AoM:EE Balance Update - Detailed Thoughts From The Team

Competitive maps:

State of the meta:

Norse:

Greek:

Egyptians:

Atlanteans:

Hi everyone,We wanted to give more in-depth information on the balance team's thoughts regarding the game's current(pre-patch) state of balance, the reasoning behind the changes and how we would like to communicate with you guys.The changes can be seen here: http://www.forgottenempires.net/aom/changelog To access the changes, use the "Preview" beta build, as shown in the bottom of our dev blog: http://www.forgottenempires.net/age-of-mythology-ee-dev-blog-1-the-old-powers We feel that the random map generator unfortunately leaves room for too much imbalance in general. Things such as one player having their starting hunt within their initial vision, whereas the other player doesn't are commonplace, and cause considerable differences in options available to the players. On water maps, this problem can be even more severe. It's also important to mention cases where one player has access to considerably more resources, or even more settlements than the other player. These kind of differences cause major snowballing in games, and often there is no "right choice" to handle the problems the map is causing, as the favored player would be more wary of special moves, while maintaining control over the game.We recognize the importance of the sense of accomplishment when overcoming such imbalances, but we also think it is crucial to point out that the negatively affected player has to play considerably better than his opponent (given decent god balance) to overcome such problems, especially if their extent is great.To soften the impact of these problems, our cartographers have been hard at work, making hundreds of edits to the existing maps. While this will not completely eliminate the possibility of problems, based on our internal testing, the severity and likelihood of disposition and uneven distribution of resources have been reduced greatly.As you can see in the change log, we made a few changes to map dynamics, such as Alfheim's cliffs where units can no longer be placed. This has been a significant problem in the majority of cases when dealing with Roc drops, or Shifting Sands. For Oasis, we felt that the single big forest spawns are too defensive, and do not create enough points of interest to fight over.Additionally, we have removed Highland from the random map set, as we deemed its gameplay too abusive given the nature of the water's positioning. To those who didn't know, it's commonplace to spam docks on highland, which is something we do not want to encourage in competitive games as it is highly stale. A long term goal of ours is to have a replacement for Highland(maybe 2 replacements), which everyone is free to brainstorm about.One of the new maps in Tale of the Dragon will have an elongated layout, with a small water pond with fish behind each player. The outside of the map will feature high hunt. The idea here is to have a map where limited fishing can be executed safely without the gameplay transitioning into naval battles. We are aware that this will reduce the benefits of map control to some extent, but think that that could be an interesting dynamic to have on one map.The game has not received any significant balance updates since 2004, save for the bug fixes that had a very minor impact here in the Extended Edition, but in the end weren't too significant when it comes to overall balance and strategies. As such, there has been plenty of time for players old and new to figure out how to correctly approach things and create various playstyles.Our stance on the strength of gods(before this patch), broken up into tiers is the following:Tier 1: Zeus, Set, Oranos, IsisTier 2: Poseidon, Ra, Thor, Loki, Kronos, HadesTier 3: Odin, GaiaThis means that the tier 1 gods, with the exception of a few rare situations are considerably stronger than the tier 2 or tier 3 gods. Gods of equal tier have a reasonable chance of dealing with each other as long as the map is fair.When it comes to playstyles, we are seeing very harsh abuse of harassment in the early Classical Age. The problem here is that the opposing player may still be in the Archaic Age, where there's not much of a defense that can be mustered. The tendency of being forced to advance early to repel this kind of harassment is something we would like to tone down. A number of our changes are aimed to make this type of harassment weaker.While economic harassment, and getting ahead through it in booming has been highly dominant for a long time now, we're not seeing much viability in super aggressive rushes, or early all-ins. We feel that walls are the strongest contributors to the very strong defender's advantage in AoM, in most cases to an extent that is unnecessarily big. By weakening walls against hack attacks, and reducing the repair speed on them, we hope to improve this situation. While we don't think this is enough to discourage heavy booming that is the current standard meta in a lot of matchups, we think we can at least provide greater strategic diversity this way.Additionally, we want to remove some of the god power randomness. We would like to see consistent results from these - a strong example would be Great Hunt, which when cast on an Aurochs and a Goat, would the majority of times only clone one of the two due to a randomized selection. With the change, as long as you are not hitting the 750 food