The norse changes are misguided

[Penguin_of_Doom]

Having no dedicated anti-cavalry unit is a weakness of the norse, but it never prevented them from being competitive. What is the benefit of adding such an uninspired spearman unit as the hirdman? Making a faction that isn't weak stronger while destroying its identity?

The jarl is now a regular cavalry unit with no bonus vs myth units, but it has no role basically. I can't see a good reason to use it.
And though i don't necessarily hate the new building, it did make Hill Forts pointless for unit training. Sure you might want a few portable rams or ballistas... But i doubt you'll ever feel the need to build more Hill Forts for the units.

The godi i'll say i'm on the fence about, because if nothing else at least it might turn the boring old hersir spam that Loki players love into hersir/godi spam.

[R for Reload]

IEatCats님이 먼저 게시:

Devang님이 먼저 게시:

Oh like the Donso from AoE4!

Have to say, that would have been so much cooler to have than the melee Hirdman

Assuming it's a proper Archer who does pierce damage and all that, wouldn't that just be adding an Archer to the Norse, violating their 'no archer' design? Even if the base attack is low enough for it to not really be a functional main-line archer

The unit exists in EE in the Chinese Mounted Archer, doing pierce damage with 3x bonus vs Cav, however note that most cavalry have better pierce armour than hack armour

The unit triangle of Infantry/Cavalry/Archers should be retained at all costs, if the Cataphract makes a return they should remove the anti infantry bonus

Godi is the replacement for Bogsveigir, meant to counter myth flyers as Throwing Axemen while doing good damage, have crappy range even with the Axe of Muspell upgrade and die quickly to archers and myth units themselves

MA had stupidly high damage for a counter unit, they were awful units along with cataphacts balance wise.

[IEatCats]

R for Reload님이 먼저 게시:

MA had stupidly high damage for a counter unit, they were awful units along with cataphacts balance wise.

Mounted archers have a fatal flaw in EE, they will miss most moving cavalry indefinitely unless the targets actually stop and fight. Ballistics tech in Retold may actually make them 'usable'

They also do 1 less damage compared to Prodomos who have 6

[Devang]

IEatCats님이 먼저 게시:

The unit triangle of Infantry/Cavalry/Archers should be retained at all costs, if the Cataphract makes a return they should remove the anti infantry bonus

This argument goes out of the window when you consider the Huskarl, who has been in the game since Day 1. Infantry unit that counters Archers

R for Reload님이 먼저 게시:

It can be alot of things like bolas but I feel like that might be more Atlantean

I don't mean what weapon they'll use. I mean adding a ranged, pierce damage causing unit to the Norse

[IEatCats]

Devang님이 먼저 게시:

This argument goes out of the window when you consider the Huskarl, who has been in the game since Day 1. Infantry unit that counters Archers

Huskarls can be treated as anti building infantry, they also trade hack armour for pierce armour and before one of the EE patch, have no bonuses vs archers. Also trained at the hill fort which limits their numbers, raiding cavalry are much better if you want to counter archers

All in all, there should not be anymore units like the Huskarls to prevent a Cataphract situation

[Devang]

IEatCats님이 먼저 게시:

Devang님이 먼저 게시:

This argument goes out of the window when you consider the Huskarl, who has been in the game since Day 1. Infantry unit that counters Archers

Huskarls can be treated as anti building infantry, they also trade hack armour for pierce armour and before one of the EE patch, have no bonuses vs archers. Also trained at the hill fort which limits their numbers, raiding cavalry are much better if you want to counter archers

All in all, there should not be anymore units like the Huskarls to prevent a Cataphract situation

Hmm, you seem to have gotten some bad information

Huskarls have an innate x2 bonus against Archers. Since the release of Age of Mythology v1.0. If you don't believe me, play the Norse portion of the main campaign. Doesn't matter if you play it in The Titans or Extended Edition, the campaign uses its own AoM v1.0 legacy data files. You can observe things like Ulfsarks having 80 HP & 5% base pierce armour, and Raiding Cavalry having 15% hack & 25% pierce armour etc. Huskarls have a x2 bonus vs. Archers

The only thing the EE patch you're talking about did was fix their bonus against Hero Turma specifically, and gave them a negative multiplier against Chieroballista (x0.75)

Huskarls become anti-buildings only after researching Tyr's Bravery, which gives them x2 bonus against buildings. The last patches of EE had upped this to x2.25, but Retold seems to have reverted this to x2

