overall civ consensus

[KingKaramazov]

Did I say the Germans had an easy time? No. Helping out the Germans in some way is not out of the question...if crossbows were improved as you suggested though, it would be somewhat easier for Germans to defend a rush.

Anyways, civs shouldn't be balanced based on a weaker civ.

[Cyclohexane]

Iro Crackshot can be nerfed by giving it a range of 10 (or less) and keeping the damage output the same. This makes perfect since (shot gun effect) and makes the player make decisions like the Aztecs must make. Run my most valuable unit into the middle of the battle to be focus fired on, or keep him alive for his aura. If that proves not to be enough, increase the recharge time 20 to 30 seconds more.

[luukje]

China is way op. They should fix the team cards. They should make the porcelain tower a bit lower. Disciplines need a nerf some way. And hand mortars are way to versatile, the range should be 28/30 max. All this would make china a bit weak, so I would suggest some extra anti cav boost and take a look at the flying crow wonder.

Japan as a whole civ is pretty balanced, the only thing is that they can easely accumulate upgrades (the cards, the wonders the daymo and shogun), this goes for ashigaru, but they could do the same with yumi, with naginata and even samurai. All the upgrades just stack, encouraging you to to spam just one unit. I think the reason for this is the no hunting / 75 villager limit, making japan needing stronger units.

But I agree ATM it is annoying loosing to a japanese player spamming just one unit, while you are producing the counter for that unit yourself.So it wil be pretty complicated fixing this, because it affects the complete balance of the japanese.

One thing that could be changed is the consulate bonus, 10% attack. This could be made to some trickle, export for example. Making the age 2 card 20 % HP could make ashigaru a little less lame. Try this before making the ashigaru "just another musket".

Portugese, I refer to some other thread, they go with brittish as being designed as "natural booming civs" and therefore are very delicate to balance.
Both of them are a bit weak in colonial because you invest your resources in economy (wood for manor, food for settlers from 2/3 TC) and not military, but once there boom takes of they have the possibility to be hugely OP....for top players. I dont believe the average PR20 player has the ability to use this booming capacity fully. So ES can never fully balance both civs, they have to make them a bit weak for PR -40 or OP for PR 40 +.

Giving brits just a better fortress politician is a good step, a small boost, that has little effect on late game, but might make just a little stronger in the first 10 minutes of a game.

For Ports I have always felt they should have 1 extra starting crate or maybe even a settler. And make besteiros cheaper, 2400 wood is way to much. Thats the number of villager seconds to go industrial.

Dutch early boom needs to be slowed down a bit, but let's not forget how UP they have been for ages. ES should start with lowering the mining rate or lowering the xp you get from building a bank. One of both. And then see where they stand. I always have felt that dutch need to be less card dependant to get full economy. So I would give them an age 4 tech increasing bank production or making of the two bank cards age 4 and giving 2 or 3 extra banks.

[I__CHAOS__I]

Seriously Nav, I will not believe a single balance post from you anymore.
Your hatred towards the iro (and prob some other civs as well) is blowing the content out of proportion.
Making their skirms equal to other skirms is stupid, why not give em 700 gold crates instead of 600, and while ur at it, change kanya horsies so they are exact clones of hussars...

I believe that MNBob's summary is accurate. There are details to be discussed for each civ obviously but the the general ideas are good.

[Navarone_Guy]

Thanks, Chaos.

The reason I suggested that change for forest prowlers is because they are far more powerful than skirmishers as is, yet they cost the same. I'm not suggesting that they be clones of skirmishers, but since they cost the same they should have relatively the same strength.

My balance suggestions were not made out of hatred of the Iroquois, but truly wanting to balance the civ. I wanted to nerf the forest prowlers merely because they are far better than skirmishers for the same cost. If you want, boost aenna, kanya, and tomahawks, (I think cards and the aura even out their bad base stats) but if you want civs to vary in units and strengths, then having one unit blatantly OP and the rest too weak is NO way to do it. It just results in laming and spamming of the one OP unit.

[StrokeyBlofeld]

What about just increasing the cost of FP's to reflect their strength in comparrison to skirmishers? That way they become less spammable.......

[I__CHAOS__I]

[quote=""Navarone_Guy""]
Dutch:
No changes needed.

Sioux:
Reduce effect of siege dance and warchief dance slightly.
Increase dog soldier dance rate of production slightly.

Iroquois:
Cut production speed of travois dance by 60%.
Reduce forest prowler attack to 15.
Reduce warchief crackshot attack range to 8 or 10.
Boost aenna multiplier against heavy infantry to 2.
Reduce light cannon range by 4.

