Season Three Update – Order of the Dragon
"We’re excited to celebrate with you all and thought we’d get the party started with an early and in-depth view of everything you can expect from Season Three, including new civilizations, challenges, achievements, features and more. Whether you’re interested in honing new strategies with the Malians and Ottomans, building your skillset with Art of War challenges, competing in 1v1 Solo Ranked or competing with friends in the all-new Team Ranked, or earning a set of Age-themed rewards, we’ve got a little bit of something for every play-style coming your way with the Season Three: Anniversary.
Two new civilizations, the Ottomans and Malians, along with corresponding Art of War challenges, Masteries and Achievements!
The start of Ranked Season Three, the introduction of Team Ranked and brand new rewards!
Use Taunts against your opponents and spice up your games with Cheats!
Eight New Maps and Two New Biomes!
Naval Balance Rework brings new opportunity to Naval matches!
Waypoint Markers to set unit paths!
Naval Balance Rework
"In this update we’re making sweeping changes to Naval, all of which are listed below. Naval changes specific to a civilization are included in their civilization-specific updates further on."
Here’s a summary of our largest changes and what they mean for Naval gameplay:
Each class of ship now shares the same stats, this means that a Baouchuan and Carrack are both equal in cost and power. We intend to add ship variations back in the future as we look to refine Naval balance further, however, our goal with this update is to create a solid foundation that we can continue to build from.
We moved the Springald Ship and Incendiary Ship to the Feudal Age for all civilizations, this makes Naval combat far more exciting in the early stages of the game now that there’s a classic rock, paper, scissors counter system in place. We also made the counter system much stronger, making mixed army compositions far more important than before.
Archer Ship > Incendiary Ship > Springald Ship > Archer Ship.
Now that there are no naval units unlocked in the Castle Age we added a number of tiering upgrades which are available to all civilizations. Each ship type has a Castle Age and Imperial Age upgrade available to it, as well as the new Armored Hull and Shipwrights upgrades which improve the health and armor of all ships.
Ship costs have been changed across the board, including adding food cost to Archer Ships and Warships. We want to ensure that there are interesting economic decisions when playing Naval maps, and introducing a food cost to certain Naval units ensures that there’s enough demand on the resource. This is especially important as you look to expand their economy onto the water with additional fishing ships.
Ships are also generally cheaper and train faster than before, meaning that you can field more units faster and earlier in the game.
We made a lot of adjustments to the movement speed and turn rates of ships to make them feel more responsive and fun to use.
Ships no longer cancel a garrison command upon colliding with another unit.
Ships can no longer go under bridges.
Fishing deposits can now be reliably selected.
As part of our rework of how you would approach water maps and the naval experience overall, there have been numerous changes. Below are the changes which impact all civilizations collectively. Naval changes specific to a civilization are included in their civilization-specific updates further on.*
Ships no longer cancel a garrison command upon colliding with another unit.
Ships can no longer go under bridges.
Fishing deposits can now be reliably selected.
Springald Ship bonus damage vs Buildings increased from +40 to +45.
Naval Ship Deaths are now correctly confirmed for challenges.
Fire ships burning visual effects now display when the ship is built while off screen.
Naval Traders return 40% less resources from trade routes.
Can now see into stealth fog on water, like a Scout.
Fishing Boat line of sight set to 14 tiles
Speech lines play when fishing boat is commanded to fish.
Wood cost reduced from 300 to 100
Train time reduced from 60 to 30 seconds
Health reduced from 300 to 225
Naval Traders return 40% less resources from trade routes.
Fixed a bug where trade ships were receiving armor upgrades from the blacksmith.
Developer note
"We want to make trading on Naval maps much more accessible. The goal is to reward you for holding water control and for expanding onto the map beyond the safety of their docks."
Health reduced from 600 to 400
Moved from Castle Age to Feudal Age
Cost changed to 120 Food, 200 Wood, 30 Gold
Train time set to 30 from 45 seconds
Move speed set to 1.38 tiles/s
Range set to 6 tiles
Bonus damage vs Archer Ships set to +40
Bonus damage vs Buildings set to +40
Added “Man-the-sails” ability, which allows the units to move faster for some time, till it enters combat
Health reduced to 450
Ranged Armor reduced to 3
Attack speed set to 4.12s
Turn rate set to 185
Damage set to 35
Class set to “Springald Ship” from “Attack Ship”
Reduced firing cone angle so they turn almost 90° to shoot
Springald Ships and Warships can no longer spin to win. Both sides of the ship now share the same weapon cooldown.
Broadside ships will now correctly chase enemies when they move out of range.
When chasing enemy ships, broadside ships will chase further before turning to shoot to account for the turn time.
Moved from Castle Age to Feudal Age
Wood cost reduce from 160 to 80
Train time set from 35 to 15 seconds
Bonus attack vs Springald Ships and Buildings set to 300
Rotation Rate increased from 260 to 330
Move speed set to from 1.5 to 2.0 tiles/s
Attack set from 400 to 95
Health set to 145
Incendiary Ships deal damage more reliably against targets that are moving directly away from them.
