Old Han Reforms

[Inst]

I notice old comments on Old Han Reforms (Old Han Army), complaining that it's been overnerfed, but I generally think people don't understand Old Han Reforms and what's wrong with it.

On paper, the original OHR pushes Chuks and Qiang to 2x their default stats, for 50% more cost. In terms of food efficiency, it's equivalent to a 33% attack / hp card.

That's on paper, however. In reality, you get OHR in Age 4. With full upgrades, Chuks and Qiang already have 50% upgrades stacked on top of them, so when you slap OHR, what you get are units with 250% default stats, or equivalent to a 17% attack / hp card. And when you get exalted for Chuks and Qiang, what you really get is a 0% attack / hp card, with an increase of 100% from 200% bonuses, putting them to +50% over previous stats, for 50% extra cost.

So why were people complaining that OHR is imba? There's actually three important things OHR does that's notable, and I'll go over them from least to greatest.

First, OHR boosts food efficiency for the Old Han Army from 435 res per 6 pop, or 72.5 res / pop, to 108 res / pop, or 8% greater than a musketeer. Using Old Han Army alone, the 220 pop on Chinese becomes fully exploitable. But when you think about it, what about the Japanese? They're capped at 75 villagers, with shrines covering the difference, so they have the equivalent of 125 military pop. What about the French? They're capped at 80 cDbs, so they also have greater than 100 military pop limits with full economy. The Dutch are even greater: they're reliant on banks and fishing, so they have 150 surplus military pop. Moreover, if you look at the rest of the Chinese civilization, Forbidden Army is already up to 103.75 res / pop, so they have reasonable alternatives already to the Old Han Army.

Second, OHR reduces effective training speed per res for the Chinese. I'd rank this as more significant: it's as though when you're producing OHA, you have an extra barracks for every 2 barracks. For the Summer Palace, which already has a rather obscene 3.3 res / sec equivalent generation speed, better than on Colonial Porcelain Tower, the fact that the train time remains constant means that the Summer Palace is now up to 5 res / sec. Moreover, because the train time remains constant, when you're doing late-game battles of attrition, OHA builds quickly, functions as a well-rounded musketeer, and is hard-counterable by few units, so OHA spam works. So OHR's effective training speed buff is a big advantage for the card.

Third, and most importantly, on a resource level, OHR is the most resource effective card in the game.

Now, you may be thinking, I thought you were planning to whine about OHR getting nerfed. Why the sudden change of pace? Well, my actual point is that ESOC Patch devs didn't understand the real reason why OHR was imbalanced.

Let's take New Army as a starting point. It is usually used as a situational upgrade for Chuks and Qiangs to Arquebusiers and Changdao. It's a Age 3 card that's usually used for this purpose, costing 300 food for the transition. Now, in theory, you can fill 220 food with OHA, but this is probably not going to happen in a real game. But if you did, then used New Army, well, here's a funny little thing. Territorial Army and Old Han Army cost about the same in pop, but Territorial Army is slightly more expensive, about 100 resources more expensive. 220 divided by six gives you 37 Old Hans, and hitting New Army, for the cost of 200 food, gives you the equivalent of 3800 food, all for an Age 3 card.

Okay, so this is an extreme, unrealistic example; most people aren't going to delete their villagers for 3700 food. But let's take 120 pop of Old Han: that's still 20 Old Hans and 2000 resources worth for 300 food. Ignoring the set-up costs, think about it: the average Age 3 shipment gives you roughly 900 resources. New Army is giving you 1800 resources.

But New Army doesn't get abused in this way quite often; at Age 3, most players are not set-up in a way that they can get 120 pop of Old Han, and what's more, wood tends to be slightly more difficult to acquire than gold, so it's doubtful that this is actually much of a deal. Yet there's another card that enables a comparable tactic.

