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Persians have the smartest elephants, that's why they have no ridersKoramei posted:That said, I had a 7-game losing streak yesterday which was fun. I was hovering around 1100 for a week but got smote back down to 1000 again. I've been mostly doing fun CA things with Tatars and Koreans and tried to venture into Viets with apparently catastrophic results. I feel that giving the koreans the free archer armor improved them a bunch at lower levels at least. Wonder if it makes as much of a difference or more than the viet health
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Oct 14, 2023 19:59
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I think the cost is the big boost for Koreans honestly. You save 50% of their wood cost -- so 20 resources per cav archer, which is the same as the Huns' 20% CA imperial age bonus and actually twice as good as their Castle Age one; and the Hun cost bonus is usually considered the best CA bonus. Koreans don't get fully upgraded CA (which is, incidentally, imo very silly and they have a much better historical case for it than the Japanese do, but anyhow) and naturally as the game goes on the Hun gold savings starts to be more important, but the double punch of good armor and lots of CA is I think actually pretty potent especially in early Castle. Not the best to transition out of but at 1000-1100 hasn't normally been so important.  People also never seem to expect CA from Koreans.I have been trying to get away from just winning via a sucker punch though. Although to a certain extent that seems to define the game at these Elos. Peope have a plan -- and the timings are actually insanely polished, even at like 900? I thought I could get away without bothering to learn how to fast castle, and, no. -- but if it goes off the rails slightly they (and me) start to fall apart. Koramei fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Oct 14, 2023 |
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Oct 14, 2023 20:22
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I know both koreans and japanese had a surprising cav archer tradition which is funny because neither seem like amazing horse country. Does the bonus apply to skirms too? It applies to infantry which is weird but that's gonna make for shocking cheap pikes. Giving it to skirms would make for a super strong anti archer civ too which I guess they already are. I miss the days with like 12 range siege onagers though
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Oct 14, 2023 21:17
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I wonder how you fix War Elephants. If the cost & speed weren't bad enough, monks make them almost totally unusable - something that expensive and slow is just too tempting of a target. Koramei posted:I think the cost is the big boost for Koreans honestly. You save 50% of their wood cost -- so 20 resources per cav archer, which is the same as the Huns' 20% CA imperial age bonus and actually twice as good as their Castle Age one; and the Hun cost bonus is usually considered the best CA bonus. I would also argue that the Korean bonus is a lot better. Sure it's the same resource savings but less gold savings, but if you transition into halbs or skirms or foot archers or war wagons or need any of these things for meat shield the bonus still applies and that's strong as gently caress. It provides you a lot more flexibility.
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Oct 15, 2023 00:05
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IMO the way to fix war elephants is to make them a Persian exclusive upgrade to battle elephants instead (see imperial skirmisher etc.) with appropriate stat changes etc. And then give Persians a different unique unit like Immortals or something.
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Oct 15, 2023 00:18
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Persians have a scenario exclusive UU associated with them that appears in their Battles of the Forgotten map, the Sogdian Cataphract. It's sort of like a horse Huskarl; high pierce armour and trains out of a stable. Also about a millennium more recent than the Immortals.
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Oct 15, 2023 02:25
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Asehujiko posted:Persians have a scenario exclusive UU associated with them that appears in their Battles of the Forgotten map, the Sogdian Cataphract. It's sort of like a horse Huskarl; high pierce armour and trains out of a stable. Also about a millennium more recent than the Immortals. I double checked because I was about to make a similar comment about Immortals but apparently the Sassanians had their own elite corp that were also called Immortals, though I think that was an exonym the Romans used specifically in reference to the Achaemenid ones. It would be a similar boat either way, whether or not they make the unique unit War Elephants, Immortals or Savars these are all for pre-Islamic Sassanid units which are just barely within AOE2's timeframe. If anything the War Elephants might be the most well attested when you consider their frequent appearances against the Romans and during the Arab conquest.
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Oct 15, 2023 02:34
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Koramei posted:That said, I had a 7-game losing streak yesterday which was fun. I was hovering around 1100 for a week but got smote back down to 1000 again. I've been mostly doing fun CA things with Tatars and Koreans and tried to venture into Viets with apparently catastrophic results. ...I enjoyed this use of the word "smote."
