i noticed from early on that the patch was mostly based on arabia experience and almost nothing else. that still seems to be the case
the funny thing is you still ended up leaving huns extremely strong and overpowered, so it isn't even a great patch for arabia.
hun is strong at feudal warfare. -20 food wont change that. more difficulty walling/defending will just make feudal warfare more viable, and therefore make huns more viable.
hun actually has castle age units worth making that aren't xbows. you just made every other civ spend extra res for their xbows, because those are still the best units to have, while huns stay strong at what they were already good at
as someone who actually knows the game beyond a few civs/maps, these are the biggest problems in competitive AoC:
you don't actually fix those
the funny thing is you actually recognize some of the problems, but leave them in a problematic state:
korea/turk/teuton/etc. are still terrible on water maps (biggest problem in AoC. barely addressed by 72 changes)
do you even know that farming/foraging is not important in water maps? I suggest you play something other than arabia to learn these things
even if you help a civ on water (eg. frank/goth), they're still unplayable as they get completely wrecked by any fast civ
from a competitive stand point, it seems spain just got worse. without conqs being ridiculously OP, spain is terrible (nerfing conqs = good. not giving spain eco bonuses = bad)
saracen had a small chance on water, depending on the map. now they're just worse at it.
the patch is what it is. it's nowhere close to anything balanced. but it's better than Forgotten Empires
1.0f beta unupdated since 2.5 years ago is still leagues ahead of this in terms of making civs viable/fairer
my suggestion would be to actually learn how to play water and play aggressively.
shut down fishing.
shut down eco with fast attacks.
see how important speed really is. then you will understand what balance and competitve play is about
the funny thing is you still ended up leaving huns extremely strong and overpowered, so it isn't even a great patch for arabia.
hun is strong at feudal warfare. -20 food wont change that. more difficulty walling/defending will just make feudal warfare more viable, and therefore make huns more viable.
hun actually has castle age units worth making that aren't xbows. you just made every other civ spend extra res for their xbows, because those are still the best units to have, while huns stay strong at what they were already good at
as someone who actually knows the game beyond a few civs/maps, these are the biggest problems in competitive AoC:
- maps with water are extremely lopsided if one civ gets very early eco bonuses and the other doesn't
- when you nerf walling / defensive play / building HP, the civs need to be extremely balanced in terms of speed or else you just make the balance worse
- boar-stealing provides too much reward for too little risk.
you don't actually fix those
the funny thing is you actually recognize some of the problems, but leave them in a problematic state:
- you identify that the viking team bonus is a problem, yet leave it in there so that it continues to be a problem
- you identify that boar-stealing is too powerful, yet change it in a way that doesn't do anything for competitive games between strong players (who know how to steal without getting hit 5 times)
korea/turk/teuton/etc. are still terrible on water maps (biggest problem in AoC. barely addressed by 72 changes)
do you even know that farming/foraging is not important in water maps? I suggest you play something other than arabia to learn these things
even if you help a civ on water (eg. frank/goth), they're still unplayable as they get completely wrecked by any fast civ
from a competitive stand point, it seems spain just got worse. without conqs being ridiculously OP, spain is terrible (nerfing conqs = good. not giving spain eco bonuses = bad)
saracen had a small chance on water, depending on the map. now they're just worse at it.
the patch is what it is. it's nowhere close to anything balanced. but it's better than Forgotten Empires
1.0f beta unupdated since 2.5 years ago is still leagues ahead of this in terms of making civs viable/fairer
my suggestion would be to actually learn how to play water and play aggressively.
shut down fishing.
shut down eco with fast attacks.
see how important speed really is. then you will understand what balance and competitve play is about