Redgar
Banned
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2015
- Messages
- 1,394
To continue my ‘nations rankings’ post, I’d like also discuss their unique units in more details since majority of nations depends on their unique units powers.
As I mentioned earlier, British range unit made dramatic jump from the worst to probably the best one, and gets my first place in current balance.
Because now it is a game changer, like previously soldiers and HC were. In group of 45-50, it can usually deal with redoubts without being hurt unlike other rangers (if you don’t miss rally of course) and all of the defenders besides lvl20+ generals, while defenders are now the biggest threat to your 5-star army. So all you have to do is to kill mortars basically. In addition, british rangers work like 3-4 additional cannons vs buildings. You still need 2 real cannons to help them take down dangerous buildings/castle faster and healers to support them, but even 20 of them are capable of cleaning some last defenses. Also, cannon towers do not always react on them, what is nice.
Nevertheless, this unit isn’t OP at any case, it is far away from OP position soldiers or HC once had. It may need even further improvements appliable to all ranged units:
It may be even worse with ranged tanks, tho.
But let us give chinese unique the second place, because higher DMG makes them probably more dangerous than cannons on DPS and together with them... they can do a lot. Also, they destroy defensive HC much faster than british mates, it was notable even from replays.
Why HC/soldiers are weaker now? Because none of them provide any ‘game changer’ options now in comparison to their unbuffed mates. E.g. if you use HC for distraction only, they will find a cannon and die anyways... may be with one extra shot from cannon tower for French. Nothing much. If you sniper a base - no notable difference between british HC or French HC too. You may take +1 HC and that’s it. The same happens with soldiers at higher ages. Their extra survivability or damage is so tiny, so it hardly makes any difference with their weaker versions.
Simple mercs tests will probably show that 5 elephants/HC may do more influence on battle than 5 ronin armies. So I’d put HC unit type ahead of soldiers where French unique still looks a bit better than Greeks, because of better synergy with Vesailles and their actual distracting role.
I think that Greek’s HC should be granted with old DPS exclusively, since it is the weakest nation and it deserves a ‘game changer‘ unit. French HC could have even more HP, so it makes more significant difference. We compared french tanks vs HC and this upgrade is so marginal, so it may look like a nerf in some cases. And of course, AI and rally AI can be improved, there were plenty of topics about it.
And soldiers, finally. They’re having a hard time. They lost range a while ago. Also, I found out that earlier they were attacking everything on their path to the rally point, even if you rally on a building... and now they just run to that building without attacking. I think it was another strong nerf, which worsened skill-based rally combat (poor Germans). Also, there are mortairs, redoubts, castle, towers AND defender’s garrisons countering them (the most of the counters!) while regular archers hardly can deal with all of the defenders. The only advantage you get is when you spam soldiers around the base to achieve 50% victory condition or sniper with soldiers, but it is possible with regular soliders too. The funny thing in game balance is that if they buff regular range units it may naturally increase ranks of soldiers too.
Among soldier uniques, germans and romans are better than japanese due to better synergy with their attacking nations. While on paper, Roman’s have more HP/DPS in their bigger army, in fact they take more splash damage too, so it’s a question of your skill who may deliver more DPS to defences in the final output. I believe for skilled player, germans should perform better, but risks from wrong rally are higher.
I still remember the times when I could play 45 soldiers, 15 archers and it worked awesome. I think soldiers need some developer’s attention asap.
So my final ranking of nation’s uniques by current date at higher ages looks like this:
As I mentioned earlier, British range unit made dramatic jump from the worst to probably the best one, and gets my first place in current balance.
Because now it is a game changer, like previously soldiers and HC were. In group of 45-50, it can usually deal with redoubts without being hurt unlike other rangers (if you don’t miss rally of course) and all of the defenders besides lvl20+ generals, while defenders are now the biggest threat to your 5-star army. So all you have to do is to kill mortars basically. In addition, british rangers work like 3-4 additional cannons vs buildings. You still need 2 real cannons to help them take down dangerous buildings/castle faster and healers to support them, but even 20 of them are capable of cleaning some last defenses. Also, cannon towers do not always react on them, what is nice.
Nevertheless, this unit isn’t OP at any case, it is far away from OP position soldiers or HC once had. It may need even further improvements appliable to all ranged units:
- AI. Faster reaction on attacks from defenders (they keep shooting buildings even if attacked by defenders, unlike raiders... it should be vice verse lol)
- They may need +10-25% HP or DPS buff to all ranged units, defenders are still OP even when you have gattlings. You have to spend too much army space for counters.
- Even though they are capable, they may need a special buff vs. defensive horsemen/generals too.
- May be redoubt’s range should be nerfed -1 or all ranged units should get +1 range considering tanks having a range now.
It may be even worse with ranged tanks, tho.But let us give chinese unique the second place, because higher DMG makes them probably more dangerous than cannons on DPS and together with them... they can do a lot. Also, they destroy defensive HC much faster than british mates, it was notable even from replays.
Why HC/soldiers are weaker now? Because none of them provide any ‘game changer’ options now in comparison to their unbuffed mates. E.g. if you use HC for distraction only, they will find a cannon and die anyways... may be with one extra shot from cannon tower for French. Nothing much. If you sniper a base - no notable difference between british HC or French HC too. You may take +1 HC and that’s it. The same happens with soldiers at higher ages. Their extra survivability or damage is so tiny, so it hardly makes any difference with their weaker versions.
Simple mercs tests will probably show that 5 elephants/HC may do more influence on battle than 5 ronin armies. So I’d put HC unit type ahead of soldiers where French unique still looks a bit better than Greeks, because of better synergy with Vesailles and their actual distracting role.
I think that Greek’s HC should be granted with old DPS exclusively, since it is the weakest nation and it deserves a ‘game changer‘ unit. French HC could have even more HP, so it makes more significant difference. We compared french tanks vs HC and this upgrade is so marginal, so it may look like a nerf in some cases. And of course, AI and rally AI can be improved, there were plenty of topics about it.
And soldiers, finally. They’re having a hard time. They lost range a while ago. Also, I found out that earlier they were attacking everything on their path to the rally point, even if you rally on a building... and now they just run to that building without attacking. I think it was another strong nerf, which worsened skill-based rally combat (poor Germans). Also, there are mortairs, redoubts, castle, towers AND defender’s garrisons countering them (the most of the counters!) while regular archers hardly can deal with all of the defenders. The only advantage you get is when you spam soldiers around the base to achieve 50% victory condition or sniper with soldiers, but it is possible with regular soliders too. The funny thing in game balance is that if they buff regular range units it may naturally increase ranks of soldiers too.
Among soldier uniques, germans and romans are better than japanese due to better synergy with their attacking nations. While on paper, Roman’s have more HP/DPS in their bigger army, in fact they take more splash damage too, so it’s a question of your skill who may deliver more DPS to defences in the final output. I believe for skilled player, germans should perform better, but risks from wrong rally are higher.
I still remember the times when I could play 45 soldiers, 15 archers and it worked awesome. I think soldiers need some developer’s attention asap.
So my final ranking of nation’s uniques by current date at higher ages looks like this:
- British
- Chinese
- French
- Greek’s
- Germans
- Romans
- Japanese
