Just wanted to pose the honest question: did Lithuanians really need such an intense buff?
The Letis was a very underwhelming and thus underused UU, sure. But Lithuanians were not weak in any capacity. I think even from my personal experience (and I go random every match) I almost always won with them in both 1v1s and team games. They will really need a nerf in the future now, thanks to their recent update. I would suggest a similar approach to the Bulgarians. Nix Paladin. And consider dropping the relic bonus down or converting it to a percentage.
Now the Goths. Why in the world did an early feudal powerhouse need free loom? Did we not learn our lesson from AoC when this exact same bonus was given to the Aztecs?
Most of the balance changes this patch were great. But these two seem rather short sighted and I am curious if the full balance team even had a consensus on them.
No chance of this happening - then they’d basically have Farimba Cavaliers, but dependent on relics instead of techs. While I do think Lithuanians were slightly overbuffed, this is an easy fix for future patches (make the Leitis cost 10 more gold or so) if they become too dominant. The Tower Shields buff was necessary to make it more than an overpriced, underwhelming tech, and to make them a strong trash civ. I do think Lithuanians are and have been somewhat underrated given how strong Paladins are, and that 4 relic Post-Imp Lithuanian paladins with +8 attack blow all other paladins out of the water by a large margin, so they may be due a nerf in the future, but I’d leave it up to time and testing to confirm this before I insist on any changes.
When did Goths become a Feudal powerhouse? They’re worse in Feudal and Castle than they’ve ever been since AoK, and only return to their previous (Feudal) power level by Imp. What they can do with infantry in Feudal is not much stronger than what Malians, Japanese, Slavs, Burmese or Aztecs can do, and all those civs have better eco bonuses and more flexibility.
The Aztecs also already had a strong eco bonus with their carry capacity, and have a production speed boost (17.5%) that is almost as good as the Goths’ early game barracks boost, but for their range as well. There’s a difference between balancing a civ with multiple strong Dark Age eco bonuses (see: free loom Aztecs, pre-patch Persians), and giving an eco bonus to a bad civ that has never had a real eco bonus (Goths).
Granted, I don’t love the Goth change, since it does seem kind of random, and would have preferred a buff to their Feudal/Castle and/or Imp, and/or a modest hunting related bonus in Dark instead, but for now, I’ll take free loom.
Tournaments are not equal to balance. Even pro players know and have discussed that.
It makes their MAA rush that much more powerful. The exact same situation that the Aztecs had back in the day. They are pretty powerful in Fedual in the right hands on an open map right now.
Frankly your tone is also abysmal. Check yourself.
I think if you left Letis as is in the new patch and removed Paladin, they would be a far more balanced civ overall personally. I would prefer just not making the Letis a powerful unit. Just a discount was all that was really needed to it as I don’t think it was under powered in general. I also can’t say I have a problem with Tower Shields. It’s more so that the fully upgraded Lithuanian Paladin is beyond deadly in a team game moreso than a 1v1. In a 1v1, the pop cap and production cost makes a full halb counter effective.
I find Goths to be very powerful if played correctly through a M@A rush. Even some of the pro players have utilized it since the recent buffs to them to great effect. The Goths lack a strong economic bonus, yes, but giving them loom free gives them too much of an opportunity in my opinion.
And yet my point remains. If Lithuanians were as good as you say they would see regular tournament use like other popular civs. Heck I rarely see them used even when streamers are just doing random maps.
And the game has evolved from back in the aoc days.
Either way fact remains that goths aren’t a feudal powerhouse either.
Yes in a game where the rules are different. Where you can use the extra food to rush out some trash units and overwhelm your opponent with numbers
I honestly expect that Lithuanians will be banned in future empire wars tournaments for the same reason that Chinese are. Too much of an early advantage.
That does not mean Lithuanians are great overall though. How much usage do you see of them in nac3 or hc3? How often do you honestly see streamers playing them?
Much like how goths and turks are much stronger in post imp death match maps. Because you’re already through the hard part.
That I agree with. But up to this point we haven’t seen them much period. Based on my viewing Lithuanians were the least played of the new civs. I expect that to change going forward
Frankly Empire Wars is a bit of a mess. When I first learnt about it I thought it was a super casual game mode for people who don’t want to bother going through Dark age. I was really suprised to learn it was supposed to make AoE an esport 11
Lithuanians also had the second worst winrate, after Portuguese.
I think they should just drop paladin, and give Leitis a massive buff, so they become dominant in the Castle Age, like the Turks.
Why lose Paladins though? Leitiai got buffed in the last patch (hopefully not too much) but there are already so few Paladin civs, if you remove it from Lithuanians, we would only have Cumans as Last Khan civ with Paladins afterwards.
There is 10 of them, there should only be 5-7. It should be rare upgrade for civs which have only Knight as a focus with very few support troops, and eveything else is not an option.
Nerf leitis or relic bonus instead. Paladin is needed, because is trainable from stables, unlike castle-dependent leitis.
Like I have already explained to you before in other topics, you can’t replace paladin with unique unit, because training unique units is dependent on castles and this makes them too hard or even impossible (when out of stone) to train. While currently with lithuanians I can train paladins from many stables, after your supposed change I would be forced to be stuck to (often untrainable) elite leitis.
Stop trying to redesign this 20 years old game. This is AOE 2, in which version AOC 7 out of 18 civilizations had paladin. Because we currently have 35 civilizations, we should accordingly have 13-14 civilizations with paladin. Paladin is a fun and powerful unit, which many people love. Don’t make game worse for these people by removing that unit.
Go with your game redesign idea to AOE 4 forums or create a mod without paladins and see, whether anyone wants to play it.
I think nerfing the relic bonus any further would just make it bad, its difficult enough already to get 4 relics in a 1v1. Liths don’t really have anything other than cavalry, trash units and I guess monks going for them; bad siege, below average range other than skirms and HCs
Leitis and Pally roles are completely different, while having Cavalier and Leitis would be basically having twice the same unit with different prices, having Pally and Leitis means they can go either a tanky version of a heavy cavalry (Paladin) while also being OH GOD SO EXPENSIVE both in time and resources, or for a more “glass cannon-like” heavy cav unit which is cheaper and faster to upgrade, but harder to mass up bc of castles. Lithuanians TT is ok right now, they have a great one way to be played while also having a decent trash to fall upon in extreme cases, they’re like britons, but instead they play stables, a bit of monks and no Siege ram. if anything, either they’re ok and viable right now, or they need Siege engineers and nothing else. this being seen from a 1v1 perspective, TG-wise I feel like they’re a mandatory pocket (I am trying to say that they can’t go for side positions) and that even if they boom correctly, it is still too eco heavy to try and go for both Elite Leitis and Paladin (25-30 pop trade considered).
Once again: Lithuanians are great right where they are right now and, if anything, i’d like to buff their siege, tho it is not a “must”.