Hello everyone! Recently we've been a bit silent on our end here on forums due to high load of... well, everything. Bit it's going to change from now on, as we are going to double our efforts in communicating with our most dedicated fans (spoilers: it's you). Today I'm here to gather your opinion/thoughts/suggestions on the overall state of balance in Cossacks 3 right now. Post your wildest theories on how to improve or change the game, the more details - the better. Everything is appreciated. Later I will contact authors of the most interesting ideas. Due to forum limitations I am not able no include every nation as a separate choice in a poll below, so I had to make some compromises. I can guarantee you that I will read every post in this thread. Please note, that this is not a one time thing. As we will tweak the balance of the game, I will create new threads akin to this one. This will be an additional way for us to stay in tune with our community. If you have any additional questions, please send me a private message or add me as a friend on Steam, I'm always open to a dialogue.
Hello, well I do not need "vote", I know how strong nations are, but it also depends what "settings" and "additional options" you play, that may cause one or more nations will be more favored in a specific rules. There is more things: speed production, melee attack, defense, fire power, price and so on. example: millions no power vs no power (nations) half power vs half power (nations) power vs power (nations) mirror match (same nation vs same nation) 1. no power Venice Hungary Spain Netherlands Portugal Piemont Switzerland Russia Sweden France 2. half power Austria Bavaria England Poland Saxony 3. power Denmark Prussia Ukraine Can not be classified. Algeria Turkey Edit: 10.11.2016 I only hope that Prussia and Denmark stay untouched, in millions these nations are balanced.
Hello You can find my concrete propositions what and how developers could make for better balance in C 3 game here 1. https://www.cossacks3.com/forum/index.php?threads/c3-change-ideas.17467/ 2. https://www.cossacks3.com/forum/inde...order-of-battle-movement-and-deployment.4459/ 3. https://www.cossacks3.com/forum/index.php?threads/c3-economy.2944/ and few other my threads in this forum.
My proposition for musketeers Prusians : https://www.cossacks3.com/forum/index.php?threads/nerf-prussia.18069/page-2 (post#26) They are much too powerful compared to the other Musketeers, 12 att fire vs 55 att fire ! But I think the real problem is the fire upgrads in the academy (+10%+15%+20%+30%) Maybe fixed values would not create such an unbalance ? Musketeers 17th are too long to produce, no one uses. Maybe reduce production time and a little the rate of fire ? Dragoon 17th idem. (just reduce time produce) Dragoon 18th are OP after the upgrads in the academy. (those mentioned above) + Too much upgrads fire in the stable. the stone + 200% improvement is far too high. Everyone puts farmers on the stone and buys at the market, this economic system is not good (just my opinion) For the market should be fixed values. sale = cheap / buy = expensive what comes to mind for now...
Hi Ferox - all Musketeers 17th are too long to produce. Totally all pt not playable. Turkey: New: Balance: Janissary fire attack from 30 to 36 Austria: New: Balance: 35% faster Pandur recruiting France: New: Balance: 15% faster Chasseurs recruiting; 10-15% faster King’s Musketeer recruiting Poland New: Balance: polish winged hussars hp from 235 to 280 + possibility to make formation Sweden New: Balance: increase Raitars attack to 34 Other: 50% cheaper XVIII century upgrade Prussia long pt is to strong. Musketeers 18th have to big power. - I need can shoot artillery by walls (like C1)
I am sorry arpe, your propositions change too little and propose strange things to make any sense. Your few changes in fact do not change nation balance, only slightly nerf or buff some units. Then your balance still will spoil the game, simple analyse say this. Take in mind that according to your propositions - Janissary shot power still is 3 times better than 17th and 18th musketeers, which looks ridiculous - Pandours 35% faster recruitment has no sense, they were light infantry which was less common than musketeers - Chasseurs 15% faster has no sense, they also were light infantry and their ratio to musketeers was as 1 to 4 - King's Musketeers were very rare unit, this should be special unit in the game as they were in C1 - Polish Winged Hussars 280 hp is much worse than Russian Vityaz 350 hp, but the latter got worse armour! - Swedish Raitars attack 34 is quite crazy when Polish Winged Hussar armed with long lance got only 13! - artillery can not shot through walls, becouse guns can not properly take aim on targets behind the walls - all strange upgrade costs for 18th century has no sense Can you see this things now? I find my propositions for units stat and few other things are way better. You could easily check it in mentioned C3 change ideas thread.
Nowy, you don't know anything about this game and your changes are so radical so it is not viewed seriously. I think it's clear, that the strongest nation is Prussia now. Ukraine was nerfed, its still strong but not as strong as Ukraine. All Arpe propositions were for max attack and max defense, so please don't compare 34 raitar upgraded attack to 13 based husar attack. Again you forget this is not historical game. We try to make all units in the game to be used, which is so hard to understand for you. I don't care about historical unit pandur, I know that its useless in the game and we have to do something with this case.
