t have the anti-artillery role at all.
That’s exactly what you’re doing.
Please explain to me under what circumstances you should build a Sebastopol Mortar in age 4 instead of a Mortar and a Falconet. Why would anyone pick a unit that has half the dps? All you have done is explain how it’s marginally useful in age 3 when you realistically have no other alternative. If Ethiopia had a 2 Falc shipment would you still use the Sebastopol?
good god you need to play this game instead of the calculator Where is the calculations or admitance of these other costs? your so focused on imagining z move scenarios i have not seen you once acknowledge “ok maybe some of these factors outside my calclations matter.”. you are right about the 3-4 culv shots tho instead of 5. fwiw its 28 health to be healed which is a bit harder now abun heal cant stack. you do realize you always have 1 abun tho and should pull him for big fights tho right?
“faster shots”? both fire same time initally. RoF only matters after that shot. if you sit cannons under culv fire, your kind of deserving to loose. ofc this guy can dance a bit but we’ve established you lack that micro ability. like dude how bad are you as a player to put 0 micro into this unit? 2 culvs 1 tap a falc, then your math goes to waste because vs buildings (you do remember that this thing is anti building first right?) fat cannon can dance and needs a second volley. most civs sub 9 minutes cant afford more than 2 culvs without cutting into army and thats more than cost of fat cannon anyways for 3 culv. this is the most actual game metric not imagining infinte res and time z move scenario which you seem to only live in. 2 culvs, or enemy falcs even, and this guy is keeping efficeny to the last drop.
it is tho vs buildings a good deal. 2.25 the hp, more aoe damage, its better than 1 mortar vs things non buildgins. its not as good as 2 falc or 2 mortar respectively in raw dps. instead its 8 pop, more range than falc more hp than 2 falc, early age than 2 mortars. If your not bad, you can make this thing last long enough to contribute to both anti building and anti unit. i know you fail to use it, but most good players can and do. healing, tanking shots and wasting culv shots dancing, hell with a few culvs of your own this thing can tank 2 culv shots assuming they hit, your culvs snipe 1 of their and then now need 2 more shots to kill it.
now you said you acknowledge the other factors, so where did you state “i have not added these costs and it could change things?” i see you making this only dps arguement because you in your mind think cannons are static units. whereas in a real game, culv and cannon micro is real and makes the difference. when i can see a calculation including range, hp, pop cost, set up animation, early access, scaling stats over time compared to the falc and some recognition that “maybe aoe3 isnt just a calculator and there might actually be cases where these stats matter” you will finally have been earnest or at least informed in your assessment. until then, its the same sad line of thinking that got azaps and huaraca buffed: players only seeing 1 issue (in your case other falc pushes or long age4 play) and miscalculating the use of a unit. Or keep making false claims like “its worse than 2 falcs” because of the inability to math these factors. either way, luckily you did not have part of balancing this thing from the start cause good god was it op in the hands of askileld player yet never as effective as your tying to claim it needs to be.
Culvs outrange them before age 5. So a Culv is guaranteed to fire first and kill it before it gets a 3rd shot. You were going on about how amazing it was that Sebastopols have 2 more range than a Falc, but conveniently ignore Culvs having a 6 range advantage.
Why do you feel the need to insult me personally? You can’t seem to argue anything else other than saying I suck and I can’t do math.
Culv range is higher than the LoS. It’s very likely it can shoot you down before you see it or at least make you retreat out of range from being able to hit the buildings you say it’s so good against.
All of these advantages are extremely marginal, non-existent in many scenarios, or require a ton of luck and skill. The disparity in dps between comparable costing units is massive. For overall dps it is 60% as good as 2 Mortars or on average 50% as good as 2 Falcs. So all of the advantages you list have to make up for at least a 40% deficit in dps. I strongly disagree that those factors are even remotely equivalent. This isn’t slight stat tweaks with some nuances that compensate, it’s almost an order of magnitude damage disparity.
