Balance suggestions by a Pro Player

[Senator_LEVi]

1 hour ago, Classic-Burger said:

Not a long one. I don't know how long an archer rush would take in practice. Many matches last 30-40 minutes.

With Mauryas you could do it almost the entire game, dancing around nearby woodlines. Of course you need to really work it to the point where the enemy pocket comes to help. Thereby giving your ally all the time advantage to roll them at minute 12-13. 

 

In 1v1s you can do both. Slowly adding melee when you're ready to capture. But it needs to be quick wherein enemy does not get eco time to tower all sides of the base. You could also do a small 3-4 minute rush and possibly take a barrack, retreat back and ecobot.

 

I've also tried doing Mercenary archers with Athens, Seleuids, Ptolemies and Macedonians and have had relative success and failure. Latter being due to my own mistakes. But all are fun strategies.

[Classic-Burger]

I think it can be done with a good number of archers. I don't think it would be effective; I remember using Kushite archers behind a line of spears and pikes.

But making a "Rush" without riders and without melee infantry to hunt lumberjacks seems difficult to me. And expecting the enemy to have no cavalry.

Unlike AoE, cavalry is more prevalent in this game. Skirmish cavalry is quickly available.

This is where you have to do some work to differentiate all the missile CS units. In the current game, cavalry is the best option to rush/raid farms and lumberjacks (warehouses).

It would also help to nerf the LoS and introduce technologies to improve it again. This would make the enemy feel claustrophobic from not seeing anything and having more blind spots.

It would be interesting to be able to hide archers and skimishers as it happened in Praetorians.

[Senator_LEVi]

@Classic-Burger I use 25-30. Atleast at my level, (1400, whatever that might mean) it works against enemies. You can snipe away cavalry, and a few spearmen close by is easy counter to melee cav civs. 

You can camp around the enemy with archers and elephant. But the sight and vision that you mentioned would be fun, but I think it's not completely fair since you can't tilt the camera to ground level to look at the forest floor. Hiding watch towers is interesting too, but easier to spot. Is Praetorians a different game?

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

I like the idea with ptol library in p2, but I feel like maybe a slight cost addition and significant build time addition is necessary. Ideally it can be buildable in p2 but not something that can always be built immediately upon reaching p2. It should be a challenge to time its construction between eco or military techs in order to maximize value.

 

[Classic-Burger]

9 hours ago, Senator_LEVi said:

Is Praetorians a different game?

Yes.They hide units with a command in the forest and grasslands and can be ambushed or simply to hide.

 

 LoS thing is influenced by AoE II where the game is more difficult due to a slow start. And at the beginning it is slow and the low LoS makes you blind in the map, since you only depend on scout, because civilians have very low LoS ( line of sight).

Nomad starts are better in AoE II.

 

 

[Classic-Burger]

Colonization tech. in the first phase and put a more coherent price on it for the first phase.

Elephants. I am against elephants in phase 2 except Maurya.

Siege Tech, Reducing the metal cost is not that expensive to reduce the rest of the cost, unless the goal is to keep the cost low to speed up gameplay.I'm more into long games than short ones. There should be a mode for short games of 15-20 minutes.

CC is very weak in P3, it would need to be significantly improved with civic technologies.It would also be nice if the Ram had slow development and upgrades like in AoE. I enjoy the technical improvements and the arms race( evolutive/adaptation) in strategy games.

[chrstgtr]

2 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

I like the idea with ptol library in p2, but I feel like maybe a slight cost addition and significant build time addition is necessary. Ideally it can be buildable in p2 but not something that can always be built immediately upon reaching p2. It should be a challenge to time its construction between eco or military techs in order to maximize value.

 

It's not very useful in p3. By the time you build it you've already researched all the eco techs and basically all the military techs. If you delay doing techs then your eco is way too slow and you're also vulnerable to early pushes from your enemy. So, right now, the library is basically only useful for (1) getting a cheaper wtf, which is a clunky and annoying way to make a less commonly researched tech cheaper, (2) getting a cheaper glorious expansion cheaper, which is, again, a clunky and annoying way to make a tech that is almost never researched cheaper, and (3) make techs affordable on ultra low resource maps.

I'm not sure how the library should be priced. Right now it usually doesn't make sense to build. There should be some tradeoff calculation where it sometimes makes sense and it sometimes doesn't Right now, that calculation is almost entirely absent. 

