Nerf dragon a bit, fine. In a close game, ultimate magic is of little use since it's almost impossible to save up enough to buy and use it without giving away the farm in the process. I've only used it once and had it used against me once in almost 130 games, and the one time it was used against me the guy lost because he was so far behind while saving for it. I actually face a pretty good mix of all three races, so I'm not sure why you seem to have such a different experience. As I stated before, the top 10 board shows that when played well, Aztecs and Chinese are pretty much tied. If the top player on the board is main Aztec, then the Aztecs are obviously not inferior to the Chinese when played well.

To say that Chinese will always win unit for unit is clearly untrue. Without Buddhas and ample spell-casting the Chinese units can be pushed back quite nicely by the other races.

Berserker rushing can be stopped with zen master, but if you go zen master and he goes axe thrower you're in trouble, so you can't really do that. Stalling that with swords/stone is the way to go, which was exactly my point. If you nerf swords/stone it will make defending against a basic berserker rush extremely difficult. Shield only lasts 4 seconds, and if swords are any weaker the berserkers will practically run through them. Arrows are second tier and expensive, plus you can only cast maybe two before running into magic deficit without Buddhas near the beginning, so it really can't be relied upon, especially since it takes almost two full arrow rains to take down a berserker.

I didn't say that dart rushing was an effective technique against all races. A cheap technique doesn't need to be effective all of the time to be cheap.

Obviously mind control comes in later in the game. If it could be done earlier then the Aztecs would be unstoppable. It still means that unless you can beat the Aztecs in the early/mid game they are almost guaranteed to win once they get it working. The Aztecs need to be slightly weaker overall to make up for this. If you want the Aztecs to be stronger in the early/mid game then sacrifice and/or mind control needs to be nerfed to make up for it.

Vaguely claiming that the Chinese have so many easy ways to win does not in fact make my argument a moot point. All races have many easy ways to win if the opponent lets them. If the opponent is skilled, then all races will have many fewer options, and will have a difficult time. Aztec mass mind control is probably the closest thing in the game to an easy win that will work virtually every time it can be implemented. It may just be a coincidence that you want the Chinese nerfed big time when you like to main Aztec, but an objective analysis, such as the top 10 board, weighted appropriately for position, shows that minor balance issues, if any, between the Aztecs and Chinese are vastly overshadowed by the need to improve the mid/late game of the Vikings. This is what the developers should really be trying to address, although more maps would also be nice.

For the most part I agree with this. Vikings definitely need a mid/late game boost, but I still think that the Chinese Swordsman needs to have a longer research time and cooldown, at the very least...

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If the moon was made of barbecued spare ribs, would you eat it?

I'm afraid I disagree with you here, it's quite easy for Chinese to go for dragon early since their units are so powerful for little gold cost, and their spells are powerful for relatively low cost. You could just spam swords+rocketeers and be able to stall well enough against any opposition.


Seems like you haven't even read through this thread at all (I'm not the only one mentioning that chi needed nerfing). Since you seem so eager to get into the tech specs let's break it down shall we? Starting with the basic Chinese units:

1. Swordsmen- 90 gold to research, 50g per unit. 105 hp. 25% chance to reflect projectiles.

Although they only deal 15 damage, their whole purpose is a meat shield (reflect helps with this, along with a not too shabby 105 hp). Against Aztec there is no counter to a sword rush except for Giant, which mind you costs 140 to research and 180(!!!) per giant. 1 jaguar will die before killing the swordsman, so already the Aztec player will have to spend either 100g on 2 jaguars to level the playing field, or research trap (110g, 45m per trap). All the Chinese player has to do is use either shield (70g to research, 45m per cast) or even better, terracotta warriors (aka stone {90g to research, 60m per cast) which will kill 2 jaguars while keeping their swordsmen completely safe. Now mind you if the Aztec player has managed to get a Giant (almost impossible on the desert map, which is why Chinese almost always win on that map for free) the Chinese player can just focus on their economy (workers) or researching a counter to the giant (zen masters, monkeys, rocketeers, shield/flame arrow) which are numerous. The giant moves incredibly slowly so it would be quite easy to counter.

