EP 6.1.x Beta [RELEASED-LIVE]

[zoom]

Ofc it snowballs and ofc it can make you win if the game is really close. But with that reasoning you gotta remove all treasures, fix all crates, fix all resources, and so on. Because every little thing can snowball as much as 90f does. At the end of the day you can just play chess if you want a perfectly fixed game...
10s nerf on exiled prince is just healthy for the game. Can't argue it's normal that everyone always picks that one politician. It just means that it's too strong.

With this reasoning you gotta nerf the 400w politician and 3v/2sw/Northern Refugees discovery age shipments.

Yeah we should buff some politicians like we saw in smackdown, to give alternatives to 400w.
I'd also like to see alternatives to vil shipments in age 1, but I think it's complicated because there's literally no shipment coming close to 3v for most civs. It's also not that big of a deal because 3v doesn't push players into doing 1 strat, unlike fast age.

I agree. We should. I hope we will, in the future.

[[Armag] diarouga]

From the OP (which contains explanations for all changes):

"Completely disregarding its Colonial Age availability and improvement shipments, the Zamburak is an exceptional unit, from a statistical point of view. These changes should abate Zamburak overperformance in Colonial and Fortress Ages, while helping the unit in the late-game, in the vein of the Gurkha. As well, this change is disproportionately beneficial to team-game balance."

Other than that, the change helps nerf Indians.

According to feedback, Aztecs and Chinese are both considered weaker than Japanese. As well, the buffs to Chinese are slight. Again, currently looking into recent feedback for an upcoming beta update.

EP might start making substantial changes to the game, in future updates. For now, there are three measured exceptions to inter-civ and general balance.

I did read the OP, my lack of understanding of why one would nerf Zamburaks like this was actually not for lack of reading your words. Just the "well I looked at the numbers completely independently of how the civ plays and any games we've seen of it and decided it seemed too good" did not aid me with understanding why this would be a good idea. Looking at India currently and thinking that a good change would be to make it so making Sepoy is relatively stronger than an alternative (in the case alternative anti-cav in the Zamburak) just seems odd to me.

The feedback point on civ strength is genuinely helpful though, I had taken the general view to be to the contrary but I guess my data for this point was out of date or otherwise unrepresentative.

First, that isn't the case. Second, it is a slight nerf to the civilization in 1 Vs 1 and a moderate nerf to it in team games. That's all.

Well, it's relevant in team games for sure, and maybe good for the team game balance, but isn't the EP first aimed to balance 1v1? Or did you change that goal too?

Furthermore your lack of 1v1 experience and understanding makes you overlook the sepoy dominance. Nobody makes zams in 1v1 because the unit is weak, why would you nerf them? It's like nerfing rajputs lol.

[zoom]

what about not changing age up time so u dont have to do 20 changes to balance it?

Good idea!

[Kaiserklein]

Furthermore your lack of 1v1 experience and understanding makes you overlook the sepoy dominance. Nobody makes zams in 1v1 because the unit is weak, why would you nerf them? It's like nerfing rajputs lol.

That's so exaggerated. Lots of people make zambs in 1v1, and they're not weak. Not saying we should nerf them, but still.

[[Armag] diarouga]

Furthermore your lack of 1v1 experience and understanding makes you overlook the sepoy dominance. Nobody makes zams in 1v1 because the unit is weak, why would you nerf them? It's like nerfing rajputs lol.

That's so exaggerated. Lots of people make zambs in 1v1, and they're not weak. Not saying we should nerf them, but still.