[IEatCats]

Devang님이 먼저 게시:

Hmm, you seem to have gotten some bad information

Huskarls have an innate x2 bonus against Archers. Since the release of Age of Mythology v1.0. If you don't believe me, play the Norse portion of the main campaign. Doesn't matter if you play it in The Titans or Extended Edition, the campaign uses its own AoM v1.0 legacy data files. You can observe things like Ulfsarks having 80 HP & 5% base pierce armour, and Raiding Cavalry having 15% hack & 25% pierce armour etc. Huskarls have a x2 bonus vs. Archers

The only thing the EE patch you're talking about did was fix their bonus against Hero Turma specifically, and gave them a negative multiplier against Chieroballista (x0.75)

Huskarls become anti-buildings only after researching Tyr's Bravery, which gives them x2 bonus against buildings. The last patches of EE had upped this to x2.25, but Retold seems to have reverted this to x2

Just installed my disc version and you are correct about the Archer bonus

However they do not require Bravery to start destroying buildings, the pierce armour allows them to tank arrow fire forcing your opponent to respond, and with 5 speed you can run from most units

[R for Reload]

Devang님이 먼저 게시:

IEatCats님이 먼저 게시:

The unit triangle of Infantry/Cavalry/Archers should be retained at all costs, if the Cataphract makes a return they should remove the anti infantry bonus

This argument goes out of the window when you consider the Huskarl, who has been in the game since Day 1. Infantry unit that counters Archers

R for Reload님이 먼저 게시:

It can be alot of things like bolas but I feel like that might be more Atlantean

I don't mean what weapon they'll use. I mean adding a ranged, pierce damage causing unit to the Norse

Bodas don't have to be pierce

[R for Reload]

IEatCats님이 먼저 게시:

R for Reload님이 먼저 게시:

MA had stupidly high damage for a counter unit, they were awful units along with cataphacts balance wise.

Mounted archers have a fatal flaw in EE, they will miss most moving cavalry indefinitely unless the targets actually stop and fight. Ballistics tech in Retold may actually make them 'usable'

They also do 1 less damage compared to Prodomos who have 6

Okay but you are completely miss understanding the HP pools of MA opposed to normal archers, they were a stupidly good unit
And they were only 2 pop

[IEatCats]

R for Reload님이 먼저 게시:

Okay but you are completely miss understanding the HP pools of MA opposed to normal archers, they were a stupidly good unit
And they were only 2 pop

Insert GLA Worker "You change your mind often"

Sure they have quite efficient HP per pop (just 5 more HP than Hypaspist though), but they costs 2x the gold compared to Slingers and Hypaspist, can't do their job well unless the enemy stops for him (needs testing in Retold if they come back), and are countered by anti cav/anti archer where the latter have more range

No one considers Mounted Archers are 'OP' by any means

[R for Reload]

IEatCats님이 먼저 게시:

R for Reload님이 먼저 게시:

Okay but you are completely miss understanding the HP pools of MA opposed to normal archers, they were a stupidly good unit
And they were only 2 pop

Insert GLA Worker "You change your mind often"

Sure they have quite efficient HP per pop (just 5 more HP than Hypaspist though), but they costs 2x the gold compared to Slingers and Hypaspist, can't do their job well unless the enemy stops for him (needs testing in Retold if they come back), and are countered by anti cav/anti archer where the latter have more range

No one considers Mounted Archers are 'OP' by any means

Youre forgetting tech upgrades.
MA were a really strong unit
But Chinese as a civ had a hard time getting to 3rd age and having an economy to support production hard.
2nd age chinese was just weak due to lack of way sort of crush damage.

[IEatCats]

R for Reload님이 먼저 게시:

Youre forgetting tech upgrades.

Outside of the standard medium/heavy/champion and other human soldiers upgrades everyone else gets:

Nu Wa: 10% discount, still almost double the gold cost of those units previously mentioned

Chang'e: Two techs that Increase attack and speed, but also means you give up Huang Di's Call to Arms which is really good compared to the other Chinese Classical GP. Not sure if this GP will get the Prometheus treatment in retold

Ao Kuang: -10% Hack vulnerability helps them do their job a little better, exclusive with Chong Li

Chong Li: 10% HP, helpful but not OP, exclusive with Ao Kuang

Nothing suggests they are OP due to techs

[R for Reload]

IEatCats님이 먼저 게시:

R for Reload님이 먼저 게시:

Youre forgetting tech upgrades.

