AOE-II DE Balance Ideas for December patch

[PROject_Belgium]

i'm quite sure there won't be a balance patch this month. balance patches will prob happen every 3 months from now on. Yeah some changes are valid but the OP is too focus on 1v1. The game does and doesn't revolve around 1v1. It's tricky to strike a balance for certain civs without making them too generic/losing identity.

 

[Philippe le Bon]

this is interesting actually, but vikings are absolutely trash in late imp, so i guess it's normal they compensate this weak post imp with a very good early and mid game. still they are super strong but they still miss cavarly! (maybe they could lose +2 defense on kts, i dont know if this would be a good option)

Removing their +2 Knights in Castle Age will make them almost unusable, as they already lack Bloodlines and Husbandry. They'd become the worst pocket civ out of the sudden...

However, I agree they need to maintain that strong early/mid-game!
When we take into account their notorious "crazy economy", especially at the moment they hit imp, demaning an extra 700 food, 500 gold for Arbs doesn't seem unreasonable.

If testing proves it's too much of a nerf, they could simply revert to the old, cheaper Chieftains cost (400F, 300G), or pick a price somewhere in between.

 

[Rah']

I'm against it. Free Wheelbarrow and Hand Cart has been there since The Age of Kings, it's their most iconic bonus.

Plus it's hard to justify any nerf to their farm eco, with their recent cost increase to Chieftains...
Elite Berserks (their main power unit) are the most expensive unit in the game to fully upgrade:

Berserk

Viking unique unit. Infantry that slowly heals itself.Age of Empires II description The Berserk is the first unique unit of the Vikings in Age of Empires II. It is an infantry unit with high armor and attack as well as a regeneration ability. Berserks can be upgraded to Elite Berserks in the...

ageofempires.fandom.com

Going Elite Zerks is like researching Paladin two times already, imagine nerfing their eco on top of that. They'd completely disappear from the 1v1/flank meta. 11

Then reduce Chieftains, elite zerk costs and even berserkergang. This would make them more viable in late imp and hurt them where they are the most OP, in castle/early imp. It would still give an excellent eco bonus that it is researched automatically.

 

[Lord_patito]

If any, I would slightly nerf Longboats (not in stats, maybe in cost or creation time). Vikings are too good in both land on water, but they're not OP in land. I mean amazing eco, but not super late game unit (except for zerks which are really hard to fully upgrade) again, maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't feel them OP, just S tier

 

[Lord_patito]

i'm quite sure there won't be a balance patch this month. balance patches will prob happen every 3 months from now on. Yeah some changes are valid but the OP is too focus on 1v1. The game does and doesn't revolve around 1v1. It's tricky to strike a balance for certain civs without making them too generic/losing identity.

yeah, I know. I just put december because it might happen again (you know, the idea of big patch each 3 months didn't go well 11).
And yeah, I balanced arround 1v1, but keeping TG on mind. I don't think any of the civs I "touched" would be OP in tg if the changes I propose were applied. I agree, it's really tricky to balance civs, specially now that we have 35

 

[Philippe le Bon]

Then reduce Chieftains, elite zerk costs and even berserkergang. This would make them more viable in late imp and hurt them where they are the most OP, in castle/early imp. It would still give an excellent eco bonus that it is researched automatically.

Forgotten Empires devs already reduced Berserkergang cost (500f, 850g to 850f, 400g).
They also already reduced Chieftains cost in the African Kingdoms, but they increased two weeks ago to 700f, 500g, as Chieftains was too OP for the cost... I doubt they'll reduce it again. 11

Sure, you could reduce the cost of Elite Berserk (currently 1300f, 500g), and nerf their free Wheelbarrow/Hand Cart like you propose. But do they need that nerf?

In King of the Desert 3, Vikings were picked a LOT.
However their winrate was around 40%, when people assumed they'd do better thanks to their eco.
And 40% isn't exactly OP.

 

[Rah']

Forgotten Empires devs already reduced Berserkergang cost (500f, 850g to 850f, 400g).
They also already reduced Chieftains cost in the African Kingdoms, but they increased two weeks ago to 700f, 500g, as Chieftains was too OP for the cost... I doubt they'll reduce it again. 11

Sure, you could reduce the cost of Elite Berserk (currently 1300f, 500g), and nerf their free Wheelbarrow/Hand Cart like you propose. But do they need that nerf?

