Therefore +10 wood cost.(with unchanged price),
Its so funny that I cant even have a serious discussion about adding Realms Water balance to DE because of people that literally praise a none existent water balance over one that literally looked up the issue of AoC water (galleys being only choice), added a counter to it, and made Fire ships counter the galley counter, effectively creating a water rectangle where there are more than 2 ships to choose from...
Demos are not even worth considering In DE.
View attachment 183328
Red arrow = Hard Counter
Yellow arrow = Counter
In this triangle every ship counters and gets countered by another ship, hard counters and gets hard countered by another ship
Here is Realms water balance, we need to have a serious discussion on why its better than DE and why it should be implemented.
But since you propably are all like: "Wtf is that ship on the left" left me explain:
The ship on the Left is called Carrack (simular to Portoguese UT name, which would need to be renamed)
First things first:
Realms water balance is basically AoC balance with Carrack added, Fire nerf and Demo buff
Fires and Demos in Feudal should stay, but fire line with -20 HP, Buff to Demo rafts (one shotting fires and itself, 2 shotting everything else) and addition of feudal Carrack could be considered.
The Carrack is a generic (available to all civs) ship that has a simular attack to mangonels but with no minimum range. It has a bonus vs Galleys specifically, 8 range, high HP (150), 16 attack + extra projectiles, and 8 pierce armour, it also doesnt require any blacksmith upgrades.
Despite its impressive stats it has several downside:
Its the slowest ship of all the 4 (1.25 Carrack, 1.35 Fire ship, 1.43 Galley, 1.6 Demolition Ship)
Most Expensive (135w 85g = 220 total cost compared to 120 of all others)
-6 Melee Armor (Fire ships do melee damage)
Easily dodgeable Attack
The Arrows says it all
Demolition ships were also greatly buffed with Bonus HP (100 HP now) and can one-shot Fire ships as well as taking down buildings faster, but have reduced blast radius and +10 wood cost
Fire Ships have been brought back to AoC balance (-20 HP on both)
These changes would make Water more micro heavy (Galley fights again in Feudal), opened new strategies apart from massing galleys in Feudal (Fast Castle Carracks? or Demos? Dark Age landing?)
And the new Unit itself logically increased the micro needed (its basically a mangonel with war galleys being archers). Demos are better so any other ship now also requires better split micro.
With these improvements and the addition of the Carrack:
Longboats and other Unique Ships have a counter (except Turtle ships), and make Vikings and Portugese optional on water maps.
Turtle Ships have the demolition ship as new (and only?) counter, as they trade cost efficient now
Civs without Bracer have a chance
Galleys have a counter
Cannon Galleons can counter Carracks (if they don't move)
Fires (with -20 HP) have a use, as they were used more like a one unit raid ship rather than a serious option
Additionally, I would suggest to give all civs the faster Cannon Galleon projectiles and maybe replace the spanish bonus with free Careening? I think Cannon Galleons should also have their fair share of being a ship that can do damage to units similarly to how Bombard Cannons do well vs Archers.
It makes no sense why the cannonball of Cannon Galleons flies in Slowmotion while every other (from Bombard Tower or Bombard Cannon) has more reasonable physics.