Advisor Suggestions

@frogs.poison
For the niche advisors, they don't need to have similar relative strength, they just need to be usable in a couple of scenarios in the game.

Erastos is lovely on the few minigame type quests where you need to gather stone early, that is his purpose and he works for that.

Thutmose is again just for a few minigame or special quests where you need to get a lot of wood early, that is his purpose and works for that. Wood is generic so some players might like to use him as their age 1 advisor in more regular quests and while maybe not optimal he does provide enough value to be close enough and maybe makes gameplay a bit more fluid for players that choose him.

Finnbar/Aapep - agree they need improvements around the longevity of their food sources but they don't need to be equal, just need to be okay choices for maps with lots of fish or hunts/berries.

I've posted some suggestions for age 1 advisors, will see if i can do age 2 later this week. I think we're going to disagree on some basic principles of what advisor should do, which is fine, different viewpoints are good, for example I'm fine with some advisors just being used in niche minigame quests but basically never in Legendary quests, Legendary quests aren't the only thing in the game and not all advisors should not be balanced around if they are useable in Legendary quest, in my opinion, which doesn't mean I'm right

 

Give Xanthe glasses so that it can adapt to larger maps

 

Actually I don't really view the conservation as extra or saved resources at all. Yes it effectively adds more to the map, but you still gain it at the same rate (just talking about the conservation bit), so you can't act faster or do more because of conservation, it just means you can make the change to caravans more gradual or later in quest. Your power in the quest hasn't changed, just the flow of how you play. You will always need to go to infinite supplies at some point, if you have Kleon you get up to 6000 more from the map, but if you didn't have Kleon you still get that gold too you just get it from caravans at likely a faster rate in most cases. (note: even on large maps with short caravan routes, if you are moving villagers around the map to keep gathering gold with Kleon, when you in account for the movement of the villagers to new gold mines, their gather rate will effectively drop a lot and a even a short caravan route can be considered decent)

I guess huntables with very high conservation would be a bit impactful as its a higher rate than other foods so you would be able to do a bit more, but solution is just to not make the hunts conservation crazy high. I don't there are any maps with huge amounts of hunts so could probably still have a decently high huntable conservation without too much worry.

 

Ms Awesome Advisor Name
- Allow 1 Armory to be built in Age 1, and all armory techs be available 1 age earlier? This could be nicer approach than Ms Super Cool Name idea (extra armor that degrades as you age up), might not be technically possible though

 

I guess the conservation is somewhat impactful in that situation but still would consider it as something that affects flow more than power. A full army (say 140pop) costs about 20k gold equivalent if buying all resources with gold via market, 10-15k resources if producing each independently, very roughly. So 6k conserved gold isn't a huge impact on overall game, its nice, one of the key things that make the advisor enjoyable to use due to the change in flow.

EDIT: I've kinda forgotten the point we're trying to discuss ?

 

I just mean specifically about conservation.

I think my Age1 suggestions are decent, somewhat biased ofc Hopefully other people will share ideas too and we can see what ideas jump out as best and give the devs plenty of ideas to consider.

I'd also say that changes should mostly be gradual, its better to have advisor revampe 3,4,5 with tweaks rather than big set of changes now and then have to nerf them back down a lot soon after

 

Age 2 Responses to @frogs.poison suggestions:
I could be wrong on my feedback Frogsposion and I'll go through all age 2 advisors next week to give my ideas. Maybe you have good vision in your mind but most of your suggestions are written as 'Is not good, needs buffs compared to something that might not be comparable, here is new number', I'm not really clear on the arguments that back up some of your suggestions, I know that can be a lot of work but is hard to really embrace them without more reasoning. I think to provide convincing arguments to devs we really need to give feedback more in the format of 'This advisor seems to fit this specific use case or gameplay effect, I tried using it on quests X,Y,Z and it didn't seem to help, likely because of reasons A,B,C, maybe change effect D,E to do more of F so that advisor can work in the scenario it seems to fit"

Heron: Cav 50% los/snare resistance
Minos: Inf 50% snare resist and 35% snare
Both fit into allowing you to really go for sniping production in quests, haven't used it much myself because I'm not great at that gameplay, but seems decent with those stats for that gameplay style and complements the age 3 advisors for faster movement. Seem to make sense as is, if your eco management is good enough and you want to strengthen how you attack and dismantle the enemy.
I wouldn't change without feedback from the top players who do the very quick quests, push early and are skilled at sniping enemy production. As these advisors fit into that gameplay, do those players consider these advisors fit for that purpose, would buffs/changes have any impact?

