Welcome back Endru! (and current state of the game imo)

Put here any ideas, suggestions about unit or structure properties.
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b2198
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Welcome back Endru! (and current state of the game imo)

Post by b2198 »

As the title says, welcome back Endru, I hope things have calmed down over there : D

(wall of text about current state of the game under construction, will be posted below \/)

Edit: weird phrasing fix
Last edited by b2198 on Thu May 26, 2022 5:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Welcome back Endru! (and current state of the game imo)

Post by b2198 »

List of current balancing issues in the game imo:
  1. Petardiers are way too strong: and by that I don't mean their very high damage vs megas, that's not really the main issue (if it's an issue at all, I think it just needs to be pushed to a little later in the game). The main issue is the humongous amount of area damage they deal to secondary targets, making 1 petardier in a wagon by turn 5 able to anihilate an entire enemy base, builders, factories, and whatever else is there by that point. This also creates another problem: their insane effectiveness vs forts, since unless a fort is fully upgraded, it's gonna be 2-shotted by them, and even when fully upgraded, it will be left at very low hp, making them the single most effective way to break through fort defenses, and in some cases (where terrain is favorable and there's little to nothing in the way to your target) even making trebuchets obsolete for a good chunk of the match.
  2. Carracks are too strong too early: being the single most expensive unit in the game, I agree that galleons should be very powerful, but they get most of that power right away in carracks without requiring any research, so I really think it should take a lot more work to get a fully-powered galleon going, by, for example, making carracks and galleons have lower starting damage but be affected by ranged damage techs (just like the galley and barcha longa lines), reducing a little more carrack hp, increasing tech cost to go from carrack to galleon and maybe also requiring gunpowder to do so.
  3. Slavic and Steppe factions have too few units that can be buffed by their supports: Slavs have only 6 out of the 10 combat-oriented units that can be trained in veche izba, and Steppes have only 5 out of their 10, thus making basically half of their roster not really a part of their roster, since they don't get the same bonuses as the units that are categorized as being of those factions, and thus, these factions have a kinda low (viable) unit variety right now. I think some recategorizations could solve this.
  4. Steppe is too weak overall: Having tried them a lot since their addition, I think this is in part due to point 3, but also because they have no proper way of dealing with armored siege units if there's anything anti-cavalry involved, so turtle machines... just reduce them to making fire archers and hoping the opponent forgets to repair for 5 turns in a row lol. And to add to that, I find that even the elite version of the raider is still weak when compared to cavalry of other factions and their effectiveness against siege, armored siege and structures in general. I think this one is kinda expected, since they were the most recent faction to be released, and don't have many unique units of their own yet, but on top of that, I think some of the existing units could use a small buff. The recategorization would also help a bit here, but mostly against organic units, since those are what Tengri's buffs are mainly good at countering, and don't do much in the abovementioned cases.
  5. Winged Hussar is op: with 53 hp, 14 (up to 18) damage, 2/2 (up to 5/5) armors, 6 speed, 2 range, 2 actions, costing only 5 and being available basically all over the place, I think winged hussars are the most cost-effective unit in the game in terms of raw stats right now by a considerable margin, and when you take into account its bonuses it becomes the single best cavalry in the game both for offense and for defense, no matter the composition of the enemy army (since they survive A LOT of damage due to being [Medium Cavalry] with 53hp and can bypass counters entirely, and basically delete 2 non-cavalry units (or 1 cavalry unit) per turn with their very high damage and 2 actions). This also worsens point 3 for the slavs, since why would you make a 3 turn elite flailman that can't even be properly buffed when you can get a 5 turn winged hussar that will just delete the enemy lines even against high armor values, anti-cavalry and/or siege units while tanking for days? Not sure what the right call here is, but they do need a considerable nerf imo, maybe to hp, maybe to damage, maybe a category change, maybe a combination of all of these.
  6. Factionless units are not in a good spot: After the buffers rework, factionless units were kinda left in a worse position, since battlefield blacksmith is not nearly as good as the buffers and/or the techs for faction-specific units. Though they are still useful as counters to other units and in early skirmishes, the main armies are now usually made of faction units, specially the frontline units, since archers and skirmishers aren't really that affected by having or not having buffs in general (after the changes, of course. Yabusame+herbalist was indeeed REALLY affected by buffs XD). I have no idea if you have already thought of this and came up with a solution, and I haven't been able to come up with an idea of my own, so I'll just leave it here.
  7. Demoralize is too strong against non-flesh-and-blood units: Since those units can't receive promote loyalty and aren't affected by fervor, and in the case of siege units, are already slow when deployed, both Inquisitor and Roman Senator have become too good counters to them. One of the ideas in the original topic about this was to make demoralize be affected by dismiss propaganda to affect demoralize too. Another one was to make it only able to target flesh-and-blood-units. Again, not sure what's the right call here.
  8. Lancer line gets too strong too fast: I haven't been able to go back to my anti-mounted calculations yet, but from what I could see in both the numbers and in the actual game, lancers and their upgrades are the best anti-cavalry units in the game in general (there are specific cases in which they do get outclassed, but apart from those they basically dominate this role), and yet their upgrades only cost 3 turns each, and even worse: each upgrade one-shots the previous one, so it almost always becomes an arms-race to get those 2 upgrades asap almost every game as to not let your cavalry be left defenseless against them.
If someone sees something I missed feel free to add to this list.
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Re: Welcome back Endru! (and current state of the game imo)

