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If you nerf sepoy's hp to 185, does it still need 3 TC shots?

I don't really like sepoy nerf tbh, I feel like its a very important unit for india and gives them a more unique playstyle and unit composition. Maybe increasing their cost can be the case instead.

Atomiswave wrote:If you nerf sepoy's hp to 185, does it still need 3 TC shots?

It does, unless you have cm. TC full = 90 HP shots

Asateo wrote:

Atomiswave wrote:If you nerf sepoy's hp to 185, does it still need 3 TC shots?

It does, unless you have cm. TC full = 90 HP shots

Then it should be 185hp sepoy along with 60w houses.

If people are gonna throw out whole patch notes I figured why not as well.

@WickedCossack

Right, sorry, I suppose I never did explain why HP and not something else. I was distracted trying to defend a single, admittedly questionable, line I wrote in a hurry. I mean, your posts did mostly seem to focus on that, to be fair. Or maybe I'm getting too defensive about that particular issue and lost track of what actually needs explained. Could be me. I'll admit it's hard not to take things personally sometimes.

If we nerf sepoy in a way where they can still comfortably commit under a TC, it limits the ways in which we can buff India. We can't have sepoys be the rush powerhouse that they now are and still buff India in the general way we want to buff them. If for example we went with a nerf on sepoy attack, the house change becomes too much a buff for early game sepoy rushes (unless we nerf attack into the ground which ruins the unit in later stages of the game). We then have to look at buffs that only take effect after such a rush, or only take effect when you make a specific unit. For example we'd be looking at a gurkha buff, a sowar buff, a buff to some colonial shipment that isn't sepoy, or something along those lines. But then we're promoting the use of a specific unit/shipment, which we don't want either. We want to leave it up to the player. We want to buff everything India does. But then we run into problems with sepoy rushes.

A change that used to be in the notes was to also change sepoy cost to 90-25 in order to not hurt their cost-effectiveness (we did do this for jans), but someone argued this was too small and would just be patch notes clutter (and unnecessary besides, because sepoy will still be cost effective without it) and I thought they had a point so we took that out. -10hp is not that big of a change for the unit in later stages of the game, really. The only significant impact is the TC now 2-hits them, which is exactly what we needed because we wanted to give India a general buff to their start.

Yea Sepoy are prevalent. What's the argument that it is an issue? I would suggest 90% of Japan games include Ashi built at some point. The same could be said of almost any civ and a particular unit, e.g aztecs and mace, port and dragoons, germany and uhlans and so on. Prevalence itself is not an argument.

Ashi are not the only unit Japan makes in any match up as far as I know. Azzy never makes only maces, Port rarely makes only dragoons (we nerfed that unit already by the way), Germans do make only uhlans which is why we are nerfing that unit. Prevalence alone isn't an argument, but it becomes an issue when there are entire playstyles that revolve around making 100% that unit. In this case especially, because it limited potential ways to buff the civ.

Your solution appears to be wiping out a whole play style.

Crossing that TC fire threshold is a big change.

I think you're overstating things a little here. Combined with the house change, early aggression really won't be all that much weaker. Contains especially will be decent, likely better than before.

I'm concerned you even see it as nitpicking.

What I saw as nitpicking was your apparent focus on questioning my data. Your comments on the change itself I definitely don't see as nitpicking, and are appreciated.

@Goodspeed Am I understanding correctly that you are buffing more then just the houses or where the other buffs just 'considered and discarded'. the subject isn't entirely clear to me from what I read above.

Just houses. For now anyway.

Spanish
- "Spanish Gold" shipment effect replaced with: "Grants 400 coin with every shipment starting with this one." Availability changed from Industrial to Fortress Age.

Let's say you slow sepoy rush, try to kill some vils and siege down house. You lose 2 sepoy extra because of nerf. Your build will have been a some seconds faster, but resource wise you have lost more. Seeing India often needs to do early damage, it's quit a big thing.

If the consensus is that sepoy are to strong, then nerf them. It feels to me however that, on its own, the house change doesn't buff the sepoy change enough to compensate.
Please correct if I'm wrong though.

