Nerfing the Strongholds

[MakkaHS]

Reading the new patch notes, does anyone else think the nerf to "castles" is unnecessary?
They are already pretty trash IMO - They can be destroyed by like 8 guys. Or gone in 30 seconds to a siege unit. They are not much of a deterrent currently, and the new patch is making them even less so.

Thoughts?

For reference the changes are:
Fortress: Pierce Damage decreased from 13 → 9.
Migdol Stronghold: Pierce Damage decreased from 10 → 8.
Hill Fort: Pierce Damage decreased from 8 → 7
Palace: Pierce Damage decreased from 11 → 8.5.

[Kanjejou]

yeah i felt the same... were castle that problematic?

arent they just making the game even more attack oriented...?

tower and wall still suck so castle where the only thing decent to punish greedy player

and 1-2 siege unit would rape them anyway.

game with mostly peasant hunting arent exactly the definition of fun

[GarbageCollector]

I would understand if they wanted more unit vs unit combat instead of holding fortified positions/turtling... but they also buffed Town Centers so I don't get it.

Maybe they don't like early rushes either?

[Catalytic]

It's a strange update, IMO. Every other buff or nerf seems to focus on increasing the bonuses or penalties applies to whatever they counter or what counters them. They're doubling down on the counter system, but with this one thing, they changed the base numbers. I didn't personally feel the castles were too strong. They're not cheap buildings either, so it's not like you can spam them, and they're quite vulnerable to siege. I just didn't think they were OP and needed up to a 20% nerf.

If the argument is about early rushes, the TC changes make sense. If the argument is about late-game turtling, then the castle change makes sense, but again, I just never thought that was that strong of a tactic. The castle requires age 3, a large amount of resources, isn't exactly spammable because it's a fairly large building, and siege rips it apart. Even without siege, a solid infantry push will clear them without much difficulty. Now, they'll be even less imposing, which is a bit of a let down.

[1337Cammy]

Originally posted by MakkaHS:

Reading the new patch notes, does anyone else think the nerf to "castles" is unnecessary?
They are already pretty trash IMO - They can be destroyed by like 8 guys. Or gone in 30 seconds to a siege unit. They are not much of a deterrent currently, and the new patch is making them even less so.

Thoughts?

For reference the changes are:
Fortress: Pierce Damage decreased from 13 → 9.
Migdol Stronghold: Pierce Damage decreased from 10 → 8.
Hill Fort: Pierce Damage decreased from 8 → 7
Palace: Pierce Damage decreased from 11 → 8.5.

I feel the same.
The slight Mino nerf was the only thing that I actually saw coming.

Beside that the only balance gripe I had so far was that Centaurs seem to be a bit too tanky with too much scaling due to their damage stacking aoe ability for any t2 unit or even t3 follow up comp to kill, except for egy priests and atlantean hero turma comps, making it increadibly difficult to deal with in a greek v greek or greek v norse matchup.

Alot of things I do not understand and neither know anyone else that ever asked for it.
Hades got a nerf on his passive powers, Rock giants lost hitpoints, egy chariot archers got a buff.

I know that I am not the best with my 1250 elo rn, and I might not be in the most competitive circles, but I personally have never even thought of these units needing changes nor heard anyone else calling for those.

Lets see where they go with the balance after this.
They seem to have their own unique approach where to go with the game.

[Keïnos]

I don't understand, I'm just confused at why castles had to be nerfed. Especially when towers and walls are litteraly useless if your ennemy has Heimdall. If you play against someone or an AI that chose Heimdall, castles are the only thing that can prevent armies to rush your town centers and help defending your base. The point of these buildings is to be strong and expensive, so, why, instead of decreasing their stats, increase them with their price, making them really strong and slightly OP, but with a greater cost to add strategy in the place you choose for them ?

[Medve]

I was not happy with this nerf either, i think walls, towers and castles should get buff, they go down way to fast. Also when towers are so weak i dont really understand why there is a limit of 20 max.

[Many-Named]

did you guys know that a new patch just announced out for AOM Red Bull Wololo? I think it's the real patch that will soon drop live:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1pAEixhlRk

[Zoltan Redbeard]

I agree too, walls, towers and fortresses (but all buildings in general) seems to crumble just by looking at them, and if the damage is also ridiculous they end up being used only to advance to the Mythic Age.
In all honesty, several nerfs of this patch, especially on the Greek side, did not seem that necessary to me.

[Antpile]

They seem to have taken issue with how strong rushing to heroic age was. Age ups in AoM come with some pretty big power spikes immediately due to increasingly powerful god powers.

You can be pushing in, your army bigger and ready to do some damage, and then suddenly they hit age 3 and drop bronze, or chaos, or some other power that drastically turns the tide of a fight.

As if that wasn't enough, hitting heroic allows the player to start throwing up fortresses, gaining a lot of map control very quickly.

It all added up to a game where even trying to fight in age 2 could very easily lose you the game. So I assume this is all done to address that.

[jonoliveira12]

The devs are just making sure you know AoM is a game about attacking, and not defending.