Post by godOfKings »

What about the fact that lancers units get bonus dmg from skirmisher so a swarm of fully upgraded skirmishers can ezly kill maxed lancers?
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Re: Welcome back Endru! (and current state of the game imo)

Post by Endru1241 »

godOfKings wrote: Thu May 26, 2022 7:11 am What about the fact that lancers units get bonus dmg from skirmisher so a swarm of fully upgraded skirmishers can ezly kill maxed lancers?
All mounted units get additional damage from skirmishers.
And full blacksmith master skirmisher have 10 attack vs mounted, so deals 6 damage.
Just like longbowmen and 1 higher than arbalest.
Swarm of any ranged units can shred any unit.
Maybe apart of those, that only get 1 or 2 hp.
b2198 wrote: Thu May 26, 2022 5:38 am List of current balancing issues in the game imo:
  1. Petardiers are way too strong: and by that I don't mean their very high damage vs megas, that's not really the main issue (if it's an issue at all, I think it just needs to be pushed to a little later in the game). The main issue is the humongous amount of area damage they deal to secondary targets, making 1 petardier in a wagon by turn 5 able to anihilate an entire enemy base, builders, factories, and whatever else is there by that point. This also creates another problem: their insane effectiveness vs forts, since unless a fort is fully upgraded, it's gonna be 2-shotted by them, and even when fully upgraded, it will be left at very low hp, making them the single most effective way to break through fort defenses, and in some cases (where terrain is favorable and there's little to nothing in the way to your target) even making trebuchets obsolete for a good chunk of the match.
  2. Carracks are too strong too early: being the single most expensive unit in the game, I agree that galleons should be very powerful, but they get most of that power right away in carracks without requiring any research, so I really think it should take a lot more work to get a fully-powered galleon going, by, for example, making carracks and galleons have lower starting damage but be affected by ranged damage techs (just like the galley and barcha longa lines), reducing a little more carrack hp, increasing tech cost to go from carrack to galleon and maybe also requiring gunpowder to do so.
  3. Slavic and Steppe factions have too few units that can be buffed by their supports: Slavs have only 6 out of the 10 combat-oriented units that can be trained in veche izba, and Steppes have only 5 out of their 10, thus making basically half of their roster not really a part of their roster, since they don't get the same bonuses as the units that are categorized as being of those factions, and thus, these factions have a kinda low (viable) unit variety right now. I think some recategorizations could solve this.
  4. Steppe is too weak overall: Having tried them a lot since their addition, I think this is in part due to point 3, but also because they have no proper way of dealing with armored siege units if there's anything anti-cavalry involved, so turtle machines... just reduce them to making fire archers and hoping the opponent forgets to repair for 5 turns in a row lol. And to add to that, I find that even the elite version of the raider is still weak when compared to cavalry of other factions and their effectiveness against siege, armored siege and structures in general. I think this one is kinda expected, since they were the most recent faction to be released, and don't have many unique units of their own yet, but on top of that, I think some of the existing units could use a small buff. The recategorization would also help a bit here, but mostly against organic units, since those are what Tengri's buffs are mainly good at countering, and don't do much in the abovementioned cases.
  5. Winged Hussar is op: with 53 hp, 14 (up to 18) damage, 2/2 (up to 5/5) armors, 6 speed, 2 range, 2 actions, costing only 5 and being available basically all over the place, I think winged hussars are the most cost-effective unit in the game in terms of raw stats right now by a considerable margin, and when you take into account its bonuses it becomes the single best cavalry in the game both for offense and for defense, no matter the composition of the enemy army (since they survive A LOT of damage due to being [Medium Cavalry] with 53hp and can bypass counters entirely, and basically delete 2 non-cavalry units (or 1 cavalry unit) per turn with their very high damage and 2 actions). This also worsens point 3 for the slavs, since why would you make a 3 turn elite flailman that can't even be properly buffed when you can get a 5 turn winged hussar that will just delete the enemy lines even against high armor values, anti-cavalry and/or siege units while tanking for days? Not sure what the right call here is, but they do need a considerable nerf imo, maybe to hp, maybe to damage, maybe a category change, maybe a combination of all of these.