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Oct 15, 2023 09:36
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aniviron posted:I wonder how you fix War Elephants. If the cost & speed weren't bad enough, monks make them almost totally unusable - something that expensive and slow is just too tempting of a target. Screen with LC or free* xbows probably? It's harder as you go up obviously. I went elephants and xbows once against a lower level elo guy and once I started attacking in late castle with 15+ elephants and like 30 or 40 xbows he just laughed
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Oct 15, 2023 13:07
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Koramei posted:War Elephants are such a classic unit. I know they've stripped away a few of the original things from the ES era but they're such a fan favorite. They're gotta be like, top 3 most recognizable UUs up there with the Teutonic Knight. Same here, but I brought myself all the way down to 850 I really like Koreans but their light cav just feel terrible. That onager range is nuts for closed Black Forest shenanigans. Although usually I would just run Saracens instead.
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Oct 15, 2023 14:34
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A Spanish Youtuber got early access to the DLC (El Manko) and apparently it's coming out on Oct 31st. Defensive and Cavalry Civilization -Start with a mule cart but -50 food -Fortified churches gives villagers +10% workrate within a 10 tile radius -Units and buildings receive -15% damage when fighting from uphill -Cavalry heals 5/10/15 HP per minute in Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age Unique Unit: Monaspa Unique techs: -Svan Towers (Defensive buildings gain +2 attack; towers shoot arrows that pierce several units.) -Aznauri Cavalry (Cavalry units use 15% less population space) Team Bonus: Reparing buildings cost -50% resources  Naval and Infantry Civilization -Mule carts cost 25% less -Mule cart techs are 25% more effective -First fortified church spawns a free relic -Barrack units (except men-at-arms) are available one age early. -Galleys shoot two projectiles Unique unit Composite bow archer, warrior priest Unique Techs: -Cilician Fleet: Increases explosion radius of demolition ships by 33%; galleys and dromons +1 range -Reliquary: Infantry (except spearmen) gain +30 HP; warrior priests gain +100% heal speed Team Bonus: Infantry +2 LOS  5% increased workrate for TC/docks in Dark Age Parthian Tactics available in castle age Cavaly generates 5 gold when killing units Caravanserai available Paladin replaced by Savaran  Mahouts removed; new imperial UT Citadels (castles shoot cannonballs: +4 attack, +3 against rams, +3 against infantry) and receive -25% bonus damage. War elephants still available. No steppe lancers for the new civs. Azran fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Oct 16, 2023 |
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Oct 16, 2023 16:25
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Castles shooting cannonballs sounds rad. Are they also switching the building set?
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Oct 16, 2023 16:31
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What are mule carts and fortified churches? Unique variants of trade carts and monasteries? Mahouts being removed could mean its there by default for war elephants now, I think there was a recent patch that did something similar for another civ.
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Oct 16, 2023 16:41
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biscuits and crazy posted:What are mule carts and fortified churches? Unique variants of trade carts and monasteries? It kinda looks like mule carts are mobile dropoff points or something? They seem to be next to resources in the screenshots. Either that or increased work rate for nearby vills.
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Oct 16, 2023 16:48
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Isn’t +30 hp for infantry units a lot? Two handed swordsman in castle age seems pretty nifty, wonder if they are missing champion or some infantry armor/attack. Edit: Persians get a big + in Black Forest with the caravanserai!
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Oct 16, 2023 17:11
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New civs sound pretty interesting, wonder what their strength ends up looking like -- can't imagine spamming churches around farms will be worth it
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Oct 16, 2023 17:50
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9LrKqN0zuI Here's a brief breakdown of the DLC from Spirit of the Law. Some highlights. - Mule carts are mobile resource drop off units, similar to the Norse from Age of Mythology. - Fortified Churches are slightly more expensive Monasteries, but can be garrisoned with villagers to fire arrows, like TCs. -The Persian Savar is a lower HP replacement for the Paladin, but has +1/+1 armour over the Paladin and the upgrade from Cavalier is considerably cheaper. - Mahouts is now built in by default for War Elephants. Hera and T90 have also got videos on Youtube covering the DLC.