In King of the Desert 3, Vikings were picked a LOT.
However their winrate was around 40%, when people assumed they'd do better thanks to their eco.
And 40% isn't exactly OP.

KotD is arabia-only right? You can find plenty of other game modes where Vikings are much stronger. Several civs are very balanced in water maps without being broken on no-water; Vikings is too good in both cases.

 

[chacotanlines]

Vikings :

— Arbalester upgrade is unavailable until Chieftains is researched.

— Chieftains technology (700 food, 500 gold) can be researched at the Barracks starting from Castle Age.

Yes, I've just nerfed my favourite civ, but their "turbo 3 TC boom" to early Imperial is simply overpowered.
That'll help to scale their early Imp power spike more reasonably, without changing their identity.

It seems that every technology that has a successor gets more expensive and takes longer to research in the next age. This makes sense because in theory you have a better economy in the next age to afford more expensive things and better upgrades can snowball quickly so you need to increase research time so the game can be more balanced.

One exception is wheelbarrow and handcart. Wheelbarrow (feudal age) takes 75 seconds while handcart (castle age) only takes 55 seconds. Why isn’t it the opposite? It would make sense to have wheelbarrow shorter because you only have 1 town center to produce villagers and make handcart longer to compensate for the ability to make villagers out of multiple town centers.

Also this would nerf vikings slightly because you wouldn’t be penalized as much for researching wheelbarrow in feudal and making handcart longer wouldn’t be as punishing since you could in theory keep making villagers out of other TCs. The devs could lower the UT chieftains cost back to where it was before the anniversary patch. I think increasing chieftains price wasn’t the best way to nerf the vikings anyway.

 

[Kellar]

Fix the game before changing anything else and creating even more bugs, please:

- Occasional freezes (have to alt f4) when picking a civ after the game countdown has started in ranked. This happened to me and some others I know of.
- Late game superlag that wasnt here before the patch.
- Make us not have to re-invite after every game, or at least when a queue is cancelled in ranked teamgames.

 

[Lord_patito]

Fix the game before changing anything else and creating even more bugs, please:

Before starting, I just want to say that I know there're more importlaaaaaaaaaaaaagnt issues to solve, but I can't do anything about it.

 

[Lord_patito]

For those who may care, I added other ideas for Burmese and Italians. Please share your ideas

 

[chacotanlines]

Originally Burmese had a cheap 1/2 UT when the generic FU elephant had OP stats. Then the devs reduced the UT to 1/1 with a bunch of other nerfs like less building damage, less melee damage, less trample damage, increased elite cost, increased UT cost, increased collision size, etc. Now Burmese rarely go for elephants because they aren’t worth it even though they are an “elephant” civ. They have become a one trick pony in the arambai. The all in do or die arambai strat is basically the Burmese meta.

In patch 5.7 there were a lot of nerfs to Burmese and elephants at the same time so it is hard to know how much the UT 1/2 contributed to make elephants OP since there were so many other strong stats/ factors that were at play. You can not say definitively that the 1/2 UT alone made elephants OP. This is the whole reason scientific methods work to isolate one variable at a time. The only way to really know is to give the 1/2 UT back and see how Burmese perform.

On a side note, Malay but more so Vietnamese uncommonly use elephants so it would be cool to buff them so we could see more elephant strats in the game. Plus both of these civs are below average in 1v1.

 

[Philippe le Bon]

It seems that every technology that has a successor gets more expensive and takes longer to research in the next age. This makes sense because in theory you have a better economy in the next age to afford more expensive things and better upgrades can snowball quickly so you need to increase research time so the game can be more balanced.

One exception is wheelbarrow and handcart. Wheelbarrow (feudal age) takes 75 seconds while handcart (castle age) only takes 55 seconds. Why isn’t it the opposite? It would make sense to have wheelbarrow shorter because you only have 1 town center to produce villagers and make handcart longer to compensate for the ability to make villagers out of multiple town centers.

