Update 43871

[iNcog]

They didn't nerf Ethiopia mortar or the fact that you can task 5 abuns to it to make it unkillable. In other words, worthless patch.

[gibson]

I'm sure this patch doesn't even come close to balancing Africa. Africa is still largely undiscovered (unlike the USA. who we were promised buffs for on this patch 6 weeks ago), and this patch mostly only targeted the most obvious broken shipments and rushes. Even if some units were toned down, it's unlikely that we won't see something similarly broken pop up soon enough.

OP civs take longer to discover than underpowered civs, because you don't need to know every detail about the civ to win with a 5 minute rush. It would be a lot better for them to over-nerf africa than under-nerf at this point, in terms of bringing the game to proper balance in a reasonable amount of time. If Africa is still OP, we have 6 more weeks of pain ahead of us. If africa were underpowered, we could still play 17 other civilizations in peace.

Plus they didn't even try to address livestock maps.

Bad balance patch considering the time-frame imo. The rest of the patch looks good though. also weird puma buff.

Nah thats exactly how you don't do balance. You make gradual changes until you reach a median instead of making huge changes and wildly hoping to get balance.

[Garja]

err... 18k food all in one spot

[Dolphincup]

I'm sure this patch doesn't even come close to balancing Africa. Africa is still largely undiscovered (unlike the USA. who we were promised buffs for on this patch 6 weeks ago), and this patch mostly only targeted the most obvious broken shipments and rushes. Even if some units were toned down, it's unlikely that we won't see something similarly broken pop up soon enough.

OP civs take longer to discover than underpowered civs, because you don't need to know every detail about the civ to win with a 5 minute rush. It would be a lot better for them to over-nerf africa than under-nerf at this point, in terms of bringing the game to proper balance in a reasonable amount of time. If Africa is still OP, we have 6 more weeks of pain ahead of us. If africa were underpowered, we could still play 17 other civilizations in peace.

Plus they didn't even try to address livestock maps.

Bad balance patch considering the time-frame imo. The rest of the patch looks good though. also weird puma buff.

Nah thats exactly how you don't do balance. You make gradual changes until you reach a median instead of making huge changes and wildly hoping to get balance.

Your point is only true for games that exist in a relatively healthy, playable state. If a games not in a playable state (and imo it hasn't been for the past 6 weeks), the priority needs to be correcting the state of the game. two bad patches in a row means 3 months of leaving the entire competitive community hanging. Aoe3 players are pretty damn resilient at wading through bullshit for the sake of the game and the community, but I think that we would have lost a lot of activity already if not for kaiserklein's tournament. esp w/ aoe4 coming out. Not everybody is gonna wait a year for them to gradually bring africa into balance.

[gibson]

I'm sure this patch doesn't even come close to balancing Africa. Africa is still largely undiscovered (unlike the USA. who we were promised buffs for on this patch 6 weeks ago), and this patch mostly only targeted the most obvious broken shipments and rushes. Even if some units were toned down, it's unlikely that we won't see something similarly broken pop up soon enough.

OP civs take longer to discover than underpowered civs, because you don't need to know every detail about the civ to win with a 5 minute rush. It would be a lot better for them to over-nerf africa than under-nerf at this point, in terms of bringing the game to proper balance in a reasonable amount of time. If Africa is still OP, we have 6 more weeks of pain ahead of us. If africa were underpowered, we could still play 17 other civilizations in peace.

Plus they didn't even try to address livestock maps.

Bad balance patch considering the time-frame imo. The rest of the patch looks good though. also weird puma buff.

Nah thats exactly how you don't do balance. You make gradual changes until you reach a median instead of making huge changes and wildly hoping to get balance.

Your point is only true for games that exist in a relatively healthy, playable state. If a games not in a playable state (and imo it hasn't been for the past 6 weeks), the priority needs to be correcting the state of the game. two bad patches in a row means 3 months of leaving the entire competitive community hanging. Aoe3 players are pretty damn resilient at wading through bullshit for the sake of the game and the community, but I think that we would have lost a lot of activity already if not for kaiserklein's tournament. esp w/ aoe4 coming out. Not everybody is gonna wait a year for them to gradually bring africa into balance.

That's just not true. There have been incredibly broken stuff in the biggest esports games and this is the way balance has always gone. More broken stuff in games with hundreds of thousands of dollars of prize pool. The game is in a fine playable state, the only people who are leaving are people in the top 5%, most of whom had stopped playing actively even before African civs came out. It's kinda shitty, but African civs have to be playable or the DLC flops and it's not possible for them to be balanced on release so ofc they're gonna be too good for a bit.