They are weak, in what MU would you say zams are viable ? Answer this question and you'll see that they aren't used in 1v1 :
India mirror : That's one of the only MUs where they're viable. The reason is that India has skirms in age 2 so going sepoy is awkward, and the MU goes into late colonial and zams become decent after the 2 upgrades.
Japan : Some guys make zams but that's just a mistake imo. Japan won't go naginata if you make a lot of sepoys and sepoys do ok against yumi if you can snare them while zams die super fast to both ashis and yumis. Finally zams are bad at sieging and at killing vills.
China : Zams vs China ??
Sioux : That's something you can consider but most of the time you want to age 3 in this MU so you don't have the time to send the camel upgrades and thus they aren't good. Finally they do bad against rifle riders and bow riders.
Aztecs : They're viable in this MU too because it goes to late colonial. My serie against Tit and my practice games against India showed that although it's currently standard to make zams, sepoys might just be better lol.
Iro : It goes to fortress so you don't want zams.
Otto : You need zams in this MU because sepoys die too fast against abus so you need 10 zams against huss.
Russia : Another colonial MU. Making zams is currently sort of standard but again, it's just bad, making sepoys is much better until you have the 2 camel upgrades.
Spain : No comment.
Dutch : It's an option, but again I'd rather have sepoy/gurkha with cease fire.
France : Well, another fortress MU so no zams
Germany : It might be viable, but again, I'd prefer sepoys if you want to be agressive in age 2 or abuse the cease fire. If you semi ff howdahs are better.
Brit : Just make sepoys lol, don't bother making gurkhas because brit can't counter sepoys.
Port : Same, just make sepoys and cease fire

All in all, there are 3 MUs where you should make zams, in the other MUs it's better to make sepoys and a move with cease fire.
The question is why would you nerf zams instead of tackling the real issues with India ? That is to say sepoys being too strong and cease fire being a broken mechanic.

India isn't op because you can counter their timings but I think that people hate this civ because the way it's currently played is totally lame : you rush, make only musks, age and send urumis and it's actually really hard to play against that. Having a specialized unit which requires more micro/decision making is objectively better.

[Hazza54321]

why are fortress MUs considered no zambs lol , and how are sepoy better vs russia thats just completely wrong, same with ports like wtf sepoy ceasefire vs 4.5 speed cassadors, skirm sepoy vs france also sounds shit, vs dutch sepoy gurkha really? vs sioux no mobility sounds amazing

[Mitoe]

Zambs vs China are great if you're both in Fortress. Once you get the 30% card in his cav just melts away.

Have to agree with Hazza here, some of these just don't make sense. Zambs are really good and you're vastly underestimating them, but I don't really think they should be nerfed either.

[Sputnik]

I think you need both zambs and sepoys against both china and sioux with good amount of skirms. You need sepoy in early fortress and mix zamb at mid. And you can avoid raids by adding tc really early before zambs come in play

[WickedCossack]

I think you need both zambs and sepoys against both china and sioux with good amount of skirms. You need sepoy in early fortress and mix zamb at mid. And you can avoid raids by adding tc really early before zambs come in play

Yea I like comps that use both zamb and sepoy against melee civs like china and sioux. You just need some buffer or else your army can just melt no matter how godlike your kiting is.

[[Armag] diarouga]

why are fortress MUs considered no zambs lol , and how are sepoy better vs russia thats just completely wrong, same with ports like wtf sepoy ceasefire vs 4.5 speed cassadors, skirm sepoy vs france also sounds shit, vs dutch sepoy gurkha really? vs sioux no mobility sounds amazing

Fortress MUs are considered no zambs for several reasons :
1) You have to upgrade the zams (yes you also have to upgrade the sepoys but usually you have some sepoys left from colonial while you don't have zams).
2) You need a stable to train zams. Don't you need a rax to train and upgrade Sepoys ? You do but it can be agra+rax, if you go zam it has to be stable+rax+agra which means you'll waste 200w, and 200w is a big deal when you semi ff because India is a slow semi ff civ and it can be tough to take the map or survive a push.
3) Zams are bad against every unit but cav, so if your opponent doesn't have cav it's a wasted unit (and your stable is also 200 wasted wood because sowars are almost useless).
4) Zams aren't even great against cav before the 2 upgrade shipments because although their dps is fine (still not great) they die really fast, and it's going to be even easier to snipe them with less range.

Sepoys are better against Russia because ruskets don't stand a chance against sepoys, they do nothing and die super fast, and strels can't snipe them because they'll be busy running from the sowars and they don't have enough range to snipe sepoys if they're blocked by sowars.
You might want to add like 10 zams once you've sent the camel upgrades in case the Russian player insists on making coss but usually he'll just have the 9 from the shipments against sepoy/sowar.

You should try it, sepoy/sowar with a few gurkhas (like 10) works great against Russia. It's much easier to defend the rush and you crush in middle colonial.

