Hello everyone!
I’ve made a video about everything regarding gold generation in AoE 2 HD with a focus on trading.
While this video should be pretty comprehensive and give answers to the most questions I could think of, there are still a few open points:
…and…
And just as one last random thing I want to add:
The attack bonus of halberdiers vs. elephants is ridiculous. Aside from the fact that there is no historical (or logical) evidence whatsoever that halberds are more effective against elephants than against horses, just the presence of this attack bonus prevents people from using elephants (especially war elephants) in online games in almost all situations. I’ve probably played much more than 200 online games in AoE 2 HD and I can’t think of a single game in which an opponent successfully used war elephants against me (or I against him). Not in Arabia, not in Nomad, not in Ghost Lake, not in Gold Rush, not in Rivers, not in Arena and even not in Dark Forest. Not in Team Games and definitely not in 1v1. But plenty of times my enemies were successful with Persian paladins, halberdiers, hussars, canoneers, … Elephants should be treated as usual cavalry and “just” take the normal 32 attack bonus of halberdiers against cavalry. Same goes for the “extra-extra” attack bonusses of Kamayuks, Scorpions and particularly Genoese Crossbowmen against elephants. You think they might be OP now? I don’t think so (due to the huge investments necessary to research everything and produce them and because of their slow speed), but fine, just reduce their HP but please forgo such insanely high attack bonusses like the ones vs. elephants…
Thanks to everyone who has read everything :-0
Feedback to my video, discussions about the mentioned suggestions and answers to the open points are highly appreciated^^
I’ve made a video about everything regarding gold generation in AoE 2 HD with a focus on trading.
Gold Generation in Age of Empires 2 HD
This video is all about generating gold in AoE 2. Have a look at my previous video about time units in AoE 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XB5m8NZKzg
www.youtube.com
While this video should be pretty comprehensive and give answers to the most questions I could think of, there are still a few open points:
- The Gold-per-Cart-Trip-Formula (GPTCa) is known: GPTCa = 0.46 * d * (d / MapSize + 0.3)
The Gold-per-Cog-Trip-Formula (GPTCo) is not known, at least not for me. Does anyone have any information about it?
Since trade cogs produce approximately 30% more gold in ideal settings but also move 32% faster, I expect the GPTCo formular to be pretty similar to the GPTCa formula. - The formula to calculate the length of a land trade route (or the distance between the two markets involved in the land trade route) is known too:
d=max(0.1,Sqrt(max(0,|dX|-5)²+max(0,|dY|-5)²))
The formula to calculate the same for water trade routes is not known again. Does anyone have further insight here?
I expect it to look like that:
d=max(0.1,Sqrt(max(0,|dX|-4)²+max(0,|dY|-4)²)), since docks are smaller (by one tile) than markets and because I assume that the “5” within the land trade route d-formula consists of 2 tiles for the one market, 2 tiles for the second market and one tile for the trade cart (for the detailed explanation, have a look at my video).
- The Berbers speed bonus for ships and the dry dock technology…
…increase the speed of ships but
…reduce the gold generated by trade cogs per trip by an amount that is supposed to negate the speed buff
However, this doesn’t really work. As I clearly show in my video, trade cogs of the Berbers (in large numbers) produce gold at a significantly slower rate than the ones of generic civilizations, which most likely happens due to collision / path finding issues.
The same should be true for the dry dock technology.
You might want to address this issue. - The portuguese feitoria is…
…very weak for stone generation (keeping the stone and selling all other resources produced by it for gold to buy stone)
…even weaker for gold generation (keeping the gold and selling all other resources produced by it for gold) and
…insanely weak for general resource generation
For further explanations I refer to my post AoE2 HD - Balance Patch 5.8 - Opinion
The Feitoria: As Spirit of the Law (I’m sure you know him) has shown in his videos, the Feitoria is a highly questionable building as it produces ressources with the speed of 4-5 villagers but takes 20 population space. Even before the nerfs I almost couldn’t imagine any situation where I would use it (cutting trees or farming with 20 vils and selling wood/food for gold/stone is almost always better), except if the whole map is out of ressources and the last tree has been cut down. And even then the ressource production rate is insanely slow. And you nerfed it even more… Count the number of games that have been decided by this unique building and for example the number of games that have been decided by unique units like Huskarls. You can’t even compare that. If you manage to boom and flood your opponent with huskarls to death, you deserve victory. And if you should really manage to survive with a late game civ like the Portuguese up to a point, where there is no tree left on the map, you maybe simply deserve to win the game too… The idea behind the building is great, but its severely underpowered. Nerfing the already weak building was a coward move, maybe caused by one of the FE developers losing after 10 hours on a map empty of ressources against a Portuguese player.
=> A unique building or unit is only making a civ more unique, if someone is actually using it (same applies/applied for Tarkans and Longboats)
…and…
As for the Feitoria being “completely overpowered” in certain situations, I cannot see a difference to other unique units like Huskarls: Huskarls are “completely overpowered” in certain situations against civs without good counter options like the Mayas. Likewise Teutonic Knights are “completely overpowered” in trash wars as no trash unit deals more than 1 dmg per hit to them and so on.
That being said, I again want to add that collecting wood with 20 villagers (or wood with 3 vils and food with 17 vils if you’re really in a situation where wood is scarce) and selling wood/food for gold to buy stone is still better than letting the Feitorias produce stone (even if you sell the other ressources of the Feitoria for stone too) until the market price of stone goes above 400 gold (this is proven in a Spirit of the Law video). And this is already calculated with wood and food being worth 17 gold, so not with starting market exchange rates.
This means that Feitorias are underpowered, even for flooding bombard towers - until the market price of stone goes beyond 400 gold. And as SotL has proven, they are even worse for gold production - except the selling price for wood/food/stone is around 500 (which is very unrealistic). So chopping wood or harvesting fields and selling the ressources for gold is almost always better; and trading (if possible) even much more.
In my opinion the Portuguese should (if Feitorias aren’t being changed or additionally grant another effect) at least have “the right” to get an unmatched access to stone if they - as a civ shining mainly in the late game - manage it to survive until late imp and until all stone of the map has been mined. Currently imho Feitorias are simply unusable.
And just as one last random thing I want to add:
The attack bonus of halberdiers vs. elephants is ridiculous. Aside from the fact that there is no historical (or logical) evidence whatsoever that halberds are more effective against elephants than against horses, just the presence of this attack bonus prevents people from using elephants (especially war elephants) in online games in almost all situations. I’ve probably played much more than 200 online games in AoE 2 HD and I can’t think of a single game in which an opponent successfully used war elephants against me (or I against him). Not in Arabia, not in Nomad, not in Ghost Lake, not in Gold Rush, not in Rivers, not in Arena and even not in Dark Forest. Not in Team Games and definitely not in 1v1. But plenty of times my enemies were successful with Persian paladins, halberdiers, hussars, canoneers, … Elephants should be treated as usual cavalry and “just” take the normal 32 attack bonus of halberdiers against cavalry. Same goes for the “extra-extra” attack bonusses of Kamayuks, Scorpions and particularly Genoese Crossbowmen against elephants. You think they might be OP now? I don’t think so (due to the huge investments necessary to research everything and produce them and because of their slow speed), but fine, just reduce their HP but please forgo such insanely high attack bonusses like the ones vs. elephants…
Thanks to everyone who has read everything :-0
Feedback to my video, discussions about the mentioned suggestions and answers to the open points are highly appreciated^^