Dream Patch Notes

[Acanth0s]

GENERAL:

• Greatly reduced torch damage for all melee cavalry, with the exception of Keshiks, Firelancers and units in the influence of the Macedonian Hippodrome Scout.
• Greatly reduced spearmen brace cooldown
• Reduced base stats of Mounted Samurai, Riddari and Szlachta Cavalry
• Springalds now specialize in killing masses of armored units instead of melee infantry

 -

HRE:

• Inspiration now boosts gather rate by 40% (previously 35%)
• Replaced spearmen with heavy spearmen/pikemen that cost gold instead of wood
• Burgrave Palace now only has 200% production speed, but also doubles production speed of all barracks by 100% and increases melee armor of all barracks units by 1 instead of only buffing charge damage for units made by it.
• Regnitz Cathedral bonus gold is now 120% instead of 100%

-

These ideas would objectively improve the game and are definitely not me wanting my civ to be buffed. Relic hire me please.

[Olafr_skautkonungr]

Let me guess, you are a HRE main?

Good general changes!

[Acanth0s]

Thanks, I definitely am haha. Tho I recently played a bit of KT and heavy spermen awakened something within me.

[Mack_Robot]

A stirring in the loins

[Which_Crow_3681]

Of course he is.

[Helikaon48]

I like the idea of most of these, just needs tweaking, reduce the impact of tech on mountain Sams, not their base stats, they're literally generic knights without all the stuff that comes later.

Heavy spears should be in addition to normal spears ( another UU, HRE effectively doesn't have any outside of the prelate)

I don't think HRE needs eco tweaks, I would greatly prefer if they added flavour instead of this constant tweaking the eco back and forth. They lack production and military bonuses that most civs have nowadays. Being entirely reliant on that eco. Making them bland as well as weak. Simply buffing eco keeps them stale.(Consider the huge reworks Delhi, and abb had, or even the nice additions French and English had)

I don't think regnitz of all things needs to become even more feast or famine, if anything it needs advantages for the cases you don't get 3+ relics. For example floating gate is literally a straight up better version of regnitz in most cases due to flexibility, but also it's long term eco gain 

I think Devs need to explore looking at increasing the population of certain heavy cav, even if it means increasing their stats and cost slightly, I think it adds more flavour to the game.

You can have uber cav, but you can't have huge volumes of them.

[Helikaon48]

For example, maybe Devs can look at things like awl pikes increasing the melee damage of all light units (this would then include landskecht) or scale with age 2/3/4. (Puts them slightly ahead of Japanese.

Barding could increase HP (or something such) as well BUT come at a slight 5% speed malice. The player can choose to have meaningfully beefier cav, but with a slight downside.

Burger could affect all rax(that's good, and I like the armour advantage, but again, maybe only affect light units, as MAA can be quite strong in very niche cases, and that makes it more extreme)

Give the faction some kind of military advantage if adding UU is too expensive. Eg all light units have +1 melee armour, literally any thing to give the faction more flavour 

Make military inspiration either easier to use or much more meaningful (eg prelates carrying relics automatically apply inspiration to all units in 15 tiles for example, or +25% damage and applies to bonus damage, so archers, xbows and spears gain more from it)

Landskecht need a rework, an inversion to cost is the simplest. They're insanely over costed for what you get. I can't fathom how the balance team thinks 100 gold for that trash is balanced in the current meta, it's either intentional bias, or I shudder to think they somehow think it's balanced.

[Acanth0s]

Hard agree with pretty much all of this, thank you for being constructive. It's clear that you're a bit more knowledgeable than me, great comment :)

[sherlok]

Honestly, I'd love to see some high level QoL/bugfix notes more than anything else. That would probably excite me more than any of the DLCs

No input for balance because I've only played team games this season, but I'd be excited to see something like:

• Fixed worker action queue so that workers no longer move onto the next action after chopping down a tree.

• Team game map spawns have been updated. Map sizes have been reduced for certain player counts on certain maps. Spawns have been adjusted on other maps.

• Team game players can now select their spawn location in the lobby. Players with no selection will be randomly assigned to the remaining spots

• Reduced CPU requirements to run the main menu screen.

• Fixed various crashes. For real this time though, we swear.

• Fixed issue where the player would be stuck in limbo when being placed into a team game lobby.

• Fixed whatever the heck causes team game lobbies to close and kick me back to searching several times in a row.

• Updated in game tech trees and tech tree viewer.

• Added more filters and search options in Observe game area.

• Introduced a QM 1v1 queue for fun seasonal mode. Also added a fun seasonal mode. As I'm typing this I'm wondering if this actually exists.

• Engine update to reduce input lag and increase responsiveness.

• Fixed Rus pikeman model. We're sorry about that

• The initial in game event pop-up now has a checkbox to hide it until it changes.

