I see highly active posts about DOI civs for buffs and nerfs, I see more active discussions about
all newer civs, but yeah noone talks about the older civs that still need some checking right? Shameful and desilussional.
Let’s start:
Britons
No more extra range in Imperial Age.
Longbowman range for both standard and elite increased by 1.
This civ is too strong in team games, and alongside Mayans don’t let other archer civs to compete, and the Longbow is completely overshadowed by the 11 range arbalest.
Chinese
Lose access to Blast Furnace
All talk about Hindustani 0 weakness but hey I present to you an OP 2k civ whose absurd amount of eco advantages (2 extra villagers, extra food on farms and cheaper techs, plus OP UU) also can play as cavalry, siege and even infantry like nothing?? Is unacceptable, thye need less flexibility the more the game goes.
Franks
Cavalry HP bonus moved to castle age.
Chivalry effect changed to fallen Knight returning 33% of the gold cost.
I will keep my high ground on this, Franks have 3 advantages first 20 mins in the game and the UT that allows a broken spam of strong paladins is just soo wrong, makes Franks too oppressive in TGs, tone down the early game so other scout civs can compete earlier, while the TG OPness aspect is traded for a bit better 1v1 late game.
Mayans
Resources last 10% instead of 15% longer.
Archer discount toned down to 10%/15%/20%.
Elite Plumed Archer range reduced from 5 to 4.
El Dorado HP boost reduced from 40 to 25.
I’m tired this civ has too may advantages for 1v1, best early eco, stupid discount of archers, annoying UU in Imperial and if Ghulam HP was reduced then El Dorado HP has to be nerfed as well (alongside a general +10f cost to eagle line).
Turks
Free LC and Hussar upgrades changed to all gold cost from stable techs removed.
Artillery cost changed from 450w 500g to 650w and 500g.
Castle age Jannissaries range reduced from 8 to 7, Elite Jannissaries gain +2 range and accuracy increased from 65% to 75%.
Is disgussting see how broken Turks are on Arena with too many advantages here while being underperforming on other maps.
I’d say nerf the team bonus of them and Huns to 10% while you’re at it.
I’d be okay with the eagle cost increase as long as they get -5 on the gold cost. they won’t be as spammable in early castle age (which is where they are problematic).
I also think nerfing El Dorado that much on top of an eagle nerf might be too much. maybe 30 hp instead of 40.
my problem here is you don’t really do much to help them on maps outside of Arabia. you Nerf their clear Arena issues, but don’t really do much for them on open maps.
China and Briton nerfs do nothing in the midgame where they are the strongest.
Maya lategame is already bad, they need 100 hp Eagle and Plumes.
Turks don’t need any nerf. Only a small % of ppl play Arena
@MatCauthon3 had a thread a couple months ago that addresses most of the issues with these civs. I guess relative to how frequently people make random civ change threads as if the sun wouldn’t rise tomorrow without its daily dozen, that can sound like “no one talking about” these OG civs exclusively, but even then, they’re brought up with some regularity in other discussions.
I’ll say what I said in Mat’s thread: I think some of these ideas are ~fine-ish, like Franks getting their HP in Castle. I think 1 or 2 of the Maya nerfs would be okay (especially Archer discount nerf), but doing 4 at once…just seems more like it’s intended to punish the Mayans for having been strong for so long, rather than optimize balance. As opposed to the (admittedly slow) iterative balance changes that the devs seem intent on.
And some of these issues I would prefer to be resolved via bringing up weaker civs, rather than gimping everything that’s good about currently strong civs. Especially the Jannisary nerf, and even the Chinese nerf, I’d prefer not to see them lose anything - just buff weaker civs so that they can be more competitive.
Pretty sure he means +2 from his suggested baseline of 7 for CA Jannnisary, so 9.
