Lessons from KotD

[Arma]

This tournament emphasized a couple of balance issues which should be adressed in the next patch. My ideas:
-Eagle warriors are a little too strong. I would suggest -5 HP and slightly increased production time. Alternatively reduce bonus attack vs cavalry.
-Arambai attack bonus vs buildings should be reduced.
- Indian cheaper vils should be reduced, e.g. the reductions shifted by one age.
- Imperial camels are too strong. Reduce pirce amor by 1?

Other ideas?

 

[NoDream]

well, i would rather suppose that the time Arambai product should be prolong,and moving speed should be reduce.

 

[Jineapple]

-Arambai attack bonus vs buildings should be reduced.

Arambai don't have a native attack bonus vs. buildings, that's purely their high pierce attack. With the Imp Age UT, they gain +6 vs buildings, +3 of which can be blocked by masonry. While I think it's counterproductive that the UT gives them building damage, I don't think it plays a huge role and their huge damage output in castle age is the problem.

- Indian cheaper vils should be reduced, e.g. the reductions shifted by one age.
- Imperial camels are too strong. Reduce pirce amor by 1?

Both of these would probably too much. Maybe just the camel nerf would be a good idea.

 

[i_no_english]

For eagle warriors I would suggest increased production time and/or a reduction or total removal of their bonus vs knights. In my opinion knights should win or at least should do better vs eagles than they are currently doing. This restores the natural dynamic in which one player goes archers/xbow, which are countered by eagles, which then are countered by knights, which would lead to the meso player having to build monks or pikes which in their way are vulnerable against xbow. Full eagles would then no longer be an option or will at least by much harder to pull off.

 

[pete26196]

For eagle warriors I would suggest increased production time and/or a reduction or total removal of their bonus vs knights. In my opinion knights should win or at least should do better vs eagles than they are currently doing. This restores the natural dynamic in which one player goes archers/xbow, which are countered by eagles, which then are countered by knights, which would lead to the meso player having to build monks or pikes which in their way are vulnerable against xbow. Full eagles would then no longer be an option or will at least by much harder to pull off.

The differences between AoC eagles and WK eagles wrt them facing knights is that in WK eagles have:

• -3 seconds creation time,
  +0.1 move speed,
  +5 HP
  +1 bonus attack damage vs cavalry (3 total in WK, 2 in AoC)
  Able to create in feudal age at a much slower rate but 200/200 upgrade cost
  they also get +1 base pierce armour but that isn't relevant here, as is benefitting from the new tech Arson.

They got a lot of small buffs which pushed them over the edge, I feel like straight up removing the bonus vs cavalry could put them in a place where they might be worse than they were in AoC even. On the other hand I doubt reverting the build time alone would be felt much, maybe needing to up it to something like 40 seconds would help.

 

[misafeco]

Add Longswords (and 2HSwords) 1 melee armor and you have a decent EW counter. It also makes LS better against Knights (they still lose though) and Pikemen while still vulnerable to Archers/Building Arrows. There must be a way to force the meso civilization to train other units in Castle Age. They have no problem dealing with Longswords, they have Jaguar Warriors, Slingers, etc. but you barely see them in game because everyone relies on EW only.

Aztecs (and maybe Incas) need some further nerf, but I don't think it should affect Eagles.

 

[asdfasdfasdf1]

I think the attack of arambai definitely needs to be reduced and probably movement speed as well. I'm OK with them being strong against knights, but they shouldn't be able hard counter camels.

probably a weird suggestion, but what if burmese miss onagers and/or siege engineers? In that case arambai can actually be countered more effectively by skirms/arbs, in a 1v1 the arambai+onager combo is way too strong

 

[Nicov]

I think the attack of arambai definitely needs to be reduced and probably movement speed as well. I'm OK with them being strong against knights, but they shouldn't be able hard counter camels.

probably a weird suggestion, but what if burmese miss onagers and/or siege engineers? In that case arambai can actually be countered more effectively by skirms/arbs, in a 1v1 the arambai+onager combo is way too strong

Arambais should also get the "wrong target" damage reduced (I mean, when they shoot an unit but the projectile hits other target, it makes 18dmg as well). Right now they win vs ca in 20vs20, 30vs30, 40vs40, etc due to this feature. Ridiculous.

Anyway, most of the unbalanced stuff have been posted last months but I don't know whether the devs are taking them into consideration.

 

[notaplayer]

You forgot the most obvious lesson: You can win any game with walls. Especially stone walls.

 

[scribe]

You forgot the most obvious lesson: You can win any game with walls. Especially stone walls.

That is has already proven wrong as seen from the match of HappyHappy vs Lierrey.

 

[nimanoe]

Surprised nobody has mentioned the Camel Archers yet

 

[Influenza]

You forgot the most obvious lesson: You can win any game with walls. Especially stone walls.