Developer note
"Improving the quality of life for our naval units has been on the radar for a long time and we are happy to announce that we have been able to teach our Incendiary Ships how to better utilize Attack Move commands that they are given! Incendiary ships will no longer sail uselessly toward the Attack Move destination. Instead, they will now scan for targets along the way and if an enemy unit is within range they will move toward that target and detonate when close enough. These changes should go a long way towards improving the average utility of Demolition ships. That said, we don’t believe in automating away the value of good micro so the optimal use of Incendiary Ships will always be through direct player management."
Cost set to 200 wood, 200 food, 200 gold
Move speed set to 1.25 tiles/s
Attack Range set to 9
Damage type changed from Ranged to Siege
Population reduced from 6 to 5
Health set to 700
Damage set to 45
Bonus Damage vs Buildings set to +70
Springald Ships and Warships can no longer spin to win. Both sides of the ship now share the same weapon cooldown.
Cost set to 90 Food, 150 Wood
Train set to 25 seconds
Sight range set to 12 tiles
Move speed set to 1.75 tiles/s
Turn rate set to 330
Attack speed set to 1.5s
Bonus damage vs Incendiary Ships set to 18
Health set to 300
Ranged Armor set to 1
Range set to 6.5 tiles
Damage set to 6
Archer Ships now fire 5 arrows in a single burst which scatter toward the target location.
Buildings & Siege
Health increased from 1500 to 2000
Healing rate chaned from from 5 to 3 HP/s
Placement has been made more flexible.
New defensive Emplacement 'Naval Arrowslits' added with 10 damage (+25 bonus vs Ships), 11 range, 3s attack speed.
Arrowslits and garrison arrow bonus vs Ships reduced from +25 to +10
Bonus damage vs Ships reduced from +500 to +200
Bonus damage vs Ships reduced from +200 to +100
Technologies
Research time reduced from 45 to 30 seconds
Cost changed from 175 Gold, 75 Food to 175 Gold 75 Wood
Now also increases move speed of Fishing Boats by +10%
Cost changed from 350 Gold, 150 Food to 350 Gold 150 Wood
Research time reduced from 60 to 45 seconds
No longer exclusive to Chinese
Research time reduced from 60s to 30s
Arrow Ships fire +1 arrow in each burst attack
Research time reduced from 60 to 45 seconds
All military ships gain +20% Health
Cost changed from 150 Food, 250 Gold to 200 Food 500 Gold
All military ships gain +1 Ranged Armor, down from +2
New technology which can be researched after Armored Hull
All military ships gain an extra +1 Ranged Armor
All military ships gain an extra +20% Health
Cost set to 300 Food 550 Gold and 50s to research
New technology which adds +20% attack radius to Incendiary Ships
Cost set to 100 Food 250 Gold and 30s to research
New technology which adds +1 Range and +20% attack speed to Springald Ships
Cost set to 150 Food 350 Gold and 35s to research
New technology which adds a Swivel Cannon to the Springald Ship, which deals 15 damage and can fire in 360 degrees
Cost set to 150 Food 350 Gold and 45s to research
New technology where Arrow Ship arrows set enemy ships on fire dealing 30 damage over 10 seconds (not stacking with each arrow)
Cost set to 200 Wood 500 Gold and 45s to research
Units
Weapon damage reduced from 2 to 1
Scouts will now be grouped with other Cavalry when in group formation
Developer note
"Scout damage is being decreased so they are less effective at early game villager harassment. Scouts leading formations often led themselves to their deaths in far too many situations."
Range increased from 0.2875 to 0.5375 tiles
Bonus damage to walls increased from +100 to +200
Developer note
"Increased range makes it easier for multiple Rams to all hit the same target. We also bumped up the bonus damage vs Walls, so they are a more effective (yet risky, compared to longer range) siege counter to all types of walls throughout all phases of the game."
Bonus damage vs Buildings reduced from +500 to +450
Economy
Research time reduced from 75 to 45 seconds
Total cost reduced from 250 to 150
Research time reduced from 75 to 60 seconds
Total cost reduced from 500 to 350
Total cost reduced from 1000 to 750
Developer note
"We wanted to make these technologies more cost effective in the early game to increase the depth of economic decision making. Often you would skip these technologies in the Feudal Age, as it was more cost effective to go to Castle Age first, or wait until high villager counts."
Build time reduced from 30 to 20 seconds
Cost reduced from 75 Wood, 75 Gold to 60W, 60G
Build time reduced 35 seconds to 25 seconds
Traders will now move out of the way if they were preventing a Stone Wall Gate from being constructed
Traders no longer stop moving when you assign them to a new home
Developer note
"We’d like to see more trade earlier in the game. This is a step in that direction, we have more efforts planned for future updates."
Building multiple farms by shift-queuing on top of a Mill or Town Center (or Granary) will now consistently and predictably populate around that structure
Fixed an issue where latency affected building placement
Fixed an issue where Villagers could sometimes idle when constructing a wall with two or more villagers.
Fixed an issue where walls and other buildings could sometimes stomp trees in dense forests, which could result in walls having a gap
Buildings
Stone cost increased from 300 to 350
Build time increased from 120 to 150 seconds
Developer note
"It’s out intention that rush, boom, and tech strategies are equally viable. We’ve seen the villager boom taking over and wanted to add more risk to that path."
Build time increased from 140 to 180 seconds
Developer note
"Forward keeps should be an exciting and risky strategy. We’ve pulled the build time back so there’s more risk and counterplay options for dealing with keeps built near or in the enemy base."
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Order of the Dragon. Other patch notes are hidden.