Worst Cards in AOE 3 right now - and how would you fix them

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
1

Hey guys,
I thought about what currently the worst cards are and possible ways to “fix” them. I collected my thoughts in a Video ;). I also attach the script at the bottom, if you prefer to read. What is in your opinion the worst card in the game right now and how would you fix it?
(Also see the Esoc Post)

Worst Cards:
10 - Peace of Münster (Dutch, Age 1): 1 envoy + envoys can construct military Buildings + tps.
This card saves some Villager Seconds in early game and allows in the late game for funny /sneak attacks. Overall it seems very mediocre, especially considering you would need villagers at the front in lategame to build towers/walls. This can be mitigated by using age 4 fort card, which allowes your Explorer to construct outposts and forts.
To make it completely viable, it could increase the envoy limit by 5 and enable them to construct walls, so you dont need front base villagers anymore. But really it might just be viable, since it is incredibly good with dutch if you can keep your overpop Villager (Age 4 Politician)

9 Advanced Estates and variants:
Increases Estates Hp and reduces cost by 200 wood. Allows Estates to be built in Age 1
Hp on Estates doesn’t matter, because when your estates are attacked you lost anyway (90% of the time) and during raids estates are not a target, but rather the villagers which are working on the estates. 200 wood/ mill saving means you need to build around 4 estates for this card to be better than an age 2 wood shipment. In lategame in total you save a maximum of 2000 wood with this card (= 10 estates). In this scenario a wood chopping card is almost always better. For this card to be decent it either needs to give a gathering bonus or it would have to allow villagers being garrisoned (and maybe even shoot)

8 Advanced mills
Increases Mills and reduces cost by 200 wood.
Same as Advanced Estates, only even worse

7- Zen diet (Japan, Age 2): Replaces the food cost of Villagers with a cost of 60 wood.
Japanese are stretched for wood early and the cost reduction isn’t enough to justify putting it in. It is a bad medicine Type card, which doesnt reduce the traintime of villagers, and medicine type cards are only used in niche cases anyway.
Could be improved by also granting train time reduction, so it would be on a similar power level as medicine. Probably will still always suck, because you are stretched for wood anyway with japan and putting in a boom card means you either send it when you are already winning or you send it instead of another boom card (which is almost always worse)

6 - Akincis (Ottoman):
Cav Archer deal 100% damage to Villagers. It makes CA a lot better in situations where you typically don’t use them. Raiding with CA/ Dragoons is just not common and sending an age 3 card to make it somewhat viable is not worth it, since it is countered very easily by some walls. It feels like you are always better of just making huss if you want to raid. This card would be decent if it also gives an increase to the overall attack of cav archers, something like 10% - 20%.

5- Florence Nightingale:
Florence Nightingale (British - Nearby units are healed)
Healing in AOE 3 is not useful in a lot of scenarios, because army sizes quickly reach a point where it is impractical to pull single units back and heal them up. Also the high value units (canons) are hard to keep alive and oftentimes you would only start to retreat once these are dead. Healing on houses means you have to go back and stay close to your base until your units are healed or spend a lot of actions filtering out the weak units and sending them back. Also remember even a 1 hp unit does full damage, especially ranged units stay alive surprisingly long with little hp, if the enemy is not specifically alt-microing. Another downside to this card is that its age 2, which is filled in a british deck with cards, since the game plan with britons typically is to stay long in age 2 and boom/ pressure. This card also is useless in late game, since you would rather retrain units than keep them idle for long.
How can you make this card better? My best idea is that in addition to the effect you get a padre healing unit. Alternatively you could enable them to train priests with a limit of 5 and at a highly reduced cost (-75%).

4-
(Sepory Resistance: Villagers - Sepoys (2000 wood) alternative)
Transform your villagers into military card, There are several, but i will just talk about the worst
Japans “Forty seven ronin” (1000 ress of all)
Villagers shrines → Masterless samurai Guardians, Castles → Woukou Ronin, Wonders/TC → ronin’s
So with this age 4 card you sacrifice all your eco, wonders and castles into melee infantry. It can be used to finish the game and you will roughly get 70-100 Melee infantry units. Sounds good right? Well with japan if you reach age 4 and are boomed you are often in a pretty comfortable spot. The weakness for japan is usually reaching that place so it is in the best case a “win more” card. The real problem is though, that you get melee units, you loose (if you dont have a shogun) your HC’s shipments, and even if you have them, you dont have any population space to send something or to build something. And that also wont change, because you dont have any eco to build something (or you save 500 wood…but even then you can only send when your population is lower than 10). So this card is basically super duper all in, it is even more all in than most revolutions (!!!). You send it, go full yolo and hope to beat your opponent with some meme samurai action. I think its fun, but its also not something you would include in your deck when you want to win a competitive game. To make it somewhat bearable would be to not make the buildings transform into the units, but rather let them spawn the units. This means that at least you can recover a bit (even though the TC’s and Wonders spawning ronins might be broken, so maybe it would be necessary to let them only spawn wokou ronins)