I say you must suck cause you think+2 range doesnt matter when +2 range is more los and typically you can position in ways to react pretty fast
Then ignore how vs 2 falcs even if the 2 culvs get off first shot, you now have 1 falc. Vs mortar you have 1/3 ish health and 100% dps remaining. This is a big issue when fighting forts or sniping houses and production. But you dont calculate it so real utlity is left out and you make a false claim. Same with range as ive mentioned. Your math is not always false, but your conclusions miss context by omitting these.
Like how Your math for 1 falc to do same vs buildings is very much only relevant in a long shootout of which almost never happens in a real game. So why make thjs a selling point when its not an actual thing that happens?
This is the core issue. You are 100% numbers 0% actual game interactions. Numbers do matter but you miss its forrest for the trees. If this thing was literally a falc/mortar in operation, aka mid point in cost use micro hp range scaling etc and it was underprefoeming yeah buff it. But its not just a 2 in 1 it has its own unique stuff added that base cannons dont. And until you recognize that, any math will be incongurent with actual gameplay.
I should apologize for saying you ##### ### truly if these scnearios are how you use it and you cant recognize the values of these factors that is a player skill issue. But i do apologize i could have worded it less nasty. Regardless, i stand by my points that your conclusions arent accurate reflections of the cost and worth of this unit since yoy omit part of the units “package”
Range and LoS are two different stats. Sebastopols have the same LoS as Falcs. And since they have longer range they’re very prone to chasing after things that run outside their LoS.
In this case the Sebastopol is better at sieging. But you yourself said making 2 Culvs is a waste. And if you bump it up to 3 Culvs then again, the Falcs are better at sieging. You’re just cherry picking favourable break points.
Do you even read what I write? That was for 2 Falcs. Sebastopols actually equal the dps vs buildings of 2 Falcs. But Falcs are pretty mediocre vs buildings so that’s nothing special.
If you’re so set on saying the unit is amazing, would you use it if it was scaled down to a regular Mortar?
Available Age 3
4 pop
500 cost
28 range
30 LoS
6 RoF
75 unit attack (18.75 vs art, 37.5 vs cav)
300 building attack
300 health (better than half a Sebastopol)
2.5 speed no setup
Does that not seem like a trash unit to you?
If it’s so great, would you be willing to give up access to regular Mortars and use it exclusively?
add shadowtechin not just stats into it for range and aoe addition per an age seems damn fine to me. dont forget the health has to be such to be able to tank just enough of 2 with minimal healing (who knows how devs would make it work on smaller hp pool prob some unique tag or something)
and most non team players, who cant spam both falc cannons and mortars as ethopia, absolutely put these in their decks and take them. after all, a cannon that is only good vs buildings is a bit of an issue for a civ with limited cows/TPs in a normal 1v1 scenario. go spend a falc and die to forts or be weaker vs artillery adn slower to mass, or only good vs infantry which my civ has less issue with, or make mortars and once the fort is down have 0 value vs the army. great plan chief o7. oh wait, we have a 2 in 1 unit you say? wow it slices and dices and doesnt cost 2x a of a res i dont really generate easily in a normal 1v1 scenario? but some random person who plays teams mostly i guess thinks he just always have 2k influence lying around to make the 2 falcs and then the 2 mortars in 4 and never get value? interesting. oh i could even save that influence for culvs and have all 3 cannons types in 2 units. and someone thinks it trash? you sure he actually playing 1v1s?
I didnt say 2 culvs is a waste. i said making more than 2 culvs is waste since you over invested res and pop. thats why usually its 2 culvs vs 2 falcs, or even 1 at times. fat cannon messes with this math
give this to my ports right now, you DE civ players want to complain about it i sure as hell wont. or maybe a non 2 falc civ thats strong without it. Germany. yeah give it to germany, see how “poorly” it does XD
(inbefore i dont play DE civs, my mains include italy and mexico and recently ethopia. i do play them, im just pointing out that your “bad” value cannon would certainly be taken in other civs which struggle to spam cannons in age3)
In age 4 the SM has the same dps vs infantry as a great bombard. It trades 1 aoe and 0.5x the dps vs artillery for +2 range, 2x the dps against buildings, and 4x the dps vs walls which is a fair trade off in my opinion. It has more building damage than any other heavy artillery unit including the li’l bombard which costs 100 res more. Having a little less infantry dps (because of less aoe) than the great bombard in exchange for being the best anti-building heavy artillery seems reasonable to me.
