ESOC Patch 7.0.0.0 released!

[Hazza54321]

play vs old han and tell me its not broken jerom lol

[RefluxSemantic]

I know, it's meaningless to look at things like this in a vacuum. But that's what certain esoc users insisted on doing.

The thing is, 100% stat increase but only 50% cost increase sounds insanely strong at first glance. However, in practice it turns out that isn't such a great bargain. The thing is in aoe3 all stat increase cards apply to base stats, so it isn't actually a 100% stat increase (its only a 67% stat increase). That actually means the cost increase is a pretty big deal, and makes the units 11% more cost effective. So once you examine the card more closely, it's not that broken. We also need to consider that it takes quite a few extra resources to upgrade CKN/Qiangs as compared to upgrading Arqs/Changdaos and that CKN/Qiangs are not nearly as good as Arqs/Chandaos. So the card needs to have a really strong to be worth it at all.

That being said, you do get the benefits of effectively a 67% stat increase to all the CKN/Qiang Pikeman you have at that point. But at this point we're not looking at this in a vacuum anymore. Let me then preface all that I'm going to discuss next by stating that there is no evidence that this practical side of Old Han Reforms turned out to be OP. Neither on RE, nor on earlier iterations of EP, was China FI the go to strat. Neither on RE nor on the earlier versions of EP was China an extremely frequently picked civ, and in the cases where people did elect to play the civ it was usually not because of Old Han Reforms but because of their very strong FF (and strength on Livestock maps, when it comes to tournament games).

That being said, Old Han has some very strong aspects in practice. If you manage to get there, it effectively boosts all your Old Han units by 67%, which is insanely strong. It's also a pretty big upgrade to the 21 CKN/21 Qiang Pikeman shipments, if you manage to survive without shipping those. However, as I stated earlier, CKN/Qiangs are quite a bit worse than Arqs/Chandaos, so we need to somehow take that into account.

Let's first start by examining the costs of the CKN/Qiang Vet upgrades and the Old Han Reforms upgrades. These amount to 200w, 100g and 1000f, or ~1757 villager seconds. Given that Old Han Reforms isn't actually an amazing upgrade card apart from the initial effect, the initial effect will need to beat whatever Arqs/Changdaos are worth.

Let's now realize that we're shipping a shipment that doesn't really give us any actual units, and that we basically need this shipment for CKN/Qiangs to be worth training at all. Lets be generous and say this costs roughly 2000 villager seconds (this seems to be about the value of the worse age 4 unit shipments). This raises the effective cost of Old Han Reforms to ~3757 villager seconds, or effectively 17 CKNs and 17 Qiang Pikeman.

Given that Old Han Reforms increases the stats of your Old Han units by effectively 66.7%, and given that the cost of upgrading CKN/Qiangs, paying for Old Han Reforms and the fact that you are sending this shipment to make Old Han units worth training at all, we need it to effectively give us 17 extra CKN and 17 extra pikeman statwise. This amounts to us needing to have 25.5 CKNs and 25.5 Qiang Pikeman when we ship this to break even. Realistically speaking, if you either manage to ship old han reforms before you ship 21 CKN/21 Qiang Pikes, or you ship those and don't lose any of them, you only need 2 batches of Old Han trained before you ship the reforms. This is definitely achievable.

However, one then quickly sees that it's also very hard to pull off. If you're losing some of your CKN/Qiang Pikes before you manage to ship Old Han Reforms, then Old Han Reforms turns into effectively an Old Han combat card, which is actually pretty poor for an age 4 card.

I must admit, in this I've assumed that the effect of Old Han reforms is basically nothing after you've profited from the initial boost. For this the reasoning has been that an 11% boost in cost efficiency makes Old Han units on par with Arqs/Chandaos. I don't know if this is necessarily a good assumption. It's possibly fair to consider its long term effect on par with a weak age 3 shipment. So maybe it's worth like 1000 villager seconds? In that case, we would only need the initial boost to give us effectively ~2757 vs, or 12.5 CKN and 12.5 Qiang Pikes to break even. For that you would only need ~19 CKN and ~19 Qiang Pikes. So either shipping this first and then just shipping the two army cards makes it decent, or having a bunch of your Old Han units from shipments and training survive. But then too, I think it's very easy for your opponent to just be very aggressive, and prevent you from having a huge standing army once you ship Old Han Reforms.

So when you consider a practical scenario as closely as possible, nothing indicates that Old Han Reforms is simply OP:
- It only makes newly trained units 11% more effective once they have a guard upgrade (compare this for example to infantry combat, which is an effective 10% increase, or Boyars, which is an effective 13% increase). This is on top of the fact that without a serious improvement to stats, CKN/Qiangs just aren't very strong.
- Even if you're being generous, you need a pretty large standing army of CKN/Qiang pikemen for this upgrade to be worth the extra costs, considering it's effect is pretty mediocre for newly trained Old Han units. It's very easy for your opponent to prevent this from happening.