Re-enter Old Han Reforms. If Old Han Reforms roughly scales up your existing army by 50%, what does it do when you have a 220/220 full eco + Old Han Army? Well, we go back to the 20 Old Hans, but instead of granting 100 extra resources per Old Han Army, we grant 200 extra resources, and these are not affected by the fact that wood is more precious than gold. At 20 Old Han, the OHR shipment is equivalent to 4000 resources, for the cost of 1000 food, giving you 3000 resources bonus. The Emperor's Army card, in contrast, costs 1500 food, and gives you the equivalent of 2830 for a 1330 net gain. Ever Victorious Army gives you the equivalent of 1720 net resources. Emperor's Army gives you the equivalent of 1330 net resources. 15 Keshiks gives you the equivalent of 1725 resources. 8 Meteor Hammers gives you the equivalent of 1400 resources, and 7 Iron Flails gives you the equivalent of 1680 resources.

So, I see Old Han Reforms as being broken in other ways than what it says on paper. In the present implementation, Old Han Reforms gives you 33% stronger OHA for 33% greater cost in Age 4, but it's actually a resource downgrade in Age 5, making then 7% less cost effective when pushed up to the Exalted level.

A better way to fix OHR would be to instead change it so that OHR costs 2000, 2500, or even 3000 food to ship, and have it affect OHA training times as well, scaling it up by 50%. This keeps OHA viable late-game, but prevents the weirdness of a card that grants the equivalent of 3000 resources. The cost-prohibitive nature of shipping OHR under this fix would keep OHA spam as a viable option late-game, but it'd encourage Chinese players to delay it in early Industrial and stick to using Territorial Army for infantry spam instead.

[Garja]

This is all math. The real reason why old han was broken is 1) because with sufficient mass it is unbeatable and 2) because food/wood is a better resource requirement for attrition wars. c) (opional) because 21 chokus and 21 pikes become insane shipments.
The pop thing and the cost drawbacks are just secondary. Also your solution would make the card totally not viable in supremacy because stacking up 2000-3000f on top of the industrial cost is prohibitive.
The current OHR situation is actually good. Card is free to send making it viable, but it's not an auto win button.

[Inst]

Garja: Chinese also has cards like Ever Victorious Army and Emperor's Army, both of which cost in the 1500 to 2000 food range. There are other Age 4 shipments that are tremendously expensive.

As to your point that OHR spam is unbeatable, OHR + 120 food can put 13050 resources worth of units onto the map, with chuks and qiang having extremely good statlines versus both heavy infantry and cavalry (33% more effective). 80 CdB leaves 40 Cuiraissiers on the map, worth 12000 resources, 75 villagers leaves 125 Ashigaru, worth 15000 resources, on the map. In actual efficiency, though, the OHR OHA gets 125,000,000 hp * dps vs heavy infantry, while 125 Ashigaru, without being carded, gets only 85,000,000 hp * dps. 40 Cuirassiers get 180,000,000 hp * dps, if you count the 2 area splash as scaling their damage to 3 times nominal.

If you absolutely need to tone down OHR's gamebreakingness, at least take out the wonkiness in Age 5 by putting OHR to 67% HP / damage instead, or alternately making the cost penalty only 25%. That'd put uncarded chuks at 85,000,000 hp * dps vs heavy infantry, or 98,176,000 vs heavy infantry with 67% hp/damage.

[Garja]

Those cards do give some units with them. And still they're not viable in supremacy.
French and jap are also 2 notoriously OP civs in late game, except that atleast they don't get OP with just one card. Old han becoms unbeatable because it's like having imperial units when the opponent is lucky if he has industrial ones.

Different percentages could have been an ok fix but current solution is also fine. It's safer on the stats side but also more viable in general because no cost for the card.

[deleted_user0]

i agree that increasing cost is maybe better. increasing train time slightly isnt bad either i think, but 50% is too much.

