EtS (and WololoKingdoms) Feedback

[robo]

Now that the Grand Final is almost complete, we need to recap on the tournament.

Future plans are some type of tg tourney.

Also note we can possibly do balance changes as part of WololoKingdoms, probably only for very OP things, ie arrowslits, fire galleys etc.

Any ideas/suggestions/comments are all welcome.

 

[_Melkor]

I'd say just get rid of arrowslits or at least make it only researchable in imperial age.
Fire galleys change islands and water maps completely, and every full water game I've had has turned into a demo war.
Ballistic for Portuguese cannons is way to good. I think tatoh realized this too, since he went the same civ as me in our arena game.

 

[Mobius One]

As much as I like the idea of Arrowslits, I think that there are appropriate nerfs to be discussed. The intent of the original devs was to test and see how good the two new techs would affect the game. As for these two techs...

1) Ban Arrowslits from Japanese, Incas, and Koreans respective tech trees- for Japanese this would be for balance with their unique tech. For Incas and Koreans, this nerf would be for balance (Koreans extra range crazy and Incas with the cheap towers really aggressive). For all other civs, I would move tech from castle age to imperial age and/or raise the price of the technology.

2) Arson, although we did not see alot of it, should also be banned from the Goths and Ethiopian tech trees respectively for balance sake. Resonance did a video not too long ago with his balance changes for the AK expansion as well, and this was one of the ideas he pitched.

3) The Portuguese UT is an interesting conundrum. In the Arena game, I do not think that they utilized this with the Bombard Towers as well. I would probably limit this tech to just Hand Cannoneers and Organ Guns, while removing this affect from BBC, BBT, and Cannon Galleons (rips off the Spanish).

 

[SouFire]

I haven't tested enough but teuton towers now do way too much damage also the british towers, i think the upgrade should be available only on imp after upgrading chemestry, they already increased the attack of the towers and the bonus against ships, that tech should only apply for post imperial wars to defend a city not to perform trush as main strat, also the tech as others say should not be able for korean atleast.

About feudal fires they get created so slow but with 2 of them u can kill al the fishers, in aoc the balance is broken but in Africans they killed the old galley strat, landing is more effective for any purpose, i would remove feudal fires and keep only the fires from castle age that we all are used to, with the transport ship you can avoid the galley war now so there is no need to have feudal fires.

 

[John the Late]

3) The Portuguese UT is an interesting conundrum. In the Arena game, I do not think that they utilized this with the Bombard Towers as well. I would probably limit this tech to just Hand Cannoneers and Organ Guns, while removing this affect from BBC, BBT, and Cannon Galleons (rips off the Spanish).

I think that applying the affect of ballistics (projectiles predicting the enemy path) would be ok, but also speeding up the projectiles (something that ballstics does not do) has proven really OP for BBCs and BBTs.

I think keeping the current effect for hand cannoneers (and potentially also for nerfed organ guns) would be the best, while also fixing the description to state the faster flight of projectiles.

Their bombard cannons are already better than Italian ones (for example) due to having siege engineers + 15% cheaper gold cost as opposed to 15% cheaper wood and gold cost.

 

[Nobody41]

http://steamcommunity.com/app/221380/di ... 261186446/

I actually have an extensive list of balance changes i would like to see on AOAK based on my extensive experience on there. It's basically the only thing I have played over the last year. Check it out. (yes it does barrow from Carlos Balance patch)

 

[Ator]

Really necessary changes imo:

1) Arrowslit: I'd increase his cost and make it only researchable on imperial. something like triple the actual cost (it's ridiculuous now), and even change his dmg to +1/+2/+3.

2) Water balance: I'd lower demos dmg radius a bit, its insane, they do the same dmg to all the circle and that's what makes them insane. For fire galleys i thought on 2 options:

Option A) put them -1 armor and add a tech to them to get +1 in the dock. The fact that you need to research fletching to make galleys a bit useful while fire galleys reckt them without upgrades makes galley rush not viable on feudal.

Option B) Increase the creation speed of fire galleys so they can't be massed as fast as galleys. In this way you can more or less counter them. Now is like 55 seconds for both. I'd change it to 1:10

3) Portuguese: As someone has mentioned before i'd adjust balistic affecting only to HC that actually is strong enough. They are broken on post imperial with BBT and BBC.

4) Malians: I'd change that +1 PA bonus to be the UT and the UT as starting bonus (maybe starting on feudal). That **** is broken as well, they have insane infantry and really strong cavarly. what else they want? Imo they are the most OP civ from the news.

5) Ethiopians: The fact that people picked it a lot on EtS leave the feeling like they are OP. I'd leave archers firing 10% faster. Maybe some change to their UT could be done as well (dunno what yet).

