N3O Age Of Empires and Starcraft 2 Clan

I'm not an especially experienced player, but I've been trying to figure out why they decided the nerfs to Spain's Rod & Lancer cards was necessary. I think it's safe to say we were all suprised by the changes. I'm thinking that these were a secondary balance issue, that came up as a result of the general balance changes. Everyone seems to agree that calvary will become used more, thanks to the RI* nerfs to cav and the Xbow changes. So here are some thoughts:

-In a world with more calvary, rods become quite a bit more useful. Rods are one of the best cav counters due to their speed. They can't technically catch cav in a flat-out foot race, but due to pathing issues, plus the fact that most battles are not fought in an open plain, running cav down with rods usually isn't to hard. Especially if you catch them raiding your lumberjacks!
-Lancers are now even more effective against skirms, lbows, and xbows, and still hold their own against heavy RI.
-If we see more calvary, it's safe to say we will see more hand infantry and light calvary to counter. Rods hold their own against most other hand infantry, and destry light calvary.
An army of Rods & Lancers can run away from any matchup you don't like. I'm not well versed with all the civs, but there don't seem to be any other civs with anti-infantry cav AND fast anti-cav hand infantry. I'm thinking that what we have now is a slightly harder counter system, and the harder the counter system, the greater advantage there is in being able to run away & pick your battles.

I'd love to hear what y'all think.

I agree with you

I also agree with harder counter comment.

I am also concerned with the net 11.1% nerf to crossbow base attack and weakened Anti-Cav bonus may make Spanish Archaic rushing a thing of the past.

If anything, getting a better Anti-HI bonus may make Spain more of a defensive crossbow civ verses HI rushing.

[quote=""Palehorse""]I am also concerned with the net 11.1% nerf to crossbow base attack and weakened Anti-Cav bonus may make Spanish Archaic rushing a thing of the past.[/quote]

Why? xbow + pike will beat musk + cav
It was really needed to do this xbow change, they were too good when massed :?
If xbows still don't do well enough vs HI, maybe the bonus should be changed to *1.5 in the next patch, but for now, I'm happy and they will be doing more what they should be doing

You just take out the cards they nerfed and you put sth else. 5 hus for 5 lancers, res cards, upgrades, etc.

Yea, exactly. I don't think Spain becomes necessarily weaker because of these changes - it just has different strategies pertaining to card use. Probably will fight in Colonial a lot more.

Members of ES 8 said themselves in the Patch topic at AgeSanctuary that after Dutch, China, and Sioux were nerfed and changes to the counter system were made, Spain emerged as the clear top civ because, as you said, Rods and Lancers become a much more powerful combination with the new patch changes.

So they had to make it more difficult for Spanish players to amass Rods and Lancers early on. Also, they wanted to make Spain less one-dimensional, and less centered around simply spamming unit shipments in fortress to overwhelm the opponent.

Interesting thoughts. *Might* pan out in reality. We shall see.

Well, I've already changed my Spanish decks to get rid of cards that won't be worth using next patch. I'm going to try doing some practice games with the next patch in mind, focusing more on Colonial and not sending as many unit cards, that sort of thing.

I think Spain will be more than fine in 1.01.

Spain will have no problems post patch. The changes are great. It promotes REAL strategy and to a certain extend eliminates 1 dimensional game play such as "the shipment spam" and the "FF".
Spain was always able to get away with a quick FF and spam military from shipments, this patch deals with their ease of play nicely.
It doesn't make them any weaker, it just means players must use different tactics.

Thank goodness. I hate playing vs Spain cos of those shipment spam.