u/Comfortable_Bid9964

So I've done myself some testing over the past two days in skirmishes, Crucibles, and Multiplayer with the new civ and thought I'd share my opinion on it.

Mohe Tribesmen: I think they are not nearly as bed as everyone is making them out to be and a slight buff is all they really need. Maybe 5-10 resource discount, +1 Damage, a tiny bit more HP, or a little bit faster attack speed. Any more than something like that and they would definitely become oppressive.

Bed Crossbows: Honestly I think the only issue with this is the firing pattern, it really seems like it just shoots two shots in a row instead of like in a V pattern. If the shots were spread out a little bit I think it would be significantly better.

Iron Pagodas: These guys seem a little underwhelming and I think it's because of how splash damage is calculated. So this is my understanding of splash damage based off of extensive testing with Fire Lancers, but it seems like it's typically calculated as a percentage of the main attack's damage that scales with distance from the target, but it's affected by armor. So for example if the FL did 16 damage with a charge and if 25% of the damage was AOE it would do 4, but if it's against anything with Melee Armor it ends up doing basically nothing. I believe that's the issue here, and I think they just need to tweak how splash damage is calculated and then maybe slightly lower the cost. I'm glad it's not a super knight but it could use a little buff

Grasslands Placement: So I really like the thought behind this mechanic but it feels a little bit unoptimized. The placement is an issue because you may be placing the LM somewhere that isn't production building friendly, not to mention if you want to drop the Great Wall Bastion somewhere and then have a forward GL. It's also weird that the GL's don't share their pool of horses since you can't even guarantee they will be close enough to link together. Unfortunately I think it should just be a classic +1 build limit on age up like Military Schools or Ovoos

Grasslands Mechanic: I also like the idea of the HP v Instant Discount but it feels a little underwhelming. Now I may not be skilled enough to truly take advantage of it but I don't really feel like the +1/2 HP is really that impactful until maybe Imp. The discount also seems pretty minor for the Iron Pagoda and ok for the others, although I know the main draw is the instant production. I'd personally rather have slower horse generation and a bigger discount and HP bonus but I know that's at least somewhat personal preference

Great Pasture: I feel conflicted on this one. I like the idea of it providing more horses for buff and more tickets faster but at the end of the day the buff is an extra 10 HP and an extra instant unit every minute and a half or you can just get a 25% resource gathering buff. I wish it would do something like faster tickets, better discount, or a maybe an extra point of HP per horse.

Dragon Pavilion: So this one feels a little weird I think the emplacement thing is nice on TC's but if you only go one TC then it seems a little underwhelming and the emissary discount feels like it's just added on. Granted I don't know how best to use them but you only need one or two for trade posts and I can't see them being super duper useful for fights either. they'll need more testing but I'm not exactly enthused about this one. I probably just need to use it more

Great Wall Bastion: WHY IS IT 5x5?

Trade: I'm really not sure why they have Reindeer Traders and normal ones, They should just have the Reindeer ones.

But I really enjoy the civ. They have some weird mechanics for sure but I don't really think they're quite as wildly random and out of place as others seem to think. It's also nice to have a civ that's not disgustingly OP on release even if that means it's a little on the weaker side.

I'm not sure why everyone is saying they are a bad unit. They actually do more damage to spears then normal archers across all ages. Fully upgraded in Imp they do 12 + 11 while normal archers do 13 + 8. Their range and attack speed are also the same until Silk Bowstrings where normal archers gain a .5 advantage. All of that while being able to run away from everything except horsemen which only do ~75% damage once you get the armor upgrade from the stable.

They start off with 10 less HP and that goes to only 5 less with elite upgrades, but if you have your grasslands out then you end up with the 5 less in Feudal, the same in Castle, and 10 more in Imp. Once you get the university tech you'll have 131 HP, and none of these even account for the Great Pasture.

Sure they cost more food but that is not exactly the worst thing in the world considering how easy it is for Jin to safely go out on the map and gather hunts. I mean the MV's can get almost 3 food a second off of boars. You can technically also use the levy from pastures to get discounted archers but that's a different discussion in terms of whether or not that's the best value

So I haven't actually hopped into any games yet, just single player testing but I'm loving what I'm seeing so far.

