AOE-II November PUP changes - buffs to infantry UU, Viking losses thumbring, Cumans discount -100w to 75w, Burmese UT change

[z3us]

- Houses now have -2/-1/1/3 melee armor Dark/Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age (previously 0/1/2/3 Dark/Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age).

- Aztecs: non-Elite Jaguar Warrior now have 65 HP (previously 50 HP).


- Burmese: Manipur Cavalry now gives +5 against archers (previously +6 against buildings), no longer applies to Arambai.


- Byzantines: Team Bonus: Monks heal +100% faster (previously +50%).


- Celts: Woad Raider now have 10 attack (previously 8 attack).


- Cumans: Stables and Archery Ranges cost -75w (previously -100w).


- Ethiopians: non Elite Shotel Warrior have 45 HP (previously 40 HP), upgrade to Elite now costs 900f 450g (previously 1200f 550g).


- Incas: non-Elite Kamayuk now have 1 melee armor and 70 HP (previously 0 melee armor and 60 HP).


- Japanese: non-Elite Samurai have 70 HP (previously 60 HP), upgrade to Elite now costs 750f 650g (previously 950f 875g).


- Malians: non-Elite Gbeto have 35 HP (previously 30 HP).


- Poles: Now have access to Siege Engineers, (Elite) Obuch now train in 12 seconds (previously 9 seconds).


- Teutons: non-Elite Teutonic Knight have 14 attack and 7 melee armor (previously 12 attack and 5 melee armor), upgrade to Elite now costs 950f 500g (previously 1200f 600g).


- Vikings: Lose access to Thumb Ring, infantry now have +20% HP from feudal (previously +10/15/20% HP Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age), non-Elite Berserk now have 12 attack and 1 melee armor (previously 9 attack and 0 melee armor), upgrade to Elite now costs 1075f 475g (previously 1300f 550g).

- UI change, hovering your mouse over the tech tree icon shows you which upgrades are available/unavailable and which upgrades you have already researched. Can be toggle on/off in the settings. https://imgur.com/a/M4TcoNJ

Edit 1:

- Tamerlane and Tariq Coop campaigns are available, plus quickplay vs AI
- Nomad has treaty.
- Arabia gen changed to KotD Arabia gen.


Edit 2

- Palaside walls cost increases by 50%, 2w to 3w

Edit 3

- New trade carts

Edit 4

Handicap mode will let you configure a multiplier for economy, building hp, millitary training time and counter damage for each player. https://imgur.com/a/Vdw2aV8

 

[aceace]

- I really like castle age UU infantry buffs.
- House wall and palisade nerf is blessing....
- Cumans, Byz, Poles, Arabia and nomad changes.... all ok.
- Burmese still weak against archers. Manipur cavalry is a late game tech anyways...
- Vikings with no thumbring? It makes literally no sense! Now in early imp they stuck with abysmal cav, meh archers and meh infantry (they still lack halberds, Berserks are stilll sooo costly to fully upgrade [even after upgrade price reduction])

That UI thing could help noobs but noobs already moved to aoe4..

 

[kalpit00]

For Burmese, why not just have castle age UT Howdah (+1/1) apply to all cavalry and give them +1/1 reaching castle age and imperial age each, and take away chain barding and plate barding (Kind of what was done with Indians). This results in burmese gaining immediate +2 if they already have researched scale barding, and also a potential +3 P/A for their kts in castle age if they get to the Unique Tech (which is not as OP as it seems bc uhh getting to a castle and all)

But I can see why they wanted to change Manipur Cavalry as that tech was useless against units. However I don't see arambai being used that much at all and this change does not help them either.


Other than that, solid changes overall. Making Teutonic Knights even stronger, hmm not sure about that. They are still tricky to use.

LOVE the Houses change, and also the Vikings thumb ring nerf. Byzantines 100% healing might be too OP? 50% seemed strong enough to me

 

[GWLeibniz]

Overall I like all changes except the Burmese one
For Vikings i feel the Inf HP bonus should have been increase to eg. +20%/25%/30% (possibly with a adaptation to berserk HP?) to compensate for thumbring
Don't know if Nomad treaty will lead to some walling nonsense, then again
n dark age walls are quite weak atm

 

[kalpit00]

- I really like castle age UU infantry buffs.
- House wall and palisade nerf is blessing....
- Cumans, Byz, Poles, Arabia and nomad changes.... all ok.
- Burmese still weak against archers. Manipur cavalry is a late game tech anyways...
- Vikings with no thumbring? It makes literally no sense! Now in early imp they stuck with abysmal cav, meh archers and meh infantry (they still lack halberds, Berserks are stilll sooo costly to fully upgrade [even after upgrade price reduction])

That UI thing could help noobs but noobs already moved to aoe4..