The problem here is that the change is battling some symptom rather than a cause. This change just seems to imply that there's a terrible understanding of why india is being played the way they are being played, and the result is that the change will probably cripple or limit india. I don't even agree with nerfing rush based styles to begin with, its like saying that it's not okay that a civ does mostly rush build orders but that it is okay that a civ does mostly semi FF build orders. Take france, I think france does a (semi) FF against British, Germany, Ports, Russia, Otto, Dutch, France, India, China, Japan and Iro, and I think they tend to not semi FF against Spain, Sioux and Aztec. India rushes (again, big variety in the rushes) against all civs except Otto, Russia, Aztec and the mirror and some civs are just a slow sepoy rush that transition into eco play. At that point every civ is limited in their options because every civ has a prevalent option. It seems a bit biased to decide that it is wrong to have a civ focused on rushing but not to have a civ focused on semi FF'ing or booming, and the way india is treated, where the big variety in build orders that is actually there (as also mentioned by wickedcossack referring to tournament games) is basically disregarded or ignored and labeled as one dimensional. It's a farce really.

And then if we actually agree that maybe sepoys are being made a bit too much, I dont even agree with the change. In practise it is a weird statement since very few match ups revolve around sepoy only. In many match ups you start with sepoys because it's the only way you can do the damage you need to do. India always transitions into a mixed army the very moment they get the chance. The only case in which their play is somewhat one dimensional is when India does a consulate rush (which, funnily enough is the least nerfed style, again a showcase of ignorance) which is an all in musketeer only rush. But really, this doesn't even happen more than half of the time I think. Arguably the only viable build order against France, but there are many match ups where it isn't even strong. Yes sepoys are a strong unit, and like other musketeer types they are quite all around, but in non-rush scenarios a sepoy composition is absolutely dominated by either gurka zamb or gurka sepoy mixed with gurka being the main unit. I have stated this before: In the match ups where india actually gets a chance to play beyond an all in they always transition into mixed armies. Against Russia you should definitely go for Gurka Zamb once you have stabilized, against Aztec you do not even start with Sepoy, against Otto you'll focus mostly on gurkha, against Dutch you'll mix gurkha after the initial rush, against germany you'll want to go into a bunch of sowar and maybe even some zambs, the list goes on and on.

So then this nerf is a nerf targetting rushes, and in particular the slow sepoy rush. And trust the actual india players when they say that 180 hp sepoy do not allow you to rush. The arguments about a contain are absolute nonsense. You can contain a player all you want but on EP maps he'll have 10k food in his base so containing is literally a useless strategy, and india just gets outscaled past 8 minutes if they don't do damage, which again they can't do anymore because sepoy get 2 shot by a town center. The reason sepoy openings are so common is because India gets outscaled otherwise. A boom style (say large trickle 300e 600g or something along those lines) is too slow to compete in this meta in the match ups where india does rush. A semi FF like style or any style with the karni mata cannot compete either atm.

If we nerf sepoy in a way where they can still comfortably commit under a TC, it limits the ways in which we can buff India. We can't have sepoys be the rush powerhouse that they now are and still buff India in the general way we want to buff them. If for example we went with a nerf on sepoy attack, the house change becomes too much a buff for early game sepoy rushes (unless we nerf attack into the ground which ruins the unit in later stages of the game). We then have to look at buffs that only take effect after such a rush, or only take effect when you make a specific unit. For example we'd be looking at a gurkha buff, a sowar buff, a buff to some colonial shipment that isn't sepoy, or something along those lines. But then we're promoting the use of a specific unit/shipment, which we don't want either. We want to leave it up to the player. We want to buff everything India does. But then we run into problems with sepoy rushes.

With that in mind this statement is depressing. Yes the way you can buff india is limited, but not limited to no options. You can easily buff the large trickle, the karni mata, buff howdah so that they become a realistic option in fortress (and thus india gets an auto veteran unit that is viable), make gurkha auto veteran, allow the agra fort to research veteran upgrades, buff the ottoman consulate in eco/defensive bonuses, and I'm sure there are more things to think off. The hypocrytical thing here is that you don't want to limit the player, buff everything india does, but by doing so you nerf one of their core strategies. Theres 2 strategies that are already fine, slow sepoy rush and consulate rush, honestly I think the consensus has been that india is a little on the weak side, you can buff them by directly targetting the boom or fortress styles. Instead you change them by removing a core strategy. It is nonsensible really.

I guess they want to make sepoys dont be able for stay under ur tc too much. Which is strange for me since india can make lot of sepoys under tc only if its all in already...

But if the sepoy got nerfed under 184 hp, musks destroys them.

Goodspeed wrote:Just houses. For now anyway.

Spanish
- "Spanish Gold" shipment effect replaced with: "Grants 400 coin with every shipment starting with this one." Availability changed from Industrial to Fortress Age.

