Limited Pre-Winter Adjustments (to EP7)

[Kaiserklein]

I guess it's true for people who join the EP. From my selfish point of view, it just sucks to play a tourney game and not have 5v in your deck.
Ultimately, I guess what really matters is that 5v was the best change Sioux had.

[[Armag] diarouga]

now without 5v the decks are bugged...

I get what you're saying, but it would be more accurate to say 5v bugged decks. Now the card is once again compatible with RE decks, so you don't need to maintain separate ones anymore. Surely that seems like the better state to be in.

I know that 5v initially bugged the decks. But that doesn't matter anymore, everyone has their decks with 5v. What sucks is changing it once more, which bugs it all once more. To me, the better state to be in is not having to remake a deck, and not nerfing 5v uselessly.

Can we please just give Sioux 5v back? That was the most (if not the only) sensical Sioux change to begin with, plus now without 5v the decks are bugged...

I don't understand. If buffing Sioux is desirable, practically any alternative seems more sensible. Please tell me what makes sense, to you, about buffing the single most viable Colonial Age shipment – and breaking cross-patch deck compatibility, in the process.

It's not "buffing" Sioux, it's just keeping the 5v we've had for several patches. Like come on, we've been trying to play around with teepees (which as we all know, simply resulted in a huge load of crap in terms of design/gameplay and balance), just to give Sioux an eco option. And now, we're nerfing the Sioux eco..? By reverting the simplest, smoothest, most discreet change? You didn't mind turning the iconic 3 sw shipment into some weird 2sw + 1v stuff, but 4 => 5v would be the least "sensible" change to buff the Sioux eco? I'm really confused.
Besides, 4v is arguably not the most viable colonial shipment. That would be 4 axe probably, or 700g maybe.

EP7 logic.
+1 vill doesn't make sense, it's a "bug" but the random native TP change is totally fine

[richard]

Just leave the 281.25F, 93.75G cost for the russian musketeers. No need to change it, it was fine.

[Kaiserklein]

@zoom artillery foundries cost only 200w atm, and that's nowhere in the patch notes. So I assume it's because of the new 200w iro foundry. Can we fix it?

[EAGLEMUT]

Good catch, yes.

[zoom]

now without 5v the decks are bugged...

I get what you're saying, but it would be more accurate to say 5v bugged decks. Now the card is once again compatible with RE decks, so you don't need to maintain separate ones anymore. Surely that seems like the better state to be in.

I know that 5v initially bugged the decks. But that doesn't matter anymore, everyone has their decks with 5v. What sucks is changing it once more, which bugs it all once more. To me, the better state to be in is not having to remake a deck, and not nerfing 5v uselessly.

Can we please just give Sioux 5v back? That was the most (if not the only) sensical Sioux change to begin with, plus now without 5v the decks are bugged...

I don't understand. If buffing Sioux is desirable, practically any alternative seems more sensible. Please tell me what makes sense, to you, about buffing the single most viable Colonial Age shipment – and breaking cross-patch deck compatibility, in the process.

It's not "buffing" Sioux, it's just keeping the 5v we've had for several patches. Like come on, we've been trying to play around with teepees (which as we all know, simply resulted in a huge load of crap in terms of design/gameplay and balance), just to give Sioux an eco option. And now, we're nerfing the Sioux eco..? By reverting the simplest, smoothest, most discreet change? You didn't mind turning the iconic 3 sw shipment into some weird 2sw + 1v stuff, but 4 => 5v would be the least "sensible" change to buff the Sioux eco? I'm really confused.
Besides, 4v is arguably not the most viable colonial shipment. That would be 4 axe probably, or 700g maybe.

Buffing the Sioux economy is perfectly sensible (in fact, it's what's being done; you seem to tunnel-visioning on one particular change, ignoring the rest). Buffing 4 Villagers is perfectly senseless, on the other hand, since it's already the most viable Colonial Age shipment (by which I mean it's the most sent Colonial Age shipment of the civilization, on RE; IIRC top players opened with it in most games) and necessarily introduces a bad bug.

The Sioux economy is being nerfed, by the removal of a problematic change to the most viable shipment, already, then buffed in other ways. If it weren't for the fact that it's creating an unacceptable bug, buffing 4 Villagers would have been acceptable.

Thankfully, there are equally discreet, simple and smooth options! I suggest trying the recently buffed "Great Hunter" shipment; given how much of the Sioux economy revolves around food, +25% hunting gather-rate is quote comparable, indeed. It scales, as your economy grows, too. You could even send both shipments, for added synergy!

If the civilization proves too weak, it's simply a matter of buffing it, otherwise. There's no reason to obsess over this one shipment!

Teepees should work better now, too.

[zoom]

It makes more sense to have an extra villager than it does to have 1 teepee in base that randomly gives 5% eco or whatever it is.

Except for the part where it's buffing what's already the most viable shipment, and creating an unacceptable bug, that statement seems reasonable.

Incidentally, Teepees should better interact with gameplay, on EP7, though.

[zoom]

@zoom artillery foundries cost only 200w atm, and that's nowhere in the patch notes. So I assume it's because of the new 200w iro foundry. Can we fix it?

My bad! Thank you for reporting this bug!

