britishmusketeer wrote:Darwin_ wrote:I also just think that in general, all the little changes that have been made have drastically changed the way the game is being played, and that future changes really need to be super minimal.
Which civs would you apply that to? French play exactly the same, ger plays slightly differently but quite similar, iro and sioux are played differently as intended.
Uhlan change has had a huge nerf to Germany's age 3, and now many players (myslef included), are mixing in more war wagons, or early blackriders. Also, I have noticed some players favouring stableless age 2 ff's, something that was rarely seen before the change.
French players are far less likely to play age 2, even though the current meta is more age 2 focused than that of ep 1.2. This is partly due the -100 food, but also to the buffs to russia, ports and dutch. Going age 2 used to be a good position in many more matchups than it is now.
Before Ep 2.0, you would never see Dutch going 5 banks and 10 hussars, or even mixing in pikes in the case of the mirror. How much of this is due to the meta, I cant say, but without a doubt the changes in play have been heavily affected by cheaper banks.
Also with Brits, as I mentioned earlier, now can go for the semi-ff, even with VC and a tp, in many matchups in which that used to be suicide. Aging up at 10 minutes is no longer instant death because no civ can kill them at that point. It takes 2-3 more minutes for french/germany/ports to really get up a mass anywhere decent enough to actually trade with brits, and by that point, brits have 50+ villagers, as well as cards like Yeoman, and sometimes even a second town center. Now, most people would just say that you need to play faster and try to beat them earlier, but few civs can do it in age 2, and far fewer can kill them in age 3.
Civs like russia and ports I think have really benefitted from the patch changes, and play very similarly to their EP 1.2 counterparts, being just a bit better in every way. While I think that a lot of people disagree with the changes done unto them, you cant deny that they are probably two of the better balanced civs on EP right now (even though they are very strong they have nothing that is undeniably OP)