myth_patch_2-4

A new patch for Age of Mythology just hit the shores. You can check all fixes and balance updates below or straight on the Steam forums:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/266840/discussions/1/364042703854981752/

Desyncs

  • Desyncs involving player disconnection has been improved. (update: not completely resolved as of now, but the engineers are looking into it)
  • There are some rare known issues with the vote dialog that we are continuing to work through.

General

  • Selecting units with drag select should now correctly display the appropriate amount of units.
  • Flying units can now correctly attack each other.
  • Chinese Shared Settlement hotkeys should now be changeable.
  • Chinese Caravans should now be affected by the Coinage upgrade.
  • Tech Tree should now function correctly for the original Campaigns. For example, the earthquake icon should no longer appear in the town center for mission 3 of the Fall of the Trident campaign.
  • Mods should no longer crash when loading into gameplay if the file path exceeds 127 characters.

Data/Balance Updates

  • Great Flood now constantly damages units while caught in the wave (units can garrison inside buildings to protect themselves).
  • Great Flood wave does more damage to units whereas buildings suffer more damage from the initial impact.
  • Call to Arms should no longer affect naval units.
  • Call to Arms max number of human unit duplication had been lowered to 4 (from 5).
  • Chinese Garden gather rate for food, wood and gold has been reduced by 5%.
  • Chinese Villager gather rate has been reduced by 5%.
  • Chinese Villagers can no longer be bolted.
  • Chinese Nu Wa Villagers cost reduction has been removed.
  • Chinese Junk Boats have had their HP reduced by 20.
  • Chinese Scouts attack has been reduced by 50% in Archaic.
  • Chinese Immortals attack has been reduced by 50% in Archaic.
  • Terracotta Warrior lethal dust now instantly deals 15 pierce damage (instead of dealing 10 pierce damage per second).
  • Terracotta Warrior cost has been increased to 120 wood / 10 favor (from 90 / 8).
  • Terracotta Warrior cost return on death has been reduced to an average of 20 wood / 2 favor (from 40 / 4).

 


 

Additionally, we have a word from our balance team regarding the balance changes we pushed. It goes into quite some detail, so probably most interesting for the hardcore audience!

Warning, very long read ahead!

Thoughts from the Balance Team

Strategy games are very complex, thus we’ve given the Chinese a phase of observation, to see how players will adapt and develop strategies with them and against them. And as expected, the Chinese are strong, very strong. Perhaps even a bit too strong 😉

They were originally designed to be a well-rounded civ, strong on land & water maps, a solid economy that is further enhanced by their gardens, and a wide variety of units and god powers to face any opponent. But turns out they were a bit too well-rounded. However, we found out most of these strengths can be boiled down to one culprit: their strong economy. This has made their rushes and booming strategies way too potent, as other civilizations were not able to keep up with their production and would require massive leads in the K/D to keep up.

This problem was further enhanced by the minor god Huang Di, available to both Fu Xi and Nü Wa. Huang Di has two features that make him the best choice in almost every situation: his myth unit and god power. The Terracotta Warrior was simply too strong for its price, even proving to be a force to reckon with for late-game armies. So its price and abilities have been adapted accordingly. Additionally, Huang Di grants you the “Call to Arms” god power, which duplicates a part of your army. A move that proved strong on early skirmishes, but was an almost guaranteed path to victory on water maps. After all, duplicating 5 Chu Ko Nu is not nearly the same as duplicating 5 Junks.

In conclusion, we believe that with their economy and Huang Di nerfed, the Chinese now fit in much better with the other deities. Their units should no longer be perceived as cheap, as they won’t be able to reproduce armies at will anymore, giving other Gods an opportunity to push back against the Chinese if they happen to lose their army. Water-maps will be contestable again the Chinese and other civilizations should be able to keep up in production in general. The Terracotta Warrior is still a good unit, but will no longer dominate till the late-game.

For those who are interested, I will go a little more in-depth on the changes and explain their purpose in the following section. Feel free to skip to the next section otherwise!

Detailed thoughts behind the Balances Changes

  • Great Flood now constantly damages units while caught in the wave. Units can garrison inside buildings to protect themselves.
  • Great Flood wave does more damage to units whereas buildings suffer more damage from the initial impact.

