ESOCommunity

Ladies and Gentlemen, fellow ESOCians,
ESOC and the ESOC Patch Team are proud to present EP version 3.0 set to release soon. This is the patch we will be using for our upcoming ESOC Spring Championships. Below we have patch notes and explanations from our beloved GoodSpeed.

- Iroquois: +100f starting crates
- Germans: Uhlans +5 HP
- Portuguese: 85f vills
- Ottomans: Mosque villager upgrades halved in cost
- Dutch: Bank cost changed from 300w/350f to 350w/300f
- Russians: Restored 270f vill batches
- French: +100f, 125f cdb

- Removed CIR change

Sioux
- 4v -> 5v
- Teepee HP changed to 800
- Teepee aura range increased by 50%
- Teepees now have a gather rate bonus of 4% per teepee with a max of 20% per villager
- Infantry can now build teepees
- Changed aggressive policy card to increase gather rate bonus to 6%

Team changes
- Thoroughbreds train time effect removed
- Mass cavalry church tech cost increased to 600c, effect increased to 40%
- Genitours from +5 range to +4 range
- "Way of the bow" card HP effect removed
- Team 5 urumi -> 4 urumi
- Remove team schooners
- "Bakufu" home-city shipment Daimyo & Shogun training-rate effect decreased from 100% to 50%.

[spoiler=Goodspeeds Thoughts]- Iroquois: +100f starting crates
Along with Sioux, Iro were the lowest rated civ in the community poll and although the team feels that they are underrated, a buff is still in order. A boost to their start was chosen because it gives them a more consistent age up and a faster build order in general, without heavily favouring a certain play style. If anything, it makes colonial play slightly more viable which in the current meta can't hurt. Of course, without the free early TP Iro will still not be close to as strong as on RE patch.

- Germans: Uhlans +5 HP
Because uhlans were underwhelming, especially in colonial, and Germans have seen much less play in recent times, we thought it okay to tweak the change in their favour a little. A notable effect of this change is that uhlans can now take 1 more hit from hussars in colonial than they could in the previous patch.

- Portuguese: 85f vills
A small tweak because Ports seemed on the strong side, and were rated as such in the last community poll. Ports, compared to the previous EP, have 30-35 less food in discovery age and will lose 5 food per 25 seconds per TC, which in their case will be about equal to -0.3 vill in colonial, -0.5 vill in fortress.

- Ottomans: Mosque villager upgrades halved in cost
Ottomans have seen very little play recently. With this change we want to take a small step towards further encouraging economic play styles with the civ, while not nerfing the aggressive styles they favour currently. It is up to the players to experiment with this, and certainly 20 range abus guns in fortress age have potential yet unexplored.

- Dutch: Bank cost changed from 300w/350f to 350w/300f
A small tweak because we felt the wood buff was slightly overdoing it. With this change, it is still easier for them to boom than on RE patch but they no longer get a free TP with their 4 banks.

- Russians: Restored 270f vill batches
Undoing a change that turned out to be unnecessary.

- French: +100f, 125f cdb
Because French seem slightly underwhelming currently, we felt it would be okay to take a small step in the direction of their former glory. This change will make the French discovery age almost as smooth as it is on RE patch, though still slightly worse.

Last but not least:
- Sioux:
- 4v -> 5v
- Teepee HP changed to 800
- Teepee aura range increased by 50%
- Teepees now have a gather rate bonus of 4% per teepee with a max of 20% per villager
- Infantry can now build teepees
- Changed aggressive policy card to increase gather rate bonus to 6%
The changes speak for themselves.[/spoiler]

Im upset about the changes to dutch to the degree that I failed to read any other changes.

Jerom wrote:Im upset about the changes to dutch to the degree that I failed to read any other changes.

It's a difference of 15VS. Maybe u shouldn't be so whiny?

Nevertheless awesome changes overall. I feel Sioux might just be top civ now!

rsy wrote:

Jerom wrote:Im upset about the changes to dutch to the degree that I failed to read any other changes.

It's a difference of 15VS. Maybe u shouldn't be so whiny?

Nevertheless awesome changes overall. I feel Sioux might just be top civ now!

It was so perfect. Beating stagecoach is going to be much harder now. Its a nerf dutch didnt deserve. The change doesnt mean shit in terms of villseconds really, what it does is give dutch that tiny bit of flexibility they need to not be a luck based civ and to deal with people getting the entire tp line and thus getting your civ bonus but cheaper.

rsy wrote:

Jerom wrote:Im upset about the changes to dutch to the degree that I failed to read any other changes.

