We the balance team, recently reinforced by khorix (eso Heroes_), PrinceofKabul and Tibia (Welcome!) have been discussing changes for the upcoming ESOC Patch 1.2 and in the spirit of transparency here's an update on where we think the most pressing problems are and how we intend to address them. I say most pressing because we acknowledge that there are more problems than this, but our core philosophy remains that the metagame needs time to evolve and it can't properly do that if we switch things around too much.
Keep in mind we are still in beta and the change list is far from finalized. It's likely that things will change still.
So where is balance lacking right now?
Too strong
Germans
We are seeing a lot of German players this tournament, it was the top civ according to you, the community, before the tournament (source) and the patch team members are in virtually unanimous agreement that they are one of the best civs. The question, and this turned out to be a tough one, is how to change them. Unique bonuses that make German players feel all warm and fuzzy inside (like the 6 vill shipment) we don't want to touch if we can help it, and lowering their XP income removes choices (shipments). One thing we are seeing in German games is that uhlans aren't only the unit you get with shipments, players are also making an absolute ton of them in nearly every match up. We are currently looking at a stats nerf to uhlans.
Chinese
We are also seeing a lot of China, and often on maps with herdables. They get a significant boost with herdables due to their villages providing 10 "fattening slots" from the start of the game. This makes their balance depend too much on whether the map contains herdables. Currently, Chinese herdables already fatten 50% slower than usual before fortress age, we are looking to lower this further.
Also, we are noticing heavy reliance on the forbidden army in fortress age, so we are looking to nerf that. Not only is Chinese cavalry very strong, the train time of this banner army is also very favourable allowing China to easily mass from 1 military building where other civs would need 2. Perhaps a tweak to the train time would be enough.
French
This civ has also seen a lot of play this event, and the opinion of the team is that this is not just because they are so well-rounded, it's also because they simply win a lot of match ups. French are a civ which benefits from the TP meta like no other, because they can afford the early game investment. We are currently looking at removing native scout snare and seeing where we end up in test games. We shouldn't forget that as changes are made, French will always be a civ people fall back on so they will seem stronger and more popular than they perhaps should be, but additional changes may be needed here.
Too weak
Russians
It seems clear that Russia isn't quite up to par right now. Their lacking early economy and awkward semi-FF put them in a tough spot as the meta evolves into TP-abusing semi-FF territory. Russia's options may not be properly explored yet however, so we don't want to overbuff them. Currently we are looking at a small decrease in vill batch cost, and perhaps a buff to fortress age unit shipments.
Spanish
Spain has fallen off a little as people become more and more accustomed to their old school naked FF, and they are somewhat lacking in alternatives. To keep the spirit of Spain alive we are looking at buffing unit shipments, but we are also keen on adding economic options in both colonial and fortress by buffing missionaries which are unique to Spain and could add a new dimension to the civ.
Iroquois
Iro haven't seen a lot of play this event, and after playing the civ more in the current patch we feel our 1.0 changes may have been too much. Iro's semi-FF is still decent, but their colonial playstyles are very hurt by the lack of an early TP. We are currently looking at simply reverting the War Chief aura change and the Aenna cost change to give them a bit more juice in general plus a slight buff in colonial.
Dutch
As the new Dutch gets a bit more fleshed out, we are noticing that they are still not quite up to snuff. Still, banks are an expensive investment relative to the return they give and the Dutch selection of military units certainly isn't good enough to compensate for that. Our 1.0 changes also seem to be a bit off the mark (also with team games in mind), so we are taking this civ in a slightly different direction while maintaining a bank limit increase which is giving them, as a boom civ, the option to outboom civs like France and Germans.
Currently we are looking at increasing bank build XP bounty, a small buff to fortress age unit shipments and decreasing bank limit from 6 to 5. The discovery age "Bank of Rotterdam" and "Bank of Amsterdam" shipments will be restored to give +1 bank limit.
Late game balance fixes
Due to game-breaking balance issues in team games as well as 1v1 games we are looking to make some minor fixes there:
- Genitours (Portuguese shipment)
- Old han reforms (Chinese shipment)
- Mass cavalry (church improvement)
Please let us know what you all think
, this is exactly what we need
