[Age 358] Blue training changed, TLK on Youtube and more - by Aesthetics

[Tiralan]

[Age 358] Blue rank training changes

Age 358 again brings changes to the game. First and foremost, significant changes have been made to training difficulty.

Training changes
Training in the grey and blue ranks has been made more challenging by increasing the size of the armies you face in battle. We have done so after player suggestions. The feeling was that it was too easy to reach the green ranks in a single run of training at age start.

Please note that keeping your units unpromoted until the green ranks may not be the best idea anymore. Player tests have shown that you will get a lot of injuries if you do this. Do it right though, and most if not all units will still make it to the later blue ranks.

A big thank you to the players who have helped us test these changes.

YouTube Channel
We have created a YouTube channel for the game (rightclick, open in new window), which is administered by our newest team member Destrega. For now we only use it to upload the age timelapse videos, but we may use it for other purposes in the future. The age break page now checks this channel to see if a timelapse video has been uploaded and shows it when it has.

Other changes
- The ordering of promotion options in the encampment has been enhanced. Most importantly, when a unit has multiple promotion options, these options will now show in a predictable order.
- The ordering of players in your current city in the city centre is now less jumpy.

Upcoming changes
- HC medals earned during the two Neptune ages will soon be restyled in a Neptune-y theme.

[grotebeer]

I wonder who tested Hastatus because they do 150 xp at major if you're lucky and it takes at least 2-3 runs to even get to major where other units still seem to rank easily to green in one run. Not a big deal that one unit ranks faster than the other, but the difference should not be that big. Especially when the difference wasn't that big say 1-2 years ago when they'd get you to green in 2-3 runs. Maybe they could get pike at t1 in the future because that's what one tier has at t2 and t3.

[Frans]

I like that training has gotten a bit harder/slower in the low ranks.

Of course I have limited experience with the changes so far, but my initial feeling is that some units have also been hit too hard by these changes.
Most ranking units and cav with high hp can still make it to green in 1 run and marshal in 12 hours by the looks of it. But units with low hp/auth are having a (too) rough time imo.

Without brute force dismissing tactics but with fh, it takes celtics like 5-6 runs to reach brig, double that to get to maj.gen. Slingers/archers same thing.
With 3 tries, spears/pikes can't even get passed 2nd lieut on the first run even with fh & ht's. That seems very rough compared to some of the units that can still do green in 1.

I hope this doesn't turn into a scenario where the fast units still manage to pull through reasonably well, but the slower units now get completely stomped. Now if the idea is to have generally slower ranking and that most people would simply be arriving at green rank halfway or at the end of CF, that's absolutely fine of course. But looking at the first knight after 14 hours, fast ranking still seems pretty viable.
That could turn the meta into everyone just using swords to rank to marshal and then rebuild to the units they actually want.

TL;DR please slightly buff hp on low hp/auth T1s & T2s

[blackdeath13]

With celtic spearmans I got stuck at Lt colonel in my first training run. Seems that from lieutenant it gets significantly harder. I also noticed my higher hp units get injured more often which means the hospital bill racks up from there. If I had started on day 1 this would not be a problem for me. Starting on day 2 however this sets me back a bit since we are already at war and my army is severely injured. I will update my post if I have more time to train later.

Edit: yeah took me two training runs to get to green. I did however had already amassed a decent amount of gold through merchant. Normally it would have taken me a third run.

[Bialy]

I just did a 0-Brig run in 1 go , took 35min , with horses and promoted them to cavalary around lt col so there you go

[CptMorgan]

Currently using militia (Africa). I have been promoting when able. Been stuck at 2nd Lieutenant for three runs...may take me another 3 to get through it, as I am only getting 4-6 battles per run before too injured. Kinda pathetic really and has messed up the game for me.

[spyke]

Currently in Africa, ranking with cav goes way better then ranking with footies/azabs. (way better = azabs click 10 times max and you`re done).

Previous age, got CKed and instead of pikes, went for cav, theory was proved again, ranked back to original rank way faster then with pikes.

Not really normal to train faster with cav, but at least this will build up some vulnerable mains (like it for this purpose)

[Mysterious]

I had yuuuuuge trouble ranking up with slingers this Afrique age. I'm talking 2-3 battles per run, then total loss, CC and negative gold for an eternity. Couldn't buy new units 3 runs into lieutenant, so just suicided.

Perhaps the t1 slingers are nerfed too hard? (I understand why, because of earlier abuse). But with new training they can use a buff?

I think the same problem occurs for other slinger unit types across other maps. You can test it yourself on dev and see how bad they're now.

Thx

[Fiskerman]

Been struggling with turkanas alot in the mid blue ranks, mainly due to not enough unit exp to promote them even further which in turn slows down the training runs getting more injuries then some other units seem to get.

Mid blues means T2 units just to point that out T1 units was going fine.