At the end of the day, for the average player a bit more cost on upgrade a does mean close to nothing since there is not enough skill to execute the timer perfectly, so i won’t change that much.
For higher player however, Archer do need Indeed a Nerf since this game became basically Age of crossbows for how dominant the unit is,and once you can hit the timing, and learn the split micro, and other tricks, they are unstoppable.
It doesn’t help that their trash counter does not have an Imperial Age upgrade for some reason
Top civs are “cavalry” civs only because of never civs which are going to be nerfed. before last DLC the top civs where mayans, britons, chinese…all clearly Archer civs. So yeah, Archer are too strong and are rightfully nerfed
let’s take the TheViper vs Villese series as an example (it’s purely random as it’s the last series I remember vividly) to check this narrative of “Crossbow every game”.
Game 1: 3 TC boom on both sides, first army is seen at like ~35 min. Camel vs Camel. Berbers vs Byzantines. Technically Byzantines have FU Arbalest, yet no Arbalest used here.
Game 2: Chinese vs Mayans. This is the “classic” game you refer to. Crossbow vs Crossbow in Castle Age, late game the Chinese player (TheViper) switches into Knights. Anyway since Crossbow + Mangonels were played most of the game, I’m happy to consider this a “Crossbow only” game.
Game 3: Feudal MAA + Archers into Cavalier vs Cavalier and on one side Halbs, on the other Obuch. 0 Archers on both sides. Poles have nearly FU Arbalest with Thumb Ring, Sicilians miss Thumb Ring. BOTH CIVS HAVE ACCESS TO ARBALEST
Game 4: Magyars vs Saracens: full Scouts into some mild Knight/Camel play into CA. Both civs have FU Arbalest.
Game 5: Pike/Skirm/Houfnice vs Bombard Cannon/Hussar/Cav Archer.
Granted most maps were Arena-style but even if you take a different set, say Hera vs Vinchester, you will see that Crossbows are played AT MOST 50% of the time. The fact that “Crossbow is the meta unit that is uncounterable” is something that Reb Bull Wololo 5 casters, and other people, spread as a lie, it’s not facts, in reality you see a good variety of units in tournaments and the fact that even Knight civs open Crossbow is not because the unit is too strong, but it’s because it’s very cheap. Just like transitioning into full Halbs is hard, because you need a lot of armor upgrades and the Halb upgrade is 300f/600g, just like that, making Knights in early Castle age is hard. Your economy is still fragile and not strong enough to support Knights yet. If you are unhappy about Knight civs not opening Knights, then you should also be unhappy with every other hard transition that there is in the game. CA not strong enough because you can’t play straight CA in early Castle Age, Halbs not strong enough because you can’t open Halbs in early Imp, etc.
Also many civs that are played at top level, even in tournaments, are not Archer civs. Just to name a few of the top performers, Burgundians are a cavalry civ, Aztecs are a civ that “defaults” to Eagle and doesn’t rly commit to archers, even in Castle age. Huns play mix Knights/CA, Bulgarians often go full Knights, etc. There is variety, “Crossbow is OP” as a narrative is there only if you REALLY wanna see it.
In Red Bull Wololo 5, Knight was more dominant than Crossbow. Franks especially dominated most of the game. Of course, I am talking based on my memory. I checked now in Playoffs, Franks win 6 matches 1 loss.
I can’t agree with this. Halberdier counter Cav without armor and attack upgrades. Besides, armor upgrades of infantry is very cheap honestly.
Says the one smurfing in 1200 looses and cry about it in the forum im sorry green4u but i think nobody can take you serious if you just talk in a demeaning way eventho you might not even be better
Archers are a units that you can start massing them in feudal and get the numbers, which gives you a great adavantage. Once you hit castle you can easily get the xbow upgrade fast since it is so cheap and gives a huge powerspike early with any civ. It became the meta play even with cav civs so the nerf was reasonable.
Since archers cost no food, your eco will be good, and with feudal age numbers and the cheap xbow upgrade you will get that death ball and be able to one shot anything which seems not fair comparing to other units play.
Maybe openings differ but above 1600 everyone plays crossbows in early-mid castle age with almost all the civs. This change doesn’t nerf the standard feudal age, 1 or 2 range archer/skirm into 21-23 min castle age with 35+ vills, 100 resources is not going to hurt much in that case. Only the weird fc or drush-wall-fc builds are going to be harder to pull off. And this 1-tc imp into Arb plays that makes it impossible for siege push.
Otherwise the cost is justified for the value that the upgrade brings.
I think probably because at lower elos, the player base is more comfortable with cavalry. That doesn’t actually imply that crossbow or archer civs are weak though.
We saw something similar in DE year one didn’t we? The archer meta was getting oppressive then we finally had better pathing and cav civs started dominating even more.
Iaw knights are already dominant, and this is with the current bad pathing.