6) Berbers: OK

 

[OneMillion]

The problem is not so much that African Kingdoms tried to balance the game and didn't succeed (that's what Forgotten Empires did), but rather it introduced new balance problems that didn't exist in The Conquerors. Unfortunately, these problems also happen to be the result of flagship changes for the expansion. If you want future tournaments to be anywhere near balanced, you'd need to undo everything except the new civilisations, which are at least salvageable. I won't go through the expansion civilisations, because I already covered them in another topic.

-Feudal age eagle warriors ("scouts") was a bad idea. The Meso-American civilisations are powerful enough in the early game, because they're given economic advantages to compensate their lack of cavalry. They don't need yet another tool to ram home their early game advantages, especially when their counter unit is slow and food-intensive. Eagle warriors hard counter both skirmishers and archers, and fare well against spearmen and scouts due to their low food cost. The result is that very few civilisations can survive against a Meso-American forward, never mind stop their woodlines from being raided by eagle warriors.

-Arrowslits should be removed outright. Towers are strong enough as it stands in The Conquerors, they didn't need extra base attack, never mind an extra technology. Their main purpose was to take map control, especially over resources. Guard towers and keeps were meant to be tankier and deal out slightly more damage so they could defend more easily against mangonels and knights. Arrowslits just means guard towers hard counter both and makes it impossible to remove a walled-in guard tower cost effectively before the castle age. At least giving extra base attack to guard towers and keeps doesn't make them too much more powerful against either.

-Arson is a technology invented to solve a problem that never existed. Although infantry are slow at breaking through palisade walls, the process is much faster when backed up with archers or a forward towers. The point of palisade walls is to slow down an attack, not prevent it entirely. In the castle age, swordsmen destroy buildings very quickly, since they're cheaper than knights. Arson ends up allowing them to destroy your opponent's base faster than they can rebuild it. Huskarls, woad raiders and elite eagle warriors are already very potent in The Conquerors, giving them arson means a large section of your economy can be destroyed before your army (or you allies in team games) can arrive to defend.

-Arquebus would have been fine if it only applied to hand cannoneers. A hand cannoneer with faster projectiles that hit their target reliably is a legitimate innovation. I don't know if it increases the base accuracy of hand cannoneers to 100%, but merging what amounts to thumb ring and ballistics for hand cannoneers would be a fine compensation for not having it affect other gunpowder units anymore. As it stands, Arquebus just removes all the skill out bombard cannon micromanagement.

-The new feudal water balance is even more broken than in the previous games. At least in the Conquerors, you know your opponent is going to send galleys to your docks. In African Kingdoms, you don't know until you see his navy, by which point your first few ships could be useless. This means water maps are decided less by micromanagement and more by second-guessing your opponent's unit composition. I also don't understand the fixation with making a water counter triangle, it's simply not possible. The reason galleys are powerful on open water is their power scales with navy size. On hybrid maps, fire ships are more powerful in the early castle age, giving you a window of opportunity to take water control before your opponent can mass galleys. If you have to research war galley just to access the old fire ships, it eliminates the economic advantage gained by going for fire ships in the first place.

At this stage, I think it would be more worthwhile to have a Forgotten Empires tournament. It wasn't a bad attempt at balancing the game, and didn't introduce a whole host of unintended consequences. It's main problem was making the Meso-American civilisations even more overpowered on arena, but at least the rest of the maps could be played in largely the same way.

 

[Nobody41]

This is something that I came up with just for fun. I’ve been playing AOF and AOAK since they came out and reached 2200 elo, while at the same time watching thousands of games of AOC. Here are some balance changes I would like to see and why I would like to see them. Feel free to comment, discuss, or troll below. Just something I did for fun. Enjoy.

General Balance Changes
Barracks
Swordsman Line
•Tracking moved to Dark Age. Cost reduced to 30 food. Research time reduced to 15s
•Militia -1 pierce armor
•Men-at-arms +2 additional bonus attack vs Eagles (for +4 total)
•Men-at-Arms and up +5% movement speed
•Longswordman and Two-handed swordsman +1 melee armor
•Champion +5 hp

Spear Line
•Archers only do +2 bonus attack vs spear line (from +3 bonus attack)
•Pikeman upgrade cost reduced to 150 food 90 gold (from 215 food 90 gold)

Archery Range
•Crossbow upgrade cost increased to 150 food 100 gold (from 125 food 75 gold)
•Elite Skirmisher upgrade cost reduced to 150 wood 100 gold
•Heavy Cavalry Archer upgrade cost reduced to 700 food 400 gold (from 900 food 500 gold)

Stable
•Husbandry cost reduced to 200 food (from 250 food)
•Cavalier research time -10s
•Scout line -5 food

Siege Workshop
•Siege tower cost reduced to 200 wood 160 gold (from 300 wood 160 gold). -20hp.
•Siege towers can pick up units over walls
•Mangonel line +2 bonus armour vs towers