2. Rocketeers- 120g to research, 90/unit. 87hp, 17/25 splash damage

This is the powerhouse of the Chinese army and stops SO MANY tactics it's not even funny. Because of the splash damage this stops necromancers' skeletons and/or grouped darts, and it's even worse for Viking since their raged units will take heavy damage from the splashed rockets. They can easily be protected by swords or terracotta.

3. Zen Masters- 120g/research, 90/unit. 75hp, instant kill (single unit) w/ 6sec cd

Counters a single unit for 90 gold. Meaning Giants (180g) or whatever powerful unit is killed for free. While they can't be single bolted, 1 poison bomb/flame arrow WILL kill them if they are out of their own base (not to mention placed correctly) so I guess they are somewhat balanced, but when combined with swords/shield/stone they are fine.

and I won't go into tech specs about any other spell except 2:

4. Terracotta Warriors- 90g/research, 60m/cast. 8 dmg/unit (total of 32)

Probably the most utlitarian spell in the entire game, can be used to protect your own units/group your own units, kill annoying enemy units (catapults, necromancers, rocketeers) AND towers under construction... and as I mentioned before, if 2 jags are summoned one after the other, and stone is cast, both jags will die. The only thing that can prevent this is sacrifice, which is useless early game. Oh and you can easily stop rage with this, or group their units for a flame arrow.

5. Dragon- 300g/research, 250m/cast.

This is the "I win" spell that pretty much guarantees a victory for the chinese user if it's a stalemate. Unlike boulder or thor's hammer you do NOT need vision of any units for it to be effective. Of course the whole point that makes dragon better than the other 'ultimate spells' is that it gives you instant access to their workers and you can most likely kill all/most of them with 1 dragon. All you have to do is pump swords & rockets to stall them (if you haven't won already) while saving up mana with or without buddhas.


I don't think axe spam would beat ZM spamming at all, the viking user would need to use rage to even have a chance (tier 2 spell) and if they spent all their mana bolting your ZMs/workers then they're f'd. Plus you can just research swords by the time you see their axes, and spam swords (with reflect, so easy to take care of).


Mind control doesn't mean "instant win" since you could just stop producing units and stall for Dragon. Keep in mind the Aztec player has to be constantly making giants and sacrificing them for this to even work. Herp derp @ nerfing Aztecs overall, if anything they are the most neutral of the 3 (vikings too weak, chinese too strong) and if you don't get it yet, I can even talk more tactics.


I can give credit to my friend Snowkissed for being my mentor, he's single handedly responsible for pioneering most of the "annoying" (aka effective) strategies copied by many (aztec wise, I have learned a lot). He is the only Aztec player with a high # of wins+high win ratio. I don't really see how having the top 1 or 2 players maining Aztec as a legitimate point to make up for the number of Chinese players online (and 7/10 of the top 10!). Compare the top 3 Aztec players w/ the best win ratios- 88.7%/83.2%/73.3% to the top 3 Chinese players- 89.0%/86.8%/85.9% and there's a clear difference.

That's even better! Having it Heal multiple units as opposed to the heavy micro-managing process of healing each individual unit would help out a lot. I think you're on the right track - a sort of reverse poisonbomb/arrow rain, where health of multiple units slowly rises (instead of drains).



I've thought of this as well...not specifically giving Snowstorm damage, but giving the Vikings an AOE Damage spell in general. But when it comes down to it, I'm not sure if the Vikings NEED an AOE damage spell. This might make them broken.

Right now, all 3 races basically have 2 options for dealing AOE damage (not counting the ultimate spells): Aztecs have Poison Bomb and Sun Giants, Chinese have Arrow Rain and Rocketeers, and Vikings have Frost Hammers and Catapults.

The Vikings don't have a true AOE damage spell (aside from their Ultimate), but they make up for this by having two units that can deal major AOE damage. Thats why I think they should improve Heal, so that these units (and all of their units) stand a better chance against the AOE damage spells of the other factions.