[Dolphincup]

Your point is only true for games that exist in a relatively healthy, playable state. If a games not in a playable state (and imo it hasn't been for the past 6 weeks), the priority needs to be correcting the state of the game. two bad patches in a row means 3 months of leaving the entire competitive community hanging. Aoe3 players are pretty damn resilient at wading through bullshit for the sake of the game and the community, but I think that we would have lost a lot of activity already if not for kaiserklein's tournament. esp w/ aoe4 coming out. Not everybody is gonna wait a year for them to gradually bring africa into balance.

That's just not true. There have been incredibly broken stuff in the biggest esports games and this is the way balance has always gone. More broken stuff in games with hundreds of thousands of dollars of prize pool. The game is in a fine playable state, the only people who are leaving are people in the top 5%, most of whom had stopped playing actively even before African civs came out. It's kinda shitty, but African civs have to be playable or the DLC flops and it's not possible for them to be balanced on release so ofc they're gonna be too good for a bit.

Steam charts player numbers puts USA DLC impact above africa DLC impact in terms of player base, and USA was an underpowered civ, which immediately dismantles the argument that new civs have to be strong for a successful DLC release.

It's of course subjective on whether or not the game is in a playable state. My experience, which is primarily 2v2's with my brother, is that most games including africa civs are decided on the loading screen. Neither of us play africa b/c OP is not our style, and it's really not fun or worth my time to spend 7 mins in queue just to get stomped by some lamers. 2v2's were fun before Africa DLC, even with sweden lame. Now I haven't touched the game in 3 weeks. I will try again tomorrow to see if it feels better now.

Also I'm skeptical that any major esports tournaments dealt with anything more broken than the hausa rush. Keep in mind that in mobas, 1 broken character is just 1 out of 10, and most mobas have multiple broken characters and both teams get one or two. Plus they have bans. It's not quite the same in an RTS. SC and SC2 certainly never had anything as egregious as this.

[Kyo_]

Idk what happened, but after this patch the 4 privateer age 3 shipment for dutch doesn't ship. Says it's already at the build limit (???). Confusing on so many levels

[helln00]

Idk what happened, but after this patch the 4 privateer age 3 shipment for dutch doesn't ship. Says it's already at the build limit (???). Confusing on so many levels

Ah, let the bug hunting begin

[Kawapasaka]

Idk what happened, but after this patch the 4 privateer age 3 shipment for dutch doesn't ship. Says it's already at the build limit (???). Confusing on so many levels

this was already there on the previous patch, at least for ports

[uberjz]

sometimes the card ships, sometimes it doesn't. this happens with other merc/nat cards as well (the 6 berber cav for africa civs for example).

[helln00]

The cards that give 2 or 3 privateers still works, so I am guessing that since they updated the build limit systems, it checks if it takes you over the limit and since the build limit for privateers is 3, it won't let you send, will just need to report the bug

[helln00]

I do have to say, balance aside, this patch feels a lot smoother to play, unit control seems a lot less janky since I think they removed the unit stopping after kill behaviour

[fei123456]

LOL someone said Aztec would have a 7 puma shipment after puma nerf, but it's still 6. Now it has only 540 res.
And 5 coyote for 550 res, 8 slinger for 560 res. There are no available shipments now.

[aligator92]

LOL I thought Aztec would have a 7 puma shipment after puma nerf, but it's still 6. Now it has only 540 res now.
And 5 coyote for 550 res, 8 slinger for 560 res.

Welp. It was the only aztec age 2 unit shipment that they had not nerfed yet...

[helln00]

The devs must have saw Aussie Drongo video calling the 7 puma in the public preview good and decided it was too good.

[dansil92]

aztec is not allowed to be playable

[helln00]

The last time aztec was playable, people died (from getting skull knights to the face at 4 min)

[LazarosVas]

Idk what happened, but after this patch the 4 privateer age 3 shipment for dutch doesn't ship. Says it's already at the build limit (???). Confusing on so many levels

Happened to me with France as well. meh

[don_artie]

Im okay with the patch, they didnt touch most of the normal civs which is good and africa idc about

[aligator92]

The last time aztec was playable, people died (from getting skull knights to the face at 4 min)

I think it was actually pretty good in the end of EP with the 2 warhut age up to colonial

[firstaim]

There were always some people saying dev good job on balance in every patch came out, but after a year the balance is still like a shit.

Where is the problem?

[chris1089]

Can I play either of the African civs without being a lamer or are they still too strong then? Because I would like to theory craft if they aren't op.

[Jerimuno]

just play what you want @chris1089

[harcha]

Can I play either of the African civs without being a lamer or are they still too strong then? Because I would like to theory craft if they aren't op.

why do you care? i think even if top players played them no-one would really get upset. just don't pretend they are balanced.

[chris1089]

I don't like playing op stuff because I don't like it when it's the other way around. But also it means that I'll get inflated elo and then when I play my main civs I'll get bashed every game which isn't very fun.
Although as I'm writing this I'm thinking it might be good for my game because I'll play better players.