It's a difference of 15VS. Maybe u shouldn't be so whiny?

Nevertheless awesome changes overall. I feel Sioux might just be top civ now!

I doubt Sioux will be top civ, but they'll certainly have a nice niche on large, high-resource maps like High Plains. The main thing to be worried about IMO is the dog soldier timings coming earlier and with stronger mass behind them.

Also the sleeper japan nerf is not deserved. And im not sure I agree with nerfing russia.

Where are the nerfs to other top tier civs then?

Jerom wrote:Also the sleeper japan nerf is not deserved. And im not sure I agree with nerfing russia.

Where are the nerfs to other top tier civs then?

I don't think anyone wants to change brits or azzy at all so they're off the table. All the other top civs seem to have been changed?

The japan nerf says it's for team purposes, but I see how it could be an issue in 1v1 balance too. Still, they're so strong late anyways that yumi will still be good, this might just make artillery + cav better at beating them.

yey dutch back to bottom civ again. Not like they were a top civ before but w.e. Dont like reverting the russia change either .

I agree with the change to the Dutch

Can you make notes of changes from RE to this patch?

This is edited because the first time I was whining like a little b!tch.

sdsanft wrote:- Iroquois: +100f starting crates
Ok
- Germans: Uhlans +5 HP
I would have done something with their crate start, maybe buff ww or increase ranged resistance instead, or even revert HP to 190 but nerf ranged resistance to 20%.
- Portuguese: 85f vills
I think it is better to give them 100f vills and buff cassas. With cheaper vills they will still be OP in teamgames.
- Ottomans: Mosque villager upgrades halved in cost
Ok. I think it could have been cool to have each training tech like give a villager or two, and change the cost of the techs to food.
- Dutch: Bank cost changed from 300w/350f to 350w/300f
I think it would be much, much better to reduce bank limit to 4, and maybe buff 4 hussars to 5 or something. Dutch really needs that wood to have a good early fortress mass, which is a must if france and germany are going to be buffed. Regardless of what the banks cost, having 5 of them is too good in team.
- Russians: Restored 270f vill batches
I think that 255f vills was probably one of the best changes in this patch, except for maybe the dutch change. I would have much rather seen russia remain the same, because germany and france are now buffed and they were some russia's hardest matchups I feel (maybe with goon nerf vs. french wouldn't be too bad). I think it would have been much more productive to maybe nerf boyars or increase strelet train time by a bit. Maybe even lower strelet's bonus vs. light cavalry in age 2, and have it restored with vet upgrade.
- French: +100f, 125f cdb
I think this will be fine. It would probably also be beneficial to nerf cdb rr so french doesn't have such an easy time with india/otto.

- Removed CIR change
Sounds good to me. Never actually saw it being too OP but I guess it was.

Sioux
- 4v -> 5v
- Teepee HP changed to 800
- Teepee aura range increased by 50%
- Teepees now have a gather rate bonus of 4% per teepee with a max of 20% per villager
- Infantry can now build teepees
- Changed aggressive policy card to increase gather rate bonus to 6%
Ok. I don't really even know what these changes will end up doing, but they seem interesting. I think wakina speed should also be buffed.

Team changes
- Thoroughbreds train time effect removed
That wasnt the OP part of that card, but whatever. Should've made cuirs scale off of colonial stats.
- Mass cavalry church tech cost increased to 600c, effect increased to 40%
Dont really understand why this is a change. The original nerf to this upgrade was very beneficial for team play and now you're just undoing good work.
- Genitours from +5 range to +4 range
FINALLY
- "Way of the bow" card HP effect removed
Why not have golden pavilion aura work off of base stats, or nerf yumi attack? This will have unintended consequences in 1v1, where japan is already on the weaker side.
- Team 5 urumi -> 4 urumi
Ok.
- Remove team schooners
Didn't even realize that this was a thing
- "Bakufu" home-city shipment Daimyo & Shogun training-rate effect decreased from 100% to 50%.
People send that card???

About sioux changes: "wow wow, all I can say is wow”

rsy wrote:

Jerom wrote:Im upset about the changes to dutch to the degree that I failed to read any other changes.

It's a difference of 15VS. Maybe u shouldn't be so whiny?

Nevertheless awesome changes overall. I feel Sioux might just be top civ now!

The reason the cheaper wood cost was such a good change for Dutch was because you could get so much more out of your wood crates than before. Now I'm just sad :( Should've just made bank limit 4 instead of 5.

