Bulgarians are at the bottom of every civ tier list and are probably one of the worse civ for competitive play in the game right now. Every pro agrees, and though Bulgarians have their niche (black forrest team games), they are not even top tier in that scenario.
I propose one or two of the following changes:
• Siege Workshops cost -50%
• Supplies also affects stable units
• Konniks are trained in 12s at castles (still 16s at kreposts)
• Receive hoardings
Heavy scorpions available in castle age.
Scorpions cost -40% wood.
I think this may compensate a bit for their lacking xbow
That are some weird changes. The supplies one sounds a little too strong (better than berbers discount and stacks with stirrups) the siege one fine, and the other irrelevant at pro level.
What is the reasoning behind these changes ? What do you think the civ needs to be more successful (without being broken) at pro level ? And how are these changes targeting reaching this goal ?
The most reasonable takes I read until now were:
But your change proposals do not belong to these proposals.
Someone else proposed the idea that infantry armor could affect cavalry, which would mean cavalry armor techs would be removed. This could replace the cheaper Blacksmith techs, as you’re already getting incredible savings from not needing a whole set of armor techs. It would also make the Konnik much easier to upgrade.
In addition, I proposed that the Bulgarians receive a bonus related to pig generation, as both a historical reference to Ivaylo and a balance adjustment giving them an early eco boost. Still pretty proud of that.
I dont want this change. I would much rather have 50% food discount, as it helps for the skirms/scouts play.
I feel the cheap armor tech for infantry is useless because the LS are weak. Malays free armor is good because it helps early feudal and for a mid/late game karambit transition.
Dismounted konnik armor is not important in the mid game, it is mainly about the mouunted unit stats.
This change only gives a -50f in Feudal and -50f-50g in castle age (difference between infantry armor and cavalry armor), which is worse than the current blacksmith bonus.
This is a more meaningful bonus. I am not a fan because I would like Bulgarians to have no eco bonus. But this would work better.
Not sure how much it would affect the tournament plays though.
Weitd thoughts:
Team bonus: military buildings research speed +50%
Does this include blacksmith ? Or only barracks, ranges, stable and workshop ?
I feel that current bonus is mucg better for 1v1 if the blacksmith is not counted as a military building.
But for team games, this might be interesting as Bulgarians pocket. Not sure whether it is enough to favor them compared to a paladin civ or a castle age knights spam civ (khmer, slav, berber).
Gains xbow. It won’t make them very strong but at least they will have a usable archery range. Forget the reason that this game is not “age of archers”.
Just buff the blacksmith bonus
Something like 60/80/100 less food should be good
Civs without eco bonuses are almost always terrible, unless they can pull off early aggression or have a lot of options (thinking of the Magyars and Byzantines here), so the Bulgarians really do need an eco bonus if they’re going to be viable.
Yea I was thinking about TGs, that can speed up the paladin time which may be a big plus.
(Also buffs units that take ages to upgrade, yes I am talking about you elite skirms 
)
Including blacksmith as well
A great buff, will be perfect for the civ.
Also a good one.
Very small and I would prefer something else.
No, doesn’t fit.
1 and 2 are perfect bonuses that fit them.
Its just the same net resources saved as Berbers but Berbers vills work a bit faster because of their extra speed. Bulgarians have 0 eco bonus and they need to pay for the supplies to get this benefit. So I don’t think its too strong.
The civ gets no economic benefit. Blacksmith tech discount and being faster has a timing window. So they’re forced to do damage in that timing window which is too difficult at all levels. But supplies benefitting stable units is a long term bonus. Since its not a free bonus, there’s some level of decision making involved and it won’t make them broken at pro level.
Sometimes economic bonus or military discount will indirectly address such weaknesses. In this case they’ll be able to do more scouts/knights, do both forward and defensive siege workshop, begin Krepost rush sooner. Indirectly it helps alleviate some of these issues.
I’m glad someone made this thread. I was about to make one.
Before suggesting any change, we have to consider they are not a bad civ for ranked. It is just tournament maps in RM settings (They are top tier in EW) where they are disgusted by pros. So whatever you suggest, make sure that attracts the pros.
None of these changes fix the areas where they are weak (Mid game mostly), also the Supplies one is totally OP, Who thinks that 65f Hussars that attack 33% faster is even close to be balanced??? Even a late castle age 45f 33% fast attacking knight spam will be totally OP.
The Berbers 10% movement speed is not that strong. Bulgarians save more with blacksmith (cavalry armor and maybe skirm) upgrades. Then Bulgarians will have stirrups. The syply investment is nit big compared to the fast return.
I am not 100% sure it is too strong, but Berbers are designed around this bonus to be a decent civ. Bulgarians are decent at mid elo without civ bonus. So I am suspicious it may be a little too strong.
But they do not need a long term bonus, do they ? I feel many players asking for a buff to “their” civ tend to ask for long term late game buffs when the civ struggle in the early to mid game, which is a wrong way to fix the problem.