I would honestly not mind giving vikings halberdiers and taking away their thumb ring. Vikings have an insane eco, but now without thumb ring their xbows and even arbs if they go Fast imp will struggle against mass knights. Hence they will need to transition into pikes. Long term however, arbs without thumb ring and pikes with unique tech dont seem too convincing to me (They all will still die to mass cavaliers and definitely to paladins). Hence I dont see why giving them halberdiers would affect in anyway. If anything, they can even play halb siege ram like other civs.

 

[z3us]

For Vikings i feel the Inf HP bonus should have been increase to eg. +20%/25%/30% (possibly with a adaptation to berserk HP?) to compensate for thumbring

Yeah, I agree with this idea but less see how it plays out.

Also, why no change to Elite Woad Raider cost? ;(

 

[Philippe le Bon]

I love the Viking changes.

I wanted a Castle Age berserk buff and a nerf to Arbalest play, I am served here. With these changes, Vikings will reinforce their role in what they actually are: an INFANTRY civ, not an archer civ.

No more """pros""" going full Arbalest play in TGs when playing Vikings.
This is exactly how you balance Vikings, not by nerfing Wheelbarrow or Hand Cart like some lunatics suggested.

54 HP men-at-arms in Feudal and 72 HP long swordsmen in Castle, with 65 HP Berserks with 12+2 attack, 1+2/1+2 armor in Castle Age will be sick.
Let's unleash the MASS INFANTRY PLAY!!! TIL BARDAGA

 

[Philippe le Bon]

I would honestly not mind giving vikings halberdiers and taking away their thumb ring. Vikings have an insane eco, but now without thumb ring their xbows and even arbs if they go Fast imp will struggle against mass knights. Hence they will need to transition into pikes. Long term however, arbs without thumb ring and pikes with unique tech dont seem too convincing to me (They all will still die to mass cavaliers and definitely to paladins). Hence I dont see why giving them halberdiers would affect in anyway. If anything, they can even play halb siege ram like other civs.

as I said a couple of times here, Viking lacking halbs is strictly an HISTORICAL choice, not a balancing one

Vikings history as "Vikings" stopped in the early 11th century, the halberd as a weapon came later. It makes perfect sense they lack halb.

Plus who need halb when you have Pikes and Elite Berserks with Chieftains...

If experience shows Vikings imp gets too weak because of no Thumb Ring arba, I think the appropriate compensation (helping them whilst keeping their identity) would be to give them access to ONE of these:
– Siege Onager;
– Plate Barding Armor (their cav still suck because they lack Hussar, Paladin, Husbandry and Bloodlines, but it'll be marginally less worse);
– Guilds;
– Stone Shaft Mining;
– Any Monk Tech (their monastery sucks anyway)
– OP elite skirms (like lith, aztecs, maya or byz, but different)
– Increase their infantry HP furthermore in Imp
– Some siege buff unique to Vikings

 

[Philippe le Bon]

Also CarlosFerdinand vibes here with Palissade Walls cost increased from 2 to 3 wood, he would be so proud!

@Hera_ will be pleased with Castle Age Jaguars at 65HP

That with Houses with negative armor will finally make turtling play harder.

 

[DracKeN]

Balance going the right direction with buffing castle UUs, but given the gameplay of past years, this will have very limited impact. Its maybe a follow up nerf to eagles which seems already a bit unecessary. However, the reason why castle UUs aren't really played is xbows. Nerf xbows, get bigger variety, balance and possibly castle age UUs.
Also, nerfs to chinese and mayans would help the balance, but xbow nerf will do part of the job aswell.

Burmese change the only one I'd disagree with as it's not solving any issues. Burmese surely struggle vs abalests in imp, but pure archers is something they could deal with due to their cav. But the main weakness is vs halbs + arbalest and there isn't any change made about it.

 

[Biz]

age of UUs. yawn

wake me up when xbows actually cost something and knights no longer have more HP than god

viking needed a nerf on water, so naturally they removed thumb ring

last few patches have crippled 5 different infantry civs while randomly injecting 3 new civs that get to guarantee spawning in the back and spamming knights just like franks do, because that experience was what was desparately missing from the ara / araclone / araclone map pool

but it's okay because this patch will fix everything now that jaguar warriors can get slaughtered when they're only 5 tiles away from the ball of xbows instead of when they're 6 tiles away. kudos to microsoft

 

[MembTV]

biased comment but best change is the arabia map that finally won´t be trash.