Monastery
•Monks (and missionaries) average conversion time increased from 8s to 9s. Conversion randomness reduced.
•Herbal Medicine cost reduced to 100 gold (from 350 gold)

Dock
•Demorafts do +35 additional bonus damage vs docks (from 180 to 215)
•Demoships do +50 damage vs docks (from 220 to 270 bonus damage)
•Gillnets cost reduced to 100 wood 100 food (from 200 wood 150 food)
•Heavy demo ships blast radius reduced by .5


University
•Arrowslits causes +1 attack to watch towers/guard towers/keeps

Market
•Cartography researched automatically with market
•Base tribute rate increased to 40% (from 30%)
•Guilds research time reduced to 30s (from 50s)

Walls
•Pallisades and stone walls take +1 sec to biuld
•Houses -100 hp

Economy
•Horse Collar, Heavy Plow, and Crop Rotation research time reduced to 15s
•Hand Cart cost reduced to 150 wood 250 food (from 200 wood 300 food)

Bombard tower
•Cost increased to 150 stone 125 gold (from 150 stone 100 gold)

Anti-laming
•Boars cause +6 attack vs scouts and +7 attack vs eagle scouts

Annoying stuff
•Villagers don’t drop off their resources until they are gathering a new resource


Civilization Specific Bonuses
Aztecs
• 18% creation speed bonus does not effect monk creation time
• Monks only gain +3hp for each monk tech researched (from +5)

Berbers
• Cavalry cost -10% castle age, -15% imperial age.
• Cavalry +5/10/15% faster in feudal/castle/imperial age.
• Husbandary removed.
• Genitor +1 Range, -1 attack
• Receive Ring archer armor

Britons
• Longbow (and elite) +5% accuracy

Byzantines
• Free town patrol
• Logistica displays on Cataphract unit icon when researched

Celts
• Infantry only move only 10% faster (from 15% faster)
• Woad Raider (and elite) +5% base movement speed
• Siege Weapons fire 15 % faster (from 25% faster)
• Furror Celtica increases siege hp by 35% (from 40%)

Chinese
• Start with only 5 villagers (from 6) but +50 food
• Get Hand Cannoneer and Bombard Cannon
• Bloodlines removed

Ethiopians
• Extra resources per age reduced to +75 food & +75 gold (from +100 each)
• Team bonus also gives castles +3 line of sight
• Arsons removed

Franks
• Chivalry increases stable work speed by only 25% (from 40%)

Goths
• Infantry +1 attack vs buildings removed
• Receive free Arsons
• Goth infantry cost bonus reduced by 7% (from 35% to 28%)

Huns
• Tarkans (non-elite) +1 attack. Elite Tarkan upgrade +200 food 100 gold (to 1200 food 600 gold)
• Stone Walls removed

Incas
• Team bonus changed to individual bonus and effect changed to farms reseed instantly and farm techs research instantly
• Team bonus changed to Slingers availible in ally's Archery Ranges
• Slingers -1 attack

Indians
• Fishing ships -10% cost
• Elephant archer (and elite) +5% movement speed

Italians
• None

Japanese
• Bloodlines removed
• Arrowslits removed

Koreans
• +3 Villager LOS bonus changed to team bonus
• +1 Mangonel line range restored, but as an individual bonus
• Shinkichon effect changed to mangonel line minimum range reduced by 1 (from 3 to 2). Cost reduced to 200 food & 200 gold.

Magyars
• Scout cost reduction bonus reduced to 8% from 10%.

Malians
• Reduced building cost bonus changed such that it does not apply to farms
• +1 infantry pierce armor bonus per age removed
• Swordsman upgrades researched free with Barracks (from militia to man-at-arms ect…)
• Infantry armor technologies researched free with blacksmith
• Arsons removed

Mayans
• 3% farm nerf removed (how much is this nerf really?)
• Plumed archer (and elite) – 5 hp (from 50/65 to 45/60)
• Obsidian Arrows causes +2 bonus building attack for all archers (including Plumed Archers)

Mongols
• Hunters gather only 40% faster
• Cavalry archers only fire 20% faster (from 25% faster)
• Elite Mangudie fire delay increased to .2s (from 0)
• Drill only adds +40% movement speed to siege (from 50%)
• Nomads effect changed to “Mongols do not need houses”
• Fortified Walls removed

Persians
• War Elephants (and Elite) cost – 40 food. Have 420/500 hp (non-elite/elite). -5s creation time. Move 15% faster.
• Elite War Elephant technology costs 1400 food 800 gold (from 1600 food 800 gold)
• Mahouts increases War Elephant movement speed only by 15% (from 30%)
• Boiling Oil effect changed to castles do +5 melee damage (first arrow) and may fire at base
• Murder holes removed
• Receive Fortified Walls

