Firstly im not saying spanish are weak at all. I just think that now that most of the bottom civs have been pushed up and most of the top civs have been toned down, if we are striving for “perfect” balance if the spanish could get a little tweak…
i think their early game is the weakest phase, lack of xbow, no real eco bonus(gold means more in late castle/imperial so BS bonus is incredibly small until then, leaving only vil time saved on construction bonus) meaning it is more than likely the player will almost always FC for conqs since it seems that is primarily what the civ is balanced around.
while at the same time gunpowder in general is even weaker in DE due to low ping and thus being able to actually dodge even gunpowder shots.
i think everyone can agree conqs are amazing in castle age, but fall off in imperial. what if they buffed the imperial conq? or gave some kind of minor early eco to spanish. so either they are more able to survive until FC / execute a different build for once, or they are more rewarded for keeping their conqs alive…
as a comparison… early game franks win 10 out of 10. in imperial frank cav is far superior to spanish (nevermind hp, the sheer number that can be produced compared to the spanish player) meaning if both players have an imperial death ball of paladins and halbs, the frank will easily win
example tweaking: e conq projectile speed from 5.5 to 4. upgrade from 1200/600 to 1000/600
mills cost -25w
they’re not massive changes at all (to keep conservatives happy) but make the e conq slightly more attractive while making dark/feudal slightly more flexible
(if they just fixed the broken HC it would make a massive difference as well)