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

1 hour ago, chrstgtr said:

It's not very useful in p3. By the time you build it you've already researched all the eco techs and basically all the military techs. If you delay doing techs then your eco is way too slow and you're also vulnerable to early pushes from your enemy. So, right now, the library is basically only useful for (1) getting a cheaper wtf, which is a clunky and annoying way to make a less commonly researched tech cheaper, (2) getting a cheaper glorious expansion cheaper, which is, again, a clunky and annoying way to make a tech that is almost never researched cheaper, and (3) make techs affordable on ultra low resource maps.

I'm not sure how the library should be priced. Right now it usually doesn't make sense to build. There should be some tradeoff calculation where it sometimes makes sense and it sometimes doesn't Right now, that calculation is almost entirely absent. 

I agree, I just want to make sure that we don't go from it being something that's almost never built to being something that's always built and at a set time in an optimal build order. I think having situation dependent gameplay choices is essential, so if its too much of a gimme then it has less gameplay enrichment value.

[TheCJ]

library in p2 would make the p3 tech in the cc cheaper, no? thats op

 

(We moved library p2 in historical patch and had to nerf it by adding three techs inside that you have to get first to get any reduction, because instantly building a library in p2 and getting a discount on every single forge tech, all p2 and p3 eco upgrades, the p3 upgrade and w2f is pretty op)

Edited 13 hours ago by TheCJ

[chrstgtr]

@TheCJ 

@BreakfastBurrito_007

Yeah, I’m not sure the library as it currently exists—a straight resource reduction—even makes sense. It might make sense to change it a bit. 

Making it the same but behind other techs that you have to research just sounds like making changes to make changes. 

[TheCJ]

7 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

Making it the same but behind other techs that you have to research just sounds like making changes to make changes

I get that it sounds that way, but the way we did it* actually gives the player more agency while making the library not quite as powerful as a full p2 variant, but still more useful as in vanilla.

(* we put a tech for each "category" of techs in the library; "Gather scrolls on military knowledge", "Gather ... economic ..." and "Gather ... general ...", where each of them applies the reduction to the relevant area. That way, the player can choose what is more important right now/for his gameplan. But each unlock tech in the library takes 60s i think, so by the time you got all three youre already in p3, at which point the library is as useful as in vanilla)

Edited 5 hours ago by TheCJ

[Seleucids]

The Ptol library is ok as it is; it is neither op nor completely useless. 

If you know that your enemy is not going to push early, you can fly P2 with just 3 forges then leave all military techs to P3 after you have the library. In terms of absolute numbers of resources, you are saving a lot. However, you are delaying yourself with the extra build power investment and the delays, so you would be at a disadvantage if you get attacked. 

This means the Library is the most useful when you are up against another turtle player, in which case you aim for wtf tech

[Fabius]

On 23/08/2025 at 3:07 PM, ProPlayer said:

Romans

Marian Reforms

• Currently: Very strong in 1v1, potentially stronger than will to fight.

• Suggestion: Nerf.

Siege Population Cost

• Currently:

  • Catapult = 3 pop

  • Bolt shooter = 2 pop

  • Onager = 6 pop

• Onagers are cheap but not massable, while bolts outperform them in large numbers.

• Suggestion: Onager population 6 → 4.

Need more info on why Marian Reforms is strong in 1v1. The main draw is still onagars I would say, not the ranked up troops since you can already get second rank troops from the castrum in second age. And you have to put up with the economic restructuring that reforms bring too.

I would very much like current siege pop left as is. Some more interesting general siege techs would be nice though, like something to increase splash damage or add a burning effect like we have on Iberian fire cav.

Honestly it would be cool if we had a return of the A23 style roman scorpio that was packed on a donkey instead of in a cart like everybody else's. Maybe give it a little differentiation like make it weaker and cheaper than the normal bolt thrower but have it more manoeuvrable. Kind of like the abus gun the Ottomons have in Age III.

Edited 3 hours ago by Fabius

[Fabius]

On the topic of Marian Reforms, since auxiliaries become a thing why not add in an auxiliary archer or slinger? That would be a nice alternative option over just skirmishers which tend to inhibited by low range and poor accuracy. It would also fix the lack of a non metal ranged citizen unit that reforms brings about. Not to mention some much needed tactical flexibility in the ranged field.

[Emacz]

2 hours ago, Fabius said:

On the topic of Marian Reforms, since auxiliaries become a thing why not add in an auxiliary archer or slinger? That would be a nice alternative option over just skirmishers which tend to inhibited by low range and poor accuracy. It would also fix the lack of a non metal ranged citizen unit that reforms brings about. Not to mention some much needed tactical flexibility in the ranged field.

we did in historical!