Also, I dont think there is much decision making involved. If you go for cavalry units after Feudal, you would always research the tech.
And I dont think people playing Bulgarians want another knight spam civ. I expect them to be more konnik enjoyers.
The blacksmith saving are a decent bonus when you are aggressive, as in castle age you need to have some researched. You do not “have to” force into a timing attack against other civs with non-scaling bonus. I suppose that a lot of civs lack a scaling bonus.
True.
I could/should have listed “lack eco bonus”.
But I like “targeted changes”. All around changes (like a eco bonus) and random changes (like faster konnik production at castle) are more likely to make the civ than make it healthy.
Like, how did OT go from “Bulgarians are too weak at pro level” to “Lets give Bulgarians hoardings” ??
Same for the workshop discount. The change in itself sounds like a decent idea. But why ? We need players with deep understanding of high elo play to explain whether it is good or not for pro play. When I read “workshop discount” I think mainly about:
I don’t know, but if the reason for a buff is pro play, we have to pounder what are the civs shortcoming at pro level.
Or we can just thrw some random eco bonus that will help anyways. But how will the civ be at mid level given that it is currently fine without the said bonus ? Do we care bumping another civ over the top like Khmer and Persians to make more knight spam ? Or is there a plan to also nerf something about the civ helping them at mid elo but not mattering at high elo ?
How are they doing in Warlords? Are they picked? Or still neglected?
Its small initially but something that scales over time with increasing number of farmers and lumberjacks. Of course its one of the weakest economic bonus but Blacksmith upgrades being cheaper is a one-time event. That’s advantageous within a timing window. If you couldn’t get do damage to your opponent within that time frame, the other civ’s eco or military benefit will outweigh this advantage.
Unlike Japanese, Ethiopian or Mongol bonus, you need a castle for it. Bulgarians usually go for the Krepost rush so affording a castle and then stirrups is even more expensive. For at least 35 mins, you’ll have to take fights without Stirrups. If at all this becomes a problem after, Stirrups could be made more expensive or its effect could be reduced.
Its the same concept, very small eco benefit but meant to take advantage in terms of military aggression. Except the bonus for military aggression is not good enough.
Its more of a mid game buff, can even be used in feudal. It does help in the late game as well but the bigger advantage is in earlier stages when its difficult to afford military and eco simultaneously.
But supplies is available from feudal age. So you can get it as soon as you hit feudal before making the first scout. But you’d have to collect gold for it and spend 75 food. You can delay it until you know its a long feudal game and get it along with blacksmith upgrades on scout. Or skip it in feudal and go for it in castle age as you’ve mentioned. Or if its not a situation where knight rush will work, skip it altogether.
Ya I’m not saying this is the only way to balance the civ. But this change makes them a very good civ as well. You could add some additional eco benefit or stone gathering advantage, make changes to the Konnik and discard these changes which is perfectly fine.
There’s a lot of difference between getting +2 attack and armor around 20-25 mins when you have ~45 vills and getting those upgrades after 30 mins when you have 70+ vills. If you’re getting the upgrade too early and you don’t force an attack, the player who gets it after 5 or 10 minutes later will have a solid lead since they’d have invested those resources into eco addition.
Ya that’s random and I downvoted that change myself.
To the best of my knowledge pros definitely do some cavalry-siege push with Bulgarians in most matchups. Even otherwise they will definitely need defensive siege. If they can do 2 workshops or 1 workshop and 2 extra farms or 1 workshop and get bowsaw sooner, it will be a significant benefit over what they can currently do.
First of all, Khmer and Persians might do a knight spam but by no means are a broken civ. Persian winrates have consistently been in the 50-52% range at mid elos across multiple patches. Khmer has been a very mediocre civ at mid elos with 48-50% winrates. So despite buffing them its the good old
Secondly think of it this way - No matter what you do, at mid elos knight or a variant cavalry spam is going to be the most popular strategy. A couple of years ago it was just 2-3 civs clearly dominating the knight spam. Now its like around 5-6 civs. Buffing another civ just diversifies the options by making another civ compete with Franks and Huns at mid elos so that they dont become a clear winner.
Moreover even though all of those civs start off with a knight spam, as the game goes on the transition is still different. If you want knight rush itself to stop that’s going to need a whole lot of fundamental changes to the game. Like making knights more expensive or weaker by default and requiring more upgrades to get them to their current stats or a change in resource collection rates and starting food from natural sources.
But given the current popularity of knights at mid elos, I don’t think “another knight spam” civ is a good enough argument to keep a civ relatively weaker.
Totally picked once both qualifiers combined. And this is in an event where players draft upto 22 civs each set and have a diverse map pool.
What if kreposts could research Elite Konnik and/or unique technologies?
It would be interesting if Kreposts could research Stirrups.
Oh my… They are even more hated by pros than I thought. And this tournament has 21 maps in total if I recall correctly.