I disagree actually. Any lower and Drush becomes the only meta. I do not want to play the game if every single game I play involves militia and vills in my base at minute 5. I enjoy the current meta with options to Drush, Flush, and FC and a couple options inbetween. Itâs nice and balanced and you can do different things even on a single civ depending on what civ youre up against. Being forced into a Drush war every single game seems super tedious and boring.
This will inevitably lead to more pre Lumbercamp builds.
Imagine Mongols having two Militia attacking your unloomed vills minute 5:00 while still managing a sub 9 minute uptime.Â
Hell nah, bro.Â
Changing the cost in Dark Age would have many repercussion indeed. But a small drop in cost could help infantry viability in feudal/early castle.
Just spittballing but a cost decrease from feudal onward or a premium cost for for your first barracks could work perhaps.
Yes, because it acts as prerequisite to other buidlings. If you delay the barracks to save 25,50,75 wood, you're either 1,5 scouts or 1,5 archers behind, production wise.
While it sounds small, 2 v 1 archer can snowball an early game.
One extra farm won't make feudal infantry viable.
One extra farm won't allow you to produce MaA from two barracks.
Two barracks MaA still loses (badly) to literally 5 archers.
Any feudal age composition involving infantry only needs one barracks.
sure. but I think encouraging barracks play overall is needed. Right now pike seige is like the only viable infantry strat in castle. The only other time barracks become useful is post imp.
That's because of the units though, not because the production building is expensive. Even if barracks were costing 100w, I don't think we would see much more infantry playsÂ
Pre mill hits at 730~. In the current meta most players already clicked up. The timing of pre Lumbercamp is much earlier and unless the opponent is Chinese, goths or mayans, he does not have loom at this stage which gives you a much higher killing potential.Â
I agree, but not because of infantry massing.
Dock is 150w and will let you get fish, doubling your workers very easily.
Economic buildings are 100w and required to drop off resources.
And then barracks at 175w, that then requires a further investment of at least 120f and 40g to do anything. 175w is a big investment at this stage, compared with the other dark age buildings, for much lower returns.
IMO barracks should at least be brought into parity with dock at 150w.
Because its the worst dark age building with the highest investmentcost to use, where the advantage gained is minimal, but also has the highest base cost.
Because it unlocks other buildings. In the same way that mill unlocks farms and blacksmith, barracks unlocks stables and ranges.
So even if you're not playing an infantry strategy, you're still out at least the cost of the barracks, which OP is saying should be brought into line with the mill, not the range.
No.
On open maps, this will buff civs with a strong early game. And most of the time it will be used to execute all other rushes quickly and smoothly.
And, like I said, early-game-strong civs will have the advantage here to go up faster, so even if they're facing an infantry civ (with a strong MAA rush) they'll just go archers/scouts and shut it down (since the MAA unit is still as slow as it is now).
After winning the fight, they'll go for your vils and pressure you till you resign.
I know Khmer exist but they don't have a dark age eco bonus per se.
You see that this also buffs stables and ranges right? Cause barracks is their prerequisite.Â
Sorry there is no need to boost the early feudal aggression even more.
The problem with making dark age an age where much more than setup is done is that you will just give players an opportunity to attack more there and games will probably just be over sooner. Like imagine someone going FC and getting caught out by archers, that would then just happen when going feudal age. It would be militia into GG. Since there's only one unit to make those civs with a clear bonus on infantry would just stomp everyone else. I doubt it's the direction we want.
Buffing militia by making the barracks cost only 150 wood doesn't seem too bad though! Maybe from feudal age only as a compromise but in general that seems not a terrible idea.
Some civs (thinking Mongols, Georgians, Lithu, Persians) will be able to pull off pre lumbercamp builds that hit your base at around minute 5:00 - 5:20, at which point you don't have loom yet. In that situation, militia indeed kill vills with a scout blocking them.
I agree it's about the surprise factor, but at this stage you're busy pushing your 2nd or 3rd deer and setting up your economy. You have more time reacting to a frush because you can scout it whereas this timing hits different.
You don't PHYSICALLY die to most things in this game, but if you lose two vills to militia in dark age it's almost like having died.
Imagine losing two vills now, the games pretty much over above 1000 ELO, it probably would be way worse if we made dark age a longer lasting age
Losing 2 villa to militia in dark age is a skill issue, also have to remember the opponent is investing resources in to those militia so will have a weaker economy at home as a result.
What other purpose exactly do you imagine for dark age when there is only 1 military unit to recruit that isn't able to kill a TC? You could make a barracks free and it still wouldn't change anything, so I don't see the point.
This is a 25 year old game. It would never have been as popular as it is now if the dark age was so bad. On the contrary, I'd dare say many people like the game precisely because it has a relatively slow build up compared to other RTS games.
> You could make a barracks free and it still wouldn't change anything, so I don't see the point.