[/quote]

You change nothing about 2 of the top 3 civs (dutch/sioux) and still nerf iro 4x and claim you do not hate iro???
As long as nobody is winning a lot with iro (call it laming) then I see no reason why all those changes are needed.
If they nerf the fp again, they need an extra 100 food (just like sioux/aztec) cuz they have crappy age up time. Tommies are weaker than musks, and no need to add the WC aura, cuz that's a civ bonus and should be left out when comparing units. Aennas are... hmmm...
I'm not against balancing some stronger units like the fp, but only when enough counter-weight is given in return, and that is def not just 2x vs HI for aennas... :roll:

my 2 cent

[KingKaramazov]

Yea, Chaos makes a good point. The WC aura as well as upgrade cards are a civ bonus. You can't assume that those will always be in play when balancing units. Especially the cards - I mean, especially early on in a 1v1, those upgrade cards will not be in play.

When it comes down to it, in colonial, in most situations, tomahawks and aenna are inferior to muskets and crossbows. Kanyas aren't so bad for what they are meant to do, but they are tough to make a lot of since they cost wood, which is the slowest gathering resource. If forest prowlers are significantly nerfed, then Iros will not have as strong an FF. If their FF is weakened, they will need a stronger colonial to make up for it, so you have to boost their colonial units in some way.

I think all the proof you need of the weakness of Aennas is the fact that nobody ever uses them, and hardly anybody ever sends the 6 or 7 aenna shipments. 2x multiplier is a good start, but they also need to do more damage or cost less. As for Tomahawks, they're fine for a BB rush but otherwise it's tough to justify making a lot of them in the colonial age. Their damage and hp are subpar without upgrades or the WC aura, and it's not as easy to hit and run with them as it is with regular muskets. Plus, instead of costing gold they cost wood, which, again, is a slow gathering resource.

Overall staying in Colonial right now as Iro is just a really bad idea unless you're booming on a water map or something.


And Chaos is right, if you're going to balance the Iros significantly you have GOT to do something significant to the Sioux and the Dutch...if you try to argue that Iro are lamer than Sioux or Dutch you sound rather foolish, imo, since it's clear that those are the civs, along with China, that top players use when they want to be totally competitive (or in other words, when they have to lame).

[Cyclohexane]

Aenna will never be useful unless the setup animation is removed like Yumi archers. Yumi archers are in my opinion the best Age 2 archer in the game, orders of magnitude better than longbows (until Yeoman can be played in Age 3) and crossbows. The reason = hit and run. Aenna cannot hit and run so they will never be a good Age 2 unit to counter a rush.

If Iro had to depend on aenna early and late game, they would be a low tier civilization no question. Aaena currently do not have a role in the game, I’d rather defend with tommas unless I am skirmisher rushed. Powerful light infantry is a requirement for the iros since they have no Age 3 artillery. Prowlers fill this gap and can kill both light and heavy infantry. I understand this is different in team / strategy games, but the game should be balanced with 1v1 in mind, then team games. Few people want to play a civilization so 1 dimensional. Aaena would be a good unit (especially with all the card / BB tech upgrades) if the setup animation was removed and ROF increased from 1.5 to 3.0. In Colonial, I’d pick crossbows over longbows versus a HI rush on any map because I can micro them.

Most people that complain about light cannon never attack massed light cannon with massed light infantry in stagger. Sounds counter intuitive but light cannon only have an area 2 attack and do 140 damage at ROF 6.0 (falconets will do 300 with ROF 4.0 with 6 less range). They also have 20 less HP (including WC aura bonus, 50 without) than a falconet.

Just stick your light infantry in stagger mode, have a handful of HI for the pathetically weak kanyas, and focus fire on the light cannon. It will be more expensive and time consuming to replace the cannon than to replace your light / heavy infantry. Massed light cannon are hard to micro on large groups of light infantry in stagger mode (if group a shot of many cannons, will only kill 2 or 3, then take 6 seconds to reload).

Light cannons are not OP. They are versatile and useful, but not OP and nothing further is needed after the range reduction in last patch. Now if you want to nerf the 4 light cannon card in industrial, that is ok. That is the main reason you see them spammed, 4 and make 5 locally once in industrial. Combined with the WC, prowlers, and the BB tommas, you have a nice industrial force immediately. Perhaps remove the card and make it into something different all together (2 or 3 would not be worth the shipment when you compare that to other Age 4 artillery). I could live with a +1 pop to this unit but anything else would be revenge nerfing.

[KingKaramazov]

As usual Cyclo says it better than any of us could.

He makes a very good point about Aenna that I thought of but didn't mention -- the fact that they take so long to setup their attack makes them hardly useful. At least ES could make them more in-line with Cetan Bows, which are okay even though you hardly ever see them anymore because all Sioux players go for Wakina FF or mass AR and switch to RR with morning star or basic club rush.


Anyways, I'd actually be okay with nerfing FPs like Nav suggests if other Iro units were changed significantly so Iro would not be so one-dimensional. Unfortunately that would require a serious revamping of Iro as a civ, basically, and I don't think that possibility will ever cross ES's collective mind at this point.

As long as Iro remains a strong but not popularly lamed civ, I think things are fine as they are.

[blayzer13]

strokey i like ur suggestion, works and is very simple