It might be enough to make it balanced, but it wouldn’t change people’s opinions of it.
The main reason, I think, that it is unbalanced is it’s just so powerful. It’s basically 100% faster economy growth in feudal age plus a powerful defensive structure. The reward for using it is so strong that the risk or cost has to be just as game deciding. But if it was only half a TC it wouldn’t have to be so all-or-nothing.
I think they’re fine but maybe they are being played wrong. They are meant to be a slow, steamroll civ built around their 40% cheaper farms and their long-range castles.
Thing is housing space isn’t that expensive (though its not nothing - else Huns would not get played). Reduced pop cost bonuses are mostly impactful once players are at 200 pop (which is a weak point for the Malay - Malay don’t have the strongest units in imperial age and either need to press an already-existing advantage or drag it out into trash wars). Until then, it’s less wood saved than the Inca house bonus Losing plate armor is relevant in early imperial age, and losing free infantry armor is relevant for infantry play in all ages.
I believe Malay got free infantry armor because their land gameplay was too weak before they got it.
Most bonuses don’t have disadvantages, though there usually are situations they are less relevant for.
I’d keep the 5% bonus but tone down their late game by removing the following: CA, Halberdier, Husbandry, Plate Barding Armor, Block Printing, Crop Rotation, and Guilds.
This wouldn’t affect their strong early start or solid economy, but it would create a clear trade-off—if you don’t close out the game early, your late-game options become much more limited. I think that makes for a more interesting and balanced playstyle.
Or keep the regeneration ability only to the Knight line and Monaspa flat to 15 hp.
Britons need something, more than a buff something that bring them to the table. I think Yeomen could be rework for something else.
Cumans 2TC: Not a fan, everyone hates it. But if you remove this you have to give them a really good early eco bonus to compensate. (What about villagers train 20% faster starting in Feudal Age?)
So in other words, by completely killing their late game (and hurting their castle age too). And removing CA (a unit Romans don’t use all that much because they’re missing thumb ring, bracer and Parthian tactics - three key techs for cav archers) instead of HCA is something that should be done for design reasons rather than balance reasons. Please, no. Romans are strong, but they’re not that strong.
Would be especially bad for team games (where they lose half over half their late-game options - and lose what ways they do have to protect their own scorpions, making them far more dependent on allies to cover their weaknesses). And their late-game economy doesn’t need the nerf (benefitting mainly from 5% faster farming, but missing last lumber tech means they have below-generic woodcutting). Losing halberdier alone is a heavy nerf, because they’d lose one of their better units to protect their scorpions and their best trash option. And removing plate barding armor and husbandry (a castle age tech) removes their options to snipe enemy BBCs (so basically no way to deal with BBCs - a unit they were already weak to) - and also removes their other good trash option.
It’s as if, instead of properly nerfing the Aztecs’ economic bonus, the developers had killed their endgame (e.g., no extra gold from relics). That seems like a pretty weak solution to me.
And by the way, as far as I’m concerned, the Romans still have an unresolved issue in their UU.
I’m not suggesting removing all of their Imperial Age techs, but they don’t need access to all of them right now—especially since many aren’t even used. Roman games tend to end early anyway.
BBC are one of the best counters to Romans, and that’s perfectly fine in my opinion. They don’t need to excel at every stage of the game—they’re already very strong early on and still remain solid later.
IMO, the best way to nerf Romans without overdoing it is to remove techs they have access to but rarely use.
Aztecs used to lack strong late-game options until the recent buff to the Jaguar Warrior. Even so, I still don’t think they’re among the best civ in late Imp.
Some of those techs aren’t close to unused: Halberdier is pretty important if the game goes to imp (not uncommon in team games or closed maps). Same story with plate barding armor. Husbandry is a castle age tech, and usually worth getting if you’re going cavalry - and removing it would give a mid-game weakness to CA (like Teutons have).
Reducing the eco bonus would affect every Roman game roughly equally. Removing these techs (including some key techs) has a more significant effect on certain types of games (closed maps and team games) but does little to nerf 1v1 open maps.
The big infantry rework was done after that. Men-at-arms are now actually good enough to have impact beyond a surprise attack, so they may not need the free armor anymore.
Some do. The +3 villagers for the Chinese, for example, or the initial -50 food for the Georgian “free” mule cart. It’s not totally unprecedented. Is it uncommon? sure, but not unrealistic.
Perhaps “disadvantage” is not the right word. Maybe “depth” would be better.
I say just swap places with the population discount (Azauri Cavalry). Cavalry Archers will fall off late game due to the missing technologies–the regeneration is what makes them good in the first place–, and hussars are usually just spammed to their deaths.
Faster creation of the archer line, as a Yeoman bonus. This would give them that faster production the team bonus sort of gives.
Also, that’s kinda what the brits did historically (not that that matters all that much): they instituted archery as a national sport (of a sort) to make it easier and faster to produce higher quality archers.
Faster creation of archers as a UT is a late-game buff - not the same impact as faster production as a team/civ bonus (which is relevant in Feudal age, a time when Briton archers would otherwise be generic).
I think the current effect of Yeoman in conjunction with their civ bonus is quite effective at making Briton ranged units both dangerous and unique starting in castle age. And being able to outrange castles with longbows is fun (even if it isn’t all that practical competitively).
I think if mangonels or rocket carts were to have their projectiles move faster that Britons would be the archer civ least impacted (since they outrange and therefore can still safely destroy mangonels/rocket carts with their archers). Would make mangonels more of the archer-counter they’re supposed to be (as players would have a harder time dancing around them)
Should include Donjons as well, or possibly all towers. Optionally towers +1/2/3 damage in feudal/castle/imperial age. BBTs wouldn’t care all that much about extra attack if they got some (they have so much already that a little extra damage rarely matters). But I don’t think Britons want their team bonus changed - archers are too ubiquitous in team games and Briton 1v1s (and towers aren’t). And players would not like seeing the faster archery range bonus going away (it’s part of a series of team bonuses), so the only way it should change is if another civ gets it.