That is has already proven wrong as seen from the match of HappyHappy vs Lierrey.

The fact that the series between them was even close was really disgusting 11 remove walls from the equation and happy doesn't even take 1 game out of 100

 

[TriRem]

I think the attack of arambai definitely needs to be reduced and probably movement speed as well. I'm OK with them being strong against knights, but they shouldn't be able hard counter camels.

probably a weird suggestion, but what if burmese miss onagers and/or siege engineers? In that case arambai can actually be countered more effectively by skirms/arbs, in a 1v1 the arambai+onager combo is way too strong

Arambais should also get the "wrong target" damage reduced (I mean, when they shoot an unit but the projectile hits other target, it makes 18dmg as well). Right now they win vs ca in 20vs20, 30vs30, 40vs40, etc due to this feature. Ridiculous.

Anyway, most of the unbalanced stuff have been posted last months but I don't know whether the devs are taking them into consideration.

Arambai deal 50% of damage to non targeted unit, as does any other unit. They only do 9 damage with a stray arrow.

 

[SouFire]

Arambai should inflict -10 damage to buildings, or those darts have TNT or what, their UT should be something different and their based castle age attack should be 16 and 18 the elite.

Camel archer in the previous patches had no the last armor upgrade, but they gave it to them, dunno why, the unit by itself requires a counter so halbs,skirms and archs(UU's) should make more damage to them.

EW is really hard to balance, the +1 pierce was for archers, without it they would get killed with micro very easy, their bonus to kths makes nothing different even elite upgrade loses vs full upgraded castle age knight, so it requires a deeply study and field test, so i would recommend not to touch it for now.

Imperial Camel, increase halb damage bonus and there you go.

Karambit remove gold cost and the 0.5 population cap, so even being super cheap using one pop slot they are not going to be able to outnumber units, i suggest remove gold cost or reduce it to 5, because the unit is merely trash if it uses 1 pop slot if would make the unit totally useless, because Malay have bad imp army composition.

Miscellaneous: Condos should have less 10 HP, Chieftains should only affect pikeman, Genitour should have -10 HP, Burmeses bonus with monk upgrades should be 30% cheaper not 50%, Tarkan - 1 pierce armor +2 bonus attack vs cavalry archers.

 

[OrnLu528]

I'm lazy so I'm just going to copy/paste my reddit comment on post-KotD balance thoughts:

People are getting a little too caught up on the Eagle hype train. They still need a small nerf to their creation time/bonus vs knights, but I was surprised that Mayan players rarely made plumes, and Incan players almost never made Kamayuks/Slingers. Regardless, all 3 meso civs are incredibly powerful at all stages of the game on these maps.

Arambai and Camel Archers need to be hit with the nerf bat. Their power level needs to be brought down to the current level of Conqs and Mangudai.

Malay, and to a lesser extent Magyars, are waaaaay overrated imo. People get so excited for aging up faster that they forget that Malay are incredibly reliant on Karambits to be effective (that said, plz nerf Karambits). Magyars I think are solid, but are essentially a slow Huns. I still think Magyars are worse than Huns on Arabia overall.

Indians and Malians are waaaay to flexible for my taste. It feels like they are jack of all trades, master of all civs. Both have strong economy AND military bonuses which really put them over the top imo. Compare the power level of the Indians, to say, the Chinese (another flexible/well rounded civ), and you will see the power creep.

Brits seem to do well in this meta, so long as you can avoid the American civs. Seeing Huns less often definitely helps them out a lot.

All the civs that did not see play make sense, with the exception of Persians. I would definitely have picked Persians in the later rounds with their nice economy and well rounded tech tree.

I don't know if it's just the nerf to building HP, but there was waaaay too much M@A --> skirms/towers play in this tournament for my taste. Barely ever saw scouts, archers, or drush FCs. Maybe it's just a meta thing that doesn't need any balance changes.

Just generally speaking, I think the best-balanced civs right now (in the context of 1v1 open maps) are Britons, Celts, Byzantines, Chinese, Franks, Japanese, Magyars, Mongols, Spanish, and Vikings. These are just my opinions though. I'm certainly not good enough to actually compete in this type of tournament so what do I know 11

 

[Timotheus_]

Chieftains should only affect BERSERKS and pikemen

 

[Philippe le Bon]

Chieftains should only affect pikeman

lel
if you want to go that route, better give them halbs already and remove chieftains altogether :lol:

 

[SouFire]

Chieftains should only affect pikeman

lel
if you want to go that route, better give them halbs already and remove chieftains altogether :lol:

When it was only FE civs yeah giving them halbs was too much i remember those discussions because i suggested it, but after african and rajas viking halbs would not look so unbalanced, but a halb with +70 hp would be sick no matter what, buffing berserker was a merely FAN service, the unit defeats other similar infantry, destroys trash and if well used kills archs, you can't give them bonus vs cavalry as well, Viking are still a strong civ in all maps, considering that normal onagers can cut forest so yeah they should rule BF or michi now, they have no weakness.