[gamevideo113]

You make interesting points but i think that many of them aren't as relevant as you might think.
OHR makes your units quite pop efficient, but since chinese units aren't that strong in the first place you don't really end up with insanely pop efficient units. Sure, they are good, but not as pop efficient as sepoys/cossacks/ruyters.
Also i have seen you compare the crossbow+pike combo often to musketeers but i think that there is a significant difference between the two. Musketeers are just more well rounded, xbow+pike has more weaknesses than a musketeer. As you say though it is a viable combo once OHR is shipped.
Old han reforms was not broken because you can spend your resources more quickly with it. If it was just about resource spending speed you could just build another barracks and it would be the same. Old han reforms was broken because it gave you very good units for a relatively small cost and then you had 21 pikes and 21 chukonus which became really good shipments as garja said. In the long run though OHR is worth more or less like a combat card, since +50% cost is more relevant than a 50% stat increase.
I think it is wrong to consider a corcumstance where OHR is shipped when you have 60 chukonus and 60 pikes, it just will never happen in a supremacy game. The value of the card can be huge in theory, but will never really be. If you take the Portuguese White Fleet card it can give you 40 fishing ships if you have 10 docks, but it doesn't mean that it is broken since in a real game you won't make 10 docks in industrial to fishboom.

On a side note, i think you could be a bit more synthetic with your posts, it would help us follow your logic better.

[Inst]

I just feel like pointing out one other thing. Whereas for India, the power units are Sepoys and Mahout Lancers, and for Japan, it's Ashigaru (more like shrines these days), for China, the power units are actually Chu Ko Nu and Arquebusiers. China incidentally has some of the best, if not the best, skirmisher-class units in the game. When you consider their statline for cost, they're extremely competitive with other races' skirmishers, and if you factor in VS, they outclass everyone else's skirms since Chuks are food units.

Moreover, Repelling Volley is better than other races' Arsenal improvements since they add 1x instead of .75x, and moreover they add bonuses vs light cavalry, which no other races have. Technically speaking, Longbowmen ARE better than Chuks vs dragoons, especially considering range, but the fact that Chuks are up there make them pretty threatening. Another factor to consider is that Chuks are true skirmishers without an aim time; Longbowmen are not.

@Gamevideo13: put another way, 120 food for the Chinese is equivalent to other races' 100 food, due to low cost, high pop units. With OHR, China effectively gets 180 food, or the equivalent of 150 food, which puts them up there with the Dutch in terms of food effectiveness.

[Garja]

Not that I would get your point anyway, but for the sake of discussing, what do you mean when you say "power unit"?

[Inst]

Garja: i.e, unit that's unusually effective for a civ. The problem with Chuks and Arqs, though, is that China is a multiplier-heavy civ, and Chuks and Arqs aren't that strong vs other skirms and cav. So you can't spam them a la Sepoy and expect to win, you can only expect to punish your opponent for trying to go Dragoons vs your heavy cavalry, or punish your opponent's heavy infantry.

I also found another underappreciated Chinese unit, namely, the Steppe Rider. Basically, it's a unit that's evaded attention because you can only build them in Standard Army. But when you think about it, it's 15 gold / 100 food cheaper than a Hussar, but has slightly less than half its HP and attack, and what's more, it has a whopping 2x bonus vs light infantry without any upgrades. I did the math, and I found out that it's superior to fully-carded Iron Flails vs ranged infantry / skirms. Shitty pathing and range, though, so your steppes are going to have trouble actually meleeing stuff. On a per cost (not VS) basis, they're around 10% inferior to fully-carded Cuirassiers and Lancers (vs infantry) when facing ranged infantry / skirms. I did the math, and even when Ashigaru have Close Combat (4.5x multipliers), a Steppe suicide run into Yumi is going to be killing Yumi faster than Ashigaru can screen them. Moreover, remember that the Steppe doesn't need to be carded to achieve this effectiveness; Standard Army Hitpoints only adds 15% HP, and Mongolian Scourge only increases its raiding and siege ability.