[RefluxSemantic]

Here you have it, actual arguments. Would be nice if people could respond to the actual arguments presented, instead of just spewing out nonsense or attacking me personally.

[RefluxSemantic]

play vs old han and tell me its not broken jerom lol

Just kill them before they get there. I'd actually be very confident against a China player of my skill level trying to pull it off against me.

[SoldieR]

Old Han turns Chu into hand cannons. On EP I think it's quite good still. One RE its auto win if you get to that point safely.

[RefluxSemantic]

Stop talking about feelings and look at the facts. Old Han Reforms turns CKN into units which are only a bit more cost effective than what they are without it.

[dansil92]

My goodness its like arguing with a flat earther. Evidence is given, ignored or told it is not real, then more weirdly skewed statements are given which to everyone else look more and more ludicrous. 100% boost is more than any other card. End of story.

[RefluxSemantic]

Having just recently lost to an re old han, as a player with twice the eco better composition and map control, it is and was essentially unbeatable unless you have like 6 heavy cannons

This is not even an argument

"Strat"
Here ship 42 age 6 units that includes xbows that kill cav and pikes that beat musks and skirms itss reallllly balanced.

Old han needed a nerf. It was a free win. Yes going IV is risky but it shouldn't hand you a free win, no other civ gets a free win card. Fast revolt from spain/otto, Dutch stadhouders, russian 4 heavy cannons+bashkir, all carry significant risks and still die to their counters. Old han did not die to their counters which makes it unbalanced

There is hardly an argument here either. You said it was a free win, I've shown that it is not. I've responded and refuted this "argument". By the way, you show no proof. No recordings of old Han CKN cost effectively beating cav or Old Han Pikes beating musks and skirms (spoiler, they do not beat musk and skirms, it's not even close). If you want to have a good argument so badly, look at yourself.

"Strat"
Here ship 42 age 6 units that includes xbows that kill cav and pikes that beat musks and skirms itss reallllly balanced.

Old han needed a nerf. It was a free win. Yes going IV is risky but it shouldn't hand you a free win, no other civ gets a free win card. Fast revolt from spain/otto, Dutch stadhouders, russian 4 heavy cannons+bashkir, all carry significant risks and still die to their counters. Old han did not die to their counters which makes it unbalanced

It was not a free win, because you die in trying to do so.

You know what else is technically a free win? Doing a treaty boom in a sup game and crossing your fingers that your opponent sits back for 50 minutes. But that's not how the game works, is it? Treaty booming doesn't seem like it's OP. Old Han Reforms was fine, you just needed to prevent them from setting it all up. The investment should be too big to work. That's at least what the facts back up, because I don't see any evidence that Old Han Reforms was OP; China wasn't used too much in tournaments and they werent considered blatantly OP. The only concern that did arise was that they were a bit too good on livestock maps like Tibet.

You will go down in history as the only player ever to think old Han reforms wasn't overpowered. Congratulations

Three posts in and you're just insulting the other person. I'm starting to think you are a flat earther.

Im not even close to implying balance in a vacuum. Its that 100% upgrade cards have no place in this game. Imagine if aztec got a 100% attack & hp card to mace and puma for 1000 food. Just imagine. Nope they dont, they get 25% to attack only on jpk in age IV for 2000 coin. The only card that approaches 100% is brit grens for 87% to siege only (20%+67%). If that was hp and range attack too it would quite obviously be stupid. So to is a china player holding a 1v3 in a team game single handedly with BOW PIKE in industrial age. It deserved a nerf

You've given an argument a shot. Turns out that it's nowhere near close to a 100% upgrade card. I've refuted this in my big post, so I'm actually engaging your arguments. Also, the "A china playing holding 1v3 in a team game" isn't even an argument. At best its some story of your piss fucking poor level of gameplay that you participate in. But even then, provide the rec?

I dont even have words anymore. From team games to stupid turtle builds, its good that its nerfed. Your bizzare emotional attachment to the single most broken card is beyond me

Again no arguments. It's just an ad hominem, and a strawman (combined in one statement, must say that's pretty impressive). I'm looking forward to the day you decide to provide arguments.

Literally everyone ever knows its op. Youre the outlier so you require evidence. I dont have to "best you with old han" lol srsly

This is not an argument, nor is any proof for the statement provided. There's nothing to respond to. If everyone knew it was OP, then people would have been winning countless games with it. They did not, probably because it's not OP (or well, they could have just not known, your statement is wrong either way).

