There must be many friends who watched the N4C, and it can be said that the whole process was very exciting. There are a lot of classic matches, many of which are extreme overturns and repeated tug-of-war. The balance of the latest version, Patch 11963, is very good, the overall environment of the game has been improving for a few months, but after watching the N4C game, I found that the problem with the siege weapon units is still very large.
As you can see, Abbas and the Mongols are extremely fond of training large numbers of infantry because the infantry can manufacture siege weapons. Mangonel can deal a lot of damage to ranged units, you only need to produce enough infantry protection to quickly consume the ranged units left by the opponent’s feudal age. This combination is almost unmatched in frontal battles, all you can do is generate a lot of Springald to destroy the opponent’s siege weapons and stop the infantry siege group from advancing.
I’m not saying I hate this kind of tactical play.
But this does expose a huge problem, that is, the siege weapons are consumed, and whoever wins in the Springald shoot-to-shoot phase has the qualifications to attack.
This situation is acceptable in AOE3 as there are few defensive buildings and no wartime repairs. But in AOE4, you will hoard a lot of siege units, because you need him whether you are attacking or defending, and it is much better than the crossbowman.
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Crossbowmen and archers will be killed by riders heavily, but siege units have high HP and can be repaired.
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Crossbowmen and archers only need to attack certain types of units to have considerable damage, but siege weapons can’t lose resources as long as they shoot ammunition into the crowd.
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Crossbowmen and archers cannot demolish buildings, which is the specialty of siege weapons.
The only disadvantage of siege weapons is that they are very slow, but this disadvantage does not exist for Mongolia and Abbas
So I think the survivability of long-range siege weapons should be greatly weakened.
I think this will have many benefits.
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From a historical point of view, long-range siege weapons should not have such a high HP value and can withstand so many attacks.
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Step archers and crossbowmen will have a more dominant position (a slight increase in France and England, a small weakening for Mongolia and Abbas)
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The feudal war will be more enjoyable to watch. If the siege is fragile, the attacker will not be frightened by a Mangonel who is repaired by the villagers but can exchange effectively. Players need to think more carefully about FC’s tactics
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The embarrassing state of China can be adjusted, (currently due to the siege weapons being too powerful in the late stage and too weak in the early stage), the power of Zhuge Nu will be stronger
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HRE will not have such an overwhelming advantage because of the 3 relics.
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In the late stage of TG, there will be no pure siege weapon clusters.
So my suggestion is to reduce the HP of ranged siege weapons (-30%)
springald HP 200 ->140 attack 30+90 → 30+50(vs siges)
Mangonel HP 240 → 160
Trebuchet HP 400 → 300
Bombard HP 400 ->300 attack 170+340->140+400(vs buliding)
Culverin HP 480 ->360 attack 85+200->85+100(vs sieges)
Due to the long attack distance of long-range siege, I believe that even if I weaken the siege’s HP, siege weapons still have a strong suppressive force on long-range units. The main idea is to increase the damage of melee units against siege weapons.
Other ideas like strengthening torches and reducing ranged armor on siege weapons. I think it’s good to have a similar effect.
What do you think?