limit, animals will be consistently cloned.In the balance team's opinion, Norse is currently in a fairly weak spot, abusable in far too many ways. We would like to give them some extra strength in certain areas, in addition to weakening the tier 1 gods that are most notably abusing them currently.As the #1 problem I would like to mention getting up docks on water maps: the Ulfsark is not capable of going into the passive stance, which means that he cannot ignore damage caused by enemy units while building. As such, Kataskospos, Priest, Pharaoh, Set animals or even Villagers are capable of keeping Norse from building the dock for a long time. This leaves Norse at an economic disadvantage due to the fact that opposing players meanwhile are able to train some fishing ships. In addition, Zeus is able to use bolt on the Ulfsark to force the Norse to make another, which can still be harassed the same way.Our solution to this is introducing a starting Ulfsark that is not identical to the regular one, and cannot be re-trained. It is not affected by bolt and can ignore damage while building. We also made sure that pharaohs cannot shoot over unfinished buildings that block access to dock builders.With this in place, Norse players are going to be able to have a dock at proper timings and in proper positions, which is going to be a really big change - we're looking forward to see how this alters things on water maps.Aside from making forward temple pressure stronger, we think this has very little effect on how they perform on land maps. We felt that with the reduction to the Archaic Age harassment via introduction of archaic age nerfs on Greek Heroes, and the weakening of the Pharaoh until Hands of the Pharaoh is researched, as well as the weakened Turma(no medium upgrade for free) and the Shifting Sands nerf will mean that Norse is going to be able to either push away overeager aggressors with their hunters(most common point of harass), or just retreat while taking less damage than they would have before. With this, we think that there will be a slightly better economy available as Norse enters the classical age.Another area that we wanted to address is their ability to fight flying units, especially when facing fast-heroic advances that lead to Roc or Stymphalian Bird use. We feel that Throwing Axemen do acceptably well at zoning, but for that they need access to the Axe of Muspell upgrade - we decided to give access to it in the Classical Age, and made it provide extra range for them as well, so that they are actually able to hit a flying target as fast as Rocs. This way, the upgrade will potentially see usage even in matches where flying units are not involved.We are hearing the complaints about Hersirs being slow and inefficient, especially without the Hall of Thanes upgrade. As an initial step, we decided to marginally increase their speed, which should help them zone and/or chase enemy Myth Units.Finally, we wanted to give all the Norse gods a buff for the late game, in order to make them not solely rely on Ragnarok. We hope that the siege buffs will be sufficient once their upgrades kick in in order to keep Norse potent at dealing damage. We also improved Fenris Wolf Broods, which will hopefully increase Tyr usage. Also important to mention is the Nidhogg change, that will allow Loki players to safely use it against Zeus players.There is a minor buff to Odin's regeneration bonus, which doesn't really need further explanation. We'd just like the regeneration to pay off better, as idle units are generally not that useful. Also, with the change to the Ravens, he should be able to use Forest Fire without investing population into scouting.An overall well rounded civilization, with a limited amount of things that shine a little too brightly currently, as well as a few viability problems.Zeus is highly dominant out of the three gods, which is something we would like to tone down. There is an array of hero changes that will make Greek heroes more balanced across the board, most notably the Mythic Age heroes. Bellerophon for example will not be able to handle Siege Units single handedly with the same efficiency, and he will also take more than a single jump to kill Myth Units such as Lampades or Mummies, which will allow these to be better used against Colossi.Additionally, we see a high dominance of Greek on water maps, which we think is caused by the +4 range on Triremes(when compared to other arrow ships). We would like them to still have more range, but only +2. The Restoration nerf is going to help in this area as well(in addition to making gold starve strategies weaker).Zeus' ability of Myth Unit spam is another thing we would like to slightly tone down for the entire game's duration, and so we're reducing his favor gathering bonus.We feel that the Bolt power is too powerful when used on the Son of Osiris or the Nidhogg, as these are Mythic Age god powers that are not going to be usable. While we acknowledge that Isis has some limited counterplay with Monuments, it is not enough in standard supremacy games to withstand Colossus after Colossus, as well as the Myrmidon heavy compositions. We also have removed the boltability of Transport Units, namely the Leviathan and Roc, to be in line with the Transport Ship's status.Centaurs are another thing that we would like to re-balance, by slightly increasing the base speed, but reducing the speed at which they move after the Sylvan Lore upgrade. This way we believe