Interesting, but I can't see its use except in late fortress, where Spain doesn't have anything useful to ship. Even then its full card investment, which pays itself only after few shipments.

ahah you included that in the end. That's really funky change. Also feels bad to replace another unique card.

About that spain shipment.
You need to send 4 cards to get its prize back. 3=1200c, but for scaling we can easily -200
I dont see a point in spain ff where it could skip cannons/heavy inf to scale.
Most of civs just outboom it, or outscale
Since its a scaling card, not really makes sense if its not make spain better scale than other civs in original...

Jerom wrote:The problem here is that the change is battling some symptom rather than a cause.

What's the root problem in your opinion, then?
The way I see it, India being primarily an “early pressure” civ is the symptom. The strength of sepoy is the cause.

I don't even agree with nerfing rush based styles to begin with, its like saying that it's not okay that a civ does mostly rush build orders but that it is okay that a civ does mostly semi FF build orders.

We aren't nerfing sepoy because we're trying to get rid of rush styles. We are nerfing the unit for 2 reasons. First, it's too strong, and second, we want to make sure that styles other than rush are actually viable. Currently, as mentioned, they just don't seem to cut it in the vast majority of match ups. So we are buffing all India styles. A general buff means we need a nerf to their early pressure as compensation, because that is already strong.
Don't forget India will be slightly faster after the house change. I don't think early pressure builds will be entirely unviable after these changes. That and the fact that I consider sepoy a problem and you apparently don't, is probably the core of where we disagree.

The reason sepoy openings are so common is because India gets outscaled otherwise.

That's what we're trying to change.

With that in mind this statement is depressing. Yes the way you can buff india is limited, but not limited to no options. You can easily buff the large trickle, the karni mata, buff howdah so that they become a realistic option in fortress (and thus india gets an auto veteran unit that is viable), make gurkha auto veteran, allow the agra fort to research veteran upgrades, buff the ottoman consulate in eco/defensive bonuses, and I'm sure there are more things to think off.

There is a reason why in this case I prefer a more general buff instead of a targeted one like the buffs you suggested. Let's compare the situation to Spain, in which case we did choose a targeted buff rather than a general one.

Spain isn't a weak civ, their only problem is that they lack the option to go for economy in fortress age which makes them have to rely on early fortress pressure. Because the civ is currently simply not equipped for such a style, a general buff would not have actually added options. It would only have made existing options stronger, and economic play in fortress age is not one of those options.

India, by design, is perfectly equipped for longer games. Longer term strategies in their case don't cut it because the civ lacks that little bit of juice, and gets overrun. So we add juice. We are not adding a specific option, because they are already one of the most versatile civs in the game. Instead we are making all of the options that they already have stronger.
This is why buffing specific shipments, wonders, or fortress age play is not the right way to buff India in my opinion. Funny by the way that you would suggest changes that clearly encourage fortress play because you seemed strongly against encouraging the semi-FF meta before.

Dsy wrote:About that spain shipment.
You need to send 4 cards to get its prize back. 3=1200c, but for scaling we can easily -200

True. The original idea was 500 coin, but there were concerns that it would be too strong so we are starting off with 400. If it's never sent, we may consider buffing it in the next iteration.

From a balance POV it will do it's work. Sent as first or 2nd fortress card it will take about 2 shipments to be as useful as a fortress shipment (800g is about a fortress shipment). Then it will be extra and actually will be very good.
It's just funky, even tho it makes some sense historically.

What about nerfing the sepoy siege attack instead of the HP? Sepoys will be still able to stay under the TC for harassing the opponent, but they will have to spend more time in the TC range if they are committed to destroying a building, giving more time to the TC to shoot them. I am not really familiar with india and its balance problems, but if the sepoy rush is an issue this might be worth looking into. Right now sepoys have almost the same siege capability of a janissary despite the 45 HP gap (3 hits x22 siege attack vs 3 hits x25 siege attack, compared to a euro musk that dies in 2 hits x20 siege attack), and at the same time they have higher attack than normal musketeers on top of higher HP for a relatively slight higher cost. If sepoys are too cost effective maybe this nerf could help balance them a bit.
22-->17 siege attack is what i have in mind.

Siege is barely relevant in high level games. All the damage done by sepoy is doing run byes and killing loose vills. Ranged attack on other hand would be relevant, so much that would be a bigger nerf than the HP one. Also the really wrong thing of sepoy is the HP which becomes insane with the brit consulate.

