A26- Questions about cavlary and ptolemies

[Emperior]

Hi everyone,

 

1. I am wondering how a player who wish to play strategy as inf can deal with cavlary which is much faster than inf. Cav archer and jav are amazingly fast to be catch by inf. are there any fix'es so inf can deal with cav too? I know they can also train cav but if 1 person already have 20-30 cavs, so you either lose the men while trying and ranking up the enemys cav or you delete own troops just to make cavs?

2. Will merc cavs be nerfed?  Made more expensive due rank2?

3. Currently, ptolemies as a civ are amazingly op due bonus, eco speed, heroes bonuses and finally pikes. Are there any plans to nerf these? Why ptolo houses cost wood but those are looking like stone houses but there is only 45 wood requirment  for the houses?

 

 

 

 

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

A few things that are in consideration:

1.  Acceleration already exists. Ideally, when it is tested we will decide to give cavalry a slower acceleration than inf, so that cavalry can get trapped, and more spearmen hits can be scored against them.  When I tested acceleration in december 2021, I noticed that cavalry were slower when making 180 direction changes, and they faced less acceleration issues when making smaller turns.
2. merc cav cost increase
3. pike nerf, also people have argued about ptol hero nerfs, but I am not sure if there has been any agreement.

[Gurken Khan]

59 minutes ago, Emperior said:

Why ptolo houses cost wood but those are looking like stone houses but there is only 45 wood requirment  for the houses?

That's one of their civ bonuses: Sun-dried Mud Bricks 'Houses and Economic Structures -40% wood cost and health.'

[Emperior]

Just now, Gurken Khan said:

That's one of their civ bonuses: Sun-dried Mud Bricks 'Houses and Economic Structures -40% wood cost and health.'

Sun-dried Mud Bricks - ptolo houses doesnt cost stone which should.

-40% wood cost and health. most of buildings of ptolo should use stone not wood with such price. at the moment ptolo eco is just op even if u downgrade health, meaning building is faster too.

 

[Gurken Khan]

4 minutes ago, Emperior said:

Sun-dried Mud Bricks - ptolo houses doesnt cost stone which should.

?

5 minutes ago, Emperior said:

meaning building is faster too.

Build time is the same as iber 5p house.

[KKaslana]

1 hour ago, Emperior said:

-40% wood cost and health. most of buildings of ptolo should use stone not wood with such price. at the moment ptolo eco is just op even if u downgrade health, meaning building is faster too.

Agreed, in my opinion the stats should be adjusted to -20%, similar to the bonus of Britons and Gauls in A23.

[AIEND]

古尔肯汗 于 2022 年 9 月 3 日凌晨 3:04 说道：

?

He might want to say that the wood cost of Ptolemaic's buildings should be replaced with stone, since there is no such resource as clay.

[Gurken Khan]

@AIENDThank you, and yes, I figured as much. I thought they may elaborate why stone and how much. As it stands, I don't find the argument very compelling.

[Player of 0AD]

On 08/03/2022 at 6:52 PM, Emperior said:

 Currently, ptolemies as a civ are amazingly op due bonus, eco speed, heroes bonuses and finally pikes. Are there any plans to nerf these?

I already see -2 pierce armor for all pikemen. A step into the right direction

[real_tabasco_sauce]

I think we should keep the ptol house bonus, but I agree this civ is pretty op. In particular, having 3 really strong heroes is kinda nuts meanwhile athens has one okay hero and two wastes of resources.

[faction02]

Part of the issue with Ptolemies is that they have 2 eco bonus when some of the other civilization have none. There was probably a need to rethink all bonuses after deciding to apply team bonus to the civilization itself too.

I think removing at least the farmstead from the bonus could be useful. When Ptolemies get extra berries/hunt, the low wood cost of their farmstead tend to accentuate too much the potential imbalance of the map. 