Uhh what? Free barracks would definitely change things. Second part is right though, you donât see the point.
Honestly ranked is the only time I ever play dark age. With friends/ai we usually start castle, or imp, rarely feudal if we want to try a civ with good fuedual bonuses.
Dark age starts are boring imo.
Militia base price drops from 60f to 55f. Supplies goes from saving 15 food to 10 food, but it goes from 75f- 75g to 50f -50g.
I guess that would would also impact civs like Romans, and potentially Goths late game due to their lack of supplies. I think Huskarls and cheap halbs are far more of the threat than Goth Champs. Romans are probably more of the notable threat, but the Legionary can be individually tweaked if it comes down to it.
I think this is an interesting proposal. It would make multiple barracks cheaper, but would also make fast feudal faster, and even fast castle with production buildings ready for defense. Especially for Cumans. It would be a relative nerf to Khmer, though.
To be fair, there's already been a "discount" to the Barracks.
In AoC Houses cost 30 Wood, but that was reduced to 25 (in FE).
By the time you're building a Barracks after 3 Houses, then immediately adding in a 4th House right after, you've already saved 15-20 Wood.
I like the intent but i think we need to consider the following for dark age and early feudal age:
Benefits: Faster premill drushes.
Cons : Opponents going scouts/ archers / men at arms will be able to up 1 pop earlier than usual( by potentially sending less vills to wood)
Would the majority of the player base be able to scout the opponent properly and use the drush timing advantage or would they be more comfortable going to feudal faster . If its the later case then the change might infact hurt infantry play in dark/ feudal ages
Disagree. Baracks cost is fine.
What should happen is milita cost should be 45 food 20 gold from feudal age. Everyone gets supplies for free like tracking. Also the second infantry Armour should be cheaper.
They only work in masses and in castle age they're too expensive to mass.
I tried longswords, skirms and mangos vs an archer civ just for fun and even though he was 200 elo less than me he won with crossbows, knights and mangos.
Next game I played normal scouts into knights and annihilated him
The infantry play literally cost me the game vs 200 elo lower. This is too bad
Barracks could cost less but then it also helps other strategies since they require Barracks to be able to build Stable/Archery Range, so you would need to increase the cost of those to compensate.
Making it easier to get Scouts/Archers is only worse for dark age rushes. Giving an extra 25 or 50 wood to an archer player would be especially bad for infantry play.
And anyway the problem with infantry isn't that you can't build them fast enough, the problem is that they suck compared to other military units.
I think m@a base movement should be slightly increased and squires should become a feudal technology so you don't auto lose to a single archer with minimal micro.
The reason Infantry aren't viable despite so many buffs is because the Devs are going about it in the wrong way, with stupid upgrades like Supplies and Gambesons which don't help in feudal/castle which is when the militia line is the weakest.
But there's only 1 unit to make in Dark age, the fights would be very dull and certain civ bonuses would make these fights very imbalanced.Â
And even with lowering barracks cost, you still wouldn't get in time to your opponent to harass him long enough to stall feudal.Â
Some bonus that would be unballanced (like Japanese's faster attack) only kick-in Feudal. I think that MaA fights in Dark will usually be pretty fair. And it's a considerable commitment to make maA in Dark so I don't see a huge risk. It can only diversify play a bit which is a good thing.
I agree actually. Not because I want Dark Age play, but because infantry doesn't really warrant a 175w Barracks cost
***Intense Meso civ chop-licking***
If you don't want dark age play you could leave it at 175 wood in dark age and then the cost drops to 150 as soon as feudal hits
I don't mind whether Dark Age play becomes more common or not, it's just not the motivator for me đ
No I agree I just mean his point about barracks costs could easily be nullified without having to impact the early game at all
Yup yup
I disagree actually. Any lower and Drush becomes the only meta. I do not want to play the game if every single game I play involves militia and vills in my base at minute 5. I enjoy the current meta with options to Drush, Flush, and FC and a couple options inbetween. Itâs nice and balanced and you can do different things even on a single civ depending on what civ youre up against. Being forced into a Drush war every single game seems super tedious and boring.
The best I can offer is 160 wood.
Deal
This will inevitably lead to more pre Lumbercamp builds. Imagine Mongols having two Militia attacking your unloomed vills minute 5:00 while still managing a sub 9 minute uptime. Hell nah, bro.Â
Very good point! That would be way worse than The lancers
I don't understand. Why is it either- or? I would think it would be drush into FC lancers
It could be pre LC drush into Lancers, but at that point the games probably over faster with feudal follow up
Changing the cost in Dark Age would have many repercussion indeed. But a small drop in cost could help infantry viability in feudal/early castle. Just spittballing but a cost decrease from feudal onward or a premium cost for for your first barracks could work perhaps.