TBH having civs that are too strong is wayy more problematic that having weaker civs, weaker civs need more time to be figured out, while OP civs are more frustrating to deal with, and some other civs are seen bad because the standards set by the most abused civs are too inbalanced so people want that civs with the same (if not better) power level.
better solution is to remove position-pick and remove imbalanced maps from ladder
people don’t play britons because they want to make longbows. they play britons because if they don’t, then the other team will have 20% more xbows and there is no counter to archer + cavalry spam when the map pool is barren empty trash.
all the civs without any fast units also need a real team bonus. civs like viking / dravidian / sicilian are so useless when they deleted all the balanced maps and replaced them with farmville garbage. of course people will play franks when they can just guarantee that they’re spawning in the back of a farmville land map
civs like china / gurjara don’t have the equivalent of extra villagers. they only have extra villagers on imbalanced maps. once you have to make a dock early, these civs are not OP
Oh, I agree. Still find Gurjaras quite annoying in addition to some that you mention. My point is that the nerf stick isn’t the only tool available, even if it will be the most commonly used tool on a civ that is widely seen as being too strong. But AoE2 balance history also presents a lot of nerfs by addition - OG Franks by the addition of Halb and Bloodline, Goths by Supplies, ~Gunpowder units by Condos, etc. Would be nice to see at least some ideas like this rather than a one-dimensional method of problem solving. And for civs that have been weak for a long time, there’s been plenty of time already to brainstorm and test small buffs.
If you simply want Longbowmen to see more play, increase their projectile speed. You need not touch the Arbalester. Longbowmen are oft impractical since their extreme range does not guarantee good damage at that range against units like cavalry. Another twist would be to have Yeoman enable training at Monasteries. I honestly do not see the Britons are imbalanced, but can appreciate a will to have Longbows see more play.
As long as their arbalest can outrange other archers, its hard for other archer civs to compete.
I agree Chinese is too versatile. But thats the point of cheaper techs. I think Chinese can survive without camel line.
Chinese has a big hole compared to hindu. They dont have BBC or monks with redemption to counter onagers.
Hp change seems fine. But I dont like Chivalry change.
Berbers have 15/20% stable discount. I think it makes more sense for archers to have bigger discount. Yet, Mayans deserve early game nerf. Make the discount 15/30%, starting from castle age and only apply to xbow line. Remove the wall discount and give it to weaker civs, like Spanish. Maybe Give them early wood penalty.
Players will have too little incentive to make Plumed. And these are big nerfs to their late game and melee fight.
Honestly, I think turks dont need a nerf like this.
Do you mind sharing your elo to get a better perspective from such suggestions, you are killing mayans, such biased suggestion can’t be taken serious so i guess you are stuck at 1000 elo, once you get higher ranks your perception will change, so i’d focus on that.
Mayans aren’t even that good at 1000. check your stats mate. WR literally increases with elo. You’re telling me “his low elo” means he thinks Chinese are too good as well?
Most of these changes are too much in too many places. Remember bonuses compound to give even better advantages, so reducing, early bonuses specifically makes everything else weaker along the way.
Keeping only this, i would change TB from 20% to 10%
Civ bonus archer Range from +1/2 to +1 in imperial only. But make yeoman much cheaper. You can still get +1 range xbow in castle, but you pay for it.
They might still need compensation elsewhere. Like maybe try give them BL or something. It’s a big nerf to 1v1, even if it’s needed in TGs
Isn’t the issue still fast imperial, HC and BBC? Yes Janis are also tough to deal with, but after these changes, the opponent can still do exactly the same fast imp.
So how about changing free chemistry, to free but needing to be researched? Or give it like a 90% discount if free but needs research is too weird.
This could be a sizeable buff to 1v1 depending on cost. So might need to be careful with that
You mean the 2nd tankiest foot archers in the game with massive speed without the weaknesses that CA have? No incentive? It’s more like, the only reason people don’t train them is because their arbs are just so good, not because the plume isn’t good enough
But I guess it’s arguing for a similar thing, you want their cost decreased, others want their range decreased. I think range is the better nerf, because they’re too versatile. Consider they have more range than many skirms, and a lot more speed.
And that’s all they have. Literally no other eco(vil speed is more about utility) You want to keep Mayans 30% discount, on top of their existing eco? Or still nerf their other stuff?
I guess the compounded early nerfs would be enough
Any nerf suggestion for Britons that doesn’t include their broken team bonus and their +1 range in castle age is not a real suggestion.
It is better to nerf their techs discount and remove some techs from their tech tree like heavy camel as many people suggested (I think Hera suggested this also).
This is literally a buff not a nerf. You by this suggestion make Franks late game better for gold return buff and what people want always is leading Franks to late game with no gold when their trash units are bad.
Too many nerfs at once, I will take first suggestion and Eagles food nerf and maybe make them lose the last archer armour upgrade and keep the cheap archers.