Portuguese
• Arquebus does not increase the cannon speed of bombard cannons or bombard towers
• Organ guns have the same minimum range as skirmishers.
• Portuguese -15% gold cost bonus does not apply to ships
• Caravel (and elite) -10hp

Saracens
• Archery Ranges cost -25% (130 wood from 175 wood)
• Mamelukes (non-elite) +1 attack and +5hp
• Elite Mameluke upgrade +200 gold (from 600 food 500 gold to 600 food 700 gold).
Zealotry -200 gold (from 750 food 800 gold to 750 food 600 gold)

Slavs
• Orthodoxy cost reduced to 200 food 100 gold (from 200 food 300 gold)
• Druzhina cost reduced to 800 food 400 gold (from 1200 food 500 gold)

Spanish
• Team bonus trade bonus reduced to 15% (from 33%)
• Elite Conquistadors +1 attack

Teutons
• Teutonic Knights (and elite) +10% movement speed
• Herbal Medicine free
• Recieve siege ram

Turks
• Stables cost -25 % wood (130 wood from 175 wood)
• Artillery costs 300 stone 500 gold (from 450 stone 500 gold)
• Demo ships +2 line of sight
• Sipahi provides only +15 hp to Cavalry Archers (from 20)

Vikings
• Receive fire galley (but not fire ship)
• Elite Berserk base hp increased to 65 (from 62) or to 78 hp for a Viking in Imperial Age
• Berserkergang effect changed to all infantry regenerate at 1hp/3s (stacks w Berserk base regeneration).
• Chieftains displays on Berserk unit icon when researched



Decisons whether to buff or nerf civs were based on grades assigned below for AOAK. Based on my own personal experience. Each grade was given a 20% weight towards the overall grade except 1v1 Arabia which recieved a 40% weight since a civ good at 1v1 Arabia should also be profficient as the flank in a team game in most circumstances.

AOAK Civ Rankings

Civilization 1v1 Arabia, Pocket Team Game, Black Forest (Late Game), Water, Overall

Aztecs A C B C B

Berbers B A+ C A B

Britons A C B C B

Byzantines B B- B A B+

Celts A B A+ B A

Chinese B B+ B B+ B+

Ethiopians A C A C B+

Franks A- A+ A C A

Goths B A- B C B

Huns A A B C B+

Incas A C C C B-

Indians B A- A C B+

Italians B B+ B A B+

Japanese A B C A B+

Koreans B B A+ B B+

Magyars A A B C B+

Malians A- A- B B- B+

Mayans A B C C B

Mongols A A+ A+ B- A

Persians B+ A A B B+

Portuguese C A A+ A A

Saracens C B A A B

Slavs B B A C B

Spanish B A A+ C B+

Teutons B A- B+ C B-

Turks C B A C B-

Vikings A- C C A- B

 

[SouFire]

This is african kingdoms not ferdinand patch.

Don't point unecessary changes, more if you are not even playing this game on voobly :roll:
There are only few things to fix here and thats just about feudal fires and arrowlist as main, the other changes i think they need to be tested a little more, malian PA bonus sounds insane but currently that civ can be countered with ease by several old civs, that armor canbe useful inlate games :roll:

 

[Nobody41]

This is african kingdoms not ferdinand patch.

Don't point unecessary changes, more if you are not even playing this game on voobly :roll:
There are only few things to fix here and thats just about feudal fires and arrowlist as main, the other changes i think they need to be tested a little more, malian PA bonus sounds insane but currently that civ can be countered with ease by several old civs, that armor canbe useful inlate games :roll:

How would I play this game on voobly? Hardly anyone is in the AK lobby. Balance is balance. AOAK has attempted to balance the old civs but has not gone far enough imo, and AOAK original changes heavily borrowed from ferdinand patch to begin with. Ofc every change needs to be tested.

 

[SouFire]

Cysion argued that those changes were because "genious think the same way" he did not publicy admit he took the houses and the stone wall delay from there :roll:

 

[Jineapple]

The problem is not so much that African Kingdoms tried to balance the game and didn't succeed (that's what Forgotten Empires did), but rather it introduced new balance problems that didn't exist in The Conquerors. Unfortunately, these problems also happen to be the result of flagship changes for the expansion. If you want future tournaments to be anywhere near balanced, you'd need to undo everything except the new civilisations, which are at least salvageable. I won't go through the expansion civilisations, because I already covered them in another topic.

-Feudal age eagle warriors ("scouts") was a bad idea. The Meso-American civilisations are powerful enough in the early game, because they're given economic advantages to compensate their lack of cavalry. They don't need yet another tool to ram home their early game advantages, especially when their counter unit is slow and food-intensive. Eagle warriors hard counter both skirmishers and archers, and fare well against spearmen and scouts due to their low food cost. The result is that very few civilisations can survive against a Meso-American forward, never mind stop their woodlines from being raided by eagle warriors.

