Bulgarians tweak

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

Recently watched OrnLu’s State of the Civs video 1. He notes that while Bulgarians have been technically buffed over 2023 (Gambesons and dismounted Konnik buff), they are in a relatively worse position than other civilizations.

I suggest that Kreposts in addition to training Konniks, also train Scout Cavalry, Knight, and Cavalry Archer lines, similar to how the Donjon trains Spearman. Not only do they train them, they train them 50% faster than Stables and Archery Ranges (so Scout Cav and Knight lines train in 20 seconds instead of 30 seconds). Keep in mind that they do not exactly replace Stables since neither units can be upgraded here, nor can Husbandry-Bloodlines be researched.

If Bulgarians are all about aggression and taking the lead in offense, this bonus will help them WITHOUT buffing the civilization as a whole (since nothing new is being added). In my opinion, the civilization is already good in post Imp with good cavalry roster and great siege options. The Kreposts simply help in the production of mounted units during the mid game, while also adding to defense/offense. In the late game, it’s still better to add Stables and Archery Ranges, or maybe go for two-in-one Kreposts for the expense of limited stone better spent on Castles for Trebs.

2 Likes
2

My 2 cents on this -

The food discount on siege unit upgrades bonus comes way late in the game to compensate the lack of xbow. I think their castle age scorpion play needs to be buffed instead of Imperial Age food saving. Change the bonus from SW techs cost 50% less food to scorpions move 20% faster and upgrade cost -50%. Scorpions base speed should also be buffed 0.65 → 0.70.

1 Like
3

or they can get siege upgrade 1 age earlier starting castle age to make the tech food discount in SW useful

2 Likes
4

I think that a nice buff would be to allow elite Konnik to be researched in kreposts.

3 Likes
5

Cumans already have Castle Age Capped Ram. And other two will be broken in Castle Age.

6

Buff Konnik’s ROF from 2.4 to 2.2 (After Stirrups it is 1.6), Honestly after introduction of Savar and Monaspa, Konnik’s fire power isn’t really strong anymore, and that at least means they won’t suck hard without Stirrups, Still isn’t at the same level as DE release Konniks.

6 Likes
7

I thinknyou could just buff the blacksmith bonus in castle and imperial age

Make it “Blacksmith techs cost -50/75/100% less food in feudal/castle/imperial age”

8

Their biggest weak point is in the early to mid castle age, so that is where they need the most help.

image

However, I do not think it can be to the Konnik or the Krepost, since those can be very hard to counter early on, and if you made getting to them too easy or incentivized, it could leave them weak against their counters, but also give them an overpowered rush that is impossible to stop at lower levels. Bear in mind, the Krepost already gives the benefit of a stable and 4 houses; subtract the wood cost and build time from those things and you get a net cost of basically 25 resources for the power of 4 guard towers.

If I’m being completely honest, avoiding early Kreposts is probably one of the big mistakes people are already making; buffing them much more could very rapidly become a youpudding rush type situation.

If I were to buff them, it would be to their mediocre Town Center bonus, just to help them survive their weak stage and get through to their strength.

A few ideas:

  • Town Watch and Town Patrol also affect Villagers.
  • Town Centers research defensive technologies 50% faster(Loom, Town Watch, Town Patrol)
  • Town Centers fire more accurately(have Ballistics by default)

For that matter, given their weak archer line, just giving them Ballistics for free overall could be a reasonable move, helping to make their cavalry archers more viable early on, plus making their Kreposts more valuable as a defensive structure without improving their strength against buildings or walls. But it could fall into the same problem I highlighted early on, in making them too hard to counter.

3 Likes
9

And add ring archer armor. It doesnt get the full thrust of its bonus with a tech missing unlike Spanish.