Nowy buy game and play multiplayer, when you want write this topic. You dont have any experience in C1 and C3. I think this topic is not for you.
I am sorry, but it looks you do not understant the matters. My propositions are not about historical accurate units. These were propositions for well balanced C3 game. My ideas are not radical as you think. I propose make this game more sensible and better balanced. You can check it with simple math analyse. Even you can notice that Prussia and nerfed Ukraine still are strong nations in C 3 game, which looks ridiculous when other greater nations are weaker. I propose nerf both this nations and make all nations better balanced. Arpe propositions do not make better balance, becous he want to change only few strange things. This way Janissary still will stronger than mukseteers, Pandurs will better than Chasseurs, Swedes Raitars with 34 attack and defense 350 ph will much stornger than Polish Winged Hussars with 13 attack and 280 hp. This way disbalance still will exist! My propositions are way better, becouse I make similar unit stats for similar national units based on characteristic units types as like line infantry musketeers, light infantry, national shooters, light cavalry, national cavalry, dragoons and heavy cavalry. They still are not historically correct, but my unit stats in the game are better balanced thanks to simple math analyse. You can check these figures in simple excel sheet. Do not be so nervous and do not make such suggestions. Everybody can write here, this is free forum. I have enough experience in C1. C3 game is 95% the same. I like Cossacks games and want to see much better balanced C 3 game. So, this topic is adequate for me and other people interested in Cossacks games.
If you're playing with low PT (10, 20 30) then Algeria or Turkey will rek you. Prussia has no chance here. A friend and I play Algeria and Turkey in MP and we win 85%+ of the time by simple spamming their invincible cavalry. They obliterate normal pikes and even Ukraine. Although you can get 18th century barracks within that time, it would just be 1 and you wouldn't be strong enough. The only times we lost were due to horrible positioning in 3v3 and once due to a very good Poland, while we were sloppy. If a players plays Algeria or turkey mediocre or even good, they will win with such PT's hands down. Edit: Yes it can be beaten by multibarrels or cannister, but those are very rarely used. Also cannons are rather slow, while super cav is not... For all of those who think housing is a problem, it's not. You will capture europeans, enslave them and build their stuff. This also renders any lategame weakness obsolete, since they can simply switch to (or use at the same time) enslaved nations.
"Swedes Raitars with 34 attack and defense 350 ph will much stornger than Polish Winged Hussars with 13 attack and 280 hp" Again you are comparing upgraded statistic to non-upgraded. 34 raitar = upgraded 13 husars = not upgraded Do you understand?
There is always several ways to balance a game and its units and gameplay, I think we had quite a few post about that in the forum, in particular I remember Ftoomsh talking about most of those variables. Knowing you Nowy, I'm certain you believe your suggestions are some of the best and nobody can stop you to think so after all you are free to think whatever you want. My opinion and experience is that you can have great ideas but they don't always work well in pratice, this is why you need to test them and tweak them sometimes you must even abandon them as it's not worth the work to add them in game. As cossacks 3 is currently the gameplay work well and I think small tweaks like the one of ColonelBurton or Arpe are the most adapted to the game.
Few things I've noticed... Cavalry - more of a bug than anything else, but it does have balance issues. Most melee cavalry currently have incorrect attack types (pike instead of sword), and this is resulting in their attacks being marginally more effective, primarily vs armoured cavalry which has better sword defence than pike. This does have a rather noticable effect on the Winged Hussars (everyones favourite unit it seems) - with incorrect attack types, the Hussars on average tend to do worse compared to Reiters, but with Reiters having the correct attack type (sword) Hussars tend to excel. Its a very small amount of damage, but with the high health of cavalry units, it does add up. And then formations swing the balance of power back solidly towards the Reiters. Given that Winged Hussars attack faster and can be produced at a 6:5 ratio compared to Reiters, they probably either need a health boost (~20%) OR formations, not both. I'd say formations, since its probably the easiest way to keep the balance. Musketeers - primarily the 17thc ones. Basically, they take too long to train, and their damage is far too low for effective use, and they just don't see any use (apart from Janissaries who can reach their max 30 shot very quickly). I've been trialling a few changes, and (for me) they seem to make Musketeers more usable mid/lategame. Shooting Drills - I've expanded out their attack upgrades with an extra 2 damage upgrades, giving +1 and +2 damage respectively. Given that the academy shot upgrades tend to be delayed until lategame when 18thc Dragoons have had their shooting drills completed, the extra 3 damage does help overcome Pike armour, especially since by default Pikes can get 8 shot defence when in formations (5 shot +3 shield), 12 with the Blacksmith/Academy upgrades, which basically results in most musketeers doing minimum damage (1) unless they are in formations or have had the damage upgrades done, and even then. Maybe also drop the 6th defence upgrade so their upgrades now match the 5/5 upgrade rule that Pikemen have, and people don't wonder where the level VII shooting upgrade is since there is a level VII defence upgrade. Training Time - I've added an Academy upgrade that reduces the training time by 50% (Design Snaplock) since going by the description of the original encyclopedia, 17thc Musketeers are apparently supposed to be armed with Matchlocks, and given the risk of explosions from loose power and juggling a lit match while reloading, one can argue that the long training times apparently represent the safety training needed to minimise accidental explosions, something that 18thc Musketeers don't need since Flintlocks of one type or another were in major use by this time, and the Flintlock academy upgrade seems to represent the development of the 'True' Flintlock. Ukraine doesn't get this upgrade (for obvious reasons), and I haven't tested it on the unique 18thc shooters (Pandur, Highlander and Chasseur) yet. Sorry for the wall of text, there's probably a lot more other than these two, but these are the issues that I've noticed and looked into rebalancing myself. I'm not a very good player (struggle to beat Very Hard AI unless I get a good rush) so I don't know how well these changes will work at the pro player/Impossible AI level, but they seem to work OK for me against the Normal/Hard AI.