The new colors are a bit more distinct than I originally expected them to be. The greens could be a slight slight issue at first but nothing you couldn't get used to.

The new biomes look great and have cool environmental details

Maps look fun and interesting

I can't speak for the balance of the new civ yet but it looks beautiful. The LM's are gorgeous, the mechanics are interesting.

Obviously Jin doesn't play like China/ZX, but it also doesn't even look like either of them either.

The music also slaps

I came into the DLC not expecting anything particularly great but happy to support the game and I'm pleasantly surprised

So let me start off by clarifying 2 things. First, I have no issue with light cavalry in the current meta. I like Horsemen because they have a clear role of a fast raiding unit with bonuses to siege and ranged. Second, I will mainly be talking in the scope of team games since there are vastly more team games played than 1v1's, roughly 7x as many. There are also more Gold Rank team games than there are solo games of any rank, so keeping in mind the Gold Boi's is definitely important.

So I believe the base knight to be a pretty solid unit. In my testing I found that spears countered base knights and only lost about 25% of their numbers across the various ages. However, once you start to factor in the unique knights things got very out of hand.

Keshiks--- ~33% of spears were lost

Japanese MS and Sofa--- ~40% of spears were lost

Cataphracts, Riddari, and Templar Brothers--- ~55% of spears were lost

Sengoku MS--- ~63% of spears were lost

This is an issue for a number of reasons, but let me address the first thing most people will say. Yes crossbows and spears will perform better against heavy cav, but that is what I believe to be a fundamental issue with knights. No other unit requires multiple units to counter it. If your opponent goes knights they simply need vils on food and gold and to make a few stables. To counter this, you need vils on food, gold, and wood, as well as two different production buildings. This disparity is further worsened by the fact that if things go to Imp (which they probably will in team games) you will need to invest twice as much in university upgrades. On top of all of this your opponent has one of the fastest units in the game while you are stuck with one of the slowest at 1.12 movement speed on the crossbows. Every other unit in the game can be countered with only one other unit and at a reasonable population efficiency. This is not great design because there is a significant numerical and ease of use advantage to anyone that decides to go knights.

That issue isn't even the worst part of the situation in my eyes. None of the other knights follow the basic patterns established in the game. These experiments were ran with equal cost armies and still had these wildly better results. That means that even when adjusted for cost the TB and Riddari are literally twice as good as a normal knight. Not only that but when you look at something like the Keshik, it at least has some drawbacks with less base HP and Damage. More and more we are seeing unique knights that are just better and maybe have a slight cost increase as an offset. The Riddari has more HP, attack speed, and movement speed, and the only downside is a slight cost adjustment and no charge. Although there's an argument to be made as to whether or not the lack of a charge is offset by the axe throw, and I believe it's almost better to not have a charge because it means spearmen can't get a brace off and thus less extra damage and no stun.

I've also said this before but I do believe the speed difference between Knights and Horsemen should be exaggerated because knights are for the most part are just better at raiding due to more HP, damage, and armor. Considering how much faster knights are from most infantry, the extra .15ish speed horsemen have is not as noticeable for raids or picking fights.

Now how should this be fixed? I'm not sure. I think base knights are pretty much fine besides their speed. Fixing the spearmen brace would definitely help. Most of the unique knights really should get the nerf hammer though, since they are so very clearly outperforming their base counterpart. Back before we started getting all these crazy units I remember French knights being a pain in the ass but still manageable and all they had was some passive healing, a little bit more HP, and bonus damage on the charge, so if stats were brought down somewhat I think things would be fine. That being said I would be fine if knights had less torch damage, or even no torch damage. Keep it on the horsemen since they are supposed to raid, and it would further establish clear defined roles between the two. I'm even fine with the idea of (most) heavy cav not being able to torch stuff like palisade walls because then it would at least give other units a reason to be made.

I hope the devs are cooking something up with this next update but good lord something needs to be done so the meta can be better and less stale