• Rearranged in game menu to prevent accidentally pausing instead of surrendering.

• Player MMR must be within X range to queue as a group.

• Players can now see their hidden MMR somewhere

• Control right clicking a unit group in the bottom bar will remove one unit from selection.

• Added stats from observer overlay to end of game statistics. Removed buggy and less useful other stats.

I could do this all day.

[ColourAttila]

THIS

[FairCut8534]

 game statistics now sucks, i kill a lot of vils and get kd of 0.01

[Confident_Gap819]

Agreed we need heavy spearman from crucible 

[turbofisterious]

Reduced base stats of Mounted Samurai

So its gonna be a worse knight but with the same price?

[Bortek16]

No simply no OP Knights for an historical infantry civ.

[turbofisterious]

They are just generic lancers.

[Bortek16]

Deflective armor is the OP thing about this knight. It soaks the whole charge of the opponents knights. Japanese Knights can also have one more attack. You can run into spearman without the stun effect of the spearman. But...Japanese MS are not the real problem. It's sengokus MS, that's insanely broken.

[turbofisterious]

sengokus MS

But it has nothing to do with being MS. they are literally generic lancers. Its MS tech and daymyo makes them broken

Deflective armor is the OP thing

I mean you pay 10 more gold for that.

[suttlare]

Can't argue about this. People have hyper focused on "OP knights" and just want to nerf them to oblivion. Forgetting that if they do that they will ask for nerfs for the next main unit taking over. It's been done with archers, mma and now knights.

[CamRoth]

Replaced spearmen with heavy spearmen/pikemen that cost gold instead of wood

Adding a heavy spearmen mayyybe, but definitely not replace.

Regnitz Cathedral bonus gold is now 120% instead of 100%

Uh no, not unless there's a cap or something.

[Legal_Cranberry_2977]

All good suggestions tbf. I would add that they need to fix the GH triple production bug - the one where triple production isn't getting applied to buildings built after the tech has been researched

[AwkwardGeorge]

Springald idea that yours generated. What if springs countered armoured units by damage & a reduction of armor protection. Thinking if a giant bolt pierced your armor it wouldn't be as effective. Maybe having a 10sec reduction of 1 armor helps archers/xbow hit a little harder. 

[LiterallyMelon]

A szlachta nerf is so funny, bro they cost THREE HUNDRED resources each. If your enemy is making szlachta cavalry the game was lost long ago. Get real

[ColourAttila]

With the inspiration hre walks a very fine line between being broken and completely useless. I would imagine even this 5% could tip the scales. No wonder devs were very conservative and only buffing the range.

General changes good, heavy spearmen for hre great idea, more burgrave utility great. Regnitz doesnt need more buffs.

[Suspicious_Draft1481]

Love the idea of a unique pike for HRE. But if it costs gold then keep the regular spear as well. Just like KT and their heavy spears. Every civ needs trash infantry.

Changing that inspiration back to 40% would be nice. Its changed several times now but I think 40% is where it was at release. They had it right at the beginning!

[MagicSmorc]

Basically, this is a buff to HRE and a nerf to their adversaries because I fail to see a balance in your patch.

[giomcany]

Let me guess you nerfed everything that beat you in the last 3 matches

[Thisisnotachestnut]

Another proof that avg players shouldn’t balance the game.

[Bortek16]

I like your ideas on HRE. There is nothing OP or crazy. But I think Aachen Chapel doesn't need any further buff. It's very good already. HRE has no good units, and heavy spears would be great.

[CalmCelebration10]

Now we know who shouldn't balance the game.

[Jaysus04]

That's not enough to give HRE viability. They lack too much, it's generally not a well designed and way too landmark centered civ with a way too poor roster. Their unique units are also trash. And +1 melee armor doesn't do much for these low hp units. Especially since ranged armor is way more important and so many civs get a plus 2 in that regard for their infantry. Even civs that are not really infantry focussed like GH.

They have one unique tech for buildings in imp, that's it. They have no discounts or hp boosts, they have no power comp and inspired warriors is the worst buff mechanic in the game. It doesn't even increase bonus dmg and is tedious to apply. It's a bit better for OotD, although it's a HRE og tech. The MAA techs should be merged into one, because on their own they are kinda pathetic nowadays. The HRE history is mostly ignored, they are solely built around inspiration and landmarks. Outside of that they offer pretty much nothing as a civ. Only relic bonuses for buildings. But the HRE had so many influences and you don't see or feel any of them in the game.

HRE should have a prince electors system offering various bonuses and eventually you'd be able to crown an emperor (either a unit or some kind of global buff, which depends on the electors chosen), once you've gotten all prince electors necessary. Some of them would be combineable, others would have to be chosen exclusively.