Also this would nerf vikings slightly because you wouldn’t be penalized as much for researching wheelbarrow in feudal and making handcart longer wouldn’t be as punishing since you could in theory keep making villagers out of other TCs. The devs could lower the UT chieftains cost back to where it was before the anniversary patch. I think increasing chieftains price wasn’t the best way to nerf the vikings anyway.

Let's agree there are two main approaches to balance Vikings:

A) Nerf Wheelbarrow and/or Hand Cart.
Eg. by making Vikings pay for it, with instant research.
Compensate by making Elite Berserk a bit less expensive to tech into (currently 4495 food, 2245 gold to fully upgrade).

B) Nerf their military power spike in Early Castle and/or Early Imperial.
Eg. by making Arbalest upgrade unavailable until Chieftains (700 food, 500 gold) is researched in the Barracks.
If necessary, devs could even go the extra mile, and nerf early Xbow by making it unavailable until Supplies is researched.

I prefer the approach B) as military-wise, Viking Feudal and Castle Age units don't exactly shine, they are actually rubbish:

1) Their scout rush isn't sustainable in the long run as they lack Bloodlines;
2) They have the second-to-worst Knights in the game (no Bloodlines, no Husbandry), only "beaten" by Malay;
3) Their Cavalry Archers are virtually unusable, slow and weak;
4) They have very weak monks, lacking Redemption, Sanctity and Herbal Medecine;
5) On water, they are the only civ without Fire Galleys and Fire Ships, which already hurts a lot in Feudal Age naval wars;
6) If their eco was that OP, their winrate in KOTD3 would've been higher than average. But it sits at around 40%.


You know what is the only thing allowing Vikings to hold their own in Feudal and Castle Age, despite having weak units?

I'll give you a hint, that's not their extra HP on their infantry. 11
Nerf their eco bonus more than a little bit, and Viks won't have any sensible strength left in Feudal/Castle.

 

[GodOfTheGodless]

In DE the starting sheep spawn closer to the TC, which makes the Chinese start too strong.

I guess there are endless different ways to solve this problem, but I think the easiest way to fix this would be to give them -1 villager and +50 food at the start (-> Start with +2 Villagers but -50 wood, -150 food). On open maps in comparison to generic civs Chinese would be up 1 vill before the other civs get loom and 2 vills after that.

I understand that some people prefer the traditional Chinese start, but I don’t think a civ with an exceptional tech tree, cheaper technologies, longer lasting farms and about 2.4 extra vills (about 1.4 vills before generic civs get loom) for the cost of 50 food and 50 wood (generic civs have to use 150 food of their starting res to create the 3 vills that the Chinese get from the start) is balanced.

The suggested 0.4 vill deficit would result in ca. 100 less resources collected within 10 minutes. Whether this would be a good balance change is up to debate of course.

 

[GodOfTheGodless]

In one of the previous balance patches Persians got their Town Center & Dock work rate increased by 5% in Dark Age. I was originally very supportive of this idea as I saw it as a chance for them to become a solid civ on open land maps. But I failed to recognize how dominant Persians would become on water maps, hybrid maps and nomad. Of course, this balance change was reversed. In my opinion this leaves Persia in a terrible spot once again: Dominant on nomad, strong on hybrid maps and underwhelming on land maps.

My suggestion is to give them the 5% faster Dark Age work rate back, but also 25 less starting food and wood (-> Start with +25 wood, food. Town Center & Dock 2x HP, +5/10/15/20% work rate in Dark/Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age).

I think this would turn Persians into a solid civ on most maps and great – but not overpowered – on nomad and hybrid/water maps. This change would improve their land eco, but at the same time their dock would be noticeably delayed and on nomad starts Persians couldn’t make a fishing boat before their tc is up.

I’m not 100% sure, maybe this would make Persians too strong on hybrid maps again. Maybe their docks shouldn’t get 2x HP or faster work rate, idk.


Sidenote: If the Malian tc would cost 275 wood in the Dark Age, Malians couldn’t make a boat before their tc is up either. This would allow more civ variety on nomad imo.

 

[Lord_patito]

I also find persians a little lackluster, altough the faster tc in dark age was a little to good. Idk, maybe I would go otherwise and make it 75 w and 75 food?

