Siege Onagers are overpowered

[Mathieu]

Hello,

Siege Onagers are definitely overpowered. In BF games, players tend to mass onagers and they seem then unstoppable. When you have a civ without upgraded siege onagers, in late BF games your chances to win are greatly reduced by this factor.

It reminds me of the BF scorp wars in zone.com very long time ago. In some update, scorps were made less powerful and we didn't see those scorp-only games anymore.
It would be nice to find a similar solution for Siege Onagers. BF games tend to be boring because of this and it is one of the most played maps.

[Wafflesaurus Supreme]

I don't recall balancing for siege onagers having been changed in the last 15 years. (I could be wrong; might have to review the patch notes for Forgotten Empires.) I think regular onagers can cut down trees now so it opens up Black Forest to make almost all civilizations viable.

Siege onagers are very expensive. They cost tons of wood and gold, and the upgrade line itself is also expensive. They also take a long time to produce, so it's not easy to mass them. If your opponent is massing siege onagers, it means that you've allowed him far too much time to advance unchallenged. If it gets to that point, you sort of deserve whatever happens next...

You can always try a different map type if you're tired of Black Forest matches.

[CHI LONG QUA]

Black forest is a joke map for noobs/casuals/idiots/low skill players, stop playing it before you say things about game balance

[Mathieu]

Doesn't matter what kind of players play BF. BF is one of the most played map on AoE HD, period.
I specified that they are OP in *late game* BF. With a good market trade in late game, they are affodable to be produced continuously. Of course, you try to finish the game earlier if you don't have the upgraded siege onagers, that doesn't always work out.

[Jineapple]

Originally posted by Manneken Pis:

Doesn't matter what kind of players play BF. BF is one of the most played map on AoE HD, period.
I specified that they are OP in *late game* BF. With a good market trade in late game, they are affodable to be produced continuously. Of course, you try to finish the game earlier if you don't have the upgraded siege onagers, that doesn't always work out.

Yeah Siege Onagers are very strong in chokepoints. That's the nature of BF. You can play that and accept it or play another map.
Your best bet against SO are probably Bombard Cannons.

[Wafflesaurus Supreme]

You can use onagers and siege onagers to cut a path through the forest straight into his base at any time. I like to spam hussars, put them in staggered formation, and sweep around to take out the onagers. They have a minimum range before they can attack.

Hussars have the fastest movement speed and the fastest attack rate of any unit in the game. They have a fast unit creation speed. They don't cost very much, so I don't mind losing 50 or 60 of them to do serious damage or at least create a diversion for a much more powerful counterattack elsewhere.

If I keep the hussars in his base and killing villagers, etc., hopefully he'll send his onagers to defend and do as much damage to his own town as he will to my troops.

[Pantera]

onager overpowered in bf. what do we get next?

ships overpowered in water maps?

[Maitah]

Originally posted by Pantera:

onager overpowered in bf. what do we get next?

ships overpowered in water maps?

damn, that was going to be my next thread 11.
They just mad bz they lost a game...

[tazinator]

Ur all trolls lol I've seen mass siege onagers on mostly Michi but also oasis DM sometimes, any TG will have them. It is very hard to deal with mass siege onagers, they kill EVERYTHING. Also I was told they cause some bad lag in games if you get enough of them firing at once so there is that too

Japanese Trebuchets might be able to counter mass onager spam but that only works outside of lag - so Laggy TG is GG for ♥♥♥♥

[gagman]

i am a bit surprised this isnt a Lord Duke thread :D

[Mr420]

next thread: skirms too overpowered against archers lol

[IamJeo]

Originally posted by gagman:

i am a bit surprised this isnt a Lord Duke thread :D

Im also thinking this. Seems every time I see the General Discussions and see an odd thread, I think "what has this guy thought this time?". 11

We need a thread of all his nicks, I forget some :D. Lord Duke, Baharis etc...? Was one "Love" something?

[Envetel]

Originally posted by Tired_David - Twitch.tv:

Hussars have the fastest movement speed and the fastest attack rate of any unit in the game.

You forgot the Magyar Huszars.

[Jineapple]

Originally posted by envetel:

Originally posted by Tired_David - Twitch.tv:

Hussars have the fastest movement speed and the fastest attack rate of any unit in the game.

You forgot the Magyar Huszars.

Both of that isn't true. Regarding movement speed, we'd have to first exclude water units, there are several ships faster than any land unit (Trade cogs+Caravan+Dry dock being the fastest).
On land, the fastest unit is light cav+husbandry almost tied with a filled mongol siege tower. Hussars+Husbandry are slower than both of those. Magyar Huszars have the same movement speed as hussars.

Regarding attack rate: Fire ships (especially Byzantines) clearly take the lead here, next would be Japanese Samurai followed closely by Mongol Mangudai+Thumb ring, Mongol CA+TR, Ethiopian Archer-line+TR, then by Japanese Champions, Mongol Genitour. Then you have Elite Cataphracts with 1.7s reload time, several units with 1.8 reload time including Magyar Huszars and Knights and only then Hussars with 1.9 reload time.

[NIKFS]

Hussars, Magyar Huszars, Bombard Cannons, Eagle Warriors (sort of, not really gold efficient but the only choice for the mesoamericans) there ARE counters to them and balancing them weaker for people who are less good could render them obsolete for people who play against players who know how to conter them
Also, lag from them? i play on a really *** Pc and they dont do that, my game lags if playing on the 2 biggest map sizes but even armies of onagers dont matter much

[tazinator]

Originally posted on aokheaven as a reply to one of my questions

Originally posted by "Marathon":

Formations do not noticeably affect lag. Other than that I cannot tell why melee units do this annoying thing but I have not seen any connection with groups and formations (in AI wars I actually see the opposite: AIs that attack in groups tend to make the first hit vs AIs that use "streaming" attacks of solo soldiers).

Some of the things that increase lag (excluding AIs):
- Aggressive stance instead of defensive or stand ground.
- Patrol instead of move and unleash.
- Many small groups instead of few large ones.
- Large LOS and reaction radius of units, especially melee ones (eagle warriors, scouts, tarkans).
- Some projectiles add more to lag, like onager shots or longbowman arrows.
- Large battles means every unit has many possible targets to choose, many corpses and missed arrows accumulate, many obstacles appear and disappear and pathfinding needs recalculation.
- Moving around long obstacles, like those rivers in Yucatan, needs more calculations. Actually, in some such cases, AIs cannot move their army at all, probably indicating inability to do the pathfinding calculations.
- This last one is perhaps my idea, but if there has passed a long time since the last exploration of the enemy town, many "dopplegangers" appear that seem to add to lag. Dopplegangers are units that look like the building you once explored but has since ceased to exist (for example if enemy goes one age up, his TC is a new unit but you still see the old graphic).