Now we get into the top 3 territory, where i just want to mention a few bad cards which are pretty bad, but maybe have some niche use i am not seeing.
Honorable Mentions:
Call to arms (India Age2): Loose buildings, then get militia
Advanced Market: Better market rates???
Master Surgeons: noone uses priests, so how about expensive priests
Leather soldiers (Mexico, Age 3): Changes coin cost of military to wood and back. Increase the food equivalent ress of your units for only the small cost of a shipment

3- Warrior Culture:
Age 4 card (haudeno / Lakota / Aztec): gives your villagers + 20 attack, means they do as much damage as age 2 musketeers. What is the idea of this card? So you use your villagers to attack and finish the game? Do 40 age 2 musketeers really decide the game in an age 4 setting (i would say no?), especially if you have to sacrifice your eco for it. Is it to deflect raids? But i mean how scary are age 2 musks against age 3 or Age 4 raids? Not very. So i havent seen this card used and i also dont see a situation where you would want to include it. To make it useful you could move it to Age 2, so maybe you could do some crazy timings

2 - Ninos Heroes (Mexicans, Age 3):
Every time your Hero is knocked out a militia spawns. So with this card you get in total around 5 militiaman, which additionally spawn alone? And that for an age 3 Card. Seems completely useless. To make it useful it would have to be 5 militiaman? But then it could be broken

1- Azekura: Shrine HP increased by 20%
Why? Noone even uses advanced buildings, which gives 40% to all buildings, so why would anyone consider 20% only on shrines? Honestly feels like an insult to japan players, after 100 nerfs to shrine hp to give that card to japan :smiley: - To make it worse its an age 2 card, which makes it even more difficult to fit in a normal deck. To make it useful it could be +100% hp on shrines or to give back wood when shrines are destroyed (like 20% of building cost)

2 Likes
2

actually its a pretty dangerous card to get in team games with the new buffed cav archers since you can get to it fast enough that it effectively forces walls out of your opponent while your team booms.

And vils effectively die to a single volley of like 5-7 cav archers after cav combat so vils start dying really fast, doubly fast in age 4 after flight archery

Also the card affects all light cav, so if you ever get things like crabat, or apache then no vils on the map are safe

Before I would have agreed somewhat with allowing it to increase attack, but flight archery has basically fixed that so eh

4 Likes
3

Some of the cards are more of a historical reference or meme and are really good for historical pokemon players like me who just enjoy seeing them in the list.

Most advanced buildings are pretty bad because they were from the earliest design stage where even the developers had no idea how the game should play.
I think generally the standard of a really viable card in supremacy nowadays is instant benefits. This includes:

  1. Direct resource, unit and building shipments of course.
  2. Combat bonuses that you can make use of instantly.
  3. Economic bonuses that directly boost your economy. Including gather rates and trickles.

So cards that simply reduce the price or training time, cards that only “unlock something” are usually not considered (there are exceptions of course).
And of course healing.
We can see how some more “modern” variants of those cards in DE try to make them viable:

  1. Arrives fast
  2. Free stuff like Hamitonian economy. That’s far better than cheaper markets or techs.
  3. Bundled effect, like the Spanish/Mexican liberation march which combines fencing/riding school and also a pretty good speed boost, or French royal fencing school (yet this one is still not that good). Or unit unlock cards for US and Mexicans that also send a shipment of units.
  4. Free up age 2 slots. As we know age 2 card slot is really competitive and people already fill them up with all kinds of resource and unit shipments and buffs for main units. So there is usually no space even for really good cards like advanced arsenal. But the Italian advanced arsenal equivalent in age 3 would make it much more viable.
  5. Seemingly ridiculous buffs for useless mechanics like healing. Eg the card that allows Mexican general to construct hospitals and allows hospitals to train units (forgot the name). Even this card is still not usually used so you can see how bad healing is.

These should be a standard of buffing the useless older generic cards.

5 Likes
4

image

Mass Levies is another completely useless one. But in general the levied units are trash so the starting point is terrible.

5

6 is god card in team game.

6

I think it’s fine…not great but solid.

Personally my vote is for ranching because it has no immediate value, you’re only getting the ability to train cows, it’s not like your livestock that you already have start fattening faster or gain more max food value.

7

Ranching is nowhere near the worst card, people use it all the time. Mass Levies is worse than useless and there is no situation ever where it should be used. Cards like Zen Diet are probably even worse because it essentially makes villagers more expensive.

Ranching should still be reworked though. I think cows should be available in age 3 by default but cost 120f. Ranching could be changed to make all livestock cost 80f and be available at any age. Maybe make it ship a couple skinny cows as well for an immediate benefit.

2 Likes
8

Creo que algunas de estas cartas las trate en mi hilo “Nuevas cartas para futuras actualizaciones” pero bueno provare aquí

10: Peace of Munter: Hacerla carta de equipo y que envie 1 emisario y una carreta de edificio militar (para consturir un establo o cuartel en edad 1) ademas del beneficio de hacer que los enviados construyan edificios militares.

