Wyz, thanks for responding. Don't know how to do the whole interspersed responses, so I will just talk point by point as I see helpful
First, no matter the chaos opening, even in the many top matches I have watched/seen, chaos always takes center, regardless of opening. They are just more powerful out of the box, which disadvantages order significantly. When an empire has no choice but to turtle by default, thus giving the other group center gold, center spawn, and far gold, you have already tipped the scales significantly in their favor. If each empire can't equally fight for center, it is a problem, and again, the toplist and long term play results show this.
I wouldn't say by default, that sounds like every time exactly, but yes, a good chaos player will seize this map control early. Now, when you list two units that can pop another unit immediately, I take one to be the medusa, but I don't know what you mean for the other one. Marrows don't guarantee kills, and while the Medusa is deadly, there's a trick to fighting these types of units. When using speartons, be sure to keep spearton wall up. Marrows cant' fear them forward, and meduas can't stone kill them. Ninjas can cloak on the same tick as a stone and remain in the shonobi to strike. Using these two together is very important against this kind of aggressive start!
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I disagree that marrows don't guarantee kills. Any decent player will easily kill any minor unit that gets skeleton controlled out from the back. Ninja, dead. Archer, dead. Healer, dead, etc.
Your word choice here is poor in some areas, but I know what you're saying. Your first statement about towerspawn is completely subjective. I know quite a few players who don't bother with the towerspawn. Many opt not to use it after running your supposed medusa/marrow open because of the cost in resources. Most players will instead build a controlled unit to further stack their army for the approach. About retaliting with multiple ninjas, that's not good macro. You only want to use one at the start, so you can pump speartons for that defense. While 1 ninja against 1 medusa/marrow seems weak, as long as you first target the medusa, you don't need to fear the marrowkai. Just don't give him anything worth reaping.
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I disagree here and think you are wrong, and that replays and other things show it. Now for you, who has insanely good micro, other options might exist that work, but that is part of the problem. Generally speaking, two people of equal skill playing each other, whoever has chaos will win, because chaos is stronger and has just enough slight advantages that stack up to screw the order player. Or as a friend puts it, chaos has three lives, order, just one. Chaos players can make multiple mistakes in a match and skill win. Order player makes a single mistake, it is game over.
About this free heal.... you realize that has nothing on a meric right? And I wouldn't call it free, it's only effective the more outside of combat it is. Again, chaos giants isn't something I worry about because that's 1500g, and if they're goign for a really aggressive opening, they can't spend that money yet. So yeah, chaos may have the army advantage, but you don't have to hand them the win. Play smart hold them off while you collect your economy to build your response.
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I disagree here as well. The meric is easily reapable/killable. The healing, once paid for, is free, and heals all units at the same time, even miners... and the healing rate is so high I chased a jugger with a ninja from center, and even though the jug was already badly hurt, (this was ice map), it did not die, but made it safely to castle garrison.
I don't find the magikill cost affecting much of anything. Deads have an advantage over archidons directly, but not in the damage sense. Deads are also slow and stuck to the ground They can't just "walk away and heal" without getting wrecked by a faster unit.
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To some extent I agree... but you are assuming order will have enough battle units to strike back. I think this is wishful thinking, because order rarely survives the opening...
The jug knocking the spear doesn't help order, but that's not a glitch. That's designed. Chaos is all about having certain offensive edges.
Yeah, advantages that render order advantages pretty much worthless/disadvantages... as I pointed out, all orders "strengths" are pretty much weaknesses. Stronger flying wings, worthless with kiting against chaos wings. Shield wall of spearton... worthless, chaos, just knocks them back behind the wall, destroys wall, kills miners...
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Here, you are right. Is this direct cause of something being wrong with balance? I don't entirely think so. I will admit this does have to do with direct combat sense. As you stated early, Chaos has an advantage pressing on small maps. That's true, and it's because of how fast deads spawn. They're slightly more in cost needing 100 mana to archidons, but they have the same build speed with more positive traits for offense (not to mention a crapload of health).
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Any other plausible reason? No. Why not? Because when players lose their premium, for instance, they drop out of the top like a stone dropped off a cliff...
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You mean the new update reducing bomber burn and giving elementals some help after sucking for the last month? This I don't understand.
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Reducing bomb damage was needed, but nerfing archer who already are worthless in Dm, yes, that stinks. Per EE, EE fire was already overpowered in regular match, this just makes it 10 times worse... a fire and an earth will crush an archer and sword with absurd ease. So here again, order players are screwed in a whole setup (regular match versus EE), they have no hope out of the box of taking center, and are forced to turtle, be behind economically etc.
The increased healing for EE was also ridiculous... I have watched and been in multiple matches were all the EE has to do is mass that fire _ earth charrog thing, and attack with them all... and just send water units to heal them... they have a ton of health, and are almost impossible to kill since the healing is so easy and effective.
I have had two CA, magikill, poison, electric wall, and wings all hitting a group of them, and not a single one died...
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Here is the thing WYZ, this debate could easily be settled. The creators of the game could easily create a tracking algorithm that would show if the game is balanced by tracking matches and adjusting for basic variables. I don't think it is at all necessary, I think the evidence is ridiculously clear (toplist, and the effect of people gaining or dropping premium on their rankings in those toplist, and a quick perusal of the replay list for a number of days), and the overall dropping number of players and why they quit shows it. I know a ton of the players who quit. Why they quit? Order isn't a viable empire. They get tired of suddenly getting crushed by people they easily beat in OvO. They get tired of order nerfs and other empire buffs, when order is barely holding place in the toplists...They get tired of watching the toplist fill up with mediocre players who merely mine the many advantages premiums get.
Now, I don't even mind that so much, the game makers deserve to make money. I wish they would monetize the game differently, but they know the market. People will pay to win. but don't be surprised when people stop being willing to be beat by less skilled people merely because those people have cash. They will take their game playing elsewhere... indeed, tons of players already have.