Timon and Gaiana
Ranged 12% cost/train time vs Ranged can attack/see 12% farther
Range distance is usually most desired, but in cases where you already has sufficient distance from gear then cost/time could be nice, seems reasonable choice as they currently are.

Herakleides and Hermolaos
Inf -12cost,traintime and Cav -12% cost,traintime
Seems like decent eco cost reduction and get larger army out bit faster. Not sure its clear that it needs changing.

Eochaid - all units -20% gold and train 5% faster
Seems fairly strong for any gold heavy armies. Would need to run some numbers, but offhand 140pop of berserks costs 12000gold, so 20% saving is 2400 gold each time you replenish your army, seems pretty solid.

Village Elder - For efficient players the 15% train time should be very nice. I tend to float resources and forget to keep my caravan/villager production perfect so I don't think this advisor is good for me, but for players with tight controlled eco it should be strong with its current effect.

Hyginus/Narmer/Connall
Inf 2 regen/Cav 3 regen/Inf+Rng+Cav 1.6 regen
- Don't see why Hyginus should be equal to Narmer, Inf is typically lower health and lower population cost per unit, therefore makes sense that the regen is lower too.
Connall is very nice as is for some minigames like City Defense where you have mix of all 3 unit types, wouldn't like to see that go away. A ranged regen advisor just wouldn't be used, players already don't even put hp gear on rng, wouldn't use regen either.

Persia: Bardiya and Ormazdiyar
They affect different things, so making numbers the same doesn't make them the same.
Bardiya (-40% build time but +15% cost) works for the quick army production push, net neutral should be about right, its all about the change in gameflow as the result.
Ormazdiyar (research -60% time but +12% cost) seems very nice for booming faster.
I'd ask more of the very top persian players if they have used the advisors in these ways and see what they think, too hard to judge without practice with the advisors.

Celts: Cartimandua
- making them health and speed could be cool, but depends on if devs want druids to be used alongside Woad Raiders and Horsemen, could make those compositions too strong, they already work well as is. Druids with Champions is the combo that druids/champions work well in.

Celts: Diviciacus (free deer and cheaper Grove) vs Agape (-75% farm cost)
I'm not sure it is clear that agape is better. In age 2 the gathering rate is the same, age 3,4 farms do pull ahead when you get the tech upgrades, though they have high cost unless you use Irene. One suggestion might be to give Diviciacus the 25% faster gathering from herdables like Shepherd has, though I'm a little worried of players using both to get to 1.9 herdables gathering, perhaps its possible to give Diviciacus just 25% faster gathering from deer? Other suggestion I'd have, for Diviciacus and Shepherd, is to give both say 20-30% herdable conservation, seems weird when both spawn free herdables, but reason is that for both cases the initial supply of herdables spawned can be slow or not keep up with the amount of villagers you want on food, so with conservation you could drop a Cows consumable and have nice initial supply of herdables until the free supply builds up.

Egypt: Userhet
Camel Riders +30% bonus damage vs cavalry and 30% cav armor
- I think the point of this is not to make Camels 'viable' for pve, ie clearing quests, though maybe with some other advisors and specific quests they might be. But the point is for specific quests, or part of quests, where you get hit by a lot of cav, you can turn your camels into Super-Camels! and really wipe out any enemy cav. https://unitstats.projectceleste.com/?build=56687dd9695c8d235431a6c958ba46a1ba17d001696b673e49740e62 (280dps vs cav )

Babylon: Berosus the Wise - don't know enough to judge

Britomartus - removing TC build cap (without changing pop caps) is probably more technical dev work than is worthwhile. Existing effects seem fine. Buffs and changes to build limits risks creating a far too powerful advisor that becomes the only Age 2 choice.