Highly doubt that this breaks Cav archers who arent bolstered by stirrups anyway

Why do all the smith bonus civs miss xbow

3 Likes
10

thats different thats capped ram, I’m talking about siege upgrade 1 age earlier starting castle age. so meaning onager and heavy scorp available in castle age but stil lrequires upgrade and even discount its still heft sum to go into so the benefit may not be as much people think it gives.

all it does it might grant usage in some niche situation which is what im after, and may create some interesting game play

11

I think all they need is xbow upgrade. It would make them more unpredictable and opponent would need to invest more in the blacksmith to counter, which would allow Bulgarians to catch up in resources relative to the opponent.

12

Hera had a best civs tierlist (not arabia, but all maps, standard settings (or maybe 9 vill start…was was right after his TCI tournament which was 9 vill start)) and he put Bulgarians near the very bottom.

And just to be clear Hera’s list is a competitive list, where as ornlu’s video (which the OP is referencing) incorporates a lot of identity considerations, qualitative design considerations, etc. So I’m not saying Ornlu is wrong, just going to use something Hera said, but make it clear this isn’t the type of argument I’m making.

Per Hera (much simplified), Bulgarian late game, your bonuses push you toward a double melee comp but those don’t work well.

And something he said about the Lithuanians in that same video I think is also insightful. Basically you hit castle and you either want to go monastery->monks + army to pick up relics, or put down a couple TC’s to benefit from the +100 F, but it’s difficult to take advantage of both.

There are elements that don’t complement each other but rather are two different somewhat mutually exclusive strategies.

If you want to take advantage of bagains AND stirrups you’re forced into a double melee comp…or I guess, you could be a fancy pants and have THS with CA and siege in the back with Stirrups Hussar raiding. Sounds like teching into quite a few disparate things, especially CA, but at leas the militia line is free and BS upgrades cost less food. But it’d be a double gold comp.

but having CA as the backline to THS seems kind of like a waste. sure they can get outta dodge if things go wrong, but they’re intended purpose is to be a more expensive arb (i know bulgarians don’t have access, just a comparison) and not really use their mobility. sure CA have +1 atk so not a complete loss.

Maybe you could try CA with Hussar, but then Bagains is useless.

It seems to me that Bulgarians have bonuses/UTs that are individually good, but don’t complement each other that well. If Bulgarians were doing well in the ladder I’d be less critical. ok, they’re UTs aren’t complementary but either is an acceptable route to victory. Well seemingly not so much.

So you have a civ that by nature of having no eco bonus AND having cheaper blacksmith upgrades, almost forces you to play aggressively to inflict damage, which makes you predictable and thus harder to inflict damage, but then by late game, you basically have to choose which UT you don’t want to take advantage of. If they had an eco bonus then maybe it’d help either strategy, and make early aggression less obvious and therefore hopefully more effective when you opt to go for it, and the late game UT semi-non-compatibility wouldn’t be as much of an issue.

Alternatively, you could try changing them so their bonuses/UTs gel better together, but IDK what that would be. Bulgarians seem like a civ that are less than the sum of their bonuses. As it is right now, you’re choices are double melee comps, double gold comps, and/or comps that don’t take full advantage of your UTs, all on the back of a weaker eco.

Maybe…have bagains be reworked into a bonus (can’t have milita or MAA with +5 melee armor, but something like +1/+3/+5 maybe, tho it’s kinda similar to the Teuton bonus) and then a different UT to spice up their CA??? maybe kamandaran for CA??? then if you went THS + CA or Konnik/Cavalier + CA then it wouldn’t be double gold comp. and CA and cav work better together than cav and infantry so the UTs wouldn’t be as mutually exclusive. While I think that would work better IDK if bulgarians being pushed toward CA is good for their identity, and it’s also potentially fixing a problem by just buffing them, which seems like an inelegant solution.

Steppe Lancer could help situationally and be better for their identity than CA. SL can be good from breaking through palisades. Gives you a second chance to inflict damage in early castle. I know giving SL to more civs is a divisive topic tho and it doesn’t really address the semi-non-complementary UT issue.