If heal were AOE they need to increase the cooldown or increase the mana cost... even if the #of hp is decreased it should be by more than half. Maybe the heal cd could be decreased or the mana cost/research cost lowered.

For snowstorm how about some kind of slowing after effect (like poison bomb without dps)? Granted not as slow as the poison bomb, but make the units slightly slower? No damage of course. Between this and catapults' new stun Vikings might have a chance late game.

edit: OK how about if units around the healed unit regain 5-7hp/sec (15/21 hp in total), compared to the 35hp/sec of the regular heal... at least this way you might be able to counter arrow/poison bomb, but to heal the whole group to full hp would require several heals.

Actually Vikings could be a lot better if the cooldown and/or mana cost of Rage were decreased. You can get out of arrow rain with it and avoid poison bomb (with fast reactions).... at the moment it's kind of useless to use since your units just get bombed/arrowed.

Agreed.

I like where the idea is going. Maybe instead of 5-7 health, it could be 10-12. This way, the target of Heal gets the 105 over 3 seconds (35 per sec), and the units around him/her get 30-36 health over 3 seconds. Whether its 5-7 or 10-12 or whatever it could be, definitely would need to increase the cooldown and the mana cost. Maybe the cooldown could be something like 6 or 9 seconds and the mana cost could be bumped up to 45 mana or so.

Reducing the cooldown of Rage might be nice, since they increased its mana cost with the transfer to PS3. Maybe make it 8 seconds instead of 10. It can definitely be used to get out of those AOE spells, though getting out of a Poison Bomb is harder to pull off. It usually hits the ground before you have time to react. That's where Heal helps a lot, going back to my first point

me likes the heal idea. is it possible for a boulder to jump over towers? if this were implimeted, the aztec super spell might be of use! but they might broken tho....
faster viking reage might work, but it could still be blocked by terracottta and rush into a arrow rain, which wouldnt end well.

Aztecs probly need a boost to the jag, if anything. but then again people could actually USE the sun giants as meat sheilds, blasphimest idea I know

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The meek shall inherit the earth, but not its mineral rights.

Maybe in theory, but as I said, it never seems to happen in successfully in practice. Which is more important?



Indeed, although now most of the posts are rightly geared towards improving the vikings, there were some other Aztec players earlier on who also wanted their competition neutered. I don't recall ever going into the mind numbing detail of mentioning any technical specs for any specific units in my post, so I'm not sure what you are referring to. It seems that you are the one who wanted to do this. I was shocked to learn that the Chinese units you mentioned actually had their uses! Of course you never mention certain things in your descriptions, like the fact that swordsman attack more slowly than other basic melee units, or that using zen masters to counter giants can be countered with traps. I suspect someone could make a similar list of useful Aztec units and spells if they had the time and inclination, as all of the units are useful in different situations.



In theory that might work, but having actually tried it myself a number of times it isn't nearly that easy. Rage is tier two, but so are wizards. A viking player can get quite a few axe throwers raging into the ZM before they get very far, and can start picking off your workers by the time you switch to swords and make a few.



I wasn't suggesting that the Aztecs need to be made weaker overall, but pointing out that they are slightly weaker in raw power already to make up for the fact that mind control is so easy to win with. I've said all along that Aztec and Chinese are pretty well balanced already. As for your suggestion to counter mind control, if I'm not producing units and saving my magic for a dragon, what exactly am I stalling with? I guess my workers would hold the Aztec army off for a few seconds, but then it won't matter even if I get the dragon out at that point. I'm not sure how this is supposed to work.



I'm not sure what other players and board posters think about this, but it seems to me that when your Aztec "mentor" is number two on the board and you yourself are maining Aztec at number one, there could hardly be any better evidence that the Aztecs are not inherently inferior to the Chinese. It really doesn't matter how many players use any particular race, the issue of balance turns on the potential of the races when played at their best. Writing one one-sided post after another about nerfing the Chinese while you sit atop the rankings as an Aztec seems strangely ironic to say the least. Perhaps some other poster could tell me if I'm nuts for thinking this. At least any Ronimo team member reading these posts has some points from both sides now and should be able to patch appropriately.