Also i heavily disagree with removing thumbring to the vikings, what they have now? just eco? stupid change imo, they should have nerf a bit the eco.

 

[Eru_iluvatar]

i swear. walling gets nerfed for several years straight but next week we will have again people complaining about walling.

 

[aceace]

@Philippe le Bon
I could be okay if only infantry would be viable. They are forcing vikings to one dimensional play and I'm not sure if they are good at that either. Honestly I don't care about historical accuracy. Pikes with chieftains are still not halberds.... FU Zerks cost still absurd amount of resources.

I can see Vikings become a good civ for mid-late castle age but at imp they're just so bad.

 

[Paint]

Vikings are just a very boring civ on land maps as they are right now so I like changing them, not sure if these are the right changes but I like the rest.

 

[Paint]

They are forcing vikings to one dimensional play

Because they are so multidimensional right now

 

[GmanStreams]

Because they are so multidimensional right now

After this change they will be zero dimensional

 

[aceace]

Because they are so multidimensional right now

Yes they are not multidimensional. And this change would make that even worse.... o.O

''They are forcing vikings to one dimensional play and I'm not sure if they are good at that either''

See? Zero dimensions..

 

[Paint]

After this change they will be zero dimensional

I would be surprised if this is true. I think they will still be a top 20 Arabia civ and top 5 on water just because of how good there eco is.

And zero dimensional is better than one dimensional in the age of civ picking.

 

[Philippe le Bon]

@Philippe le Bon
I could be okay if only infantry would be viable. They are forcing vikings to one dimensional play and I'm not sure if they are good at that either. Honestly I don't care about historical accuracy. Pikes with chieftains are still not halberds.... FU Zerks cost still absurd amount of resources.

I can see Vikings become a good civ for mid-late castle age but at imp they're just so bad.

Infantry is viable, especially Viking one.

With these changes, Vikings will be up there with Goths as the best infantry civ (even better infantry than Goths in my opinion, but I'm a little bit biased as I am a notorious Vikingwhore)

Which I think it's great because it is their true colours, both in-game and in real life:
Infantry and Navy civilization, with exceptional eco as they were great traders (they traded with China and all).

 

[Elvaenor]

I think the treaty option for nomad is fair enough to prevent villager boxing, but would it not be a better solution to change their attack to 0 until the tc has been build? Like the chinese only getting more villagers after the tc has been build.

 

[z3us]

Balance going the right direction with buffing castle UUs, but given the gameplay of past years, this will have very limited impact. Its maybe a follow up nerf to eagles which seems already a bit unecessary. However, the reason why castle UUs aren't really played is xbows. Nerf xbows, get bigger variety, balance and possibly castle age UUs.
Also, nerfs to chinese and mayans would help the balance, but xbow nerf will do part of the job aswel

Isn't the main hurdle in going UU in open maps is the viability of building a castle? So, I believe the focus should be on reducing the price of castle (maybe down to 550s), and/or increasing stone mining speed and availability of stone. Indirect nerf to Franks, and buff to Incas and Koreans.

 

[Huehuecoyotl22]

I think the treaty option for nomad is fair enough to prevent villager boxing, but would it not be a better solution to change their attack to 0 until the tc has been build? Like the chinese only getting more villagers after the tc has been build.

I don't think that is, and it could be more difficult and possible to cause bugs.

And because there are so many different villager units. Both male and female: hunters, shepherds, fishermen, farmers, foragers, lumberjacks, gold miners, stone miners, builders, repairers. They would all have to be "updgraded" once the tc is constructed.

You could have 0 attack and have loom give you more attack. But then you need loom before hunting, so maybe 1 attack before loom only.

 

[Philippe le Bon]

Isn't the main hurdle in going UU in open maps is the viability of building a castle? So, I believe the focus should be on reducing the price of castle (maybe down to 550s), and/or increasing stone mining speed and availability of stone. Indirect nerf to Franks, and buff to Incas and Koreans.

I think it's a good idea! I'd like to see more UU play in Castle Age, especially earlier in Castle Age.
Even 600 stone could be an appropriate start to test the waters, and see if it incites players to play more UU in Castle Age

It will buff Spanish as well, which liereyy said in a recent stream is "probably the worst 1v1 arabia civ nowadays"

 

[sauciton]

I like most of the changes but I am a bit disappointed that:
- Chinese are still not nerfed.
- Flemish Revolution and First Crusade are still in the game.
- Land military units receive 50% less bonus damage is still part of the game.

Apart from that, I am quite curious to see how Vikings will play out without thumbring. I like this idea, provided that infantry play is viable.