How is DE economy after the slave changes?

[Lampros]

Is the economy at least somewhat sustainable now?

[Balkoth]

How are you defining sustainable? You'll always have to raid/fight for slaves.

If you maintain very firm control you'll lose 30-50% less slaves than before, but that's like saying you'll run out of slaves in 10 turns instead of 5 turns. And they want you to dump those extra slaves into diktats or instant buildings...so if you're doing that you'd still run out in 5 turns.

Also your buildings now cost about 25% more, don't build faster, and get less bonus income.

So if it is more sustainable it's also nerfed.

[Scr(A)tch]

I don't need to build up a stock, it's actually detrimental, so you're incentivized to sacrifice often.

A port almost supports an artisan building, and slave pens are more effective as they reduce a % of local building drain (15/30). I've yet to see how much of them I can stack without having PO problems, but 75% reduction would make every province with some port self-sustainable even with artisans everywhere.

Edit: this of course depends of the size of the province as you can't stack 4 slave pens in 3 regions one, obviously. Generally speaking, the varying size of provinces having such side-effects is very irritating.

[Balkoth]

The Slave Pen drain reduction is local region, meaning only that city. Mathematically they're not worth building since the -2/-4 control will cancel out their reduction, essentially.

The varying size of provinces being an issue is still 100% true, though, due to managing control and how much of a bonus roads give.

[Scr(A)tch]

Just noticed at maximum public order you get 50% local slave drain reduction.

So just make a T4 slave pen, max PO and everything is basically free (20%).

[Scr(A)tch]

Originally posted by Balkoth:

The Slave Pen drain reduction is local region, meaning only that city. Mathematically they're not worth building since the -2/-4 control will cancel out their reduction, essentially.

The varying size of provinces being an issue is still 100% true, though, due to managing control and how much of a bonus roads give.

Hum yeah that has changed. That's weird, as you can hardly spend 100 slaves in a single region so the building has been nerfed. I have to assume it's unintended.

Still, majors can run almost free.

[jonoliveira12]

Here is a decent video I found:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kimlqOvF-Gg&ab_channel=CostinGaming

[Balkoth]

Now do the math on that.

-5 control from high slave count
-4 control from taxes
-8 control from legendary
-8 control from needing to get to maximum control
-4 control from T4 slave pen

That's 29 control you need to get.

2 from Techs.
5 from t5 Dread Knight Hall thing
4 from commandment

Still short 18

8 from t4 entertainment (which drains another 20 slaves btw)

Still short 10.

10 from two t3 entertainments (which drains another 30 slaves total)

Made it.

...hope your province has at least three cities and isn't yellow or red for territory.

Also only the major settlement has 80% reduction, the other minor settlements are at the 50% reduction...and if you build more slave pens there for the 15% reduction guess what each one is -2 control.

Obviously you might not be playing on legendary but it's still pretty ugly.

[Balkoth]

Originally posted by jonoliveira12:

Here is a decent video I found:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kimlqOvF-Gg&ab_channel=CostinGaming

It's not an economy boost, it's a nerf. Getting a few instant buildings doesn't outweigh cheaper buildings/faster buildings/more income from buildings globally.

[Scr(A)tch]

Originally posted by Balkoth:

Now do the math on that.

-5 control from high slave count
-4 control from taxes
-8 control from legendary
-8 control from needing to get to maximum control
-4 control from T4 slave pen

That's 29 control you need to get.

2 from Techs.
5 from t5 Dread Knight Hall thing
4 from commandment

Still short 18

8 from t4 entertainment (which drains another 20 slaves btw)

Still short 10.

10 from two t3 entertainments (which drains another 30 slaves total)

Made it.

...hope your province has at least three cities and isn't yellow or red for territory.

Also only the major settlement has 80% reduction, the other minor settlements are at the 50% reduction...and if you build more slave pens there for the 15% reduction guess what each one is -2 control.

Obviously you might not be playing on legendary but it's still pretty ugly.

There is no reason to have a high slave count.

Also you forget corruption because Morathi.

And no, why play Legendary?

[jonoliveira12]

Originally posted by Balkoth:

Originally posted by jonoliveira12:

Here is a decent video I found:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kimlqOvF-Gg&ab_channel=CostinGaming

It's not an economy boost, it's a nerf. Getting a few instant buildings doesn't outweigh cheaper buildings/faster buildings/more income from buildings globally.

You get higher tier units faster, which means you get pushed towards being more aggressive, which is very much thematic for the Dark Elves.

