Good game but needs tweeks

[FallenShaw]

Professional scouts needs nerf for all civs, Everyone is using and going for it that can (sorry deli) but point is if everyone is doing it then its Overpowered and needs changed. Maybe take away the ability to pick up game and increase scout sight range and make them a ranged unit. for example or simply make it take longer to research and increase cost.

Mongels needs nerfed hard, simply put no matter what teir list you look at they all are at the top.

English landmarks need to be redone, alot are completely useless and only give players 1 clear choice. For example when is the last time you weren't trolling and build abby of kings? Possible changes to abby? Make it a barracks so english would choose longbow over men at arms, or make the healing effect in combat heal for 1.5 hp map wide, or relics stored here generate 30 more of each resource. It needs to give some clear advantage that the council hall doesn't offer.

Rus needs nerfed same reason as mongels though not as oppressive as them.

[Moringa]

hmm I don't know about nerfing professional scouts. 2 weeks ago almost nobody went that tech and now it's the meta. Already some people are finding ways to counter it (walling deer, guarding deer, etc.). It's not as oppressive as French hulks so I would say give it a couple of months and people will either find other ways to deal with it and it will thus become one strategy among many or there will be a complete new meta with something else. That's how online games develop after all. If you nerf everything as soon it becomes meta you don't leave any room for natural development.

That being said, I would like to see a small channel time for picking up deer, maybe 2-3 seconds. And scouts being a tiny bit slower with deer packed. That would make it easier to counter them with spears or horseman plus it fits thematically.

[FallenShaw]

Originally posted by Moringa:

hmm I don't know about nerfing professional scouts. 2 weeks ago almost nobody went that tech and now it's the meta. Already some people are finding ways to counter it (walling deer, guarding deer, etc.). It's not as oppressive as French hulks so I would say give it a couple of months and people will either find other ways to deal with it and it will thus become one strategy among many or there will be a complete new meta with something else. That's how online games develop after all. If you nerf everything as soon it becomes meta you don't leave any room for natural development.

That being said, I would like to see a small channel time for picking up deer, maybe 2-3 seconds. And scouts being a tiny bit slower with deer packed. That would make it easier to counter them with spears or horseman plus it fits thematically.

Prob can't be done but attacking them could make them drop the deer for example. But walling them isn't a counter. Infact exactly the opp. Players are going for the deer that way because it saves lumber in the build. So don't have to build mills or farms and eliminate walk time while being safe. If you wall the deer it puts you behind them in the lumber department meaning you'll tech to the next age behind them which is the entire reason they go grand theft deer in the first place to get the next age faster than you and force you to spend lumber on farms and mills.

[Cacomistle]

Originally posted by Moringa:

hmm I don't know about nerfing professional scouts. 2 weeks ago almost nobody went that tech and now it's the meta. Already some people are finding ways to counter it (walling deer, guarding deer, etc.). It's not as oppressive as French hulks so I would say give it a couple of months and people will either find other ways to deal with it and it will thus become one strategy among many or there will be a complete new meta with something else. That's how online games develop after all. If you nerf everything as soon it becomes meta you don't leave any room for natural development.

That being said, I would like to see a small channel time for picking up deer, maybe 2-3 seconds. And scouts being a tiny bit slower with deer packed. That would make it easier to counter them with spears or horseman plus it fits thematically.

It was meta 2 weeks ago.

In genesis, it was sort of meta. It was something mista and recon had figured out and did pretty much every game, but other players still hadn't experimented with it. Players went with what was easy to figure out (french knight rush), and what was so powerful that it couldn't be ignored (mongols).

After genesis, players started experimenting with more complicated things. I pros people had already figured out pro scouts was good but most only started implementing it into their builds after genesis because it was better to figure out a few simple strategies than try to explore every possibility.

Idr exactly when genesis was but its been meta at minimum since the ram nerf patch and was mostly figured out by the time genesis was over.

Also aside from that, the problem with pro scouts is it has no counter. Scouts are faster than almost all feudal age units, cheap, and tanky. It doesn't take any deep meta knowledge to figure out that you can't stop them from stealing hunts with anything but walls (and the only map I think that's worth it on is mountain pass).

What that means is the effectiveness of pro scouts is just a number game. Is having access to 3-4 hunts worth more than 350 resources (+the scouts and the stables to build them if necessary)? In the current state of the game, the answer is almost always yes for most civs, so pro scouts is meta for everyone but delhi/abbassids/english (who all get it late, get benefits to other food sources, and don't get a big benefit to pro scouts like HRE do which makes it worth even late).

Which is why pro scouts imo shouold pick up deer and move with deer significantly slower. If the scouts themselves were counterable, I'd honestly be fine even with pro scouts being cheaper to the point its always worth it, because then there's a decision of whether to go military to secure deer or go castle after securing fewer deer, rather than the current meta where the amount of deer you get is decided almost entirely based on how early your civ gets the upgrade.

Also walling deer is not a counter. Its expensive (probably like 50-60 wood, 50 wood for a mill, plus 30-40 resources of vill time building the walls), likely secures only one of your 2 deer (unless you go like blind dark age walls on the deer and delay your age up by 1-2 minutes, or if its mountain pass and you just wall the center instead of your deer), requires slight investment into army support (otherwise 6-7 scouts can just kill your walling vills), gives you a worse food source (the deer aren't directly under the tc), and is still easier to raid than food directly under the tc. Its inferior in nearly ever way. I've never seen this work out to be an advantage on any other map than mountain pass (walling the center not the deer).

Same story for guarding deer (seen it tried, just makes it so you invest in useless feudal army without going aggressive while your opponent gets a free ride to castle age, and it protects 1/2 deer patches... if it even works).

I think you've forgotten a 3rd option, that its just good and will stay meta, and people will instead find different variations of professional scout builds. Game metas can develop with variations on the same strategy rather than entirely new ones (for example I think mech has been the meta for tvp in brood war for the last 20 years. Or getting double bit axe in aoe 2 before imperial age is was and always will be meta. If pro scouts is just numerically more efficient than other eco plays, it will just always be meta).

[Aluminum Elite Master]

Originally posted by Cacomistle:

Scouts are faster than almost all feudal age units, cheap, and tanky.

There's a ton of writing I cut when taking this quote, but this is really the crux of the issue for scouts that I do agree on.

Tweaking either the cost of scouts (they cost some gold maybe?) or the health or speed stats could help things. Or at least a considerable drop in speed when holding deer corpses would help.

But right now, the risk-reward of pro scouts is such that there's a fairly considerable reward with a very low investment or risk. Which may be intentional, as this encourages players to interact with the mechanic of hunting (which they might not do if the risk was higher or the reward lower, since foraging and farming are far less micro intensive).