my problem with this is the issue with them is the early game, not the mid game.
i really like this, half off food for eco bonuses would be a heck of a boost.
seems a bit of an overlap with mongols, but frame delay on cav archers hsould be reduced period
no cost on siege workshop techs seems op, i do think reduced would be viable, but again i would like to point out that most games are ending before imperial age these days, so how much would this really help?
this should honestly go to Koreans.
Free bloodlines is too much of a buff. Early 65 HP scout rush will be extremely OP.
How about -30% discount for stable techs?
sounds like a good magyars buff.
i stand by my earlier buff to Bulgarians - reduce the cost of the barracks, stable, archery range, and blacksmith to 100 wood each. seeing as they are kind of a do everything civ (cav archers, cavalry, infantry) it synergies well and saves them a decent chunk of wood in the early game.
I understand your point but argument like âBulgarians should be buffed because they are not drafted at all in KOTD3â doesnât enough reason I think.
Pros or near-pro level players participated in KOTD3 drafted civ because they think certain civs are fit to apply their strategy/ or they are accustomed to play certain civ that they can perform their best for their civ.
I think civ drafted by pros are not necessarily stronger than civ not drafted. Yeah, Bulgarians are not picked in current pro-level meta because they lack Crossbow and it is Huge. But surely Bulgarians have nice stirrup Hussar which is The Best Hussar in the game (except Magyar Hussar which is UU). Also Krepost drop is nice strategy. They are not top-tier but definitely much better than Korean/Portuguese/Tatars in the majority of the player base. (49.5% winrate in all players (near 50%), winrate slightly dropped in the high-level players though).
My point is, KOTD3 is the tournament of only one Map, limited for World top64 player, and the preference (not actual performance) of the civ of players cannot be the reason for balance argument. We cannot force them to choose certain civ. They want to choose civ to fit their strategy.
Only slight minor buff for Bulgarians such as reduce Blacksmith cost -75w(similar to Saracens) are viable but I donât think Bulgarians are that bad to give significant buff. Bulgarians tech are limited and they are predictable, but several other civs are also predictable I think.
I dont think magyars need any buff. They are a very versatile civ.
I liked a small buff proposed by someone: Magiars can get food from predator animals.
That buff for bulgarians could work, of course, but it overlaps with malians
how about their crap performance outside of just kotd3 as well? kotd3 is just the indication, the fact is, that if bulgarians were a decent civ, they would at least been drafted in kotd3 but they arenât and rarely see use in other tournamentseither.
yeah but literally only 4 civs have not been drafted or banned at all. and it goes beyond KotD3.
yet they have knights and a bunch of knight civs are always picked.
games donât last until imperial much anymore, and frankly hussar arenât trading well against most units in the game.
sub 48% winrate on Arabia though. and again, youâre using âall playersâ which includes people who donât micro. as a matter of a fact, thats where Bulgarians highest winrate is. sub 1k elo, the higher the skill goes up, the lower the win rate gets for them.
only one map, which is 60% of all games played. and those top 64 in the world, base there preference on performance, because cash is on the line.
and yet for a civ that should be favored on an open map, they have only been drafted 4 times in KotD3, and there winrates on ladder are subpar.
i actually went a different direction for them for my proposed buff, especially when predator animals are so minor these days on maps, hunted animals last 20-30% longer.
Malians get a much smaller bonus, but to a wider variety of buildings. Bulgarians get a larger bonus to a narrower field of buildings.
Too dangerous
Better reserve this for Tatars
Good option
Too much overlap with Mongols and lesser frames should be as afix for all cavalry archers.
100% support this one, medieval Bulgarians were good at siege.
Not sure I like further food bonus for Tatars honestly. Would have them supported differently. They already have sheep lasting longer.
Btw these are only a summery of things I saw there I do not completely agree with most. If I have to chose from though its exactly that one.
But Tatars are like in a much worse situation than Bulgarians right now, another significant bonus could work, and Tatar units are too food hungry.
Again, civ draft is just âpreferenceâ and not necessarily match the actual strength of the civ. Tournament draft itself cannot be a reason for balance argument.
Yeah. But other knight civ except Spanish can use Archer-Crossbow play if they want to. Only viable to MAA or Scout-Knight means they lack flexibility and pros prefer civ has flexibility such as Chinese. We cannot fix this problem unless just giving them crossbow or make them overpower.
47.8% in 1250-1650 ELO range and 45% in 1650+ Elo range. Still much higher than Portuguese/Korean which has sub 45% winrate in all Elo range (Even below 40% in 1650+ Elo range for both civs)
Game donât last long in most case doesnât mean that you can neglect imperial age fight. Imperial age fight is not uncommon for the game between players with equal skill level, game ended early when there are huge skill difference between players. And closed map such as Arena/Fortress is also included in current map pool in which imperial Age fight is important. Hussar is most important unit in Post-imp, it is cheapest raiding unit.
I also think that balance should be primarily focus on the Top players of the world, but we donât have enough data for that. Bulgarians are not top-tier but have much better performance than several civs even in 1650+ Elo range. I think slight buffs for Bulgarians are OK, but should not make them overpower and should not make their imperial age more powerful which is already great in current situation. And other civs such as Koreans/Portuguese deserve buff more than Bulgarians.
how? the core of their army is the Keshik and the Cav Archer.
Hussars, Steppe Lancers?