1 Like
13

As I said to entice Cav archer play give em the last archer armor. With all the smithing discounts it’s not so painful to spec into them.

Giving CA Stirrups however would be way too much

1 Like
14

Bulgarians seem to have weaknesses in early to mid game. Similar with Magyars, they have no starting eco bonus. Both are offensive civ, but Magyars take an advantage of getting melee attack upgrade for free without building blacksmith first and having discounted scout cavalry, followed with the available of Crossbowmen upgrade and faster Cavalry Archer production. Bulgarians as offensive civ without eco bonus couldn’t compare with those. They can rely on 3 militia with free man-at-arms upgrades which is predictable.

I’d like to give some ideas for Bulgarians without changing the civ identity and deviating from the history, as follows:

  1. Blacksmith and Siege Workshop upgrades cost 40% cheaper (from -50% food).
  2. Sheperds drop off +15% more food. (This can also be an eco bonus for Georgians if needed)
  3. Mangonel-lines deal additional projectiles (Mangonel has 9 instead of 6, Onager has 12 instead of 8, Siege Onager has 15 instead of 10).
  4. Dismounted Konniks base attack reduced from 12 to 11
  5. Elite Konniks reload time reduced from 2.4 to 2.2
  6. Elite Konniks HP increased from 120 to 125
    (Since the Dismounted Konnik buff, Castle Age Konniks arguably can incredibly beat almost all cavalry UU by far, but the Elite version begin falling apart compare to other cavalry UU or strong Paladins)

General Change:

  1. Two-Handed Swordmen HP increased from 60 to 65

There is also another trivia idea than “Point 2” to give them an early economy bonus where:

Starting Town Center generates trickle amount of food (1/2/3/4 food in Dark/Feudal/Castle/Imperial age). It generates slightly slower than Gurjaras bonus.

Or

Town Centers slowly generate food (2 food). This will be in accordance with their cheaper TC.

15

Capped is also a siege upgrade that is available in Castle Age for Cumans.

With 50% discount, both are pretty cheap upgrade. Don’t forget Onager has additional range over Mangonel.

16

Agreed, except for CA. I’d rather not have the building make both a frontline and a backline, that just seems lazy to me. Understanding the upgrades need to be made elsewhere, it’s still not something I want to see out of the Krepost.

I’d rather see it make both the 2h’s and the cav out of the krepost than having cav and CA. Since it technically already makes infantry units and cavalry units anyway (in the Konnik) it fits better in my head.

17

It is nice but too late where help is not needed.

I agree.

Laughs in Chinese Arbalester. Does it count though?

Let’s see from where pierce damage comes for bad archer line civs:

Teutons, Franks = HC and Castle.
Celts = Scorpion. Mangonel does melee damage but I guess that counts. Tower and Castle also have a very weak dps boost.
Spanish = Conqs. Also have HC.
Slavs = Same as Celts.
Bulgarians = Krepost and scorpion/mangonel???
Romans = Scorpions.

Seem like no bad foot archer civ use CA for the pierce damage. I guess Bulgarians can be the unique one then. Maybe instead of cheaper siege upgrade, they can get smoother Scout → CA or MAA → Archer → (Knight) → CA transition.

Also those who don’t have HC, have better than generic siege/scorpion in Castle Age. Bulgarians don’t. They rely only on Krepost.

18

You could simply push Siege Engineers to Castle Age. It won’t be OP, and it’s just one upgrade instead of two (Onager and Heavy Scorpion).

19

Really, why not give them free Ballistics? They’re basically the ONLY civ that could get that bonus and not have it be broken, because by the time you have enough CA for it to matter, they’re already past their weak point and you probably could have afforded it anyway.

And it would make their Kreposts much more effective against archers, making them a more potent defensive building, right when they need it.

3 Likes
20

From where do you think Bulgarians pierce damage should come?

  • Krepost
  • Scorpion/Mangonel
  • Cavalry Archer
  • Hand Cannon
  • Other
0 voters