We could soft nerf knights currently by reducing the cost of pikemen and halb upgrades. As well as reducing their bonus damage from xbows. (We could literally just reduce pike tech by the xbow nerf cost of 50/50, if not more)
As mentioned before xbows will still be a hard counter to pikes even without the +3. And a reduction on the tech fee of pikes makes it less punishing to defend against knights or synergize with the (very mild) archer nerf
Any militia buffs are also minor indirect knight nerfs. As they become competitive lines. Example buffing LS MA to 2. Makes them better at fighting melee units as opposed to xbows. Even simply adjusting LS cost makes it more likely infantry civs will use LS against Knight civs, iaw an indirect nerf to knights.(I acknowledge this is also a nerf to pikes, but it’s a greater nerf to knights due to the potential timing on LS mass)
And after pathing is eventually fixed, knights will still be dominant since these pikes buffs are so minor in the scheme of things, that we can consider nerfing Knight stats (-5hp, my favourite piece is it nerfs franks incrementally more than other knight civs)
Worst case we revert the nerf if knights (somehow) become useless
Monks(the other hard counter to knights) are almost impossible to buff in order to make knights less dominant on the ladder without flipping high elo games. At best it’s potentially only the RNG on Monks that could be lessened making them more reliable for lower skilled players (and even then it still seems only high average elo and up due to the babysitting requirements on monks)
Hypothetical situation: Japanese currently could aim for an xbow powerspike Vs franks . Which was specifically hurt in this PUP
If for example LS are made cheaper and given 2MA instead of 1MA(mentioned above)
Japanese could potentially swamp the frank player before they get a crit mass of knights. This encourages the frank to make counter units, instead of more knights. Which is the current situation on the ladder.
Maybe it’s a bad example. And obviously LS won’t become meta, but it’s an example of soft nerfing knights without touching xbows again
Archers were there to prevent re-walling. I am sorry for the poor wording on my side, but I use “archer” and “crossbow” interchangeably, but in that case I meant that the game didn’t boil down to both sides using Crossbowmen.
I wrote a quite detailed post on my take of archer/knight interaction, and you give me this “ad hominem”, lacking actual arguments. Maybe next time discuss the thread at hand and don’t derail.
sure this is a good way to put it. Which is why I’m fine with Castle age nerf. Imp nerf doesn’t make sense tho, imo.
easier to use unit = stronger unit, generally. I think cavalry could be made harder to play, for one, I don’t think people in mid elos spamming Franks and Berbers every game are really great tacticians and I respect Crossbow players more. Playing Crossbow reasonably without blobbing 60 Crossbows into 1 control group like a 1000 elo player, but also while finding damage takes quite a lot of map awareness.
Yea i saw your quite elaborate post but i m not going for ad hominien but for something i noticed mostly in some of your responses how you answer people
I completely agree with this comment. I have been playing AOE2:DE (well AOE2 - AOK and onwards) for many years and I’ve always had trouble with an Archer rush in Feudal if the opponent is a Cav civ. If they are non Cav it’s not so bad.
I seriously think that Archer need at least 1 more attack in Feudal against Cav civ’s to balance it out a bit more. If that means nerfing Cav civ’s so they have no pierce armor in Feudal then so be it. I’m by no means a pro player, very very far from it but I do understand the mechanics of the game and needing 10+ Archers to stand a chance against a Cav civ is just unfair at that early point in any game.
If the opponent brings three or four scouts with two or three skirm’s ands Archer civ doesn’t stand a chance. Just my honesty opinion is all.
Love AOE in all it’s forms 1, 2, 3 & 4 is growing on me, slowly. AOE2:DE is by far the best though!!! IMHO.
I agree that in CA crossbow’s can hold their own pretty well but in FA Archers just don’t have the same punch, not unless you have a group of 6-10. Either that or I’m just playing them completely wrong, which wouldn’t surprise me.
I have a mate that I play on a regular basis, we are about the same skill level. If I open with an Archer rush in FA he just has three scouts and four skirm’s ready and wipes my archers out every time. I normally wait until I’m in early CA when playing him now because I know what his counter is going to be. Archers are reasonably gold intensive too which doesn’t help aging up quickly.
Like I said, I’m not a pro, or even a decent player, but I do know my build orders and can normal get into FA within the first 14-16 minutes (game time) but taking the next step to CA whilst trying to train enough Archers to feel safe at home has always caused me problems.
Thanks for the reply, always like a conversation about different aspects of AOE2
There’s your problem. You should be hitting Feudal at about 10 minutes, and have about 10 archers at least by 14-16 mins. You’re way behind where you want to be. Also, why are you trying to take the step to cav archers? There are only a few civs really where that is usually a good idea, use a mass of archers, gain and maintain map control, try and win with them, maybe add knights or other units later/when needed.
Four minutes slow, are you serious? I thought I was doing ok. Obviously not!!! I can get the Gold Medal in the first “Art of War” tutorial but can’t seem to transfer that into “live” game play for some reason.
Cav Archers, no, don’t like them, not enough range, not enough HP. They serve their purpose but I personally don’t like them and very rarely use them.
So I need to work on aging up faster, sweet, thanks for the tip, appreciate it.