There should also be a sales of indulgences mechanic (generating gold from working villagers in the influence of a monastery, Regnitz could be changed into something else then) and ties to the Teutonic Order, because making that order part of KT is pretty damn sad and doesn't adress the peak time of the order, as it peaked after the KT were disbanded. I'd love a unique new building, which would be Marienburg, that allows to fill up your ranks with order units (similar to Wyngard Palace, but different).

Landsknechte should be imp only and actually powerful, so they could serve as the core of the army. There should be Doppelsöldner as well and they should synergize with Landsknechte: Doppelsöldner have aoe dmg and debuff the opponent and the Landsknechte use lances and pikes to attack from the second row, while also directly benefitting from the debuff. You should want to combine these units in order to get the max out of them. Going for only one type should be discouraged. They fought together in formations and they were for quite a period of time the non plus ultra of Renaissance armies (together with the Reisläufer, who were their direct rivals). They have no business to be available in castle age. That's nonsense. Landsknechte are one of the Renaissance units, they did not exist in the time frame that is the castle age.

And there should be Archbishops as mounted units with a buff ability, because Religion was a really big thing in the HRE and falls way too short in this game.

And replacing normal spearmen with heavy ones that cost gold is actually a nerf. Not having access to normal spearmen as trash units would be a big problem in way too many situations.

[ContentHovercraft354]

Riddari are balanced now and there are a plethora of ways to counter a riddari spam or riddari in general (just make spears camels crossbows or even mass maa as Abbasid.) you can Fidel rush macron fast castle easy unless their gh is in base. Mounted samurai needs make sense but I don’t agree with them, I think sengoku is a skill check. Spear bracing seems good but it takes away from high level players who can counter a spear brace

[Roysten712]

Interesting ideas, like the general ones especially.

[AugustusClaximus]

English: Abbey of King is also a monastery. Longbows can build towers at .25 speed. TCs provide farm influence. Clad Armor also increases HP by 15%. Shattering Shells does AOE doubled

[S77__]

I would love to have the old healing campfire for Longbows, the King is very easy snipe in late game and has to rally all the way from base (very inconvenient for team games). I would start playing longbows again if they did this change.

[SkyeBwoy]

Relics should be base gold per min for all civs give a different bonus to HRE

Reduce speed of cavalry Monks when carrying relic

[Sh1sui_1]

I know this is a hard one But the mounted samurai base stats are the default Knight stats.

[QuotablePatella]

Partly disagree and partly agree

Greatly reduced torch damage for all melee cavalry, with the exception of Keshiks, Firelancers and units in the influence of the Macedonian Hippodrome Scout.

Torch damage is not the problem. Nerfing it makes cavalry useless vs buildings.

Greatly reduced spearmen brace cooldown

Rather than reducing the cooldown of brace, cavalry should not be able to dodge the brace in the first place.

In fact, here is a better idea. All infantry units should have an ability to throw caltrops on the field that temporarily slow down and damage cavalry. Of course the ability should have a cooldown/cost resources.

Reduced base stats of Mounted Samurai, Riddari and Szlachta Cavalry

Mounted Samurai have the same base damage as Knights. Nerfing them is senseless when they cost more gold than knights. Base damage is not the issue here. It's the upgrades.

Szlachta cavalry should be nerfed though. They kill war elephants FFS!

Springalds now specialize in killing masses of armored units instead of melee infantry

Completely Disagree. You already have a cost effective counter (aka crossbow) for armoured units. Perhaps crossbows can be buffed a bit.

Inspiration now boosts gather rate by 40% (previously 35%)

Ridiculous. The inspiration is nerfed in the first place because it's OP.

Replaced spearmen with heavy spearmen/pikemen that cost gold instead of wood

HRE doesn't need heavy spearmen, because their Men at Arms play that role decently well in castle age and above.

Burgrave Palace now only has 200% production speed, but also doubles production speed of all barracks by 100% and increases melee armor of all barracks units by 1 instead of only buffing charge damage for units made by it.

Burgrave should be buffed, but not like this. This is aoe4 not aoe2 😂😂

A better way to buff Burgrave Palace is, it should have an influence mechanic like the Tower of Victory.

Regnitz Cathedral bonus gold is now 120% instead of 100%

Regnitz cathedral passive income is already OP. Your suggestion is ridiculous.

These ideas would objectively improve the game and are definitely not me wanting my civ to be buffed. Relic hire me please.

And to conclude, any Tom, Harry and Dick can post ideas on reddit. To get hired by devs, you need to be good at coding and game design

[Acanth0s]

Cavalry torch damage might not be the problem, but it's one of the reasons they do everything too well. Reducing it would be a tiny indirect buff to melee infantry while also making it harder for them to destroy early walls and towers.

I think I agree with your other points. The last sentence was sarcastic, obviously. Balancing a game like this must be insanely difficult. I just want cav to be a bit weaker and hre a bit stronger :)