Hello, I just decided to post a reply because I found this thread really interesting and I decided to put my two cents in. Seeing as I've played on LAN a lot with local friends and a little bit of GameRanger against Vietnamese players online from time to time, playing mostly vanilla RoR and some UPatch, I think my points are at least somewhat justified. All things considered, I'd overall have to agree with you HellStriker because some of the changes in UPatch are a bit questionable. Of course there are some things I like about it, so I'll just list the good and bad changes, but also what I would alter a bit. So here are my top picks:
Good Changes:
1. Hittite (in my opinion) is now a well-balanced civ after their nerf. They still have awesome military potential with better CAs, camels, 210 HP heavy catapults, armored elephants, best HHAs, and fully-upgradable scythe chariots. However, they have a weaker Iron economy and they lack architecture from the Bronze Age (which hurts them big time in a deathmatch during the elephant wars, making them very slow to build). Their military is almost entirely intact, minus the centurion now. And honestly, if it's not Mace or Greek, you'll rarely be making them anyway. That's my thought on Hittite. They have what it takes and are still a solid civ overall.
2. The UPatch went in the right direction by buffing the Cataphract, even though it's still a bit weak for the price. It lacks against siege (unless you can dance them around with good micro) and they can very easily be converted, making them useless against priest civs. I like the buff to the line of sight just as much as the general stats, but I feel it still needs work. Possibly reduce the unit cost for cavalry, heavy cavalry, and cataphract to make them more useful, or give just the cataphract the same conversion resistance as chariots. That one is hard for me to decide on.
3. Greek getting cheaper hoplites is really helpful in random map and it allows you to use the hoplite rush strategy more effectively, given that they have a weak Bronze Age military overall. It's still a nice bonus that helps you out in a pinch.
4. The buff to Persia was well implemented, now that they don't just give out in the Bronze Age after they're done hunting and have to resort to a bad market and farms. It's nice knowing you can fall back after a camel rush without shooting your wad in early Bronze. Wheel, artisanship, and coinage combined with the early game hunting bonus means they have a very strong economy all the way through the stages in random map games, and it can more often last more than 10-15 minutes in deathmatches. They still lack ballistics in iron, but that shouldn't be a big deal since Persia has fast elephants, HHAs, cataphracts, legions, 14-ranged catapults, guard towers, and a fully upgradable priest.
5. The addition of the Oasis and Rivers maps, Highland map changes, and the improvements to island maps were all good to me. Oasis is awesome for deathmatches because of level ground and so much space to build everywhere, Highland is actually a "highland" with all the hills and no more rivers, Rivers is the Highland map with rivers but done better, with better layout and resource allocation and also boats become more viable. Island maps have slightly bigger and more spacious islands, making sure you'll have the room you need to build.
6. More gold and stone on maps is good for the longer games and non-chariot civs. Not much else to note here.
7. Like you said, scythe chariots have a smaller trample damage radius and is a good nerf for a unit that costs no gold and has high conversion resistance. Now they feel okay in terms of being a fair unit.
8. Shang starts out with less food and Palmyran starts out with more food. This helps level the playing field at the start, especially boosting Palmyran in the early game by giving them the food they need to make the third and fourth villagers they never got before. They still suffer a bit on Hills, but not nearly as bad.
Bad Changes/Things That Should Still Be Changed:
1. More "realistic" siege weapons are even more powerful than they were in the vanilla RoR, which was arguably the biggest issue with balance. While they reload slower, it doesn't matter a lot because their DPS is almost the same as before. Faster bolts and fastfalling stones really just destroy the civs without good siege or priests in return (such as Macedonian and Palymran who are still lacking in this regard). Horse archers and cavalry get wiped out now that it's hard to dance them around along with the latency between a mouse click and a unit response when playing online. It's basically a more likely chance of hitting, which I find questionable. I don't like that the helepolis deals 50 damage, since it can honestly just wreck anything with even less shots than before. It makes horse archers even weaker, considering the price for both them and the helepolis. It's really silly that a helepolis on an elevated surface can now one-shot a horse archer regardless. The ballista is fine, but the helepolis should be cut back a bit. Either give it the same reload speed OR damage as the ballista, but not better in both. Catapults in general are a tough one for me to decide on, so I would consider leaving them intact in the UPatch, regardless of them now being harder to rush down and destroy. This change overall fixed catapults (especially with the splash damage radius) but inadvertently buffed the ballista line. I never thought any catapults were hard to outmaneuver and destroy unless there are 20+ of them, whereas I always found the helepolis to be a bit much to begin with. They're now really hard to rush when their numbers are big and are backed by catapults and/or priests. I honestly think that dual siege is better than both Sumerian and Hittite now, which is a problem.
2. Assyrian getting engineering. I can't agree more. This civ honestly feels like the best land civ in the game, with their CAs the same, them still having a better economy with slightly faster villagers, and now they get engineered helos and heavy catapults along with ballista towers, horse archers, legions, cataphracts, and a full temple. I think giving them chain mail was alright, but most people will only use legions and cataphracts if they absolutely have no other options. Getting a full temple and engineered siege combined with the siege changes now makes them a better Greek in Iron in random map games. They still lack architecture, which as I said for the Hittites, hurts a lot in deathmatch. If you can hit them hard and early with elephants, they're pretty much toast.
3. Slower villagers after the wheel is a change I'm still ambivalent about, but I side more with reverting it back to normal. It helps to have fast enough villagers to escape the CA, camel, and compie armies in Bronze. That's why we've all liked fast villagers. You don't have to let your economy die as soon as you get rushed. However, I think something should be done about Assyrian and Yamato villagers being able to outrun everything else, maybe nerf their bonus only, but keep the wheel's attributes intact or very close to the same.
4. On the topic of Macedonian still lacking wheel, I don't find this too big, seeing as I'm usually able to Bronze fast and rush with the super hoplites and cheap stone throwers, but I understand nevertheless. I agree that every civ should get wheel, seeing as it is a huge technology to get. However, Macedonian is still a very powerful civ (militarily) until the late Iron Age siege comes out, thus making them a tough civ to tweek without going overboard. I really don't mind them lacking wheel. Speed isn't too big, not to mention the line-of-sight bonus is amazing for finding resources (especially on Hills). Their real weakness is their lack of range, getting a 10 range ST as their best. If it were up to me, I would give them engineering instead of Assyrian, which would help them a ton against the helepolis spam. 12 range on half-cost ST's and 11 range on their ballistas would be really fun. Not to mention their siege weapons would still be weak at close range. After all, they are just ballistas and ST's.
5. The war/armored elephant should be restored close to back to normal for the very reasons you said. It's there to serve as a rush unit in iron to destroy towns and be a meatshield. Like you said, it's a very risky unit to use, seeing as siege, priests, centurions, and massed archers can stop them very quickly. The trample is very small now, but I found the trample in vanilla RoR to be a bit ridiculous. I still think the trample radius should be in between patched and unpatched. Make it a little bit larger given that it's a slow and vulnerable unit with all things considered.
These are my picks for the best and worst changes in the UPatch. All in all, it's a good patch that does help a lot with the gameplay and balance, but it still has some questionable things in it. I still prefer vanilla RoR for the most part, but I'll play UPatch online every once in a while. Anyway, I'd like to know your guys' thoughts along with mine on this one, seeing as how it's about the patch that's trying to improve the game.
[This message has been edited by MakesLittleCents (edited 07-12-2017 @ 03:46 PM).]