-Arrowslits should be removed outright. Towers are strong enough as it stands in The Conquerors, they didn't need extra base attack, never mind an extra technology. Their main purpose was to take map control, especially over resources. Guard towers and keeps were meant to be tankier and deal out slightly more damage so they could defend more easily against mangonels and knights. Arrowslits just means guard towers hard counter both and makes it impossible to remove a walled-in guard tower cost effectively before the castle age. At least giving extra base attack to guard towers and keeps doesn't make them too much more powerful against either.

-Arson is a technology invented to solve a problem that never existed. Although infantry are slow at breaking through palisade walls, the process is much faster when backed up with archers or a forward towers. The point of palisade walls is to slow down an attack, not prevent it entirely. In the castle age, swordsmen destroy buildings very quickly, since they're cheaper than knights. Arson ends up allowing them to destroy your opponent's base faster than they can rebuild it. Huskarls, woad raiders and elite eagle warriors are already very potent in The Conquerors, giving them arson means a large section of your economy can be destroyed before your army (or you allies in team games) can arrive to defend.

-Arquebus would have been fine if it only applied to hand cannoneers. A hand cannoneer with faster projectiles that hit their target reliably is a legitimate innovation. I don't know if it increases the base accuracy of hand cannoneers to 100%, but merging what amounts to thumb ring and ballistics for hand cannoneers would be a fine compensation for not having it affect other gunpowder units anymore. As it stands, Arquebus just removes all the skill out bombard cannon micromanagement.

-The new feudal water balance is even more broken than in the previous games. At least in the Conquerors, you know your opponent is going to send galleys to your docks. In African Kingdoms, you don't know until you see his navy, by which point your first few ships could be useless. This means water maps are decided less by micromanagement and more by second-guessing your opponent's unit composition. I also don't understand the fixation with making a water counter triangle, it's simply not possible. The reason galleys are powerful on open water is their power scales with navy size. On hybrid maps, fire ships are more powerful in the early castle age, giving you a window of opportunity to take water control before your opponent can mass galleys. If you have to research war galley just to access the old fire ships, it eliminates the economic advantage gained by going for fire ships in the first place.

At this stage, I think it would be more worthwhile to have a Forgotten Empires tournament. It wasn't a bad attempt at balancing the game, and didn't introduce a whole host of unintended consequences. It's main problem was making the Meso-American civilisations even more overpowered on arena, but at least the rest of the maps could be played in largely the same way.

Yes, African Kingdoms introduced new balance issues, but I don't think that these can't be fixed for the most part. I have mostly watched, not played (at least not on a serious level) so take it for what it's worth, but here are my thoughts on this:

-From what I've seen, the long creation time of feudal eagles keeps it from being that relevant. Against lower levels an eagle scout rush might work well because they don't know how to react. However, a few scout cavalry usually deal well with the eagles.

-I don't think Arrowslits has to be removed. I think the solution of moving it to imp (to avoid them being too strong against mangonels in CA) and lowering the bonus is a good idea and might make Guard Tower/Keep more worthwhile without forcing trushing every game.

-At the very least, Arson could be taken away from some civilisations (e.g. Goths, Ethiopians). I'm not sure whether it's worth to keep it altogether.

-Agreed about Arquebus. It doesn't increase base accuracy btw.

-I personally like the feudal water ships, I find it more enjoyable than just pure galleys. Fire galleys should be nerfed a bit in feudal though. Requiring War Galley for Fire Ships isn't great but I don't think it should be too big of a deal.

 

[Nobody41]

I agree w Jineapple. Feudal eagles create too slow to significantly increase mesos power. Someone mentioned hypothetically fwding w eagle scouts, but realistically that creation time and cost of an early mining camp should make that impossible. Having feudal eagles also nerfs aztecs fast imp eagle spam since they must spend more on the upgrades. Imo arsons should stay (or other buffs need enacting) since the swordman line always has been under used. Doesnt matter to me if uremove it from a few civs. I don't think the fire galley in feudal is that OP bc i think galleys become dominant later in castle age (needs more testing). Arrowslits should be +2, or +1 to towers, or be removed.

 

[OneMillion]

The problem is all of these changes lead to circumstances where they can't be reasonably countered by most civilisations. Your enemy won't win with an all-out eagle rush, but in a forward war (where massing skirmishers is essential), a small number of eagle warriors is enough to obliterate you, and unlike scouts, they can't be countered by spearmen. Even when raiding, you can defend a woodline with a spearman, but there's no way you can station a men-at-arms at a woodline. You'll either get out-manoeuvred or will reach the castle age a lot later.