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Oct 16, 2023 19:28
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Zarfol posted:Two handed swordsman in castle age seems pretty nifty, wonder if they are missing champion or some infantry armor/attack. They have champion in castle Will this finally get people to go infantry?
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Oct 16, 2023 19:57
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjq4oUwT8eQ Age of Noob goes over the changes the old civs are getting. For example, Saracen monks get a unique tech that makes monks get an AoE heal active at all time, and it that stacks with their targeted heal lol hell yeah
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Oct 16, 2023 21:24
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KOGAHAZAN!! posted:They have champion in castle No! I am glad to see civs which have busted-looking infantry bonuses before release. They keep pushing infantry civ bonuses harder and harder and it still hasn't made any infantry civs competitive with the best archer or cav civs on the merits of their infantry bonuses. If an infantry civ bonus looks stupid broken on paper and leaves you salivating, the reality is that it's probably okay at best. In this case, I would expect it not to matter that much. You'll get a longsword or 2h play in feudal/castle age sometimes but the cost is high enough that I don't know how viable it is. Longsword seems pretty doable even if it will slow your push a lot, 2h and in particular champ will be more difficult to afford on an early game economy. They also won't come with the next age's blacksmith upgrades. It might be good once in a while, but just like with Bohemians, Burgundians, and Cumans, it turns out to be pretty tough to get the next age's units on the previous age's economy.
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Oct 16, 2023 22:27
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Honestly, the most interesting thing about the Armenian's inf stuff isn't the early upgrades, it's the Fereters tech. Bloodlines for infantry but a way bigger bonus in both absolute and relative terms. It being an imp tech is pretty big problem, though...
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Oct 16, 2023 22:36
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Does anyone else get some insane lag in AoE2 after about 20+ minutes of play, even in single-player? I've been seeing reddit posts complaining about this for years, and the only consistent answer seems to be "wait for the next update" which obviously hasn't helped. My specs are well above the recommended requirements and it's completely stable up to the point where I'll suddenly lag for 10 to 15 seconds at a time
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Oct 16, 2023 22:43
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I legit have no idea how you make infantry viable in an AoE2 context, it's basically an unwinnable battle
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Oct 16, 2023 23:14
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goths make infantry kind of viable via a human wave strategy but that's a bit lategame. But yeah in anything open enough for mobility to matter, mobility and initiative will forever be king and having more options will always be better than having fewer (positionally)
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Oct 16, 2023 23:16
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Numbers does seem like a fundamental element they should have in their favour compared to cavalry and archers, apart from that I think you'd have to be looking at something like heavy infantry being able to shrug off ranged attacks that come from the front.
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Oct 16, 2023 23:29
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If a unit does not have the ability to pick fights then I think it needs the ability to force them- to be enough of a threat that the enemy can't afford to ignore them and go somewhere else, it needs to engage. There's kind of some of that in there already with the attack bonus against buildings, but as far as eco damage is concerned vil kills are much more important than building kills and archers and cav are still much better for that. If you looked at real life and were asked to pick a virtue for infantry then I think you might be able to argue durability and staying power? Which is a crown the game has given to the knight line instead. But even if you were to swap that around, I dunno if just making them tankier is going to solve the problem. Is an tanky blob with no initiative better than a less tanky blob with no initiative? Otherwise, it'd be cost, at least versus cav. Half pop space usage ala Karambits would definitely get the job done but I don't think I really like doing that sort of thing with pop space to begin with. Could at least bump their pierce armour up a notch.
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Oct 16, 2023 23:46
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To make things more realistic and also more balanced cavalry should cost like 3x what they do right now.
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Oct 17, 2023 00:36
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I have no idea how to blanket improve infantry that wouldn't make goth spam all the more insane lol
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Oct 17, 2023 00:45
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Spirit of the Law dropped a game with the Georgians: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faGsta8k3Ao
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Oct 17, 2023 00:51
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Why would you ever go swords with Armenia when Knights+comp bows should just beat every thing else in castle because comp bows just make you win every knight+archer fight? I guess you still need the castle...
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Oct 17, 2023 02:57
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ssmagus posted:Why would you ever go swords with Armenia when Knights+comp bows should just beat every thing else in castle because comp bows just make you win every knight+archer fight? I guess you still need the castle... because surely no one would ever go swords, right?
