There’s too many situations where Goths are completely lost no matter what you do.
There’s few situations where Goths are favourite but they can still lose easily.
There are two situations where I would say Goths should always win.
Specifically
Against:
Aztecs (eco, infantry, Jaguars)
Bulgarians (infantry, Konnik)
Burmese (infantry, Arambai)
Byzantines (Cataphract)
Celts (eco, infantry, Woad Raider)
Cumans (eco, Kipchak)
Franks (eco, Throwing Axeman)
Incas (Slinger)
Japanese (infantry, Samurai)
Malians (Gbeto)
Slavs (eco, infantry)
Teutons (eco, infantry)
Vikings (eco, infantry, Berserk)
Against:
Britons (FU champions, eco)
Ethiopians (Shotels)
Indians (HC +1 range, eco)
Vietnamese (not FU champions, eco)
Against:
Koreans (not FU champions, lack of eco bonuses)
Mayans (no direct Huscarl counter)
Unit countering is what makes this game, but straight out civ countering shouldn’t be so extensive.
I suggest two changes that would make Goths more averaged across all of these matchups:
Huskarls have negative melee armor -1 (just like rams have -3) or implement Huskarl armor class with the appropriate units receiving appropriately selected bonus damages to that armor class (just like Mamelukes have their own armor class)
Goths get a civ bonus to their Hand Cannoneers or Goths get Siege Engineers
What do you think about giving them Arbalest but lose Hand Cannons?
What did you experience about Elite Kipchaks vs Elite Huskarls? I think Elite Kipchaks can’t really break pierce armor, but I’m interested about your thoughts
btw I found that Italians (you didn’t mention them) could be very good against Goths because of their new Condotteiri
I am suprised actually quite suprised. Goth have the best winrste on the game for all elos including 1600+. Both outstanding in 1v1 and teamgames statistics.
Goths with arbalets with bracer lacking only Thumb Ring sounds extremely intrusive (into Goths identity) and too strong. It would in fact fully counter all of mentioned hard Huskarl counters. The combo of Huscarls, Halbs, Arbalets, bbc would be probably the best post imp 1 civ combo in the game (with barrack production behind).
Kipchak completely destroy all infantry even Huscarls thanks to additional arrows and mobility. Against Huscarls you just need to micro a little bit more. Once you get 40-50 kipchak Goths can’t do anything.
If you watched Arena Clown Cup Finals of Viper (Aztecs) vs Tatoh (Cumans) Tatoh completely destroyed few eagles that Viper had. Eagles behave similarly to Huskarl there and lose against Kipchak with Hussar spam in front. This is what I experienced myself as well.
I didn’t mention Italians with Condottieri because they lose to champions of Goths in terms of both - production and cost-efficiency so it’s not a 1 unit counter to Goths.
At the same time I thought about putting them as a counter to Goth because of their arbalest + Condottieri combination. Which is special because of no need to go through maa-swordsman-2h-champions upgrades when making Condottieri.
11
I’m well aware about the 1v1 Goth DM culture. After all I’m in top 100 players on DM ladder.
My comment on that would me: adapt? wouldn’t a small change be interesting to see?
But yeah, I don’t think we should not change anything about the civ just because players are used to how the civ has been so far.
Goths are bad against non-meta civs as well. The best 5 civs maybe are: Chinese, Mayans, Vikings, Aztecs and Britons, Goths were picked to kill Mayans. Which non-meta civ can Goths kill beside Koreans?
Against those it’s mostly decided before castle age on this level. Infinite militia, double barrack maa with skirms later if needed (still in feudal age). In castle age huscarls (if enemy crossbowman) or monk siege (if expensive UU) or swordsman (if infantry). Then in imp on equal eco you should always die as Goths because Goth’s HC are not good enough most of the time (almost always).
If against those:
2)
Britons (FU champions, eco)
Ethiopians (Shotels)
Indians (HC +1 range, eco)
Mongols (Steppe Lancers + Mangudai, eco)
Vietnamese (FU champs, eco)
usually you go drush or maa into wall into Huscarls asap.
Against those:
3)
Koreans (not FU champions, lack of eco bonuses)
Mayans (no direct Huscarl counter)
usually you just want to boom and make it a late game but you still start with militia/maa then skirms if necessary.
So Goths still have the chance against the number 1 civs but it’s all in early on which works less than more and then against number 2 civs you should win much more often than not and then against number 3 civs you should always win.
So if we assume 40% winrate for #1, 55%winrate for #2, 80% winrate for #3 the overall 50% winrate makes sense to me considering the fact that Mayans have 10% playrate and Britons have 7% playrate.
I think the same applies for lower ratings than 1650+, it’s just even more people intentionally pick civs from the pool of civs number 2 and number 3. So there’s a lot of people intentionally picking Goths to counter those civs. I used to be one of those people actually.
Furthermore, Goth’s maa spam works much better in lower rated games.
I think I’ll agree with @AlightJewel1130’s thoughts about Ethiopians, Britons, Mongols, Saracens, and Indians… because he is a better player and he makes fair arguements without linking aoe2stats.io winrates.
Actually I have always thought this way. It is pretty frustrating to have a civ lost/win. Goths are the extreme case.
People are asking for a general HC buff. Maybe locked behind a tech to choose what civs get it. What do you think about giving the goth this general buff directly?
Regarding the huskarls nerf I got the point of negative MA, it can definitely work…
The win rates issue is really annoying and unfortunately it suggests people very wrong conclusions. When a good player speaks ignoring the win rates is always well accepted from my side
You’re right! I missed it - the difference is mainly in having that eco advantage when comparing Vietnamese to Koreans against Goths. Thank you for noticing.
[quote=“AlightJewel1130, post:1, topic:91868”]
situations where I would say Goths should always win.
Mayans (no direct Huscarl counter)[/quote]
I’m not a 1600+ player, but am interested to understand this better. According to the combat simulator, Mayan two-handed swordsmen are far from disastrous against elite huskarls. Is it getting this wrong in a big way, and if so, what happens in practice to make it play out differently to its prediction?
