Goodspeed wrote:Yes they need it because the changes in the meta, most importantly the rise of the TP, have allowed for other civs to make more eco investments. Dutch, being unable to contest a TP line, has lagged behind. Without the 5 bank limit, Dutch's advantage in the mid game is effectively gone because their eco is no longer ahead. French used to be afraid of Dutch's 4 bank eco. Now they match it.
If they are too strong, the best way to fix that is by nerfing banks, not by reducing the limit. It should be obvious to anyone that there's a problem if Dutch are booming to the same (max) number of banks every single game and still losing.
Well first of all, they barely match it with stagecoach if they do at all on 2 out of 3 buildable TP maps.
Second, TPs are up to grab and currently I'd say that the fact that they are exposed plays mostly in Dutch hands. If Fre goes full TP route they will hardly have any army advantage to kill that single TP Dutch make. So 4 banks +1 TP > 4 cdb + 2-3 TPs. In fact, Dutch can go 5 bank and still send 8 pikes and French are very likely going to lose the TP line unless they commit to colonial. And slow colonial build up plays in Dutch hands because at no point French will be able to make use of musketeers, the only advantage they realistically have in colonial. Both civ will end up with the same kind of delayed age up play while fighitng over the trade route. And in this scenario banks are better. This is in fact what would happen on the RE patch too, except for bank exp reversal.
On top of this French and other TP based civs have been nerfed, while Dutch received a legit XP buff (and bank cost reduction which in my opinion is not significant).
The same assumption "Dutch should mantain an eco advantage" is arguable in the first place, since French is basically the best civ per income in early and mid game. Not to mention banks have other perks such as not being subject to idle and producing infinite coin preserving gold mines.
The argument of the TP meta overall is weak. Should we then buff civs like Brits and Jap just because other civs like Fre and Ger are more likely to get TPs now? Fact is TPs are needed to match those civ eco and not the other way around.
In any case, even if we assume that everything I just said was already considered, the income from 5 banks is simply retarded. It is the equivalent of a 20 vill boom that requires ideally only 2 cards (can skip bank or use 600w for other buildings) while it gives back quite some exp. It is in fact as good as an ATP or a water boom except it is not contestable, nor it ends at any point (fish runs out).
The game was calibrated with 4 banks for a reason. It's not like devs didn't consider stagecoach back then and it's not like TP meta means it can be unharmed stagecoach everytime. Plus, again, if the problem really is the extra eco (which is not but let's pretend it is) then Dutch could just send 4v after the 4 banks. That way other civs use TPs as an extra eco and Dutch uses the vill card for the same purpose. If 4v sounds too weak then boost it to 5v, which is for sure a less problematic change than a 4->5 bank limit.
EDIT: since when Dutch are losing every time with 4 banks + legit exp bounty on EP maps?