For the rest, it should fit the rethinking of all team/civ bonuses I think. I don't like the idea of just nerfing it too much because Ptolemies economy is too strong. Better replace it by something very different than mute the bonus up to the point where it become irrelevant.

[Player of 0AD]

5 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I think we should keep the ptol house bonus, but I agree this civ is pretty op. In particular, having 3 really strong heroes is kinda nuts meanwhile athens has one okay hero and two wastes of resources.

Actually that athen hero is the best in the game, and the 2 Ptolemies are not even that good. But yeah the 2 other Athen heroes need a buff.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

6 minutes ago, Player of 0AD said:

Actually that athen hero is the best in the game, and the 2 Ptolemies are not even that good. But yeah the 2 other Athen heroes need a buff.

True but none of those are as noob friendly as Indibil. XD

[chrstgtr]

5 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I think we should keep the ptol house bonus, but I agree this civ is pretty op. In particular, having 3 really strong heroes is kinda nuts meanwhile athens has one okay hero and two wastes of resources.

Better: make other civs have useful heroes. The problem with ptol is that they are basically the only civ that could be considered “done.” 
 

2 hours ago, faction02 said:

I think removing at least the farmstead from the bonus could be useful. When Ptolemies get extra berries/hunt, the low wood cost of their farmstead tend to accentuate too much the potential imbalance of the map.

I’d much rather just change the house/storehouse bonus from being a discount to being something that is more similar to a23, which was free but slower to build.
 

Right now, ptol is just easier to play. There is zero additional thought or trade off that goes into their play because it is just cheaper. Before there was a real trade off with how many workers it took to build all those houses and players would frequently get pop capped if they weren’t careful. I would propose changing ptol houses/storehouses/farmhouses to be the way they were in a24 except take 2 seconds longer to build 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

17 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

Better: make other civs have useful heroes. The problem with ptol is that they are basically the only civ that could be considered “done.” 

+++++

yes I agree. we need to develop a concrete list of the heroes that should be given a new effect (either because they don't have one or because their bonus is worthless).

[Player of 0AD]

1 hour ago, chrstgtr said:

Better: make other civs have useful heroes. The problem with ptol is that they are basically the only civ that could be considered “done.” 
 

Gauls, Iberians and Romans are not too bad neither. Still some buffs here and there would not hurt.

[chrstgtr]

1 hour ago, Player of 0AD said:

Gauls, Iberians and Romans are not too bad neither. Still some buffs here and there would not hurt.

Tell me what their third hero is without looking? I can’t. That’s a problem. Even still, that is just like 1/3 of the civs 

[Dizaka]

Romans (without looking) have:

• close dmg hero (similar to gaul, just really close range)
• champion cav dmg hero w/ debonus on enemy infantry
• global +1 armor hero

Gauls have:

• loot hero
• dmg hero
• unit speed hero?  (edit:  gathering speed, thought it was walk speed)

Iberians have:

• cheap units hero + speed production
• garrison arrow hero (edit:  forgot about armor bonuses for this guy, rarely used though now with tower/cc nerfs)
• loot hero similar to gauls?  (edit:  movement + loot by percentage vs static for gauls)

I wonder on my Gaul/Iber guesses.

Edited March 12, 2022 by Dizaka

[faction02]

9 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

Right now, ptol is just easier to play. There is zero additional thought or trade off that goes into their play because it is just cheaper. Before there was a real trade off with how many workers it took to build all those houses and players would frequently get pop capped if they weren’t careful. I would propose changing ptol houses/storehouses/farmhouses to be the way they were in a24 except take 2 seconds longer to build 

From a balancing perspective, it would be probably easier to ask the question what has improved since a23 rather than what was better before and should be reversed.  The previous Ptolemies system was indeed much more fun. 

The food trickle is about equivalent to having an additional woman on berries forever with a farmstead next to it I think. It took about 4-5 women if you splitted them for efficiency of house production. If the aim of this change is to remove part of the economic advantage, a 20-25% build time increase with respect to a23 may make sense but I am not sure how it would fit with all the other changes that have been made since then.

a23 - Ptolemies

Spoiler

a25 - Ptolemies

Spoiler

a25 - Iberians

Spoiler

[LetswaveaBook]

9 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

The problem with ptol is that they are basically the only civ that could be considered “done.” 