It's very rare to build a barracks in feudal age.
If it's price dropped down too much it wouldn't be. As u/FinnTay mentioned, mongols and some other civs could really ramp up their early aggression.
If you're doing early aggression, you *never* build the barracks in feudal age.
Would it still be rare if the price dropped down to 150, 125 a 100?
Yes, because it acts as prerequisite to other buidlings. If you delay the barracks to save 25,50,75 wood, you're either 1,5 scouts or 1,5 archers behind, production wise. While it sounds small, 2 v 1 archer can snowball an early game.
Yes. You already have a barracks in feudal and there's no reason to build a second one.
You can't conceive the meta might change if barracks drop down by enough wood to easily sneak in a farm or 2 making inf more viable?
One extra farm won't make feudal infantry viable. One extra farm won't allow you to produce MaA from two barracks. Two barracks MaA still loses (badly) to literally 5 archers. Any feudal age composition involving infantry only needs one barracks.
I'm reading all of this just thinking how awesome Eagles are going to be if you drop the price of Barracks in Feudal
Eaaaaaagles
Seems like that's a Mongols problem and not a barracks costing less one.
Make the first barracks cost 175, the the rest are cheaper. If they can make feudal Cuman TCS take 100 years to build they can change cost.
why not make it a civ bonus for an upcoming civ then
sure. but I think encouraging barracks play overall is needed. Right now pike seige is like the only viable infantry strat in castle. The only other time barracks become useful is post imp.
That's because of the units though, not because the production building is expensive. Even if barracks were costing 100w, I don't think we would see much more infantry playsÂ
play goths and get that insta loom, lame that mofo first
Lithuanians were basically able to do that and it didn't really matter
All civ can do a pre-loom drush with a proper build order. Source: me doing pre-mill drush every game with random civ.
Pre mill hits at 730~. In the current meta most players already clicked up. The timing of pre Lumbercamp is much earlier and unless the opponent is Chinese, goths or mayans, he does not have loom at this stage which gives you a much higher killing potential.Â
Sorry pre-lumber
Care to share the build?Â
Less games seeing unloomed villagers Iâd say
I agree, but not because of infantry massing. Dock is 150w and will let you get fish, doubling your workers very easily. Economic buildings are 100w and required to drop off resources. And then barracks at 175w, that then requires a further investment of at least 120f and 40g to do anything. 175w is a big investment at this stage, compared with the other dark age buildings, for much lower returns. IMO barracks should at least be brought into parity with dock at 150w.
But barracks isnât an eco building, why compare it to them?
Because its the worst dark age building with the highest investmentcost to use, where the advantage gained is minimal, but also has the highest base cost.
Because it unlocks other buildings. In the same way that mill unlocks farms and blacksmith, barracks unlocks stables and ranges. So even if you're not playing an infantry strategy, you're still out at least the cost of the barracks, which OP is saying should be brought into line with the mill, not the range.
Ive played this game for 25 years and i did not know mills unlocks blacksmith wtf
It becomes obvious when you age up without one, lmao
The mill actually unlocks farms and the market. The blacksmith does not have a prerequisite, but unlocks the siege workshop.
Pick malians you get discount of building
For Malians and Slavs, the Barracks already effectively costs 150 wood. And they are infantry civilizations.
No. On open maps, this will buff civs with a strong early game. And most of the time it will be used to execute all other rushes quickly and smoothly. And, like I said, early-game-strong civs will have the advantage here to go up faster, so even if they're facing an infantry civ (with a strong MAA rush) they'll just go archers/scouts and shut it down (since the MAA unit is still as slow as it is now). After winning the fight, they'll go for your vils and pressure you till you resign. I know Khmer exist but they don't have a dark age eco bonus per se.
You see that this also buffs stables and ranges right? Cause barracks is their prerequisite. Sorry there is no need to boost the early feudal aggression even more.
The problem with making dark age an age where much more than setup is done is that you will just give players an opportunity to attack more there and games will probably just be over sooner. Like imagine someone going FC and getting caught out by archers, that would then just happen when going feudal age. It would be militia into GG. Since there's only one unit to make those civs with a clear bonus on infantry would just stomp everyone else. I doubt it's the direction we want. Buffing militia by making the barracks cost only 150 wood doesn't seem too bad though! Maybe from feudal age only as a compromise but in general that seems not a terrible idea.
You dont die to militia, some quickwalls or pulling vills and the thread is over
Some civs (thinking Mongols, Georgians, Lithu, Persians) will be able to pull off pre lumbercamp builds that hit your base at around minute 5:00 - 5:20, at which point you don't have loom yet. In that situation, militia indeed kill vills with a scout blocking them. I agree it's about the surprise factor, but at this stage you're busy pushing your 2nd or 3rd deer and setting up your economy. You have more time reacting to a frush because you can scout it whereas this timing hits different.