that they will be easier to zone out, and perhaps Poseidon will make use of a pair of un-upgraded Centaurs in the early game more often than now.The repair rate on the Underworld Passage is now similar to other buildings - it was as high as it was most likely because of a coding mistake in the original game. Now it is repaired at the rate a normal building would be, which should make the struggles of Egyptians against Zeus' mythic age Underworlds less one sided.The buff to Hetairoi was done because they are not really effective at their role as by the mythic age people upgrade their towers with Crenellations in general, but especially against Poseidon. With this huge increase to hitpoints, these units are hopefully strong enough to be used regularly.As a minor note, Lure should be fully consistent now, and Sentinels will be able to hit units that are moving, bumping up the strength of Poseidon and Hades ever so slightly.A great portion of the Egyptian changes addresses early game harassment, our direction on which was explained above. I would like to add though that Set animals denying Docks, and early Shifting Sands to steal Villagers/Military Units and trap them between building fire is by our definition part of the same abusive meta that we would like to phase out.We definitely see a lot of problems with Greek players doing a 3 TC boom into mythic while surviving off of mass Hippikons. To provide counterplay beyond Scorpion Men, we'd like to try a minor buff to Camelry. We're also looking to make them slightly better at raiding and against Centaurs.Due to an overpowering strength of Roc drops(Elephants/Siege Towers) against Norse in the heroic age, we decided to slightly reduce the Roc's speed in addition to Norse changes. This should also make the Catapult drops weaker later on as well.Given the many changes that weaken the Greek mythic age, we are looking to weaken the Egyptian pushes aided by Mercenaries by reducing their hitpoints. We hope that players will be able to fight these head-on more often than now. This will of course affect the entirety of the late game, but we're not expecting that to be a negative thing, as these pushes usually bear one sided end results.The Meteor accuracy change should have a massive effect as well - as long as there are enemies to hit, the meteors will strike them. Note that this is not a real buff against Town Centers though, as surrounding buildings will cause meteors to hit those, making the TC take less hits.Due to their highly asymmetric design(Citizens, Manors, Heroes), Atlanteans are really tricky to balance.While we will not be changing their original design, what we will change is their power spikes. The goal here is to reduce their strength in the early game, and strengthening them across the rest of the game, while also solving the many viability issues of their minor gods.A big problem we've been seeing for a very long time is that they can advance with a very good economy even when they only have 5 Citizens. There is a bug when it comes to resource drop offs that we are looking at currently(note: this always has been in the game!), which could force a considerable amount of economic changes across the board. For the moment, we are leaving the Atlantean economy alone, but would like to hear your thoughts on it while the drop off bugs are looked at. We are aware that nerfs to the early Atlantean economy would be detrimental on water maps, and would compensate with some form of Bireme buff most likely, if such a change would happen.To go along with the theme of weakening the classical age unit flood of Atlanteans, we'd like to take away the free Medium Archers tech. Turmas should be slightly easier to deal with this way. Coupled with weakening the stun effect of Shockwave, these kinds of plays will feel much less abusive.The reliance on Prometheus as a crutch against Myth Units is very clear - Gaia has extreme difficulties keeping up with the required hero counts. As such, we would like to make heroes cheaper, but also weaken the Valor god power by taking a charge away.We feel that Priest/Siege pushes by Isis and Set are extremely difficult for Atlanteans to deal with currently, and would like to provide counterplay in the form of the Contarius, seeing as Greek/Norse would handle this composition with cavalry fairly easily. With this change, we're giving room to the Contarius entering the meta, and will hopefully push Priest/Siege out of dominance. In addition, we have been thinking about making the Medium Cavalry upgrade free for Atlanteans, or reducing the Cavalry line upgrade costs, seeing as only one of their units is affected. We will be watching to determine if that is needed, and are looking forward to your feedback on this.To buff the Atlantean late game, as well as general rush defense(particularly against villager rushes with Shifting Sands), we would like to make the Town Centers of Atlanteans equal to that of other civs stat-vise. For the late game, the Fire Siphon will be turned into a mid-range siege weapon, while the Heka Gigantes becomes a little more tanky. This should allow Atlanteans to mimic the Greek late game a little (note similarities to Myrmidon-Colossus-Helepolis and Underworld Passage with Heka Gigantes-Destroyer-Fanatic-Fire Siphon and Vortex).As you can see, we are very unhappy with Minor God viability issues, and would like to bump up the power of Leto, Rheia, Hyperion and Gaia's Lush bonus by a little.Continued below.