[zoom]

not sure if this belongs here, but regarding the new treasure sets; the villager treasure is now guarded by 4 black bears, but so is the cdb treasure. So should really increase the number or quality of guardians at the cdb treasure

Is it an issue that they aren't perfectly proportional? Reverting (or nerfing the CDB treasure) seems entirely reasonable, in that case. I'd like to get more feedback on this.

[zoom]

Just leave the 281.25F, 93.75G cost for the russian musketeers. No need to change it, it was fine.

Except for that it results in a decimal cost, which leads to problematic cases, where you can't afford training the batch, despite the game telling you that you can.

What's the problem with this change, though? Isn't it entirely insignificant, otherwise? The proportions are identical and the increase tiny.

[zoom]

Added the following changes:

– Game (huntables) delivered to shipment point no longer wanders

A number of players have expressed a desire for shipped game (huntables) not to wander. This change is intended to yield the same state as the original game ("vanilla"). After testing, we should reconsider whether any further changes are desirable.

– Iron Flail cost reduced from 240f to 220; bounties adjusted accordingly
– Meteor Hammer cost increased from 175c to 190c; bounties adjusted accordingly

Some players are concerned that Black Flag Army is too strong. As I've noted before, the first thing to try, is balancing it without limiting its availability. These changes both make Black Flag Army less cost-efficient, and Imperial Army (which practically never sees use in competitive play) more cost efficient, without significantly impacting Forbidden Army. After testing, we should reconsider whether any further changes are desirable. I also had an idea, regarding Chinese dynamic ("random") crate starts, that I would like your feedback on, here.

Also tweaked the following change (to -60%) in order to minimize the risk of adverse effects:

– "Mosque Construction" shipment changed from -33% to -80% unique Mosque improvement cost

OP updated accordingly.

There will be a preliminary beta build, shortly, which remains subject to updates. We are currently planning on releasing the update, sometime next week.

Due to holiday activities, my activity on ESOC will be limited, in the coming few days. On a related note, I wish everyone a merry christmas!

[[Armag] diarouga]

Jesus Christ, people complained about that EP being shit and the only thing Zoi does is implementing more shitty changes lol.
That stupid iron/meteor change has already been discussed and the conclusion is that it is fine if not every units are as strong. This EP is trying to bring diversity by making all the units the same which is super stupid.
Ah and the mosque change lol.

[Kaiserklein]

Buffing the Sioux economy is perfectly sensible (in fact, it's what's being done; you seem to tunnel-visioning on one particular change, ignoring the rest). Buffing 4 Villagers is perfectly senseless, on the other hand, since it's already the most viable Colonial Age shipment (by which I mean it's the most sent Colonial Age shipment of the civilization, on RE; IIRC top players opened with it in most games) and necessarily introduces a bad bug.

I know there are other changes buffing the Sioux eco. I just think it's weird to revert the most obvious eco buff, the 5v shipment, which also happened to be popular. Again, 4v being the most viable age 2 shipment is arguable.

The Sioux economy is being nerfed, by the removal of a problematic change to the most viable shipment, already, then buffed in other ways. If it weren't for the fact that it's creating an unacceptable bug, buffing 4 Villagers would have been acceptable.

That's what I don't understand. Suddenly this deck bug is labeled as "unacceptable" even though we've had it for like, 3 years? Weird.
I think what matters more anyway is the balance and popularity of the changes. Not that deck bug.

Thankfully, there are equally discreet, simple and smooth options! I suggest trying the recently buffed "Great Hunter" shipment; given how much of the Sioux economy revolves around food, +25% hunting gather-rate is quote comparable, indeed. It scales, as your economy grows, too. You could even send both shipments, for added synergy!

I'm skeptical regarding that great hunter shipment (the spice trade sort of stuff tends to be just bad usually), although it might be very good on maps with a lot of berries. It's less flexible than 4v, uses another slot in your deck, kinda requires you to already have shipped 4v if you want to get value out of it, becomes useless in late game...
And most importantly, it isn't even worth 4v unless you have at least 17-18v on food (with hunting dogs). Realistically, you're not gonna keep that many vils on food constantly in most Sioux games.
And even if it's worth 4 vils, do you really want to ship "another" 4 vils after the actual 4 vils shipment?

[Mitoe]

Chinese
– Iron Flail cost reduced from 240f to 220; bounties adjusted accordingly
– Meteor Hammer cost increased from 175c to 190c; bounties adjusted accordingly – "Some players are concerned that Black Flag Army is too strong. As I've noted before, the first thing to try, is balancing it without limiting its availability. These changes both make Black Flag Army less cost-efficient, and Imperial Army (which practically never sees use in competitive play) more cost efficient, without significantly impacting Forbidden Army. After testing, we should reconsider whether any further changes are desirable. I also had an idea, regarding Chinese dynamic ("random") crate starts, that I would like your feedback on, here."

The concern is not balance related, it's design-related.

[zoom]

Please note that I've made this post.

[zoom]

[quote="zoom"]– Game (huntables) delivered to shipment point no longer wanders – "A number of players have expressed a desire for shipped game (huntables) not to wander. This change is intended to yield the same state as the original game ("vanilla"). After testing, we should reconsider whether any further changes are desirable."

Please note that this change was stricken from the beta build, since it's proven technically impossible, at this time. That might change, in the future.

OP updated accordingly.