What's the point in having arrowslits if it's going to be an imperial age technology? Surely that's conceding that guard towers are perfectly fine as they are? At least with bombard towers, you can't begin to place them until very late in the game. With keeps, you're upgrading towers you might have placed over important economic zones in the feudal age. All that extra damage means not even siege onagers stand a chance against them.

The problem with arson is if you get the upper hand with infantry, your opponent is already up against the ropes. That's why eagle warrior/huskarl floods are so dangerous, trash doesn't work against them, so they can destroy your economy very quickly. They already have an attack bonus against buildings and are more cost-efficient at destroying buildings than knights are, arson is just making civilisations that already have powerful infantry even stronger. How are you supposed to counter Malian swordsmen if he's destroying your military buildings faster than you can rebuild them?

I agree w Jineapple. Feudal eagles create too slow to significantly increase mesos power. Someone mentioned hypothetically fwding w eagle scouts, but realistically that creation time and cost of an early mining camp should make that impossible. Having feudal eagles also nerfs aztecs fast imp eagle spam since they must spend more on the upgrades. Imo arsons should stay (or other buffs need enacting) since the swordman line always has been under used. Doesnt matter to me if uremove it from a few civs. I don't think the fire galley in feudal is that OP bc i think galleys become dominant later in castle age (needs more testing). Arrowslits should be +2, or +1 to towers, or be removed.

As I said above, you don't forward directly into eagle warriors, you forward into a skirmisher war, and then you add eagle warriors, once he's committed to full skirmishers. Your barracks isn't going to be pumping spearmen anyway. Aztecs have to spend a bit more on upgrading to the middle eagle warrior, and in exchange, they are now completely uncounterable on arena, except by the Turks. The fact this slows down their elite eagle warrior flood misses the point - they can already end the game even more effectively in the castle age, because crossbowmen are useless against middle eagle warriors. Having arson means Meso-American civilisations alone can level town centres with an eagle warrior flood. If you give it only to civilisations that need it, you'll have to take it off every infantry civilisation in the game.

 

[Nobody41]

The problem is all of these changes lead to circumstances where they can't be reasonably countered by most civilisations. Your enemy won't win with an all-out eagle rush, but in a forward war (where massing skirmishers is essential), a small number of eagle warriors is enough to obliterate you, and unlike scouts, they can't be countered by spearmen. Even when raiding, you can defend a woodline with a spearman, but there's no way you can station a men-at-arms at a woodline. You'll either get out-manoeuvred or will reach the castle age a lot later.

What's the point in having arrowslits if it's going to be an imperial age technology? Surely that's conceding that guard towers are perfectly fine as they are? At least with bombard towers, you can't begin to place them until very late in the game. With keeps, you're upgrading towers you might have placed over important economic zones in the feudal age. All that extra damage means not even siege onagers stand a chance against them.

The problem with arson is if you get the upper hand with infantry, your opponent is already up against the ropes. That's why eagle warrior/huskarl floods are so dangerous, trash doesn't work against them, so they can destroy your economy very quickly. They already have an attack bonus against buildings and are more cost-efficient at destroying buildings than knights are, arson is just making civilisations that already have powerful infantry even stronger. How are you supposed to counter Malian swordsmen if he's destroying your military buildings faster than you can rebuild them?

I agree w Jineapple. Feudal eagles create too slow to significantly increase mesos power. Someone mentioned hypothetically fwding w eagle scouts, but realistically that creation time and cost of an early mining camp should make that impossible. Having feudal eagles also nerfs aztecs fast imp eagle spam since they must spend more on the upgrades. Imo arsons should stay (or other buffs need enacting) since the swordman line always has been under used. Doesnt matter to me if uremove it from a few civs. I don't think the fire galley in feudal is that OP bc i think galleys become dominant later in castle age (needs more testing). Arrowslits should be +2, or +1 to towers, or be removed.

As I said above, you don't forward directly into eagle warriors, you forward into a skirmisher war, and then you add eagle warriors, once he's committed to full skirmishers. Your barracks isn't going to be pumping spearmen anyway. Aztecs have to spend a bit more on upgrading to the middle eagle warrior, and in exchange, they are now completely uncounterable on arena, except by the Turks. The fact this slows down their elite eagle warrior flood misses the point - they can already end the game even more effectively in the castle age, because crossbowmen are useless against middle eagle warriors. Having arson means Meso-American civilisations alone can level town centres with an eagle warrior flood. If you give it only to civilisations that need it, you'll have to take it off every infantry civilisation in the game.

I understand this concern about the feudal eagle, however, you must take into consideration that an eagle by itself will not completely obliterate a large group of skirms. Players dont typically send 1 scout to kill 20 skirms. It most likely takes several eagles, which requires a lot of time. In the same amount of time a player can just as easily build a stable and pump scouts much faster. For the meso player the 100 of the wood that would have gone into a stable now has gone into a mining camp, and they will require 2 barracks to produce as fast as 1 stable. Once bloodlines comes in it is no comparison as to which unit is stronger.

