chrstgtr

Almost every high level 1v1 is dominated by early cav rushes. Often, the winning player wins because they do just enough eco to make slightly more cav or they manage their cav slightly better than the opposing player. To be honest, I cannot remember the last high level game I watch that wasn't won (or all but officially won) before p3. Many late p3 games are dominated by cav. A unit is not balanced if the strategy in early game and late game is to spam that single unit. Talking about stats is meaningless if experience shows us that a unit is OP. See above. Also, a game isn't balanced just because many players don't exploit OP units. Many players never made fire cav in a25. Does that mean fire cav was balanced? No.

Yeah, it's easier said than done. Also, we don't want too many options because then it gets overwhelming. Implementing some of these, showing proof of concept for the adopted items, and implementing for a27 could help with the winnowing the total number of open items.

The root cause is that a lot of patches have multiple components. People select the 3rd option when they are split on a proposal. An easy fix would be to break proposals down into their constituent parts (i.e., one proposal to nerf ptol her and one proposal for athens hero instead of combining both into one) and then making the poll binary. There's a lot of changes already. I would suggestion caution. Change by itself isn't good. And when there are a bunch of variables it is very difficult to tell what one proposal does and doesn't do. For example, the cav nerf could actually not have a big impact because smaller CC ranges significantly slow booms, which makes rushing (i.e., cav) stronger. I don't know if any of that hypothetical is true right now, but it's possible and I wouldn't be able to confidently terse out an explanation if it did occur. ------ Right now, we have more than enough support for several proposals to implement them. I think we should do that and see how it impacts the game/how people like them. If those proposals are good, we should actually make tickets to implement them for a27. Then we can figure out what next changes to do.

I'm fine with them for now. My problem is the base level health/speed advantage because those occur in p1 through p3. I think the upgrades are better as differentiators (i.e., when Persia was truly a cav civ in a23 because they had the special health upgrade while most other civs did not whereas now Persia's cav is nothing special), but I think the boat has sailed on this one.

Yeah, while I think this cav nerf is needed, it will be a bit of a meta shift (cav spam-->to something else, hopefully more strategic). So I think this merge, if it happens, should be done by itself so we can really know its impact

My main problem with cav is that they don't die even when they should (i.e. running straight through inf and fighting spears head on). I think that is a direct result of their speed (ability to escape fights and to get to fights quickly) and their health (they might get hit once when running through a pocket of men but then keep running so the damage doesn't do enough to kill them). As a result, I don't mind that cav do extra dmg. Making inf, specifically spears faster, would be a step in the right direction. (I think spears and swords should be faster anyways bc of their lack of range). I would rather change health than armor because that ensures an even change across all units as opposed to just hack or pierce units. Otherwise, a -1 nerf to both hack and pierce might result in one type of attack becoming relatively stronger. Also promotions make extra HP a snowball problem.

I have a problem with cav raids. Many top level 1v1s are dominated by cav spam and the game ends (or is all but already determined) before players ever make it to p2 or p3. I think this is undesirable. Skirm cav is OP, but I also have a problem with archer cav (probably the best unit in the game right now when used correctly), and sword cav too. A mass of any of those units wins games and spearmen inf can't counter those units. In short, I don't think the game should purely be cav spam, which is without a doubt the best strategy right now.

I’m in favor of an across the board cav nerf. In my opinion, they’re too strong relative to inf. I think a speed and/or HP decrease would do the trick. The problem is particularly obvious when a group of 10 cav run right through a group of 10 inf and all cav survive. Another (bigger) problem OC example is when a mass of sword cav fight spears straight in and easily win. I actually don’t have problems with Han having sword cav in p1. People mostly have problems defending it because they refuse to make spear. That is the players fault, not the game’s. Once cav is actually balanced vs inf, that will help too

You’re entitled to you opinion. I just ask that the thread stay on topic and that everyone, including myself, add productive conversation. That has no occurred here. Feel free to DM if you want to discuss. This thread is already too far off-topic and I don’t want to contribute to that any more than necessary.

This whole discussion is replete with logical inconsistencies and dilettante historian cherry picking. If team bonuses aren’t meant to be an actual bonus then they should be eliminated. But I doubt anyone wants to eliminate features. It is asinine to throw a fit over the use of a word and not offer any suggestions when that word could be easily replaced with the word “colonizing” or any number of other options. Please move the discussion forward with a real suggestion or alternative: suggesting Athens should have a useless team bonus while other civs have helpful team bonuses isn’t a suggestion for improvement. This entire thread has been thrown askew because one person, who said they barely play the game, said they didn’t like the use of one word in one portion of one proposal. We can do better than this.

This will be fun.

for me, yes. I would also like iphicrates to be an area aura but that might be outside scope.

Isn't the axe cav buff just making axe cav equal to sword cav but with more crush damage? I don't think that is a very good differentiator. They should be unique. I think the glass canon idea much more.

Where can we vote?

This is a similar function proposed for Sparta already. I think it’s a good idea, but something to consider if you want it to be truly unique.

Yeah, but there are no changes right now. It’s just the Han food upgrades, which are necessary to play Han. All players should be using the current mod. But less experienced/involved players probably don’t know a problem exists with vanilla

I agree. It’s a problem. But it’s “necessary” this alpha because of the Han farm upgrade issue. I don’t expect this to exist going forward.

For the weapon switching mechanism? I don't know. I don't think the game has been played long enough for a real opinion to form on this. With that said, I suspect yes. Although, like Philip said, use of spears is really a niche function with limited use right now.

That's what I thought (and I think your suggestion is a good one), but I just wanted to clarify. (Also their spear function is good because it provides a counter to archer's natural counter--cav)

I think you need to clarify what you mean. Do you mean you get to choose what they are trained as? Or do you mean something where they auto switch back after a fight/when walking

You might be right. But I am not sure--traders can be very powerful if you can survive the first enemy push. I would personally suggest doing one of the other first and then seeing how balance is.

Very good point. I withdraw

I personally think they should be a raiding/looting civ (for similar reasons that borg stated). I would apply a speed bonus and a loot bonus. I also understand they were kind of disparate tribes that would occasionally band together. It would be cool if you apply an attack bonus when close to allies, but I don’t think that’s possible without significant computational drag

Maybe just apply to inf. Merc cav is still quite strong I also would never want cav to train as fast as men, especially if the cav is barely more expensive and starts at level 2 The proposal in its current form would make cav have a much higher attack, much higher health, and get to the fight much quicker than CS inf. Their cost would also be basically the same since in terms of res cost and time to collect needed res (because food gather so much slower than metal). Add on top that all those advantages plus train time, res cost, and res gather time would also exist with respect to merc cav vs CS cav

Athens Brits Carth Han Kush Most of them really. But a lot of it is fixing underlying problems with trade/healers