I may not play aoe3de anymore but I found the whole faction was not great.
People discuss it but are they top players who really understand balance?
I would say Germany is/was the top civ, then Japan is also considered OP. Major ‘changes’ are usually not coming that change this.
So, I’d say dopples, while they may have some pros and cons, are better than hospitallers, because they’re part of a better civ.
But Germany doesn’t rely on them. Hospitallers however seem almost like a ‘core focus’ of Malta. This makes them vulnerable too because for any bonuses, they are easily countered by cannons or any infantry, and overall weaker. So making too many is just wasteful.
Germany usually just spawns some of those, and dops are powerful units that helps, defeats cavalry and solid against anything.
I’d still give the edge to Germany in terms of early game,when timing getting dopps vs getting hospitalier.
Because AoE3 has a strange complexity, and inbalances, some factions just outright aren’t as good; in aoe3 certain civs just all around are better.
Malta suffers from a problem of ‘trying to do everything at once’, but not specializing in much. It is a lower tier civ. Nothing it has seems exceptional.
From memory, Malta ‘has’ to eventually tech into cavalry or something to counter, if they are in late-game. Infantry like this can be countered. I also remember they some kind of good cavalry bonus too, which seems to be strange when their focus is on the other weird units/things.
Of course when you are just playing, by far, most players are not top players, doing their boring optimal strats. Also teams plays slightly differently too, and is not as important as the real balance.
They don’t excel well at anything imo and so even in late-game or deathmatch, they just didn’t seem good. Theyare a ‘meme civ’ taht does a few cool new things, but most of them are cliche. Such as the fireworks man and the unique abilities.
I would like to see if a top player thinks otherwise, but, most of these are noob speculations I see.