Siouxper

Who even is the EP team nowadays?

forgrin wrote:Who even is the EP team nowadays?

No one knows. From the looks of these changes, its prolly just some monkey with a keyboard.

Why on earth would you nerf japan?
Other than that it was basically reverting the civs back to RE. Good changes, maybe the Sioux one is just to extraordinary. Steel Traps would possibly (?) do the same thing.

Does teepee still have HP aura? If so, it's too lame.

I don't feel the community poll should have been considered for anything more than the outliers- Sioux and Iriqouoi. Others French, Germany etc cant be decided based on the poll because people's opinions and perception are often biased. (while ottoman change is welcome, though probably was not needed)
Dutch and portugese were more of a problem in team. and port on atp maps.. on 1v1 mostly they were quite close in balance. Portugese changes might be fine but i have doubts about dutch changes. They seem to affect 1v1 more than team. Also the difference is 40vs (not 15), but it matters more than only 40, because dutch civ bonus is not gradual but aggregated(spikes), and the increase in cost of bank delays the trickle per bank..(I'm sorry, couldn't find good terms to explain myself)

I thought india was maybe fine in last patch mainly because its counter civs (?Germany, France) were nerfed. But now they get a buff. Its for sure India will become bottom civ in 3.0. I am not in support of changing the hp of sowar(like keeps happening with uhlan), since changing base stats can have multiplied effects, and also because its a specialized cav not heavy cav. It has (relatively) lower base attack and has multiplier against skirms/archers. But is poor at raiding vills and killing artillery, which are also roles for mele cav. Atleast a 0.5 multiplier against artillery- base/from desert terror card. would be sufficient to balance india..
Also I hope team urumi cost was reduced. Since urumi are only HC accessible I would have preferred increase in cost instead..

These are only my opinions.

what is goodspeed's opinion on the team changes?

Germans and French underplayed, let's make 'em top tier again. I can't grasp the changes, they always feel random. Russia was rather smoother, but Dutch won't be anymore. I wonder also, at which degree the changes happen, I thought the original game train of thought was in mind. Why is that significant for inf to build teepees? I might not be that of game mechanics connoisseur, why are these going to balance them?

Jerom wrote:

rsy wrote:

Jerom wrote:Im upset about the changes to dutch to the degree that I failed to read any other changes.

It's a difference of 15VS. Maybe u shouldn't be so whiny?

Nevertheless awesome changes overall. I feel Sioux might just be top civ now!

It was so perfect. Beating stagecoach is going to be much harder now. Its a nerf dutch didnt deserve. The change doesnt mean shit in terms of villseconds really, what it does is give dutch that tiny bit of flexibility they need to not be a luck based civ and to deal with people getting the entire tp line and thus getting your civ bonus but cheaper.

Dutch was too strong...

BrookG wrote:Germans and French underplayed, let's make 'em top tier again. I can't grasp the changes, they always feel random. Russia was rather smoother, but Dutch won't be anymore. I wonder also, at which degree the changes happen, I thought the original game train of thought was in mind. Why is that significant for inf to build teepees? I might not be that of game mechanics connoisseur, why are these going to balance them?

My guess- to allow forward TePe. will boost the immobile part of Sioux army.

Sioux changes are interesting. would like to see how they pan out. They have tried to balance it while maintaining its uniqueness, which is good.

I love this patch, but I am scared of sioux honestly. I hope they're not broken now

I rather dislike consideration of teamgames for ESOC patch balance (beyond things like removing the team effect of cards that have no impact on 1v1). Obviously civs that are designed to outscale later on (if you can magically survive that far intact) are going to be OP when games go on longer and you have teammates to keep you alive to get to that point, so trying to maintain 1v1 and team balance without completely redesigning the game is obviously hopeless and I would just abandon it.

Nonetheless I guess lots of people play team and maybe the changes are sufficiently nice for them to be worth it. I'm just sad because I thought bakufu was a cool card for a deck where you could squeeze it in which gave a nice boost if used well (building units on your walking upgrade card whilst keeping it range of units and keeping it alive is not trivial- see WCG 2008 finals game 3 where Grunt loses his daimyo while trying to do this) and to nerf it so hard for the sake of teamgames is sad.

The Yumi change maybe makes sense because Yumi are insane units but would have liked to see some kind of buff to compensate, (like make Japan otherwise be 1.01a ).

And the rest is just somewhat random partial undoing of previous changes based on how often a civ is seen.

Honestly maybe just RE patch on ESOC maps with some bugs fixed would be better.