I was look at the techtree. Is there anyway to tell what age the cards can be used.

No. That info is in the individual homecityX.xml files but they only gave us germans and iroquois in the demo.

Bestieros were not really worth it to begin with, and now its just plain silly. What Portuguese player would want to trade food for wood??? They are a very, very food heavy civ.

Bestieros are not bad if you can get them out quick enough in fortress. The problem has always been that 2000 wood is simply too much to gather to make them worthwhile. To me it's pretty clear this new tech was designed specifically to support an early fortress bestiero strat.

BEsterios are not useless at all, but the fact is you need excellent micro to take full advantage of them, and 98% of players, me inclusive, simply do not have it. THey are useless fodder if you dont know how to use them, but I guarantee someone like Swinger would pwn with them.

yeah, this may work well against otto :S

Well... I don't think they should have done that. You still need to gather about 2000 Food AND send that card to get Bestieros. I'm sure I prefer gathering 2000 Wood rather than 2000 Food + Shipment. Besides, its a slot on your deck, and we're talking about a tech that should have been boosted -.-

Hopefully its a bug or ES will make it better. 2400 for noob Crossbowmen is as stupid as nerfing TEAM Cheap Market... oh, wait

Don't forget the shipment required for the church tech. That's 2400 food, 2 shipments, build a church, and many houses to continuously build villagers. Sounds fantastic...

Hold on, I don't get it... first you send advanced church, then you get another card? And you pay what? And when? Uh...

you get 1.25 wood for every 1 food, so you dont need 2400 food

we had a big bestieros rush going on so we had to increase the wood. The rush is still possible, but it's no longer the game-ender it used to be.

Quoted from ES_Sandy:

Besteiros ... rush?

*thinks*

Hmm ...

Age to Colonial by 4:30 (500 food politician).
Send 700 gold.
Send advanced church.
Age up to Fortress at 6 minutes with Exiled Prince.
Most vills on food (some on wood for church) until 1600 food collected.
Build a church.
Send the card that translates that food into wood when you have around 1100 food.
By the time it arrives you have 1600 food which translates to 2000 wood.
Research Besteiros at 6:40, which are there by 7:00.
Switch villagers to food/wood for more Besteiro spam.

Was this it?

omg was it as op as the wardog rush sandy!?? I can see how xbows are simply unbeatable for someone in age 2 I mean 20 upgraded xbows could kill an entire hussar for christ sake! wtf is that? good job sandy you guys really know your stuff
: )

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Even though I don't disagree with you, it sounds pretty funny! Too bad it was nerfed though =/

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but cud it beated teh stelets??? they r cheep n good! and lotz of tem!
Seriously, waht is it with ES nerfing stuff before anyone ever uses it? Remember the secret Dutch strat? No point nerfing it if it's never found!

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So ES should not do balance testing before releasing the game?

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how do you know he will do besteiros rush before besteiros appear?

if you got hussars and he did a delayed pike rush, then you can be more dead.

[This message has been edited by ultimitsu (edited 10-06-2006 @ 10:51 PM).]

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I would do what I do in every game I play, scout. I think i'd notice a rax and 25 pikes sitting outside it wouldn't you? How about his macro, would you not suspect a church ff if you saw a port(eventualy with a church) ff with all villagers on food(assuming this became a known strat)?

Its no where near uncounterable even if it is powerful

Even a normal spanish ff would crush a 15 villager beistieros rush but why nerf a known op strat? Lets nerf the new "expert playtesters" strats that are 100% beatable! Lets ignore cards new cards like solingen steel and make old nearly useless cards even worse! After all, port opness needed a nerf like this. No one likes a fi biestieros camper!

On another note I look forward to age of mercs part deux!

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scouting is oversaid and underdone.

even 2400 experts miss and get hit by unexcpected attacks. remeber the famous spanish mirror of GG_magic vs BIS on yucatan? BIS, ranked 10th in cuetech at the time, failed to see GG coming at him with 13 holcans and lost his TC, twice. you just cant always rely on scouting.