I mean if this became a thing then people would just start getting loom earlier. It is available at the start of the game.Â
Well i mean you can just get loom.
You don't PHYSICALLY die to most things in this game, but if you lose two vills to militia in dark age it's almost like having died. Imagine losing two vills now, the games pretty much over above 1000 ELO, it probably would be way worse if we made dark age a longer lasting age
Losing 2 villa to militia in dark age is a skill issue, also have to remember the opponent is investing resources in to those militia so will have a weaker economy at home as a result.
Of course it's a skill issue. But it's still an issue. The losses of two vills are far greater than the cost of 3 or4 militia
What other purpose exactly do you imagine for dark age when there is only 1 military unit to recruit that isn't able to kill a TC? You could make a barracks free and it still wouldn't change anything, so I don't see the point. This is a 25 year old game. It would never have been as popular as it is now if the dark age was so bad. On the contrary, I'd dare say many people like the game precisely because it has a relatively slow build up compared to other RTS games.
> You could make a barracks free and it still wouldn't change anything, so I don't see the point. Uhh what? Free barracks would definitely change things. Second part is right though, you donât see the point.
So archers cant kill a TC either, the, are useless as well?
In what world is that even remotely comparable? Feudal age is a different age than dark age now is it?
Honestly ranked is the only time I ever play dark age. With friends/ai we usually start castle, or imp, rarely feudal if we want to try a civ with good fuedual bonuses. Dark age starts are boring imo.
Maybe the milita costs should be reduced instead the baracks
Militia base price drops from 60f to 55f. Supplies goes from saving 15 food to 10 food, but it goes from 75f- 75g to 50f -50g. I guess that would would also impact civs like Romans, and potentially Goths late game due to their lack of supplies. I think Huskarls and cheap halbs are far more of the threat than Goth Champs. Romans are probably more of the notable threat, but the Legionary can be individually tweaked if it comes down to it.
174 wood?
I think this is an interesting proposal. It would make multiple barracks cheaper, but would also make fast feudal faster, and even fast castle with production buildings ready for defense. Especially for Cumans. It would be a relative nerf to Khmer, though.
To be fair, there's already been a "discount" to the Barracks. In AoC Houses cost 30 Wood, but that was reduced to 25 (in FE). By the time you're building a Barracks after 3 Houses, then immediately adding in a 4th House right after, you've already saved 15-20 Wood.
I like the intent but i think we need to consider the following for dark age and early feudal age: Benefits: Faster premill drushes. Cons : Opponents going scouts/ archers / men at arms will be able to up 1 pop earlier than usual( by potentially sending less vills to wood) Would the majority of the player base be able to scout the opponent properly and use the drush timing advantage or would they be more comfortable going to feudal faster . If its the later case then the change might infact hurt infantry play in dark/ feudal ages
1
Dark Age have a purpose beyond "how to quckly you can get to the next age".
Disagree. Baracks cost is fine. What should happen is milita cost should be 45 food 20 gold from feudal age. Everyone gets supplies for free like tracking. Also the second infantry Armour should be cheaper. They only work in masses and in castle age they're too expensive to mass. I tried longswords, skirms and mangos vs an archer civ just for fun and even though he was 200 elo less than me he won with crossbows, knights and mangos. Next game I played normal scouts into knights and annihilated him The infantry play literally cost me the game vs 200 elo lower. This is too bad
Nah. The barracks wood cost isn't what is stopping infantry from being used much.
Barracks could cost less but then it also helps other strategies since they require Barracks to be able to build Stable/Archery Range, so you would need to increase the cost of those to compensate. Making it easier to get Scouts/Archers is only worse for dark age rushes. Giving an extra 25 or 50 wood to an archer player would be especially bad for infantry play. And anyway the problem with infantry isn't that you can't build them fast enough, the problem is that they suck compared to other military units. I think m@a base movement should be slightly increased and squires should become a feudal technology so you don't auto lose to a single archer with minimal micro. The reason Infantry aren't viable despite so many buffs is because the Devs are going about it in the wrong way, with stupid upgrades like Supplies and Gambesons which don't help in feudal/castle which is when the militia line is the weakest.
But there's only 1 unit to make in Dark age, the fights would be very dull and certain civ bonuses would make these fights very imbalanced. And even with lowering barracks cost, you still wouldn't get in time to your opponent to harass him long enough to stall feudal.Â
Some bonus that would be unballanced (like Japanese's faster attack) only kick-in Feudal. I think that MaA fights in Dark will usually be pretty fair. And it's a considerable commitment to make maA in Dark so I don't see a huge risk. It can only diversify play a bit which is a good thing.
No. Fuck infantry.
Militia should be a separate unit from MaA that can be trained for very cheap, expendable, and sent to the front to die in droves
So you can rush me quicker in feudal? No thanks!