 

Eochaid - so works for those units, is that not good enough usage? And if you increase his effect how does that impact those units, do they become too effective?

Village Elder - i see what you mean about Zeno, but 30% villager train time is too much. Train time is a strong villager stat, is why best Laborer gear item for villager is train time. But perhaps it could be 15% villager train time and 5% move speed, or carry capacity, making it villager focused.

Bardiya - Build time is a tricky stat, personally I don't think build time is a strong stat for most players, as you can build with multiple villagers, but some very good players can make good use of it. We can consider this advisor as something that some players can sometimes make use off it or just delete the advisor completely. Can't just keep increasing its build time reduction or it just makes gameplay too different to the core of AOEO or opens up a pile of new balancing issues from how top players can figure out how to use it. I think its better to have a niche rarely used advisor than make a broken one, you can only push some stats so far.

Userhet
I misjudged the Camel Rider numbers with Userhet, being playing romans and fighting lots of elite camels so had forgotten how strong the other Horsemen are. Camel riders are less strong by about 30% on the dps, but they also cost 20-30% less than the age 3 horsemen so the difference isn't terrible, and it fits the general style of early egyptian army, cheap and plentyful in age 1-2. I don't think its a basis for making changes, we don't get to have all the tools we might want on all civs, you take strengths with weaknesses. Increasing meta variety is good, but not everything will be desirable for the game, for some cases you just get to use some units in a few easy quests and they can't do more. Userhet still gives egypt a strong anti-cav cav in age 2 if egypt players need it for specific quests or early defense in quests.

Britomartus - None of the A2 advisors are really insane from and eco perspective, not anymore, which is a good thing, lets us choose more based on what we prefer or what fits a particular quest. Britomartus fits this in that he is good for the odd quest, a bit of early immediate defense and boom your villagers a bit, he not extremely good even on quests that suit him but can be fun to play when the quest and what you want to do line up. I don't see that as a problem.

For Britomartus but also other advisors

• if you buff it a lot does it just makes some quests trival?
• similarly does it restict devs from creating new quest styles because a particular advisor would make it trival?
• how does he play in the hands of really, really good players?
• is the gameplay/feel that the advisor creates something that we want in the game and is good for players and the game?

We have to answer those questions for every advisor change.

What is good can be very different to what the players might want, players often want increased power but if given it the game becomes easier and less fun, they get bored and stop playing. I know you've already put in lot of work on these ideas already, and I will get around to doing my suggestions too, next week most likely, so you can poke holes in my ideas then In mean time if you feel like doing even more work, if you had to make advisor changes but they could only be nerfs to advisors you consider too strong, what would the nerfs be?

 

The Legendary advisors are a bit of a wild bunch one alright, haven't looked at them yet.
For age 1, age 2, what are the advisors you would nerf, if you couldn't do the buffs you suggest. Or just what are the advisors you are comparing against to see what is underpowered and maybe few words on why you think they are relatively more powerful, might help me get better feel for where you're coming from with suggestions.

P.S: Will be away a few days, so might not post more till next week

 

I must agree with frogs.poison in many points, a lot of the advisors are just too weak to be an serious alternative for the better ones like philion, giana. Maybe they don't need too much of a buff like immunity.

I rarely change my advisors at all, sometimes on water/land or if the key unit is changed. In age 1 i always use philion, with and better advisor for barracks buildings speed (main thing i use philion for as celts) would make an proper possibility.

But i think the devs will find a good way to balance it out. But sometimes i feel the buff is too small even for already changed advisors.

 

Now I'm confused, some mixed messages here, you've listed a lot of A1 a2 advisors to buff, but if you could only do nerfs there would be none that you would nerf?

When A1 and a2 are underpowered what are they underpowered compared to? And how would you nerf those compared advisors instead of buffing lots of other advisors?
Ps. I can see Philon is popular but that doesn't mean he is strong as people think, he is really more of a middle ground advisor (with exception of the very very top fast players who do fast attacks, age 1 to age 4 and full army attack in 7-9min)