I think seleucids and kushites also are close to being "done". For kushites, I would say the go to 95% to 99% if they were able to build an affordable pyramid in p1.

With a few tweaks to persians (2 types of CS cav in p1,better armor for axe cav, cheaper and weaker skirmishers, useful Persian architecture tech and make p2 useful in general), I also think they could move to 95%. When gauls get a more interesting p2, I also would say they reach 95%. Mauryas are also diverse, but they feel to me more like a random bunch of unrelated assets.

Britons also have some unique things, but I think they lack something. Maybe they could get the kennel back, but after starting a topic about that I think it might be a flawed proposal. Carthage might also have good design for a mercenary faction, but I think they should be a mercenary and trade faction. Currently I get the impression people only want Carthage to be a mercenary faction and forget about trade (and the colonization technology). Iberians are also pretty good as a faction with big towers and a starting wall, but I don't know what else Iberians are meant to be apart from a faction with walls.

I think Athenians, Macedonians, Romans and Spartans lack identity. They get bonusses and other assets, but I consider those gimmicks instead of bonuses.

 

16 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

meanwhile athens has one okay hero and two wastes of resources.

With all the good hero auras I think we are a bit like spoiled kids. Even without any auras the hero is worth it. They are a lot stronger than regular champions. Philip of Macedon and Ashoka the great easily take out 12 skirmishers on their own.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

8 hours ago, LetswaveaBook said:

With all the good hero auras I think we are a bit like spoiled kids. Even without any auras the hero is worth it. They are a lot stronger than regular champions. Philip of Macedon and Ashoka the great easily take out 12 skirmishers on their own.

its true, not an entire waste of resources, but the heros should be fairly comparable across civs.

[Stan`]

45 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

but the heros should be fairly comparable across civs.

I disagree here, for the sake of differentiation. Maybe as @wraitii proposed, they could in tiers, but I'd rather not have 14 identical civs with different art.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

2 hours ago, Stan` said:

I disagree here, for the sake of differentiation. Maybe as @wraitii proposed, they could in tiers, but I'd rather not have 14 identical civs with different art.

My apologies, I was not clear. I should have said that their relative strengths should at least be comparable.  I certainly don't think the heroes should be identical, in fact quite the opposite. Creative hero auras make the late game more interesting.

Edited March 12, 2022 by real_tabasco_sauce

[faction02]

1 hour ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I should have said that their relative strengths should at least be comparable.  I certainly don't think the heroes should be identical, in fact quite the opposite. Creative hero auras make the late game more interesting.

I wouldn't mind if some heroes were very weak, some others very strong. I don't think there is a need to balance "heroes" between civilization. I would care more about the balance of heroes within each civilization than between different civilization.

As long as the civilizations are more or less balanced, weaker heroes might be balanced by stronger technologies for example. There is really an issue only if a hero is never used and the game is probably better if when you get a civilization, you do not always choose the same hero because it is definitively better than the 2 others but you adjust your choice depending on a particular strategy.

Rebalancing Ptolemies with respect to other civilization might be done through heroes, but it can also be done with some other elements even if heroes are one of the reason why Ptolemies are op. 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

3 minutes ago, faction02 said:

As long as the civilizations are more or less balanced, weaker heroes might be balanced by stronger technologies for example.

yes, heroes are part of the balancing strategy, and my point is that there are places where this falls apart (ptol being OP and having arguably 3 of the best 10 heroes in the game).

I agree it may be appropriate to have some civs with less powerful heroes, but the heroes with no aura should still do something. Ex: Sparta already have 2 great heroes, so no need to make Agis similarly strong. (although the spartan heroes are very important for the civ, along with skiri and the spear bonus)