You don't really want to make zams in fortress games for the reasons I listed above (it costs a lot of wood, and they're useless because your opponent is not going to make cav if he sees 15 zams and then you wasted resources).
Against France you don't want to go sepoy/gurkha (although it would probably be better than gurkha/zam) but full sepoy with mahouts, urumis and cease fire lol.

Against Sioux zams are not going to give you any mobility lol. I'd say that it's easier to walk out of your base with sepoy/gurkha than with gurkha/zam because it's less likely you get caught in the middle of the map and lose all your army. If you go zam/gurkha against Sioux you aren't ever going to walk out of your base because you'll lose all your gurkhas to melee cav and wakinas with speed will snipe your zams super easily in the mean time lol.

Anyway, mobility against Sioux in 1v1 isn't very relevant since most of the time you just want to turtle, wall and never walk out of your base. As I said, sepoys even give you more mobility than zams because they can protect your gurkhas and even siege TPs.

@Mitoe
Sepoys with a few zams is definitely an option against the civs which are going to make a lot of cav like China or Sioux but your main anti cav unit is going to be the sepoy because it's just a better unit overall.

[Kaiserklein]

Too lazy to answer this tbh, experience showed that zambs do just fine. They're a goon unit available in colonial AND heavily upgradable in colonial, what other arguments do you need...
Both in mid-late colonial (because of upgrades) and in mid-late fortress vs euro civs (because of CIR) zambs get better than sepoy.

[Garja]

Lol so much bs I'm reading.
Zambs are better than sepoy most of times.
Any fortress MU is zambs if it came from an eco build. If it is sepoy is because you rushed and then aged or you're trying sepoy + mahout (+urumi).
Vs Russia and Aztecs, Zambs are straight up better because sepoy are useless. The most expensive musketeer vs the most cost efficient RI units. Zambs on the other hand have 30% rr and RI has inferior multiplier vs them. Plus they quickly go back and strel and maces don't reach them anymore.
Vs Jap and Brit you need hard countering units because if you mirror their combo your units will simply be weaker after ups. Sepoy < ashi or brit musks, sowar < huss and nagi, gurka < lbow and yumi. However by going gurka+camels you have hard counter for each of the opponent unit, making India combo very capable of being better (surely better than Brit colo combo).

Sepoy are only really required vs strong attack cav civs: sioux, spain, germans (until numbers get big where ulhan mass isnt that scary anymore), china (mostly cause 41% rr and because changdao counter zambs). Usually you need both sepoy and zambs vs these civs.

Fortress MUs are considered no zambs for several reasons :
1) You have to upgrade the zams (yes you also have to upgrade the sepoys but usually you have some sepoys left from colonial while you don't have zams).
2) You need a stable to train zams. Don't you need a rax to train and upgrade Sepoys ? You do but it can be agra+rax, if you go zam it has to be stable+rax+agra which means you'll waste 200w, and 200w is a big deal when you semi ff because India is a slow semi ff civ and it can be tough to take the map or survive a push.
3) Zams are bad against every unit but cav, so if your opponent doesn't have cav it's a wasted unit (and your stable is also 200 wasted wood because sowars are almost useless).
4) Zams aren't even great against cav before the 2 upgrade shipments because although their dps is fine (still not great) they die really fast, and it's going to be even easier to snipe them with less range.

1) This is bs argument. If I plan to make zambs I either don't make any anticav in colo or I make zambs. I might make 10-15 sepoy for the rush but they're all dead by the time I age up. That is unless I'm specifically going sepoy+mahout.
2) 2nd rax is soon useful even if making cav because you can and need to train more than 5 gurka. And you need a stable anyway, or you win age3 MUs with infantry only?
3) Zambs are good damage dealers unlike goons. A colonial zamb has basically the same stats of a colonial gurka. Same attack, similar HP, similar cost, same pop. After camel attack they have more dps than gurka vs any unit but HI and goons. With that said you normally make zambs once you know the opponent will be making cav or if you want to go max RI and minimal anticav (in which case sepoy won't work because not enough mobility to kite back).
4) If you micro they're just fine. They are weaker if got meeled but they have more mobility compared to sepoy. There are pros and cons for both units. As for range, the nerf is simply not good. If you meant less ranged resistance, that's just a fair nerf since it is in line with other goons. Also units like maces or strelets simply don't kill them with 30%.

