chrstgtr

There are lots of 50 unit army pushes now. It’s the most common form of inf rush. Hiding behind a CC is basically the only way to defend if you aren’t already prepared. This very frequently happens in 1v1s that last long enough for one player to reach 100 pop If you lose your only CC in 1v1 it’s almost certainly gg. The connection you are trying to draw between cheaper CCs and CCs’ defensive abilities is strained. To the extent your concern actually is valid it should be dealt with by increasing the difficulty of making a new CC (ie increasing cost or build time). You’re making a ton of assumptions based on things you think (but don’t know) will happen. If any of your assumptions are wrong it could eliminate the utility of an entire unit class (siege), frustrate the entire purpose of making CCs cheaper, and change the entire meta to something unknown and different.

Mid game where you have armies of like 50 soldiers and retreat to cc. this will also decrease the need for siege late game. Could create a a21-like meta where 80 slings kills CCs alone

I don’t like that idea. I don’t like the idea of armies hanging out around CCs, especially in early game. Taking away food prod will really slow a player down even if it is just for 30 seconds. Honestly, I’m mostly happy with how arrow shouting buildings work now. I also think it’s premature to be concerned with CC spam when currently almost no one makes CCs. It’s something to keep an eye out on during testing, though But I like the sentry arrow change you mentioned

Do you mean the army camp? The castrum is the barrack. I would be in favor of the former but not the later.

I think the "players only make range units" is a self-fulling prophecy. Han is the most easily countered civ. All you have to do is make spears. But no one does so they have problems with Han’s sword cav and crossbows. I don't have a strong opinion on the new spear cav yet

I recommend you try using cav, swords and siege. Rome has good cav with a good hero. Their sword cav champ with hero is one of the strongest combos In game. Not all civs have swords so rome melee can slice through a lot of enemies. Siege is great. There are more options than just spam range CS

On a related note, I think this can also be a problem. I think an easy fix here is to make all possible current units actually available. So I would make champs, especially inf, more accessible. My first step would be to eliminate the unlocking requirement in barracks Honestly, I think it’s the level of game you play. It’s not the easiest thing for beginners to do. If you want to see what I am referencing, I would suggest watching some high level games, especially 1v1s

See all the games where players transition to range cav. Or skip ranged infantry and go straight to ranged cav. You're right that it is a tough balancing act. I don't know how to fix it. But I haven't heard anything to suggest that the meta right now is anything more than spamming cav early, often, and late. Just everyone can't execute that meta against everyone.

You're just too OP.

Jav and archer in both. Sword in late, at least. Maybe both. This is observable in many, many games.

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.