Following on the heels of the Season One update, we’re excited to introduce a brand new path for bringing you smaller, more pointed changes with Server-Side Patches.
This new approach allows us to make data changes that influence balance and certain bugs more quickly. With a Server-Side Patch, you won’t be required to download and install an update from your platform of choice. Instead, all you need to do is launch the game, where you’ll be greeted by a notification prompting you to take a quick in-game patch. After you’ve updated, that’s it – you should see the changes take effect immediately!
While we’ll still need to rely on traditional updates for certain changes, as well as for including content, we intend to use this fast-patching method to help with balance, gameplay integrity and more as we hear from you. Read on to find a list of balance changes we’ve prepared based on your feedback!
Balance
Core Units
- Mangonel projectile area of effect radius reduced from 1.25 to 0.75 tiles
Developer Note: We realize this is a dramatic reduction to the power level of Mangonels. Our goal is to push gameplay away from siege heavy compositions.
- Ram bonus damage vs Walls increased by +100
Developer Note: We want to provide more options for countering both wooden and stone walls in the early and midgame.
- Monk move speed increased from 1 Tiles/s to 1.12 Tiles/s
- Monk move speed reduced by 25% while carrying a Relic
Developer Note: We’d like monks to generally be more useful in your armies without slowing down group formation movement. However! It’s also important that there’s plenty of opportunity to battle over relic spawns.
Economy
- Villagers will no longer be interrupted by attacks while gathering resources
Civilization Specific
Mongols
- Khan weapon range reduced to 5.5 in Feudal, Castle, and Imperial Age
Developer Note: Power level of the Khan is tricky as it’s a free respawning unit that’s fast, ranged, and fires while moving. The perfect stats for a harassing unit. As the general of the Mongol civilization we’re nudging him away from the effective harassment role.
- Khan weapon damage reduced from 4 to 3 in the Feudal Age
- Khan weapon damage reduced from 8 to 6 in the Castle Age
- Khan melee and ranged armor reduced from 1 to 0 in the Castle Age
Abbasid Dynasty
- Camel Archer move speed reduced from 1.69 Tiles/s to 1.62 Tiles/s
- Camel Archer health reduced from 175/210/250 to 140/170/200 per Age
Developer Note: We wanted to provide a clear weakness for the camel archer unit so it’s easier to counter and provides more incentive to build mixing armies.
Matchmaking
- Additional tuning done to the matchmaking system for Quick Match and (soon!) Ranked queues. This tuning should see you matched with players more closely aligned with your ELO, though in some cases may mean slightly longer wait times.
Developer Note: We’ve heard your feedback that getting placed in a match sooner isn’t worth it if your opponent’s ELO isn’t close to yours. In response to this, we have made some adjustments to the rate at which the Quick Match and Ranked queues scale the acceptable ELO delta between you and the opponent you are searching for. The following table outlines a snapshot of the ELO band scaling after X minutes of waiting.
| Previous Maximum ELO Delta | New Maximum ELO Delta | |
| After 1-1.5 minutes | 107 | 54 |
| After 2-2.5 minutes | 241 | 110 |
| After 3-3.5 minutes | 513 | 173 |
| After 4-4.5 minutes | ~ | 250 |
| After 5-5.5 minutes | ~ | 354 |
| After 6-6.5 minutes | ~ | 560 |
| After 6.5 minutes | ~ | 1320 |
What's Next
We love hearing from you, so keep sharing your thoughts on the new changes in the forums and in our various social channels. We also hope you’ll participate in our survey soon, where we’ll be asking in-depth questions as we continue to refine and improve. That will be coming up soon in the next few weeks, so stay tuned!
We still plan to keep an eye on any immediate call-outs, and you can continue to look forward to our monthly patches for any bug fixes that are too big to send over the server. We’re also actively working on features we discussed for Season Two, which you can check out on our Community Roadmap.