I fully agree that swordsman are too slow to counter eagles effectively which is why I've proposed a buff to their movement speed. I also proposed that the aztecs get nerfed on arena by removing the creation bonus for monasteries. Mayans and Incas do not receive redemption for arena.

 

[OneMillion]

Not 1, but a group of 4 or 5 will just cause the whole formation to scatter due to minimum range. At least when an enemy makes scouts (even with bloodlines), they cost him 80 food each (delaying his castle age) and you can easily add a spearman to drive them away. Eagle warriors are both cheaper (low food cost) and require a more expensive unit to counter. It's like making archers, you produce a gold-intensive raiding unit while stockpiling food to go up earlier. Even the 100 wood for a mining camp is an investment every civilisation has to make at some point. Combined with Meso-American economic bonuses (which aren't that much weaker than in The Coqnuerors), most civilisations don't stand a chance.

Making swordsmen faster introduces a new balance problem. It makes early feudal men-at-arms even stronger than they are already. Men-at-arms are like fire ships, they have a narrow window of opportunity to do damage early in the game, but as the enemy masses ranged units, they lose relevance. Increasing their speed still has them slower than eagle warriors, but now men-at-arms from Goths, Japanese, Vikings etc. can't be countered with archers, because turning around to fire lets them get close enough to kill you. Removing the military speed for monasteries is an improvement, but the middle eagle warrior upgrade already makes Meso-American civilisations even stronger on arena because they counter monks and siege, while monks convert enemy knights and swordsmen. Then the Aztec loom change means they skip loom like every other civilisation, and in exchange they have 50 extra gold for monk rushing. So on the whole, Aztecs are even stronger on arena than in The Conquerors.

 

[Ator]

You're not pointing what happens when a meso civ is pocket in a TG, in aoak at least with the new eagles they stand the choice to go for them while in normal AoC mostly of the times they just boom.
Maybe eagle is a bit strong in feudal, and we should consider to switch his feudal attack to +1 instead of +2. But the point that you said about "they can't be outmicroed by archers" doesn't make sense for me as long as eagles are counters for archers....
Imo, the main problem with Aztecs in arena is that monks are broken in aoc and in aoak, and any change in the eagles won't shunt this.

About arrowslits, maybe with only make it more expensive will be enough. If its expensive enough people will reconsider if its worthy to research or not.

 

[Nobody41]

Not 1, but a group of 4 or 5 will just cause the whole formation to scatter due to minimum range. At least when an enemy makes scouts (even with bloodlines), they cost him 80 food each (delaying his castle age) and you can easily add a spearman to drive them away. Eagle warriors are both cheaper (low food cost) and require a more expensive unit to counter. It's like making archers, you produce a gold-intensive raiding unit while stockpiling food to go up earlier. Even the 100 wood for a mining camp is an investment every civilisation has to make at some point. Combined with Meso-American economic bonuses (which aren't that much weaker than in The Coqnuerors), most civilisations don't stand a chance.

Making swordsmen faster introduces a new balance problem. It makes early feudal men-at-arms even stronger than they are already. Men-at-arms are like fire ships, they have a narrow window of opportunity to do damage early in the game, but as the enemy masses ranged units, they lose relevance. Increasing their speed still has them slower than eagle warriors, but now men-at-arms from Goths, Japanese, Vikings etc. can't be countered with archers, because turning around to fire lets them get close enough to kill you. Removing the military speed for monasteries is an improvement, but the middle eagle warrior upgrade already makes Meso-American civilizations even stronger on arena because they counter monks and siege, while monks convert enemy knights and swordsmen. Then the Aztec loom change means they skip loom like every other civilization, and in exchange they have 50 extra gold for monk rushing. So on the whole, Aztecs are even stronger on arena than in The Conquerors.

I agree it will make m@a rushes stronger but i dont see this as an imbalance since m@a fall off way too quickly, and are never seen mid, or late feudal. Goths Japanese ect m@a rush will be strong, but these are infantry civs and it should be such. It in no way is uncouterable. By contrast the celt m@a in AOC has 10% more movement speed than i have proposed and u see archer battles in celt wars all the time. Too keep scouts relevant and extend feudal wars, i have proposed reducing the cost by 5 food. Aztecs are the only meso civ we should be talking about on arena as being very OP since they get redemption. Some walls and a mangonel will do if your against a non redemtion civ smushing. I have also proposed that conversions take on avg 1 extra second so that will further reduce the aztec smush, and the eagle upgrade does cost 400 resources.