  6. Factionless units are not in a good spot: After the buffers rework, factionless units were kinda left in a worse position, since battlefield blacksmith is not nearly as good as the buffers and/or the techs for faction-specific units. Though they are still useful as counters to other units and in early skirmishes, the main armies are now usually made of faction units, specially the frontline units, since archers and skirmishers aren't really that affected by having or not having buffs in general (after the changes, of course. Yabusame+herbalist was indeeed REALLY affected by buffs XD). I have no idea if you have already thought of this and came up with a solution, and I haven't been able to come up with an idea of my own, so I'll just leave it here.
  7. Demoralize is too strong against non-flesh-and-blood units: Since those units can't receive promote loyalty and aren't affected by fervor, and in the case of siege units, are already slow when deployed, both Inquisitor and Roman Senator have become too good counters to them. One of the ideas in the original topic about this was to make demoralize be affected by dismiss propaganda to affect demoralize too. Another one was to make it only able to target flesh-and-blood-units. Again, not sure what's the right call here.
  8. Lancer line gets too strong too fast: I haven't been able to go back to my anti-mounted calculations yet, but from what I could see in both the numbers and in the actual game, lancers and their upgrades are the best anti-cavalry units in the game in general (there are specific cases in which they do get outclassed, but apart from those they basically dominate this role), and yet their upgrades only cost 3 turns each, and even worse: each upgrade one-shots the previous one, so it almost always becomes an arms-race to get those 2 upgrades asap almost every game as to not let your cavalry be left defenseless against them.
If someone sees something I missed feel free to add to this list.
1. You mean for set petard or self explosion?
If former - it can have multiplier or bonuses lowered easily.
Currently it 0.7x ability power.
Petardier should have dedicated topic already though - I'll try to find it and continue there.
2. I disagree with upgrade requiring gunpowder.
Ability already requires it so it's not really needed.
It could be made pricier though.
The idea of moving some attack to techs is good too.
3. I remember some more specifics mentioned in some other topic.
Right now I only assigned [Slavic] to flailmen though.
Steppe is newest culture, so it's given, that they would lack units.
4. Elite Raider unit have attack of 36 + burn vs armored siege - I seriously don't recall anything as high (cavalier at 32 ), apart of Heavy War Elephant with 40.
Bigger stats on start - not sure, but some tech or additional buff for Tengri Shaman (e.g. +attack to all melee with e.g. some defensive stats) - sure.
5. How exactly does it have 18 attack? I assume you counted Fervor and High morale, while latter is accessible through Voivode or Boyar, the former is not so easily applied when utilising Winged Hussar speed.
So presenting is such way we have 4 turn Celtic Chariot having 22 attack, 6 speed, 33 hp, up to 10/13 armors. Chariot category have the same lessened bonuses as Medium cavalry.
Even Axe Knight would be 3 turn, 17 attack x2 with 7 speed, 27 hp, up to 5/4 armors, also with medium cavalry category.
Plus - how is it capable of tanking a lot, when single lancer can deal it 40 damage (Math.Max(Math.floor(11+2+1+1+3 * 2.05) - 2+2+1 , 1) + Math.ceil(6+1 * 1.2)).
Without strengthening herbs it would be one-shotted.
It's true, that it's stats didn't really account for any buffs, but simple nerf is probably not a good solution here.
6. Well - at least they are no longer dominating the battlefield that much.
But in pure theory - they should have all kind of units at least comparable, competitive.
What probably makes it not so much in reality is upgrade costs.
In fast paced plays there is simply not enough turns to have significant variety of upgraded non-culture specific units and on the other hand culture ones with buffs can counter upgraded ones without any dedication towards that.
I have general idea what I would want to do, but it's a lot of work:
Milestone or age techs, which would be a requirement for now much cheaper upgrades (1-3 turns) and to some culture-specific units too.
7. Dismiss propaganda changes is probably better way, because Conversion can affect siege normally. I already answered in Roman Senator balancing topic some more details.
8. With changes to anti-mounted already in assets - lancer line have bonuses vs medium cavalry:
+105% + 2
+105% + 5
+105% + 8
So 18/24/30.
But it doesn't change anything described.
To change arms race state - attack would need to be lowered (or bonuses vs medium cavalry making mentioned above units stronger) and/or hp increased.
Pure hp increase would again make them stronger.