9: Eso lo dije en mi hilo, y lo que hice fue combinarlas en 1 llamada agricultura avanzada y que sea de edad 1 (combina a estancias avanzadas y molinos avanzados sin afectar sus beneficios) (Lo mismo con mercado avanzado combinado con puestos comerciales avanzados)

7: Dieta zen: Reduce el coste de comida de los aldeanos en un 70% pero aumenta su coste en madera y monedas un 10% respectivamente (costarian 30 de comida 10 de madera y 10 de oro) a su vez la carta entregaria 350 de comida.

6: Akincis: en vez de un 100% seria un 150% y mejora el rango de la caballeria a distancia en +2

5: Mejora la velocidad de curación (en lugar de solo 5 de hp por segundo que sean 12 y que la carta a su vez envie 2 carretas de casas solariegas)

4: la carta de resistencia cipaya puedes reducirle el coste de madera a 1500 y que mejore el daño de los cipayos en un 25%
47 ronins que en ugar de tranformar las maravillas estas spawneen gratuitamente 1 ronin y en lugar de vale 1000 de cada recursos solo valga 500
Llamada a las armas: En este caso se deberia de mover a edad I y que las milicias ya no pierdan HP y que cada vez que pierdas un edificio estos se reagrupen en el centro urbano
el de mercado avanzado lo dije arriba
Maestros cirujanos (renombrado como cuerpo medico de campo) Envia 2 Cirujanos y un vagon de Hospital y los habilita en las iglesias
Soldados de cuero: En lugar de cambiar el coste de madera y enviarse 2 veces lo que hara esta carta ahora es lo siguiente, solo afectara a las unidades nativas y en el caso de que valgan madera les cambiara el coste de madera a uno inferior en oro (un 20% menos del coste madera en oro) enviara a su vez 3 chinacos

3: Cultura Guerra: solo que la muevan a 2da o 3ra edad y ya esta xd ya que aldeanos con 31 de ataque a distancia es bastante fuerte y no le veo lo malo
2: Carta basura donde le mires XD Niños heroes: el cambio, seria de que en lugar de un miliciano sean 5
1: Asekura cambiarla a edad I y que envie un vagon de santuario (o 2)

1 Like
9

I am not sure it is completely trash. It allows to train essentially what are auto upgraded archers, and removes their otherwise minutemen negative multipliers. It would never be useful as a main unit. But in a long age 2, you can probably use extra influence to get some of them out to help. And you dont even have to make a new building to train them.

After the card, they are similar to outlaw desert archers afaik.

10

I also add this card from Italians, Guardia di finanzza, really useless in my opinion.
image

11

No one’s going to send a card to get a worse version of a unit they already have. The only advantage they have over desert archers is less population space. A shipment of natives, mercs, or outlaw buffs would all be better options.

12

True, that’s why I said it will never be a main unit. But it is not like other cards which are downright game losing if sent. You can probably use it after you have exhausted all cards in a long age2 fight.

13

But it’s worse than every other option. The only way you could send a worse card would be to send one that gives water upgrades on a land map. It’s just so bad it should never be in someone’s deck.

14

Agree with OP except that Leather Soldiers is actually an extremely powerful card given Mexico’s easy access to wood gathering buffs. Wood gathers at least 30-50% faster than coin for Mexico in the late game. It can also save you in the mid game when you’ve been pushed back off gold mines so you can build up a counterattack.

15

This sounds correct on a paper but in fact, you dont have a luxury to spend by choosing Akinjis card into your deck. The combination of flight archery and this one is indeed dangerous but at Age 4 it is almost impossible to raid villagers like earlier ages since army compositions are already on the field.

For this reason, I never put akinjis in my deck. Ottomans can’t rely on Cav Archers. Card is nice to have only.

16

its not that hard to raid, you just need a dedicated and coordinated play for it, which is not the easiest thing to pull off.

Otto can naked ff to age 3 really fast and then its just 5 cav archers + akinjis and a batch from stables enough for you to just go and start one shotting vils

Its not like a top level strat but it will get you games

17

I think a more useless on is levies can garrison in towers and towers shoot more arrows…this does nothing beside paying respect to aoe2…

18

The question is if we need to have every card meta/viable. Maybe I even would delete some of them, but some are just easter eggs, lik the Mexican Niños Soldados card

2 Likes
19

para mi hem es un si y no al mismo tiempo es como el gato de schrodinger puede ser jodidamente util como jodidamente inutil, imagina que llegas a edad IV y mandas la carta de 3000 de recursos para los lombards y de paso como has estado luchando constantemente ahorras un monton de monedas llegando a los 3000 serian 6k de recursos en un abrir y cerrar de ojos (Eso si, también me gustaria que tuviera el efecto de que las unidades obtuvieran oro por cada unidad que maten)

20

I think most cards should be usable in at least some scenarios. Not all cards need to be meta, but some really bad cards, which are just a trap for beginners, should be a bit better with additional effects. Or made more intresting

2 Likes