You can still ship 21 ckn regardless of cost, and it upgrades ones already trained and you're still wrong. Nearly every other upgrade card in the game varies from 10%-30%. Your math is flawed. By that argument the 15% infantry combat card is like 2% or some made up number. I can't believe I'm having to say that 100% is too much for any upgrade ever

I've shown in my big post that shipping 21 CKN is not enough to make up for the fact that you had to get vet ups for CKN/Qiangs and that Old Han Reforms costs you 1000f. You could respond to this at this point. Also, "By that argument... or some made up number" is factually incorrect. If you had actually looked at my calculations, you could have realized that a 15% inf combat upgrade increases the stats of guard units by 10%. Also, you keep forgetting that it also increases the cost by 50%, and then you resort to useless semantics every single time, saying that you think the specific 100% number is too big. However, as I have shown, nothing about it is insane. The increase in cost effectiveness isn't broken and the incidental increase in strength of your standing army and old han shipments barely makes up for the extra costs of the upgrades, the fact that the card is pretty weak without this boost, the fact that CKN/Qiang are significantly weaker than Arq/Changs without this card and the fact that it costs 1000f. You've decided not to respond to this. Instead, you've decided to act as if you're giving the evidence, which you are not. You're just saying that 100% is arbitrarily too much, without considering a) the fact that it also increases the cost by 50%, b) the fact that Old Han Reforms costs 1000f and c) the fact that without this Old Han units are complete shite.

I just cannot understand how you then decide that I'm the flat earther, that I'm ignoring evidence and giving weirdly skewed statements. I cannot understand how you can think that and then point at 100% and saying its OP, while blatantly ignoring the 2 other aspects of the cards, while blatantly ignoring all practical scenarios, while blatantly misunderstanding how the fact that upgrade cards only affect base stats affects this card, while blatantly ignoring the fact that no tournament play implies that Old Han Reforms made China OP.

I have no more words for someone as dense and as respectless as you.

[Cometk]

you're not gonna change anyone's mind

[[Armag] diarouga]

Old Han was totally fine in 1v1 on the RE, it's never been an issue. It was too strong in team games however, which is why it got overnerfed.

[RefluxSemantic]

you're not gonna change anyone's mind

Sure, you don't change the minds of most people. People are set to think what they think, even when you show them evidence that they are wrong. I provided arguments and you're free to not accept, read or understand them. But then attacking someone for not thinking the same thing you think? That's fucking low. Then be a man and accept that you're not capable of having a real argument and piss off.

By the way, I think your Treaty experiences with Old Han might be influencing you a bit. Old Han is probably really OP in treaty because they are ridiculously pop efficient. But otherwise, I don't see how Old Han units are cost effective, and I don't really see how you'd get tons of value from the initial boost.

[RefluxSemantic]

Old Han was totally fine in 1v1 on the RE, it's never been an issue. It was too strong in team games however, which is why it got overnerfed.

You know, I used to think that's reasonable. But long term Old Han doesn't make CKN/Qiangs that much better than Arqs/Chandaos. The card is extremely deceptive in what it does. You'd tend to think it's a 50% increase in cost effectiveness, but in reality it's only a 11% increase. I am starting to think that either different factors made Old Han Reforms feel OP, or that it was just entirely placebo.

[Kaiserklein]

Old han is just broken. It wasn't an issue in most games because most of the time you just can't afford to go for it. But in some match ups, or on some maps, it's clearly just lame. Like it just makes no sense how insanely strong your army becomes if you can just get away with it. And some civs couldn't really prevent it from happening, or livestock could make it much easier.

It's bit a like jinetes for ports on RE. Sure they couldn't often get away with it, but if you reach that point it becomes unplayable for most civs.

[Garja]

Old Han was totally fine in 1v1 on the RE, it's never been an issue. It was too strong in team games however, which is why it got overnerfed.

wtf was never an issue, it was freaking OP and there have been games when it's clearly shown

[[Armag] diarouga]

Old Han was totally fine in 1v1 on the RE, it's never been an issue. It was too strong in team games however, which is why it got overnerfed.

wtf was never an issue, it was freaking OP and there have been games when it's clearly shown

1v1 games ? I doubt it. If you can age 4 and safely send old han as China, you win no matter what. You could send the 26 rattans instead and make the std armies, that would almost be the same.

[Goodspeed]

The thing with OHR and other broken stuff that's expensive to get to is that it's just not good game design. Even if it's exactly the right amount hard to get to, which I don't think OHR was, that might make it technically balanced but still broken.

Why? Because everything should be counterable. Arguing that OHR was fine because it was hard to get to is like arguing a big red button that costs [insert high cost here] food in industrial age and says "you win the game" is fine because it's hard to get to. Even if the cost is exactly right, it's never going to be a good addition to the game because once you do get to it, you auto win.
Now, OHR wasn't quite as bad as a button that says "you win the game" but it was too close to that. It shouldn't only be hard to get to, it should also be counterable. And old han after OHR wasn't realistically counterable, much like imp cuirs.