Main problem seems to be lacking usefulness of foot anti-cavalry units.
I was thinking of one thing to change here - add a clause to all mounted units bonuses vs infantry - "except [Polearm Wielder]".
BTW. something similar could be done to lancers.
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Re: Welcome back Endru! (and current state of the game imo)

Post by b2198 »

Endru1241 wrote: Thu May 26, 2022 9:31 pm 1. You mean for set petard or self explosion?
If former - it can have multiplier or bonuses lowered easily.
Currently it 0.7x ability power.
Petardier should have dedicated topic already though - I'll try to find it and continue there.
I mean self explosion.
Endru1241 wrote: Thu May 26, 2022 9:31 pm 3. I remember some more specifics mentioned in some other topic.
Right now I only assigned [Slavic] to flailmen though.
Steppe is newest culture, so it's given, that they would lack units.
Yeah, would be best to continue that in the other topic.
Endru1241 wrote: Thu May 26, 2022 9:31 pm 4. Elite Raider unit have attack of 36 + burn vs armored siege - I seriously don't recall anything as high (cavalier at 32 ), apart of Heavy War Elephant with 40.
Bigger stats on start - not sure, but some tech or additional buff for Tengri Shaman (e.g. +attack to all melee with e.g. some defensive stats) - sure.
Winged hussars have 2x32 vs armored siege, elite axe knights have 2x30, celtic chariots have 56, samurai cavalry have 2x26 (without morale/fervor, but with their respecitve faction techs and buffs). And those are just the cavalry of other factions, but they also have infantry units to deal with armored siege sometimes even better than those, like hatamotos, macemen and men-at-arms.
Endru1241 wrote: Thu May 26, 2022 9:31 pm 5. How exactly does it have 18 attack? I assume you counted Fervor and High morale, while latter is accessible through Voivode or Boyar, the former is not so easily applied when utilising Winged Hussar speed.
So presenting is such way we have 4 turn Celtic Chariot having 22 attack, 6 speed, 33 hp, up to 10/13 armors. Chariot category have the same lessened bonuses as Medium cavalry.
Even Axe Knight would be 3 turn, 17 attack x2 with 7 speed, 27 hp, up to 5/4 armors, also with medium cavalry category.
Plus - how is it capable of tanking a lot, when single lancer can deal it 40 damage (Math.Max(Math.floor(11+2+1+1+3 * 2.05) - 2+2+1 , 1) + Math.ceil(6+1 * 1.2)).
Without strengthening herbs it would be one-shotted.
It's true, that it's stats didn't really account for any buffs, but simple nerf is probably not a good solution here.
Yeah, I counted those auras, but remember that they also get 2 actions and can attack at 2 range, so they most often don't need to take counterattacks, and can attack over obstacles, while dealing a +6 fixed damage (from poisons) and slowing their target by 1 speed on-hit.
Endru1241 wrote: Thu May 26, 2022 9:31 pm 6. Well - at least they are no longer dominating the battlefield that much.
But in pure theory - they should have all kind of units at least comparable, competitive.
What probably makes it not so much in reality is upgrade costs.
In fast paced plays there is simply not enough turns to have significant variety of upgraded non-culture specific units and on the other hand culture ones with buffs can counter upgraded ones without any dedication towards that.
I have general idea what I would want to do, but it's a lot of work:
Milestone or age techs, which would be a requirement for now much cheaper upgrades (1-3 turns) and to some culture-specific units too.
It all comes back to age techs, but yeah, it makes sense when you put it that way.
Endru1241 wrote: Thu May 26, 2022 9:31 pm 8. With changes to anti-mounted already in assets - lancer line have bonuses vs medium cavalry:
+105% + 2
+105% + 5
+105% + 8
So 18/24/30.
But it doesn't change anything described.
To change arms race state - attack would need to be lowered (or bonuses vs medium cavalry making mentioned above units stronger) and/or hp increased.
Pure hp increase would again make them stronger.

Main problem seems to be lacking usefulness of foot anti-cavalry units.
I was thinking of one thing to change here - add a clause to all mounted units bonuses vs infantry - "except [Polearm Wielder]".
BTW. something similar could be done to lancers.
That could be a great solution, making them not counter of themselves, and making anti-mounted infantry way more reliable.
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Re: Welcome back Endru! (and current state of the game imo)

Post by b2198 »

9. turtle machines make most units obsolete by late game (except for those that actually have a chance to kill them, like buffed elite macemen or buffed + 3 auras hatamotos, but even then it's still cheaper to keep spamming them than to spam counters). This one has worsened after the gunpowder and siege changes, since they now have +1 range and +1 speed in late game. My suggestion is to make them pricier (I mean, they are borderline as strong as galleons, so 9 or 10 turns for them would fit imo), along with the mining changes in that other topic, since having a lot of mines is primarily what makes it possible to spam these very high cost units. And maybe move them to siege workshop only?
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Re: Welcome back Endru! (and current state of the game imo)

Post by godOfKings »

It is only cheap because mine is cheaper, but if endrus suggestion of making mine sacrifice miner to b able to start producing mine carts is implemented, then the possibility of spamming mines will b greatly reduced and ineffective in the long run, does spamming turtle machine will also b harder

If turtle machine is removed from tc then the next late game spams would probably b elephants
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