Theorically you get its price back. But in real scenario, think some mu.
Do you want scale vs japan - nope
Do you want scale vs german ff - nope
Do you want to scale vs france ff - nope
Do you want to scale vs british - nope
Do you want to scale vs india - nope
Do you want to scale vs china - nope
do you want to scale vs dutch - nope
do you want to scale vs otto - nope
do you want to scale vs ep port - nope
do you want to scale vs mirror spain ff - nope
do you want to scale vs russia - nope

Idk twc civs but according to those things up i dont think you wanna scale as low base eco ff civ vs anyone...

Sepoy is 20% more expensive than musket

1.2* Musket= 180hp, 27.6 attack
Sepoy = 190hp, 25 attack

stop this nonsense. inner jerk club can't handle that every civ must not be played with skirm-goon combination

Ofc there should be an amount of coin until you think about send it and scale. Make this card essential basicly. But that would make it a must of card.
So basicly ressurrect spain from its grave by giving it lot of gold in 3. age. Its fine since its very weak right now.

Dsy wrote:Theorically you get its price back. But in real scenario, think some mu.
Do you want scale vs japan - nope
Do you want scale vs german ff - nope
Do you want to scale vs france ff - nope
Do you want to scale vs british - nope
Do you want to scale vs india - nope
Do you want to scale vs china - nope
do you want to scale vs dutch - nope
do you want to scale vs otto - nope
do you want to scale vs ep port - nope
do you want to scale vs mirror spain ff - nope
do you want to scale vs russia - nope

Idk twc civs but according to those things up i dont think you wanna scale as low base eco ff civ vs anyone...

Actually india can scale vs British and russia. The funny fact is that they're currently played with the goal to scale, but Goodspeed is just ignoring that because he's aware he doesn't actually know whats up.

somppukunkku wrote:Sepoy is 20% more expensive than musket

1.2* Musket= 180hp, 27.6 attack
Sepoy = 190hp, 25 attack

stop this nonsense. inner jerk club can't handle that every civ must not be played with skirm-goon combination

I actually fully agree with this post. Even with the tone of it.

somppukunkku wrote:Sepoy is 20% more expensive than musket

1.2* Musket= 180hp, 27.6 attack
Sepoy = 190hp, 25 attack

stop this nonsense. inner jerk club can't handle that every civ must not be played with skirm-goon combination

Nerfing musketeer-type as well as goon-type units would be at the top of my list if we were to try and balance every unit (type). In fact we already did nerf the dragoon itself. Large scale changes like that would be too impactful though. But you're right, musketeers are pretty OP too. Thing is, the TC 3-hitting sepoy pushed 'em over the edge.

To those for whom sepoy cost effectiveness is a concern, what kind of cost decrease are you thinking?

Jerom wrote:

Dsy wrote:Theorically you get its price back. But in real scenario, think some mu.
Do you want scale vs japan - nope
Do you want scale vs german ff - nope
Do you want to scale vs france ff - nope
Do you want to scale vs british - nope
Do you want to scale vs india - nope
Do you want to scale vs china - nope
do you want to scale vs dutch - nope
do you want to scale vs otto - nope
do you want to scale vs ep port - nope
do you want to scale vs mirror spain ff - nope
do you want to scale vs russia - nope

Idk twc civs but according to those things up i dont think you wanna scale as low base eco ff civ vs anyone...

Actually india can scale vs British and russia. The funny fact is that they're currently played with the goal to scale, but Goodspeed is just ignoring that because he's aware he doesn't actually know whats up.

I think Dsy is talking about the Spanish

gamevideo113 wrote:

Jerom wrote:

Dsy wrote:Theorically you get its price back. But in real scenario, think some mu.
Do you want scale vs japan - nope
Do you want scale vs german ff - nope
Do you want to scale vs france ff - nope
Do you want to scale vs british - nope
Do you want to scale vs india - nope
Do you want to scale vs china - nope
do you want to scale vs dutch - nope
do you want to scale vs otto - nope
do you want to scale vs ep port - nope
do you want to scale vs mirror spain ff - nope
do you want to scale vs russia - nope

Idk twc civs but according to those things up i dont think you wanna scale as low base eco ff civ vs anyone...

Actually india can scale vs British and russia. The funny fact is that they're currently played with the goal to scale, but Goodspeed is just ignoring that because he's aware he doesn't actually know whats up.

I think Dsy is talking about the Spanish

oops, thank you for that correction.