Dont buff Slavs with farm eco

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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First of all, I dont think that Slavs are weak or op. Their balance is quite ok.

What disturbs with them is the way how they balanced them.

After all, cost reduction on Druzhina and Boyar barely makes a difference, sonce both things come very late or not at all in most games.
Detinets is far better than orthodoxy but effects the second castle at best, so the impact is also not the big deal.
What made the point and gave Slavs their recent push was the restoration of the old farm bonus.

Anyway, balancing with a passive farm bonus is still a bit dumb and nothing really changed with the lack of infantry identity.

Considering this, I would do some Changes to Slavs:

a) supplies and gambesons not only free but available one age earlier. This would make an interesting MAA rush and after first armor upgrade, Slavs MAA would be simiar to Romes. Together with Druzhina gives some good infantry identity.

b) Give them a bonus to get first castle cheaper and remove chevalier from their tech tree: This would be interesting for arena and some rush or defence strategies. In return, knights wont work in the long run and boyar gets a viable replacement that is available nearly as early as knight. Having 2 units that similar is boring anyway. Besides that, there could be more civs in general, that share the unupgradeable knightline with saracens.

c) redesign their archery range. For what does a civ without barcer, thumb ring and parthian tactics need heavy ca??? Civs with bad archers usually get hand connoneer. With that, the ring archer armor would finally make sense and Slavs would have a source of pierce damage outside siege. So remove heavy ca and replace it with hand cannoneer. Still one of the worst archery ranges but at least sometjing to do with the building, after early game skirms.

d) since the first 3 points would be straight buffs, just lower the farm bonus to balance it out. The changes should not result in a powerhouse civ, but one witv some a unique options instead of strenght purely through a boring passive eco bonus.

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a) is a sidegrade at best if not a nerf, because currently Slavs gets some nice saving if they try a LS switch in castle age. In Feudal age there should be no point for them to stay on MAA without squires, gambeson isnt enough vs archers. while being expensive.

b) too cheap castles is OP and oppressive in itself. This is one of the reasons many players hate going against Franks. If the castle isnt too cheap, then we would still open knights and have a harder (earlier) transition to Boyars. This os annoying to me. I do not find them boring and do not like the design of a civ relying on a castle to be relevant (Old Spanish always going for conq was a very boring/lazy design to me).

c) Their range is fine. At least not worse than Koreans&Vikings stable and Gurjaras Stable. Their range is similar bad to Burmese, same as Romans, and better than Celts. Celts also have HCA, so do Franks and Romans.
Note that civs with poor ranges still have FU scorpions and Omagers as a ranged options. And Slavs get a discount. Civs like Vikings/Koreasns/Dravidians with bad stables have no alternative unit to rely on, which is way way worse.

d) I am fine with current Slavs.

I would fine with reverting farms to 10%, but do not like your changes. I would rather increase the siege discount or give free squires

I think a good thing about Slavs farming is that it is simple. I would rather have a plain farming buff like slavs than a unique feature like Khmer or Poles farms. And I think it is fine that the plain bonus is stronger. In the end the most important is to have balanced win rates balancing the number is for me a good way.

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I hope slavs will get a rework in the Royal Mountains style.
Armenians, Georgians, Persians rework.
Romanians, Serbs, Slavs rework and rename to Ruthenians.

  • The cost reduction on Druzhina and Boyar are very useful for the late game IMO. If anything, the issue I had with the Slavs is that the Castle was slightly too expensive, this was fixed.

  • Detinets depends on the map type, it impacts the 3rd, 4th, 5th and so on castles. It doesn’t allow you to get an early castle, but after that I find it very useful.

  • I agree that for an infantry civ it doesn’t really feel like an infantry civ. The Boyar makes them a cavalry civ, and the Druzhina bonus comes in Imperial, until then they are a generic infantry civ.

  • You get more bonuses for siege and monks early game.

a) I agree in principle, this would lead to some interesting gameplay. But in practice, I wonder if this won’t be more of a nerf than a buff. Since you no longer get them for free.
b) I don’t think slavs should be too many things at once, like an infantry & castle & siege & a bit monks civ.
c) I agree the archers should be improved and heavy ca reaplaced with hand cannoner. And maybe give them Thumb ring.
d) I find the eco bonus one of the best thing about the slavs. Also, when the slavs first came in Eastern Europe, they came as farmers, so it’s thematic. Having a weak eco bonus will probably render all their military bonuses obsolete.

Personally, I would change the Slavs as following:
Replace monks move 20% faster with some infantry bonus. Like Barrak units gain +1 attack starting castle age and such.
Siege Units move 15% faster rather than being 15% cheaper.
While the Boyar could potentially become a paladin replacement (just like Savar for Persians). There are a few civs in Eastern Europe that had boyars: Bulgarians, Romanians and Serbs. So the Boyar could be another regional unit.

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I think the soege discouny could be buffed tbh

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20% cheaper Mangonel and Scorpion is very good. 20% cheaper Siege Ram is a bit scary considering Siege Ram is very strong in late game. Pros didn’t explore yet but 15% farmer is actually stronger than Poles old Folwark and Slavs has stronger military, too. Current Slavs is stronger than old OP Poles. My change idea:

  • Siege discount is increased from 15% → 20%.
  • Infantry units gain 4 trample attack in Castle Age.
  • New tech Streltsy in place of Druzhina: Hand Cannoneer attacks +33% faster.
  • Militia-line speed increased from 0.90 → 0.95 (this is general change for every civilization).

Same issue also exists in Celts. +40% hp Siege Onager and Scorpion is balanced while +40% hp Siege i border OP, I would change Furor Celitca to +50 hp.