This one is both a balance and a cosmetic change. The way most god powers work is, that they have a set hp-cap for buildings, military and civilian units. Once reached, no further damage will be dealt. The Great Flood travels a very long distance, but usually reaches the hp-cap very shortly after the initial impact, causing the wave to travel a great distance without harming anything. This is very awkward. To solve this, additionally to the damage on impact, the wave now deals damage every second as it is passing units and buildings. This is a buff, but also adds an interesting mechanic and strategical depth to the god power. You can predict ahead in time where the wave will pass through and move your units out of the way. Optionally, you can also take shelter inside a building to sit out the wave. For the person casting the god power however, this can be used to force a suboptimal decision from your opponent. You can cut off their escape route, forcing them to either fight you or take a lot of damage by going through the wave or you can use it to force your opponent to abandon an area for a brief time, giving you an opportunity to claim ground. Overall, we feel, players will start thinking a lot more about where they will cast this god power and how they will turn it to get the most out of the impact and the trail.

  • Call to Arms no longer affect naval units.
  • Call to Arms max number of human unit duplication had been lowered to 4 (from 5).

This one is more straightforward. Call to Arms, in combination with the early age-up times, allowed by their strong economy, would allow the caster to gain a very significant lead early on and control the game from there. Both their economy and the amount of units that can be duplicated are receiving a hit, thus the Chinese’s early game, when advancing through Huang Di, should be a lot more balanced now. Call to Arms no longer affecting naval units is to reduce their strength on water-maps and open up more choices for the player. Before, Huang Di would be the best pick on land and water-maps. Their other strategical choices were also strong, just not as strong as Huang Di, hence they’ve been primarily ignored. They will still remain very strong on water-maps, of course, but the player will have to work for their victory now.

  • Chinese Garden gather rate for food, wood and gold has been reduced by 5%.
  • Chinese Villager gather rate has been reduced by 5%.

Another straight forward nerf. The economy of a civilization is their backbone. Their economy has been unmatched, leaving other civilizations no room for error, if they wanted to compete. It has been the root for most of the problems and will be the main target of further nerfs, if we deem them to be necessary. What this nerf basically means is, that the Chinese will no longer be able to advance as early and amass as many units as quickly as they can now. This gives other civilizations more time to build up defenses against their rushes and offenses against their booming. Furthermore, other civilizations should be able to contest map-control now.

  • Chinese Villagers can no longer be bolted.

All villagers have been made immune to bolt in our initial balance patch. It’s only fair the Chinese are granted this immunity as well.

  • Chinese Nü Wa Villagers cost reduction has been removed.

Nü Wa is probably the strongest of the Chinese deities at this moment, blessed with many strong bonuses. Originally, this bonus was intended to only affect Human Soldiers, not all Human units. After seeing the bonus in action, we decided to go back to our initial design decision and have her focus more on military than economy this way.

  • Chinese Junk Boats have had their HP reduced by 20.

Coupled with Call to Arms, their strong boats reigned the seas. Even with Call to Arms no longer affecting naval units, we still considered their boats to be over-performing, hence we nerfed their strength on water-maps further by knocking off a few HP from the ships.

  • Chinese Scouts attack has been reduced by 50% in Archaic.

We’ve already nerfed, if not fully removed large portions of the Archaic age harassment. The Chinese Scout has been spared from that nerf until now. (E.g. a Chinese Scout could kill a Norse Ulfsark, trying to build a dock, granting them a huge lead early on.)

  • Terracotta Warrior lethal dust now instantly deals 15 pierce damage (instead of dealing 10 pierce damage per second).
  • Terracotta Warrior cost has been increased to 120 wood / 10 favor (from 90 / 8).
  • Terracotta Warrior cost return on death has been reduced to an average of 20 wood / 2 favor (from 40 / 4)

This one is another very mandatory nerf, next to the economy nerf. Their lethal dust, in combination with their cheap cost and high return, allowed them to trade too efficiently in all stages of the game. We will keep a close eye on this unit specifically and nerf them further, if deemed necessary.

Our goal & thoughts on future patches

The Chinese’s design is very competitive and it is intended that way. We are looking to create a civilization that is both fun and challenging for the player and the opponent. These Balance Changes are a start into the right direction and we will continue to observe their performance after this patch and add further adjustments as we see fit. We are looking forward to the strategical diversity as players start to utilize their versatility and situational awareness more. The unit additions to the original civilizations remain untouched in this patch, but will remain monitored.

Closing thoughts

We really appreciate all the feedback we’ve received so far, it greatly helps us and we’re looking forward to read your future comments!