This sort of reminds me of the remark someone had that "TIL OHR is so imbalanced that it makes Standard Army and Ming Army broken". But that's sort of the point; OHR means that Standard Army (Steppes) can be spammed safely, with other armies filling in the gaps (Ming Army, Forbidden Army). It also makes me think about Fei's suggestion regarding Standard Army, i.e, make Standards 3 steppes 2 chuks. It'd be a recipe for hilarity if Steppe statistical imba can be pushed effectively, and it basically tells me that Standard is the best Chinese Army, with other armies functioning as support (Ming for acav, Forbidden for anti-artillery / meat). I seriously want to see people complaining about Steppe Rider imba.

[Garja]

Well China works with banner armies. Skirm+changdao is a complete combo and alone it can be spammed to win games. Same thing with reformed old han.

[Inst]

Yes, Steppe is balanced because you can only build two of them at a time, and have to drag 3 Chuks along for the ride. But if you could, say, train Steppes singly, imagine the whining. Oprichniks in Colonial that are almost symmetric to Hussars in terms of statline, with a pretty strong bonus vs skirms to boot. Would love 3 chuk 3 steppe Standards, though.

[Inst]

Okay, the figures look a bit different once VS is factored in at .75 / .5 / .6. Then it's about 59106 BP vs skirm for Steppes, normalized to Hussar VS and with all cards. Hussars are 35328 BP. Cuirassiers are 79631 BP, and Lancers are 92343 BP. Iron Flails are 57128 BP, and Naginata Riders are 49256 BP.

I guess I just got lazy with VS, so Steppes aren't as strong as they appear and are only around Iron Flail strength, which is far stronger than Hussars vs the intended counter unit.

Using the VS approach, Chinese chuks, vs heavy infantry, are ~15506 BP without OHR, and 14602 BP with OHR, normalized vs Skirms. Fully carded French Imperial Guard skirms are only at 9,900 BP, so 500 VS of non-OHR chuks are equal to 400 VS of skirms. Or, 6 skirms are approximately equal to 5 OHR chuks. For Arqs, BP fully upgraded is only at 10672.83, so they're only roughly equal to French skirms, which are some of the best in the game. If we're talking vs dragoons, you can add about 50% for BP ratio vs skirms, or chusk and arquebusiers offer 20% extra unit for cost vs dragoons.

If we're comparing Longbowmen, let's just use the 2x figure vs light cavalry without factoring in the .75 modifier vs cavalry, because it makes the math easier. Then it's roughly 11849 BP, or about 10% better than Arquebusiers, but still below Chuk level, although the Longbows outrange all others. Vs heavy infantry, though, Longbowmen only get up to 7702 BP, so if they're powerful at all it's because of their long range vs heavy infantry.

Yumi, in comparison, get up to vs heavy infantry, they get up to 6272 BP, and vs light cavalry it's 8363.48 BP, and this is with shogun / daimyo + golden pavillion and all cards (but not Consulate). Aenna get 16735.95 BP vs heavy infantry and light cavalry, so Aenna are actually the best skirms I've evaluated so far.

[princeofkabul]

instead of this useless math just get good at the game and you know what unit beats what and how the actual game functions.

[zoom]

EP Reforms went from useless to broken–overpowered with the removal of the food cost attached to the shipment. Imagine that...

[Inst]

About Steppes, just to clarify, I did the math again and they're not broken as I had imagined; the fact that they cost gold takes them down from the "god-tier" territory to the "well, you could be using sowars instead" territory. So that's what the VS stats show. It puts them down as slightly worse than Oprichniks in cav v cav combat.

@zoom: isn't it more my point that it's the Chuks that are intrinsically broken, a sort of Aenna without targeting times?

[yemshi]

7 steppes could literally lose vs a 90f treasure lol.

[P i k i l i c]

Just to say I find it funny as we refer to "steppe riders" when we are talking about about "steppes". Hey here are 7 steppes coming from my home city! do you want more steppes to arrive in your colony? now 2 steppes just spawned from the summer palace! sry just having fun with my own imagination