You know, I used to think that's reasonable. But long term Old Han doesn't make CKN/Qiangs that much better than Arqs/Chandaos. The card is extremely deceptive in what it does. You'd tend to think it's a 50% increase in cost effectiveness, but in reality it's only a 11% increase. I am starting to think that either different factors made Old Han Reforms feel OP, or that it was just entirely placebo.

It also upgrades all of your existing old han. Also, I didn't go over your math but did you take diminishing returns into account? To illustrate: A unit with 2 hp and 2 attack is more than twice as strong as a unit with 1 hp and 1 attack.

[RefluxSemantic]

Tbh, I'm still amazed by how little Old Han Reforms increases the cost effectiveness of the Old Han units. Actually Old Han Guard CKN are very comparable to Guard (hypothetical, I know) Crossbows with an infantry combat homecity shipment. Technically they are almost exactly the same in terms of stats per cost to what Guard Xbows with a 30%/30% card would be. Okay, that might sound pretty decent. I mean, a 30/30 upgrade would be pretty great? But let's not forget that Xbows are just total shit. I don't think people would make xbows over skirms if they got +15% hp and attack. And of course the one instance of +15% hp and attack seems only like a fair assumption, given that China got to ship an upgrade card too.

So yeah, I'm starting to doubt Old Han Reformed CKN are even that great. Nothing really seems to suggest they are? It's at least not like they become these ultimate killing machines. If anything, the initial push gives them some redeeming qualities, but after that I don't see how anything is OP about them statwise.

[RefluxSemantic]

The thing with OHR and other broken stuff that's expensive to get to is that it's just not good game design. Even if it's exactly the right amount hard to get to, which I don't think OHR was, that might make it technically balanced but still broken.

Why? Because everything should be counterable. Arguing that OHR was fine because it was hard to get to is like arguing a big red button that costs [insert high cost here] food in industrial age and says "you win the game" is fine because it's hard to get to. Even if the cost is exactly right, it's never going to be a good addition to the game because once you do get to it, you auto win.
Now, OHR wasn't quite as bad as a button that says "you win the game" but it was too close to that. It shouldn't only be hard to get to, it should also be counterable. And old han after OHR wasn't realistically counterable, much like imp cuirs.

You know, I used to think that's reasonable. But long term Old Han doesn't make CKN/Qiangs that much better than Arqs/Chandaos. The card is extremely deceptive in what it does. You'd tend to think it's a 50% increase in cost effectiveness, but in reality it's only a 11% increase. I am starting to think that either different factors made Old Han Reforms feel OP, or that it was just entirely placebo.

It also upgrades all of your existing old han. Also, I didn't go over your math but did you take diminishing returns into account? To illustrate: A unit with 2 hp and 2 attack is more than twice as strong as a unit with 1 hp and 1 attack.

That's the one thing that could explain why they feel so strong, but there's no real way to go over that properly mathematically. Thing is, if you don't take that into account I think you almost have to conclude that old han reformed units are just less cost effective than guard arq/changdao with an infantry combat shipment. But maybe this somehow saves their cost efficiency?

[Kawapasaka]

On the subject of auto-win buttons, what does everyone think about trade monopoly?

[Goodspeed]

A good way to make sure map control doesn't become irrelevant, which it kinda tends to in this game after you get plantations and factories up.

[RefluxSemantic]

Like, just look at Guard Qiangs vs Guard Changdaos with infantry combat:

Qiang:
1.45555555556 hp/villager second
0.09444444444 attack/villager second
0.47222222222 attack vs cav/villager second

Chandao:
1.75073684211 hp/villager second
0.21221052631 attack/villager second
0.47747368421 attack vs cav/villager second

Chandaos just seem much stronger here, don't they? They even have 10% more melee resist. And I don't think having more hp on the unit can make up for this difference, as Qiangs only have like 30% more hp than Chandaos.

It sucks that CKN are just impossible to compare to skirms like this.

[Hazza54321]

i like trade monopoly, means u actually need map in lategame

[Garja]

Old Han was totally fine in 1v1 on the RE, it's never been an issue. It was too strong in team games however, which is why it got overnerfed.

wtf was never an issue, it was freaking OP and there have been games when it's clearly shown

1v1 games ? I doubt it. If you can age 4 and safely send old han as China, you win no matter what. You could send the 26 rattans instead and make the std armies, that would almost be the same.

Nah individual shipments are strong but other civs can beat it, even in fortress with good eco (e.g. Dutch). But old han is truly invincible for most civs on RE.

[dansil92]

Could you please stop measuring by villie seconds its a joke. When you're age 4, and are at or close to 200 pop then thats just irrelevant and the per unit stats are all that matters. Ckn are the single highest damage ranged infantry on re, only unction skirms even come close

[RefluxSemantic]

LOL