It is a buff, it pushes you into high risk, high reward gameplay, with a lot of foreign ventures, from your Druchii slave states.
This is very much Lore accurate, and emphasizes playing aggressively, with higher tier units, which is something most other factions cannot do, so it gives you an edge against them.

As the man in the video says, it is a great buff, so long as you are fighting at least once, every turn.
With this buff, you can field more armies, and better armies, faster, so just go out and slave raid the world away.

[Scr(A)tch]

Originally posted by Balkoth:

Originally posted by jonoliveira12:

Here is a decent video I found:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kimlqOvF-Gg&ab_channel=CostinGaming

It's not an economy boost, it's a nerf. Getting a few instant buildings doesn't outweigh cheaper buildings/faster buildings/more income from buildings globally.

The income of Artisans hasn't changed and they drain less. Ports make less money but generate slaves instead.

Except the slave pens that are somewhat useless in this state (region effect instead of province), it's globally easier to negate the drain.

A T5 port make 80 slaves, a Guildhall uses 35. So with 100 PO and a T5 port (or 2 T3), you can have 4 Guildhalls and still make 10 extra slaves.

This means the slaves you get from battles can be regularly sacrified for more gold, growth or rushing 100 PO.

[Balkoth]

Originally posted by jonoliveira12:

You get higher tier units faster, which means you get pushed towards being more aggressive, which is very much thematic for the Dark Elves.

In what way do you get higher tier units faster?

Originally posted by jonoliveira12:

As the man in the video says, it is a great buff, so long as you are fighting at least once, every turn.

With this buff, you can field more armies, and better armies, faster, so just go out and slave raid the world away.

My man, I conquered 272 settlements (Domination Campaign Victory) by turn 120ish in both patch 2.2 and 2.3 (which was the current system until today) on Legendary difficulty.

https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/10eue81/i_beat_dark_elf_legendary_campaigns_in_both_22/

I had over 30 armies fighting like 10-20 battles a turn.

These changes are a nerf.

[Scr(A)tch]

Originally posted by Balkoth:

Originally posted by jonoliveira12:

You get higher tier units faster, which means you get pushed towards being more aggressive, which is very much thematic for the Dark Elves.

In what way do you get higher tier units faster?

Originally posted by jonoliveira12:

As the man in the video says, it is a great buff, so long as you are fighting at least once, every turn.

With this buff, you can field more armies, and better armies, faster, so just go out and slave raid the world away.

My man, I conquered 272 settlements (Domination Campaign Victory) by turn 120ish in both patch 2.2 and 2.3 (which was the current system until today) on Legendary difficulty.

https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/10eue81/i_beat_dark_elf_legendary_campaigns_in_both_22/

I had over 30 armies fighting like 10-20 battles a turn.

These changes are a nerf.

It nerfs only the players that somehow didn't care about having a 10k slave drain.

[Balkoth]

Originally posted by Scr(A)tch:

There is no reason to have a high slave count.

End game you're still going to be draining 4-6k slaves a turn most likely (compared to like 10k prior to today's patch). You'll still need a high slave count to fuel that. And that's not counting spending slaves on Diktats or rushing buildings.

Originally posted by Scr(A)tch:

Also you forget corruption because Morathi.

That only works for 1 out of 6 Dark Elves, the math there is for the other five.

Originally posted by Scr(A)tch:

And no, why play Legendary?

Because you're interested in a challenge. You're not required to, obviously, but the game should still work on that difficulty.

[jonoliveira12]

Originally posted by Balkoth:

Originally posted by jonoliveira12:

You get higher tier units faster, which means you get pushed towards being more aggressive, which is very much thematic for the Dark Elves.

In what way do you get higher tier units faster?

Originally posted by jonoliveira12:

As the man in the video says, it is a great buff, so long as you are fighting at least once, every turn.

With this buff, you can field more armies, and better armies, faster, so just go out and slave raid the world away.

My man, I conquered 272 settlements (Domination Campaign Victory) by turn 120ish in both patch 2.2 and 2.3 (which was the current system until today) on Legendary difficulty.

https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/10eue81/i_beat_dark_elf_legendary_campaigns_in_both_22/

I had over 30 armies fighting like 10-20 battles a turn.

These changes are a nerf.

You can spend slaves to insta-build, that is a HUGE buff to tech rushing.

This is not a campaign measuring contest.
The change is not a nerf, it makes the Slave Economy mechanic dynamic, instead of mostly static and based on accumulation, like it was before.

Maybe now you can go for a Domination victory in 100 turns?