I know you and melkor love the civ and the unit, but there is no logical reason to buff them in a RTS game because it severely damage the concept of it.

The only weakness for vikings was always the heavy cavalry, that is why chieftains should boost their pikeman line damage vs cavalry, probably not+5 but something that inflicts the same damage as halbs.

 

[Philippe le Bon]

Chieftains should only affect pikeman

lel
if you want to go that route, better give them halbs already and remove chieftains altogether :lol:

When it was only FE civs yeah giving them halbs was too much i remember those discussions because i suggested it, but after african and rajas viking halbs would not look so unbalanced, but a halb with +70 hp would be sick no matter what, buffing berserker was a merely FAN service, the unit defeats other similar infantry, destroys trash and if well used kills archs, you can't give them bonus vs cavalry as well, Viking are still a strong civ in all maps, considering that normal onagers can cut forest so yeah they should rule BF or michi now, they have no weakness.

I know you and melkor love the civ and the unit, but there is no logical reason to buff them in a RTS game because it severely damage the concept of it.

The only weakness for vikings was always the heavy cavalry, that is why chieftains should boost their pikeman line damage vs cavalry, probably not+5 but something that inflicts the same damage as halbs.

You made a well-made point here. I also think berserks are good as they are, even without the chieftains.

If Vikings get either:
A) Halbs + a bad Castle Age UT;
B) Chieftains affecting only Pikes, but in a way they get the SAME attack bonus vs cavalry than halbs;

honestly, I would be perfectly fine with it.
Even if I don't think Chieftains is too OP as it is now, this is the point where we don't agree.

 

[Philippe le Bon]

Also, please buff Missionaries so that they can heal at the same rate than monks (and not half their rate), even with Bloodlines they are still far from being as good as monks.

 

[mogers87]

Some balance changes in the new 5.7 beta
The Condottiero nerf seems a bit too much to me.

- Condottiero now have unique armor class (only resisting bonus damage from gunpowder units, not from other anti-infantry attacks)
- Condottiero -1 pierce armor (from 1 to 0)
- Condottiero -1 attack (from 10 to 9)
- Elite Battle Elephant cost increased from 800f 500g to 1200f 900g
- Elite Battle Elephant research time increased from 80s to 100s
- Malay Battle elephants 30% cheaper (rather than 25%)
- Elite Karambit -1 attack (from 8 to 7)
- (Elite) Battle Elephant blast radius -0.1 (from 0.5 to 0.4)
- (Elite) Camel Archer -5 HP (from 60/65 to 55/60 without Bloodlines)
- (Elite) Camel Archers -2 armor vs Camels (from 2 to 0)
- (Elite) Camel Archers -2 armor vs anti-cavalry archer attacks (from 2 to 0)
- (Elite) Camel Archers -2 attack vs Rams (from 2 to 0)
- Ethiopians lose the free Halberdier upgrade
- Howdah cost +200f (from 200f 300w to 400f 300w)
- Howdah effect reduced from +1/+2 armor to +1/+1 armor
- Arquebus increases projectile speed of Bombard Cannons and Bombard towers by +0.2 (from 0 to 0.2, used to be 0.5 prior to patch 5.2)
- Organ Gun +1 spread damage (from 1 to 2)
- (Elite) Arambai -0.05 speed (from 1.35 to 1.3)
- (Elite) Arambai -1 attack
- Elite Arambai -2 armor vs anti-cavalry archer attacks (from 2 to 0)
- Slavs farm bonus now properly works after researching Wheelbarrow and Hand Cart
- Chatras effect increased from +30 HP to +50 HP
- Eagle Warrior training time +3s (from 32s to 35s)
- Eagle Warrior -0.05 speed (from 1.2 to 1.15)
- Anti-camel bonus increased for all anti-cavalry units (except camels)
- Malians lose free Gold Shaft Mining

 

[DracKeN]

I don't get that huge nerf for condos. I like it overall though.

 

[k_the_foodie]

Will wololokingdoms automatically update or we'll have to do it manually ?

 

[Jineapple]

Will wololokingdoms automatically update or we'll have to do it manually ?

You can get the changes by setting steam to the beta and running the installer again. It will be a different version though, and unrated. Rated will need a new version of the installer which I'll upload soon, and the patch has to come out of beta.

 

[k_the_foodie]

Will wololokingdoms automatically update or we'll have to do it manually ?

You can get the changes by setting steam to the beta and running the installer again. It will be a different version though, and unrated. Rated will need a new version of the installer which I'll upload soon, and the patch has to come out of beta.

ok thanks. I will wait for your release.