The main downside I see when compared to other heavy artillery is the cost being 200 resources more expensive than the next expensive heavy artillery (excluding the li’l bombard). I think if there is any case to buff the SM it would be lower the cost slightly however, I think the civ is still busted in treaty so I don’t suspect it would be good to buff the cost unless it was accompanied with treaty nerfs.
Honestly the current patch SM is probably my favorite iteration of the unit. On launch it had the full 30 range in age 3 and more damage vs infantry (which I think what this thread is advocating for?). It seemed kind of hard to deal with it without culvs since the civ has good anticav options. I think it’s bad design to have an age 3 shipment that can arrive around 8 minutes that forces your opponent to make more than 1 culv to deal with it. After it was nerfed and before it had the building multiplier buff it seemed sad that it did less building damage than a singular mortar. Current patch it isn’t horrible to play against while it greatly helps mitigate what I consider to be a weakness of the civ which is it’s hard to mass long range siege in age 3 before your cow eco takes off. I like it and think it has reasonable stats for a unique heavy artillery.
I don’t think it is better to only make falcs/mortars over the SM. One game where where I was pushing back multiple layers of bastion walls I used like 2 SM and 2 mortars and it seemed like a good mix. It had a good amount of siege while not being useless vs an army. If I invested in falcs instead, they would not have been as great at killing the walls because they could be pushed back/killed by culvs behind the wall easier as they have 8 less building siege range than the SM in age 4 and 6 less los (they get more los and building siege range in age 4 giving it the same building siege range as a culverin). If I made 6 mortars, then that is 24 pop dedicated to only anti-building units and I could get potentially overrun with a max pop army. Most hybrid artillery seems weak when compared to a more specialized unit but the versatility is the strength. I kinda like that it doesn’t completely invalidate mortars in the tech tree so it adds some strategy of what unit comp ratio to choose.
Not really related to balance but a fun trick to do to get to your opponents base ~10-15 seconds faster is to pull trick the SM with javelin riders. I think pull tricking the SM with javelin riders is one of the most satisfying things in this game. Here is a video showing how to pull trick. https://youtu.be/-kirKd7VzVQ?si=rCBbT8KYJZPdvVVV&t=119 I don’t think you have to be super fast to be able to do it (I’m not) and it’s very fun!
Sorry if my wording is weird in places, I’m pretty tired. Hope you all have a nice night/day!
This would absolutely be a fair trade if it wasn’t more than 40% more expensive. Also keep in mind that Great Bombards do get better comparatively in age 5 and have cards and techs (+15% health and attack, and -1 pop) that improve them more while Sebastopols just get an AoE boost and a little more health from cards.
That doesn’t address that the age 3 shipment would be overtly worse than 1000 resources. I’d much prefer a slight stats buff to justify the cost, and if that needs to come with nerfs to other areas to keep it balanced that is fine.
Pretty much, just give it a couple multipliers to make it about as good as a single Falconet.
x1.5 vs infantry (from x1)
x0.33 vs artillery (from x0.25)
+2 LoS in age 3 (increase from 30 to 32)
maybe drop the cost to 900 resources (from 1000)
I don’t think that would be game breaking. The only legitimate complaints against this are that Ethiopia is otherwise too strong and needs the drawback of having a weak cannon to equalize them.
You only need 2.4 Mortars to equal the siege damage of 2 SM, and in age 4 they’d even outrange them. Just making 3 Mortars with a Falconet or other units backing them up (not necessarily in range of Culvs) would have achieved the same ends more cost effectively and with greater range.