Outside of the standard medium/heavy/champion and other human soldiers upgrades everyone else gets:

Nu Wa: 10% discount, still almost double the gold cost of those units previously mentioned

Chang'e: Two techs that Increase attack and speed, but also means you give up Huang Di's Call to Arms which is really good compared to the other Chinese Classical GP. Not sure if this GP will get the Prometheus treatment in retold

Ao Kuang: -10% Hack vulnerability helps them do their job a little better, exclusive with Chong Li

Chong Li: 10% HP, helpful but not OP, exclusive with Ao Kuang

Nothing suggests they are OP due to techs

Chong Li gives 25% not 10% don't get how you get information like that wrong.
25% is ALOT.

[IEatCats]

R for Reload님이 먼저 게시:

Chong Li gives 25% not 10% don't get how you get information like that wrong.
25% is ALOT.

You are correct, but it still doesn't make Mounted Archers OP. You wold be calling Chariot Archers OP with their massive 20 base range

The suggestion to change the Hirdman (please change the name if possible) into a ranged mounted cavalry counter would probably not break the game as you think it would

[R for Reload]

IEatCats님이 먼저 게시:

R for Reload님이 먼저 게시:

Chong Li gives 25% not 10% don't get how you get information like that wrong.
25% is ALOT.

You are correct, but it still doesn't make Mounted Archers OP. You wold be calling Chariot Archers OP with their massive 20 base range

The suggestion to change the Hirdman (please change the name if possible) into a ranged mounted cavalry counter would probably not break the game as you think it would

I said change it into a boda thrower, I didnt say anything about making it a cav unit.

[i_m_bored2death]

Devang님이 먼저 게시:

With the Hirdman, you're missing the macro change to the sandbox. All main-line infantry units are now stronger counters to cavalry in general. Hoplites have 45% hack armour (instead of 35%) & a new 25% bonus against cavalry. Eggy Spearman have their anti-cav bonus buffed from 10% to 75%. They chose to preserve the Ulfsark's (now Berserk) stats, with its high DPS and decent speed, instead of making them the same as the other two. Instead the Norse get a Katapeltes style compliment to the Berserk, like how the Atlanteans do

Another design change is that no fight should devolve into a mono comp vs. mono comp. You can see this with the water triangle being available from the get go. Previously, Odin vs. Thor OR Odin/Thor vs. Greeks would devolve into cavalry vs. cavalry mass in the Classical Age, with the bigger blob winning. Now Norse have the option to mix in some Hirdmen to decisively flip these fights

I have to agree with the Jarl. It should be moved back to the Hill Fort with a x2 bonus against myth units. Njord's Ring Giver should restore the full x4 bonus. Odin's HP bonus should also be moved back to Hill Forts. Feels weird to see him get extra HP Raiding Cavalry, Hersirs & Godi, but not Huskarls. The buffed regeneration (it no longer goes down to 1/10 when they're fighting) is good enough for the Longhouse & Great Hall units. Plus he gets Freyja for Raiding Cavalry

The Godi is a natural evolution of the Bogsveigir from Extended Edition. However, it take 3 pop instead of 2. Has poor general stats unlike the Bogs, so the Norse can't just spam a regular archer. You have to use them against myth units to get value. Much better way to add a ranged, pierce damage anti-myth option to the Norse. IMO it should cost food (75 Food 45 Gold) instead of wood to make it a tad more inaccessible, and balance out the wood costing Huskarl & Throwing Axeman

Who cares about other civs. Egyptians have healing unit by default. Does everyone need a priest now? It was part of the norse gameplay. There was an elegance to the build order, bizarre as it was. Now my longhouse is a a sort of barracks. This sort of normalization of the civs flies in the face of this game. I am sick of Esports being on the minds of every developer. The new building feels janky and out of place. Norse already had a bizarre economy, the smooth streamlined military production was a breath of fresh air. Don't even need to think about it, until you get fort just drop some longhouses. Smooth and simple. Now it's a janky mess. I don't recognize the norse civs anymore. They could have given the Jarl an anti cav bonus if they really wanted to remove the myth dmg bonus,The Jarl too was fixable, the problem was myth unit special abilities. Since those got nerfed anyway and none of them one shot. just make Jarls take half dmg, there, anti myth unit resolved. But if you insist just give it dmg vs cav. All these new units are a mess, and i hate what they did with military production. I don't want another production building, that was part of the charm. one building for all until fort