I perfectly agree with op, experience is a very good way to know which civs have problem for multiple reason imo:
First, it’s completly fine to have confroncted experience, it creates debates and opinion which is the best thing to know if a civ should be changed and how, while the number well not really…
Second, even if a civ have good winrates and are not op or weak still certain bonus or mechanic are not healthy for the game (cumans’s 2tc , flemish revolution, first cruisade etc…)
Obsidian arrow wasn’t changed because it was op just because this mechanic was completly bad for the game especially in tg.
The only problem i found with experience is the person which make these discussions should have really experience about that and not just see viper doing an exotic strat which worked very well and so ask a nerf.
I think that’s completly hypocritical to say that a 800 elo could know how for exemple fix franks being op in tg while not nerfing them in 1v1 when they are balanced. And not because that is elitist just because if someone is 800 elo, he doesn’t know most basic and so cannot have knowledge deeper enough to make balance changes (and the argument which it’s possible that player can have a good theorical knowledge and just bad execution of it is very bad, knowledge is by a very large portion maked by experience and if your execution is enough bad to be 800 elo then you cannot have enough knowledge that’s completly impossible), i see it a lot here and the discussion is not really possible sometimes because of the not enough high knowledge and that’s very hard to know yourself when you have enough or not knowledge about it, so its leads of balance changes which have absolutely non sence like teutons’s buff on tc range or reducing elite elephant archer price by 62%.
If balances changes discussion for poles is made i cannot really make opinion of it because my opinion changes every time i played it , this is not stable nor even determinated enough so yes it’s better yourself to know what you’re talking about before talking about.
Again, this is not elitist, that is really a thing which exist and not only for low elo as for myself, but peoples should question themself before making balance suggestions before saying thing like “britons op”
Did you really adaptating well ? Is is possible you loose all the time because of a mistake you make yourself and not because the thing is op ?
For example eagles on EW is too strong because no matter that you try to do you’l be in trouble but there are not on rm when you have time to react and make something to handle it like longswords or cavalry archers or castle and uu for a lot of civ like ethiopians, malay, malians etc.
A thing is not op when that’s strong, only when a thing is un dealable correctly in too many cases like the cumans on realease whith their undealable steppes lancers.