Some good ideas here already. I thought that you could make the different nations more identifiable if you gave each one a special advantage. This could be for example allowing Poland to build stables more cheaply, thereby allowing them to create hordes of winged hussars (that would make Nowy happy). You could let England (which should be called Britain by the way) have superior artillery or better ships as they were known for their Royal Navy. Russia could have cheaper and faster to produce infantry to reflect their resources of manpower. Ukrainians could be very hard to kill (higher defence stats) And so on.
Nowy, The thread is here to allow everyone to state their ideas about balance in the game. Not to criticize others who make suggestions. Offer suggestions, but please do not try to hijack the thread by creating controversy and criticizing those who do not want an entirely new game as you do.
On the other hand, C1 BTW was a well established, somewhat balanced game. K[o]K stated the state of balance in the game very well. everyone who plays the game is aware of these things, and have adjusted their game play to fit its limitations. When I envisioned a C3 that was a remaster of C1, was mostly visual. But in that remaster I thought that we would see some things like new skins for the different nations. Many of the nations use generic units, No imagination, and many times you have to look to determine what nation you are playing since they are so alike. I would have liked to see more nation specific units. Along the lines of Baddogs mod 1 perhaps, or even taken a step further. Some play ability quirks like the market, a stronger 17th century, especially the 17th shooters, the elimination of multi-guns, toning down the power of artillery. And I was sure that we would see some cannon crews? While I am enjoying playing the game, and reminiscing with old friends. And working with the new game. I wait impatiently for the next generation. Where fatigue, moral, and tactics, rather than upgrades, and economy are more important than fast clicking.
I had a hard time choosing one nation that is stronger, because it really depends on the game settings chosen at the start of the game (peace time, art/no art,...). I ended up choosing Ukraine in the poll, because despite the 'nerfing', I feel they are still stronger than most other nations. Particulary the serdiuks firepower is higher than that of other units, combined with the ease of building many barracks early on make them a force to be reckoned with. Even after the nerfing of the serdiuk, (you took away the last upgrade on the serdiuks), the fire power is still very high. In most games (not millions), people don't even get that far, I often don't have the time to do all the upgrades, simply doing a few upgrades and then the upgrades in the academy are sufficient to overpower other nations. Even with this nerfing, in longer games, most nations don't stand a chance under certain settings. The only nation which can match Ukraine is Prussia once they get to the 18th century and if the game settings allow artillery. Prussian 18th century Musketeers are ridiculously overpowered. Despite their slower training time, after having done firepower upgrades in the academy, their fire power is just too high for any other nation to match. These 2 are the 'worst' for me, but there are other 'soft' powers out there. A few examples: Polish riders and pikes , Russia's ability to build a lot of 17th barracks, Algeria's archers in 0 pt games,... All these nations tend to be the popular choices, which says a lot. People take them because there is a clear advantage with them. Again, game settings determine a lot, but for example, if 'random' nation was chosen at the start of the game in a , say 45pt game, and I end up with Algeria vs Ukraine, I know i'm fucked unless the opponent is a total noob. And that has both to do with how weak Algeria is in long games and how strong Ukraine is in longer games. So balancing everything seems impossible, and quite frankly would make the game boring if every nation was the same, but there are certainly some excesses that could be adressed, like Prussia and Ukraine. As to how to balance these nations, there are many ways. For example, for Prussia, you could make the 18th century barracks more expensive to build. Or you could lower the initial fire power the 18th prussian musketeer has to that of what England/France has for their Highlander/Chasseur, and include fire power upgrades to be done in the barracks, making it cost time and resources to get them to 55 firepower after academy upgrades. Or you could simply lower the effect the academy upgrades have on the prussian Musketeer, or make those upgrades more expensive. Also, when you bring Denmark ingame, do remember to adress these issues for them in a similar matter, because they are just as bad. I wouldn't lower the training time of the 18th musketeer however, because then you end up with a nation like Saxony, nobody picked the 18th musketeer there, because it's training time was simply too slow. Everyone would create the grenadiers if they were playing with Saxony. This is probably