Anyway, for me is not that they're a bad pocket civ. The problem is wr have too manypocket civ on steroids.

Malians are 100% for me. Yeah, maybe a little to good on nomad, but that's the only map where they really shine (altough they're a good civ in most maps)

 

[RobChang]

For nomad balance it would be best to have a no tc but tc in a cart start which unpacks instantly or with an animation for no cost. So no civ really has an advantage in getting their tc fundamentally cheaper or faster up and only can bale on the bonuses as in normal fixed tc start maps

 

[HongeyKong]

- Make us not have to re-invite after every game, or at least when a queue is cancelled in ranked teamgames.

This might be tricky, as some of the players might be wanking in the stat screen. Its like having to create a new room when someone didnt leave the game on Voobly.

Maybe not letting people queue when someones still in the match?

 

[Kellar]

This might be tricky, as some of the players might be wanking in the stat screen. Its like having to create a new room when someone didnt leave the game on Voobly.

Maybe not letting people queue when someones still in the match?

I only mean for teams that already are in a party before the game. Not randoms. And yeah, grey out the queue button til everyone is in the lobby if possible.

 

[Jaydev]

My suggestions:

Chinese: underpowered all-round and although they get Masonry and Architecture, their Great Wall tech is kinda pointless to research as the game has moved on too much from defensive play and static defenses have been nerfed to the point of being discouraged. Getting a castle to make your walls stronger is also counterproductive since who would need walls if you had a castle. They have nothing vs SOs while their own siege is underpowered. Changes:

-Get Siege Engineers
-Get Bombard Canons
-Rocketry either gives scorps +1 range or is available in Castle Age

Byzantines: similar to Chinese in being one of the last defensive-playstyle based civs in a game where defense is discouraged. Their building hp bonus is meh now as everything now has a bonus vs buildings and walls have been nerfed. Their townwatch free bonus is useful but their monks healing faster bonus is trash and doubly so considering its their team bonus. Their only claim to fame is their trash being 25% cheaper and those don't stack up favorably to newer civs' bonuses which are miles ahead. Their lack of Blast Furnace gimps their entire melee line and they don't get Bloodlines either. Catas are now probably the lowest tier cavalry UU and are still the most expensive to upgrade and use. Changes:

-Logistica gives cavalry +15hp and is moved to Castle Age (cost should be the same)
-Greek Fire tech should be moved to imp but made cheaper and available at the Dock
-Team bonus should be changed to garrisoned units heal 3X faster or something even slightly noticeable
-New bonus idea: ships can garrison in docks for protection/repair

Opinions are welcome.

 

[Instinctz]

Chinese: underpowered all-round

Are you serious about this? how are they underpowered? most pros literally have them top 5 civs overall.


as for Byzantines they are a solid mid tier civilization. the change i would make to Byzantines is take away the negative downside of Greek Fire reducing Accuracy.

-Logistica gives cavalry +15hp and is moved to Castle Age (cost should be the same)

because that's what byzantines need - to be a civ that can do literally anything and everything. nevermind the fact that they have one of the most wide open tech trees that exists as is, let's shore up the one weak point they have. and castle age logistica...

 

[IvIaximus]

Remove INCA... such obnoxious civ for **** sake. Vanilla Korea is more interesting civ than this piece of **** civ...

 

[Ondrej94]

Remove INCA... such obnoxious civ for **** sake. Vanilla Korea is more interesting civ than this piece of **** civ...

only noobs die to inca rush

 

[Deathcounter]

I love how they didn't nerf Franks or Britons, who still are the most played cancer civs that clearly need a nerf. Reduce Briton sheep bonus to 20%, remove second gold upgrade of franks and change the civ bonus back to knights only

 

[Faultier321]

I only like the idea for saracens, i used to bring that change up a lot (+10 HP for Camels and mames off the bet, Zealotry either unchanged or only +20 HP and much cheaper). Maybe change Saracens archer bonus to +1 team and +1 for archer units vs buildings, instead of +1 for team and +1/+2/+3 in imp like it is right now.

I like the idea of elephant archers shooting multiple arrows, but since the kipchak exists now, this Idea feels a bit cheap