 

[Nobody41]

You're not pointing what happens when a meso civ is pocket in a TG, in aoak at least with the new eagles they stand the choice to go for them while in normal AoC mostly of the times they just boom.
Maybe eagle is a bit strong in feudal, and we should consider to switch his feudal attack to +1 instead of +2. But the point that you said about "they can't be outmicroed by archers" doesn't make sense for me as long as eagles are counters for archers....
Imo, the main problem with Aztecs in arena is that monks are broken in aoc and in aoak, and any change in the eagles won't shunt this.

About arrowslits, maybe with only make it more expensive will be enough. If its expensive enough people will reconsider if its worthy to research or not.

I agree w above and disagree about arrowslits. In the current state guard towers have 6 + 6 attack and keeps & + 9 which is ridiculous despite the cost. I agree that the tech may need to be increased in cost, but it should also come with a huge nerf in ability +2 or + 1 total.

 

[OneMillion]

You're not pointing what happens when a meso civ is pocket in a TG, in aoak at least with the new eagles they stand the choice to go for them while in normal AoC mostly of the times they just boom.

The Maya are fine in the pocket because of plumed archers, and the Aztecs are fine 5-drushing the other team (as Slam did in the Nations Cup). The Incas are a problem civilisation in that they can go for neither, but strengthening eagle warriors on maps like Arabia makes them a nightmare on maps where they are already strong.

Maybe eagle is a bit strong in feudal, and we should consider to switch his feudal attack to +1 instead of +2. But the point that you said about "they can't be outmicroed by archers" doesn't make sense for me as long as eagles are counters for archers....

I meant with regards to giving swordsmen extra speed.

Imo, the main problem with Aztecs in arena is that monks are broken in aoc and in aoak, and any change in the eagles won't shunt this.

I don't think monks specifically are the problem. Even if you make monks weaker, they still counter knights and infantry, and eagle warriors counter monks, siege and light cavalry. The middle upgrade means they counter archers as well, so monks and eagle warriors counter every possible unit combination (except janissaries).

agree it will make m@a rushes stronger but i dont see this as an imbalance since m@a fall off way too quickly, and are never seen mid, or late feudal. Goths Japanese ect m@a rush will be strong, but these are infantry civs and it should be such. It in no way is uncouterable. By contrast the celt m@a in AOC has 10% more movement speed than i have proposed and u see archer battles in celt wars all the time.

Of course they fall off. The problem is their early feudal power spike is lethal, especially if walling is harder. Just think of what Japanese men-at-arms are like with extra speed. Slower civilisations have to have a reasonable chance of surviving long enough to see an archer war.

Too keep scouts relevant and extend feudal wars, i have proposed reducing the cost by 5 food.

Huns will love this.

Aztecs are the only meso civ we should be talking about on arena as being very OP since they get redemption. Some walls and a mangonel will do if your against a non redemtion civ smushing. I have also proposed that conversions take on avg 1 extra second so that will further reduce the aztec smush, and the eagle upgrade does cost 400 resources.

As above. They're evens stronger on arena now because they start with extra gold on a map where everyone skips loom.

 

[Nobody41]

I agree that strengthening meso civs on arabia w the "middle" eagle may be a problem but a cost benefit analysis needs to be run.
I think that monks, especially on arena, are a bit too strong. Often scouts aren't able to sufficiently counter them which is a problem. The power spike from m@a can be leathal, but again i think it favors the civs that need it, and i think every civ has reasonable chance of surviving it if the player is competent. Again celt m@a are much better, and a good player should not let m@a get on top of archers even w the speed boost. A lot of archers civs open w a drush anyway so that should help neutralize opposing infantry civ militia. Huns would like the scout reduced cost, but keep in mind the huns are significantly nerfed in AOAK as is, and all other civs will have stronger m@a to deal w it and a reduced food cost on there scouts as well, so i dont see it favoring huns that much when all is considered. I think the middle eagle w aztecs on arena is a legitimate concern, even tho monks should be created less fast, have less power, and 400 resources needs to be invested in the eagle upgrade.

 

[Nobody41]

To address your point OneMillion about the swordsman changes, a more conservative solution would be to increase movement speed on only longswords and up and remove the 5 food reduction from the scout line, although i believe the alternate solution would promote better balance.

 

[Ajajp_Alejandro]

And what about increasing the conversion resistance of light cavalry so that they really counter monks?

 

[Jineapple]

And what about increasing the conversion resistance of light cavalry so that they really counter monks?

Monks already have a significantly lowered chance of conversion for scouts. I've done some testing and found that it's only around a 4-5% chance per conversion interval (a bit longer than a second), where for normal units that's 29%. It's random of course, so there's still a chance that it will be converted quite fast, but that chance is much lower.

I'm not sure if the scout conversion bonus can even be changed in the data files, I think it might be hardcoded.