[Mitoe]

The strength of zambs vs many compositions is in their micro potential, whereas the strength of sepoy is in their lack of micro.

[EAGLEMUT]

A list featuring all current beta changes is found in the OP.



EP 6.0.0.0 Beta2 [2019-02-02]
changelog since EP 6.0.0.0 Beta1


General
- Removed duplicate map art files from ESOC Patch 5.1 compatibility dataset, greatly reducing its size.

ESOC Patch map changes
- Added UIx version of New England, removed old version.
- UIx New England: improved sheep spawn locations, whales fix, island fix, other tweaks.
- Seasonal Winter version disabled, until further notice, on the following maps: UIx ESOC Fertile Crescent, UIx ESOC Florida, UIx ESOC Mendocino, UIx ESOC Pampas Sierras.
- UIx ESOC Kamchatka: disabled Winter spawn version until end of July, 2019.

ESOC Patch bug fixes
- Fixed a bug causing the Disciplined Urumi shadow tech effects to be applied team-wide; especially problematic in combination with the Team Urumi card, which enables this tech even for non-Indian teammates.

ESOC Patch Launcher
- Added option to show unit/building HP on mouseover.
- Added option to hide game interface on screenshots.
- Any error encountered during the update process will now be properly logged.

ESOC Patch balance changes

After extensive evaluation of player feedback, we are making the following updates to the beta (balance development comments, by @zoom, in italic):

General

– "The Exiled Prince” & Fortress Age "The Messenger" age-time decreased from 50s to 45s
Makes the change even less risky, and can always be adjusted, in the future.

– “Bastion” improvement increased from +300% Wall hitpoints to +400% Wall hitpoints; now also increases wall build-time by 50%
Especially meant to address excessive walling in the late game, this change will be disproportionately beneficial to team-game balance.

– All warship broadside attacks no longer do half damage to artillery
Reverted until further notice and review.

British

– Manor House build-time decreased from 25s to 20s
Reverted without replacement, due to feedback, and other updates. Bow, everyone, before your new—and old—top civilization!

Chinese

– Shaolin Master cover mode removed; cost reduced from 300c to 250c; train-time decreased from 30s to 25s
Addresses the problem that is having one of two infantry melee heroes with cover mode, and the other without, while solving an abuseable bug, in the only way possible. Chinese being buffed presents a good opportunity to do so. Compensated by a cost buff to avoid it being punitive.

Indians

– Shipment penalty reduced from 10% to 8%
Replaced by the below change.

– House cost increased from 60w to 70w; bounties adjusted from 12 to 14 (build) & 24 to 28 (kill)
Partially reverting the previous buff, instead.

– Zamburak maximum range & line of sight increased from 11 & 14 to 12 & 15, respectively; Mansabdar updated accordingly
– "Disciplined", "Honored" and "Exalted" Zamburak improvements no longer increase maximum range & line of sight by 1 each
Reverted until further notice and review.

Japanese

– Daimyo cost decreased from 500c to 350c; bounties adjusted from 50xp to 35xp
Reverted.

– Shogun Tokugawa cost decreased from 1000c to 750c; bounties adjusted from 100 to 75
Maintains a less unreasonable price, while avoiding being punitive.

– Shrine cost reduced from 125w to 120w; bounties adjusted from 25 to 24 (build) & 50 to 48 (kill)
A slight buff to the civilization, removing another decimal cost from the game, for an added bonus.

Sioux

– War Chief ranged resistance now increases from 10% to 30% when reaching the Colonial Age
This change seeks to make viable – in terms of balance – keeping the heavy cavalry tag, as previously added to the War Chief. It decreases the impact of the tag by about 40%, while increasing the durability of the unit a bit, to other ranged damage. Ultimately, it does make sense for the unit to have the tag, and higher ranged resistance, along with it. There is precedent for hero unit statistics being buffed when advancing in age—most notably in the case of the only other cavalry hero unit in the game—The Brahmin Monk, which gains speed, in Colonial Age, that would have been too strong in the Discovery Age. On a closely related topic, removing the tag along with snare for the unit, is an acceptable alternative. However, it has bigger and less desirable drawbacks.