Also if you are constantly scouting, you neither paying enough attention to other things, nor building TP, nor getting any treasures. itself is risky because he could be doing a normal turtle and boom, in which your scouting is a complete waste of your attention and expolorer time.

sure this strat is countable, most OP strats are countable. but the reason sone strats needs a nerf is the amount of risk one has to take in countering it. countering 8:00 besteiros rush is very risky, he can easily skip it the last minute and boom with 3~4 towers, in which your hussars will be useless, or 8 halbs from 1 shipment.

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have you seen 22 besteiros in action? they will beat just about every single spanish fortress shipment if they come out at 8:00, added in 10 pikes they will even handle homemade lancers at groups of 5.

[This message has been edited by ultimitsu (edited 10-07-2006 @ 01:31 PM).]

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Cut out the sarcasm please. Express your posts thoughtfully or not at all.

At least you could have spelled it correctly: "Besteiros"...

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Experts make mistakes too. If you played 100 straight games that were all ff>card spam you'd tend to get lazy with scouting and rely on assumptions.

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Common you shouold know how little micro this game takes. Most people can scout/creep effectivly and have more than enogh time left to deal with the more important aspects.

Imo scouting is never a waste of time.

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ff ww spam wasn't counterable for the most part, it was op. 1.05 pike/falc ff wasn't counterable for the most part, it was also op. This isn't op.

5 lancers + 4 hussars from age up would be gg port(sure a few xbows might survive.. maybee), and I won't even get into cannon combos. You have plenty of time to figure out what hes doing so choosing the right cards wouldn't be an issue here.

Think about this for a second, 1600 food and 2 cards for 22 xbows. This isn't that much different that collecting 1kwood and sending 1k wood(40 seconds slower?) and a card. I'v never even heard of someone stupid enough to try that.

Ports don't start with a tp like otto and would be slowed down considerably if they had to use cm or 8xbows.

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Have I seen them? I used to use them almost every game with ports in 1.07.

hmm lets see how "apparently balanced" spian could deal with this "wtf op strat"

pike/falc

lancers

rods and dogs(from behind)

Take your pick. The port won't have the food or economy to support any other troops and will have to rely on cards to win the game. Do I really have to explain why spain would dominate a ff card spam war?

OP strat? I think not.

btw goooood luck surviving long enough to gather 1600f and 250w while being rushed.

[This message has been edited by BeachBum (edited 10-07-2006 @ 02:08 PM).]

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no that i do not know, try a 7 minute manor boom, or dutch sub 8:00 4 bank FF, see if you have much spare attention for these things.

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It was counterable if hit by a good and fast rush.

btw you havent even see the 8:00 besteiros rush, so you cant comment on how it would be beaten.

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point is speed. sending 1k wood and collecting it takes at the least 1:10 after hitting fotress. this besteiros rush could happen as soon as one hits fortress.

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again speed.

if besteiros can be out by 8:00, your spanish wont even have 2 falcs shipped, once it is shipped, they can either get some of them into melee or just shoot it, it only takes 30 shots from besteiros to kill a falc.

and whats pikes gonna do anyway?

rods are the same, 5 besteiros 1 shot kill a rod, 4 rods die from 1 volley.

dogs die even faster.

lancers are the only possible counter, but if it hits fast enough, you wont have enough lancers in time, your 5 lancers will be overwhelmed. much worse once 8 halbs come out.

==

All in all i dont see what your problem is, if ES decided it was too powerful so they nerfed it, it must be better than if they let it out and then everyone abuses it so we have to endure another 3 month before it gets corrected.

==

BTW, if you have been using besteiros "almost every game since 1.07", you are definitely doing something wrong, because as they are in aoe3, they suck.

Instead of 2000 wood for besteiros you could save it to order of tower and sword rider that is much better....

Hum.......

But i am talking about aoE3 not expansion i am a portuguese user i can rush with them and i never construct a church until industrial. Because it is needed to go quick to the industrial while you attack your enemys cause you need Hcannon or mortars to destroy forts ... so besteiros are not that good since you cannot evolve them like you evolve a musketeer

Well I was wrong. HCXPSublimePorte is not a Portuguese card. It's only available to Ottomans.