Currently Burmese are too dependant on their UU - Arambai.
Arambai are too strong in teamgames where you cannot deny enemy pocket from getting to them. Then enough arambai cannot get countered, they destroy walls, buildings, TCs without a problem.
The most notorious case is Arena where everyone has to react in castle age to Arambais from Burmese player instead of developing their eco. But the same case could be made for Arabia.
In 1v1s Burmese are more balanced but only because they are at strong disadvantage against archer and cav archer civs. Against other civs (like infantry civs) it’s more a civ win for Burmese. In this matter (of a counter or get countered civ) Burmese reminds me of Goths.
Even against archer civs Burmese prefers to get to Arambai - usually with addition of Hussar. It’s too one dimensional.
Which balance changes would you recommend to equalize the current situation (make Burmese less dependant on Arambai, better vs archer and cav archer civs and worse against all other civs in 1v1 and at the same time less forcing everyone on enemy team to react to Arambai in castle age)?
I was thinking about decreasing the range of castle age Arambai by 1 (down to 4 range - by comparison Mameluke has 3 range) - the Elite Arambai would have +1 range (back to 5 range).
In addition, potentially remove 1 PA from castle age Arambai (castle age Arambai 0 PA, Elite Arambai 2 PA).
Then improving their stable units, like giving a civ bonus to Burmese: Elephants +1 PA (keeping Unique Castle Tech which would could give +1/+1 on top).
I don’t think Burmese are unbalanced. Yes, they have very good matchups against infantry and cav civs and bad ones vs archer civs but it’s not the only civ in that respect. Arambai are indeed one of their main strenghts but it’s not that they always go for them. Although their archers are very lackluster from mid-castle age onwards they have quite some units they can for while being flexible in the choice of going very aggressive or defensive. Sometimes Burmese can feel awkward to play with while sometimes their compositions can be very effective which looks fine to me.
All this is rather directed towards 1v1 but I haven’t really heard of much complaints about them op in teamgames. Although their knights as pocket are solid and elephants can be very good later on, there are better pocket civs and the strenghts of arambai is very game-dependant. Plus, balancing with focus on teamgames is always kind of tricky and I don’t think civ balance should really consider arena tgs. On 1v1 arena they are pretty good but certainly not too strong.
Burmese are absolutely dependant on arambai, especially from intermediate to higher level. With them you always want to go for arambai, just like with spanish you always want to go for conqs.
Furthermore, in a tg enviroment talking about infantry makes little sense, since it is very rare
their eco bonus is geared more towards the arambai, while they arent bottom tier without it, you’re generally handicapping yourself if you dont go arambai.
as you know infantry is definitely not meta.
if you play often enough, you’ll see how often burmese go arambai, i literally cannot remember a game ive played where burma didnt go arambai…
seriously i was literally thinking of this this morning… how absolutely predictable(yet super strong) burma is and how we can help them do other things…
that PA sounds rough on a FU EBE though… 9PA is pretty hectic and might be too much, although their eles are super slow… but definitely helps the whole “weak to archer civs” thing
I would take 1 range and one attack away from arambai. They’re too easy to micro with current range, and they’re virtually unstoppable when massed.
I would give burmese skirms +1PA per age, starting in castle age. And maybe some bonus for their elephants. Something like more blast radious or trample damage
Nah, I don’t think this is the case. Escpecially against archer civs I wouldn’t make arambais. Even if you add mangonels your composition while have worse numbers for quite some time which really puts you in that awkward spot of your opponent building up huge archer numbers (that’s what you want to avoid as Burmese). Knight and skirm is better, here, because with knights your opponent’s archers will attack the knights while microing back so the skirm armor isn’t as important. Also with a strong maa into archers/skirms in feudal you’ll have way better chances against archer civs than working towards arambai. The other option would be to boom and defend with mangonels in castle age and then spam light cav/hussars later on. I think all these are better against archer civs than arambai.
Vs cav civs arambai are indeed very strong but since Burmese also have great monks and halbs even here arambai aren’t mandatory.
Look at 2k+ rated games and you’ll defintely see games where there aren’t arambai or there is only some arambai to secure the position at a certain point of the game. Either way, it’s not always the main unit.
I generally dont like UU dependent civs. Civs that are defined by their Unique Unit because it’s so powerful, but then have their eco or other options nerfed so they are “balanced” (aka win when they can get to UU, lose if they can’t) it makes those civs a bit too 1 dimensional I think. That said I don’t think you can fully get away from it either at this point.
But yeah I would be for a general buff to Burmese, paired with a nerf to Arambi. I really like the suggestion to just nerf the castle age Arambi, so that the Elite can still get to the current power level, and then maybe add an eco bonus to the civ? Just not sure free wood upgrade alone is all that much of a power spike.
As far as current unit options go I think they’re ok, knight play is viable, and archers in feudal and early castle aren’t bad, though no archer armor and thumb ring hurt for later stages a bit. The only thing is maybe give them siege rams? They don’t have much answer to massed arbs other then expensive EBE (which have been nerfed).
Arambi snowball is hard to stop… but also hard to get to.
Too strong as pocket in team games? Possible. Should the whole game change to address this? Unlikely.
We need different civs and maps for 1v1 and team games realistically. You can’t have all the civs balanced on all the formats simultaneously. Like DM only allows mirror…
Ahh, good point. Wasn’t thinking about that. Then the Burmese have a nice bonus in the wood upgrades to compliment that strategy. Very cool innovation.
1v1: You reach Castle Age. You already have enough res for a castle. You have vills on stone to make a second. Then all villagers on wood/gold and spam Arambai with siege up. It’s quite easy.
There has Always been the Idea FloĂźring around of making imperial skirm a generic Upgrade. I would das that burmese would be a good civ to get Imp skirm. Viet could make the See enemy starting positions as new Team Bonus and get a small new Bonus to compensate Like skirm Line Upgrades Cost -50%.
As for the elephants i dont know since they already got 2 Pa from howdah at First but IT was reduced so they appearently were too strong.
Funny, I never go Arambai… i think it’s one of the worst units in the game, dying to almost everything. Except Infantry.
Why not forcing burmese to react to your archers? archers kill arambai so easy…
Because generally the combo is arambai + mangos.
Furthermore, arambai are the mobile units, so is the archer player who needs to react or force a fight, but, once again, arambai should always be paired with some siege