something you will have to adress aswell when you bring Saxony in game. (Their fire power is also silly high, but at least you have to conduct fire power upgrades first). As for Ukraine, you could make the barracks cost more, have a higher cost percentage for each barrack built. Or lower the fire rate of the serdiuk. Or simply lower the amount each upgrade gives to the serdiuk in regards to fire power. Or a combination of these things. In balancing, you should not just look at which nations are strongest. You should also look into which are the weakest. There's certainly room for improvement there aswell. (Some people alluded to this already above, by indicating the poor performance of the 17th musketeers in most nations due to long training times.) As for Algeria, I would strongly advocate to bring back the Bedouin. There's a damn good reason it was introduced in Cossacks 1. Because Algeria lacks a shooting unit. I was really dissapointed when a dev (admin?) mentionned here on the forums, or was it on the steam forums, that it wouldn't return. This is a mistake. I urge you to reconsider this. I can write far more detail as to why I believe in these things, motivate it and give details, numbers to approach the balancing, but I will only do so, if you choose this path. Just ask. On a side note, I'm happy to see you engage in to conversation with the players about this, not many companies do this. But don't forget to keep fixing the bugs and discrepancies that still exist between C1 and C3. Many remain. Just to name one: playing seawars on C3 is nothing like it used to be on C1, and although this is a less played part of the game, it certainly was one I enjoyed very much.
If you want to see XVII century musketeers to be actually used, then set "no XVIII century" rule. Few people decide to pick this option in the multiplayer though. In such game Prussia would be very mediocre nation, whilst the Ukraine would probably be the strongest anyway. Am I wrong or they have access to the balloon immediately (since they cannot advance into the XVIII cent.)?
As I already pointed out in other threads: the balance works pretty well in most of the cases. Just some minor suggestions: buildings - dwellung housing space - increase from 15 to 30 - slightly steeper cost progression for towers and more expensive tower cannon upgrades (+50%) - 25% higher cost for stone walls in general - much steeper cost progression for townhalls but higher rate of peasants production x1,2...1,4 (so players end up with less town halls but still have a good peasant production rate) upgrades - please rearange academy upgrades into clusters regarding their purpose: food, wood, stone / infantery, cavalery / artillery / buildings / others - 5 times longer upgrade times so players may build a second academy and plan their research better nations - ukraine: give them the 18cent upgrade in the town hall so they can no longer get second mill upgrade and balloon too early or otherwise remove these two 18cent upgrades completly. - prussia: increase recruit time for 18cent. musketeers +15% - polland: around +50 healthpoints for winged hussars - russia: more infantery focus, less cavalery focus (e.g. steeper cost progression for stables) - turkey: add defensive upgrade path for tatars - venice/england: a little more focus on cavalery thorugh even cheaper cavalery upgrades in black smith - france: rework defensive upgrade path for king guards (does it work at all?) add some more defence points through the path - algeria, turkey: give them a more advanced and of course expensive infantery unit (beduin, assasin) to allow them to withstand 18cent nations better in long term games units in general - much steeper cost progression for all mercenary units (that allows small mercenray brigades for special purpose or emergency hire but no more large mercenary armies) - add bajonette for all 17cent musketeers to make them a little more attractive and usable in multiple roles
Try to be objective and do not accuse me under false pretext again Daddio. I did not criticize others who make suggestions here, I criticized only some suggestions and that is right place to discuss what could make or could not make right balance in the game. In other case fans never could make right conclusions or compromise for good balance in the game. That is not a problem when fans criticize their propositions, other members criticized my ideas here and I can not see any problem with that. Everybody got his own taste in some matters and can openly say what they find fine or not. There usually are some controversy, but I never criticize those who do not want an entirely new game. I only show my opinion in some matters, write pros and cons for some propositions which could or could not make better balance. I put these suggetions under civil discussion. There were not personal attacks or hijack from my side. However you could notice that others attacked me, my knowledge and experience in the game and you did not tell anything on such clear personal attacks agaisnt me! Double standards? So, do not try to accuse me under FALSE pretexts. Try to understand these isuess and keep calm.