Spanish

– Rodelero hand attack increased from 10 to 11
Added based on other changes to the beta. A slight buff to a less-than overperforming unit of the civilization, available in the Colonial Age.

[spoiler=Simple changelist without comments]General

– "The Exiled Prince” & Fortress Age "The Messenger" age-time decreased from 50s to 45s
– “Bastion” improvement increased from +300% Wall hitpoints to +400% Wall hitpoints; now also increases wall build-time by 50%
– All warship broadside attacks no longer do half damage to artillery

British

– Manor House build-time decreased from 25s to 20s

Chinese

– Shaolin Master cover mode removed; cost reduced from 300c to 250c; train-time decreased from 30 to 25

Indians

– Shipment penalty reduced from 10% to 8%
– House cost increased from 60w to 70w; bounties adjusted from 12 to 14 (build) & 24 to 28 (kill)
– Zamburak maximum range & line of sight increased from 11 & 14 to 12 & 15, respectively; Mansabdar updated accordingly
– "Disciplined", "Honored" and "Exalted" Zamburak improvements no longer increase maximum range & line of sight by 1 each

Japanese

– Daimyo cost decreased from 500c to 350c; bounties adjusted from 50xp to 35xp
– Shogun Tokugawa cost decreased from 1000c to 750c; bounties adjusted from 100 to 75
– Shrine cost reduced from 125w to 120w; bounties adjusted from 25 to 24 (build) & 50 to 48 (kill)

Sioux

– War Chief ranged resistance now increases from 10% to 30% when reaching the Colonial Age

Spanish

– Rodelero hand attack increased from 10 to 11[/spoiler]

Credits
- Spawn improvements on UIx New England by @Garja.
- Launcher options by @Thrar, new blood in the dev team!

[charlemango]

Looks very reasonable, maybe @Diarouga can finally stop crying.

[Mitoe]

– Shrine cost reduced from 125w to 120w; bounties adjusted from 25 to 24 (build) & 50 to 48 (kill)

Is this the first Japan buff in the history of the game? Glad to see it, with the other nerfs I think this might make them a more well-rounded civ. If this ends up being too strong somehow might be worth adding 1 - 3 seconds onto the build time to compensate, since it doesn't cost villager seconds to construct them anyway.

[[Armag] diarouga]

The bow buff got reverted?

[Hazza54321]

yeah shrines were always too expensive idk why this hasnt been considered before

[Mitoe]

The bow buff got reverted?

I think it's still in the beta.

[ListlessSalmon]

I still don't like the bow/pike change, but the rest of it seems much less bad to me now.

– Shrine cost reduced from 125w to 120w; bounties adjusted from 25 to 24 (build) & 50 to 48 (kill)

Is this the first Japan buff in the history of the game?

I believe Cherry Orchard food amount and shrine base resource gather rate was buffed in ES 1.1.

The bow buff got reverted?

No, combined (i.e. from current EP) changes are in the OP, Eaglemut's post recently is changes from what the beta was previously.

[[Armag] diarouga]

The bow buff got reverted?

I think it's still in the beta.

Can it be reverted? I think a pike change would be okish although I don't like to change the unit costs, but the bow change is undeserved.

[Goodspeed]

To me the question isn't whether zams are good at all (they are), the question is does this nerf have a positive effect on civ balance? I don't think so, because India doesn't need zams to win games. Besides, the only reason zams can be considered better than other goons is their colonial availability, and that alone is no reason to nerf the unit.

I know it was stated earlier that this is not the reason, but I don't agree that the unit is "exceptional" disregarding both its colonial availability and the upgrade shipment. Perhaps I'm wrong in that?

"Completely disregarding its Colonial Age availability and improvement shipments, the Zamburak is an exceptional unit, from a statistical point of view."

I think it's still a good change because goons in general are too strong, but then every other ranged cav unit should also be nerfed (except Yabusame).

[Dsy]

For me the question: Why no--
Increasing wall cost to 40w, increase wall health back to 3k
Lower all goon type unit mutliplier against vills to 0.1
-- in the patch notes?

[[Armag] diarouga]

Lol, 40w walls.

[yemshi]

Lol, all goon type unit multiplier against vills to 0.1.