Im not too sure who is worse tbh. But I think Tatars problem is more or less CA problem. Fixing/improving CA would have them be a better civ. Bulgarians are infantry/cavalry civ (more food hungry) with some siege support similar to slavs, teutons who both have good food bonuses.
and if you want to win, your preference is strong civs. and its not just one tournament that iâm basing this on, its multiple tournaments + ladder play.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2mz0f5F2t8 Bulgarians, C Tier
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI74BwK5E7M Bulgarians, B Tier (and many civs below them have been buffed since)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yniRBaG11Ig Bulgarians, Below Average
but more and more of them are going scouts into knights, something to think about.
they still have plenty of options besides archers.
and i think both of those civs need buffs too. i would point you at my proposed buffs thread where i buff all 3 of them and more.
i agree, but the point is, if games arenât getting to imperial age, a strong imperial age means nothing. and if a civ is suffering because of it, the weakness needs to be addressed. does it need to be REMOVED completely? no. thus why iâm fine with bulgarians having crappy archers, but they should at least have a shot to be seen competively.
even pro games are ending quickly.
pro games are proving this wrong left and right.
Arena makes up 12% of all games played, how would you feel if your favorite civ was balanced around a map you might see 1 time in 8 games? and if i raise my ELO above all, to even 1250+ it falls to anywhere between 7 and 9% of all games played. sound fair to you?
agreed. they donât need much at all.
and if you look at my proposed buffs youâd see that. at most for Bulgarians i would give them an early eco style bonus that synergizes with teh fact that the civ has lots of options, and reduce the cost of their barracks, stables, archery range, and blacksmith to 100 (maybe 125) wood.
this means they can invest more wood into farms or have less people on wood and more farmers, and more food certainly fits the bulgarian playstyle.
Steppe Lancers rarely see use, we arenât seeing much late game, and you only see scouts in feudal, not seeing a lot of light cav in castle age.
???
Tatars are MUCH stronger than Bulgarians.
Even Portuguese have better bonuses than Bulgarians.
Yes it is a minor nerf but the supplies reduction helps with pumping out more of them 
Also the LS needds love in general in my opinion.
I think the main issue is, that they dont have any ranged option between feudal and late castle age. Going for archers is a no-go since they are a dead end. Even to counter infantry you have better options with your own m@a with some ressources/time saved in the upgrade to make more numbers.
Without archers though they cant use one of their biggest bonus = faster researching blacksmiths to gain momentum, since you dont research anything else in the blacksmith in feudal except archer upgrades. In scout or m@a war those dont matter really since there numbers >> upgrades. And when you research upgrades during aging up between feudal and castle it doesnt matter how fast you need for those since you avoid battles anyhow to get your other upgrades also. And that means you use your bonus also only at beginning of castle age. So the only thing Bulgs have is to do m@a towers in dark age feudal something that has been nerfed with DE and is possibly one of the worst feudal openings and so one-dimensional everyone sees it coming.
They need feudal archers, since they cant do xbow but have no ranged option unlike their buddy civ spanish. Xbow isnt added since it would make their archers too strong. They would have xbow with thumbring and bracer, somethign that the other similiar civs dont have like: Aztecs, Teutons, celts, Slavs but Bulgarians already are stronger in the cavalry and CA department compared to those. I can see that these would hurt their siege, cav infantry identity too much.
So they need a motivation to use feudal archers but they should not end with Xbow but rather CAâŠ
If only the civ had the unique ability to mount and unmount horses and have even brought the stirrups to europe to make mounting easier so, you know what I mean 
â â â â â â â â lets go ham and let Bulgarian archers be mounted in the krepost (maybe only after stirrups, but could be too late) for +15w/+15g per unit and no additional traning time.
You know that problem you are a civ with steppe heritage and desperately want to make Cavalry archer, but your feudal archers just dont cant get on that freaking horse. And training people that can get on horses is so expansive and they need so long to learn the ability you can only make very few of them early on.Here is the solution. Stirrups help every nooby being trained to shoot silly arrows to get on that horse. Stirrups so easy yet so effectful. Stirrups now also in your city.
You have bunch of hurt units from feudal wars, why not make them CA and they are insta healed for a little fee we want to have for that. Imagine what fun you can have with CA when you can mass them in feudal already Nobody would claim anymore that CA are bad if you have 20 in mid castle age already Man that would be so fun
And that is what Bulgarians lack. Fun, they are just the most boring civ in the game on any map. And that needs to be changed with top priority so that they are used again.
And if it is too strong, you introduced enough new parameters to balance it out.
The problem with Bulgarians isnât the late game or stone gathering as suggested with these ideas. They also donât need super cheap siege techs (which might make sense historically) because they are the most expensive techs and saving more than 3000 res with a 50% reduction only IN ADDITION to the militia line savings is not justified.
Letâs break down where Bulgarians are good at to see what kind of buff would benefit them.
Bulgarians start to shine in late Castle Age but never get there in 1v1. Suggestions that buff the late game/Imperial Age wouldnât do anything except for maybe team games.
They need an early buff in Dark or latest in Feudal Age. The wood bonus on Blacksmith, Barracks, Archery Range, Stable would help for WAY better counter options, fast Blacksmith upgrades, better farm availability, faster TC drop in early Castle because of the wood savings. This even indirectly helps the siege line.
In my opinion this is the best option to buff Bulgarians.
Also the overlap with Malians is not as severe and can be compared with the -15% siege for Slavs and -20%g on siege for Portuguese. One of them is more specific and therefore saves more res.
this is exactly what i propose. make them 100 (or 125 if need be) wood each and you can easily see them saving 150 wood right there, if not more, just by the feudal age, it doesnât sound like a lot, but it helps immensely.