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Oct 17, 2023 03:08
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KOGAHAZAN!! posted:If a unit does not have the ability to pick fights then I think it needs the ability to force them- to be enough of a threat that the enemy can't afford to ignore them and go somewhere else, it needs to engage. There's kind of some of that in there already with the attack bonus against buildings, but as far as eco damage is concerned vil kills are much more important than building kills and archers and cav are still much better for that. It would have to be complete reworking of the entire AOE format but a potential way to integrate them better would be for heavy infantry (think Greek Hoplites or Roman Legionaries IRL) to receive massive protection boosts in whatever way their shield is facing, almost invulnerable to archer fire which is basically the opposite of how they have been used in the AOE games. That could lead into more advanced use of formations and flanking as gameplay mechanics to make use of that, but that's beyond the Age of Series's paygrade. That could lead to a more interesting triad where Cavalry have speed and momentum, Archers have range, and Infantry have as you say tankiness and stopping power, which tended to be one of their more useful attributes IRL when you look at things like Roman battlefield tactics or the Shield walls that are an endlessly recurring battlefield tactic from Ancient Mesopotamia to 4000 years later in Hastings.
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Oct 17, 2023 03:18
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A while back when the militia-line got base armor buffs the devs were very proud to announce that now two longswords barely beat a single knight in a perfect engagement when it used to be a pillar of game balance that a knight should beat two longswords just barely. Frankly, that's ridiculous. The two longswords have a higher total resource cost if a lower gold cost, take two pop space, and much more importantly they cannot choose their engagements at all, ever. A knight can always just leave a bad situation which means it will only ever take fights it can win, longswords get chased down by every other non-infantry unit in the game. If a knight is meant to be comparable to two longswords, the militia line is doomed to never be good. I think it's very telling that every single infantry unit in the game which is considered playable (Eagles, huscals, condos, mostly) is much faster than baseline militia/pikes. There are a few exceptions but they're all in incredibly niche situations.
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Oct 17, 2023 03:40
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I'm all for the little shakeups we're getting like the Persians rework, but I definitely wouldn't be in favor of some fundamental game rebalancing at this point. The militia line doesn't need to define games really, imo. It's relatively niche but does it need to be more than that? Unit facing and so on mattering feels like it should be a different game (sorta similar feelings towards proximity buffs but that ship has sailed). That said maybe buffing the effects of arson could be neat, going with their role against buildings like was said upthread. Maybe even simultaneously reduce how strong knights are against buildings.
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Oct 17, 2023 03:56
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Echtzeitalter (literally "Real-time Age"), novel about an Austrian boarding school student playing AoE2 has won German Book Prize 2023. Summary with sample translation: quote:Tonio Schachinger: Echtzeitalter (Realtimes) cuc fucked around with this message at 07:20 on Oct 17, 2023 |
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Oct 17, 2023 04:18
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Larry went to a hapsburg boarding school?
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Oct 17, 2023 04:32
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aniviron posted:A while back when the militia-line got base armor buffs the devs were very proud to announce that now two longswords barely beat a single knight in a perfect engagement when it used to be a pillar of game balance that a knight should beat two longswords just barely. Frankly, that's ridiculous. The two longswords have a higher total resource cost if a lower gold cost, take two pop space, and much more importantly they cannot choose their engagements at all, ever. A knight can always just leave a bad situation which means it will only ever take fights it can win, longswords get chased down by every other non-infantry unit in the game. If a knight is meant to be comparable to two longswords, the militia line is doomed to never be good. Give woad raiders more pierce armor
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Oct 17, 2023 13:54
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Making cavalry other than dedicated anti building ones like mangudai completely ineffective at hitting buildings would be a neat balance choice actually. So you'd need infantry or seige to actually take out buildings unless you had overwhelming numbers.
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Oct 17, 2023 17:14
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Educational Games posted:Making cavalry other than dedicated anti building ones like mangudai completely ineffective at hitting buildings would be a neat balance choice actually. So you'd need infantry or seige to actually take out buildings unless you had overwhelming numbers. Infantry should burn down houses at an alarming rate vs other buildings.
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Oct 17, 2023 18:56
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*Panics in cambodian* Also woad raiders should get a gun
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Oct 17, 2023 19:12
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