I’m going to have to think about this. Choosing my favourite is easy (Koreans) but choosing a top five and bottom five is trickier. I’m really not keen on having auras in AoE2, so I might vote for all the civs with those for my bottom five.
I voted… here’s an overly detailed commentary on my choices that nobody asked for!
Top 5
Koreans have been my favourite since The Conquerors came out. Last time I said “balance changes over the years have worn away their identity somewhat” and I suppose I still agree with that – but I think while there old identity is less extreme, it’s still there, and overall the recent changes have improved their gameplay. Funny to see them currently “winning” the least favourite poll.
Vietnamese seem to me sort of like the offense-focussed version of Koreans, with tanky foot archers and a high pierce armour unique unit. They also have my favourite campaign scenario, The Mountain Siege (yes, really!).
Mongols and Tatars share basically the same concept, but with different executions, both of which I think are done well, fun to play with some good flavour. I think I prefer Tatars, because longer-lasting sheep and free Thumb Ring make for what feels like very smooth gameplay.
It was really hard to pick number 5, but I eventually went with Goths, mostly because they feel very unique compared with other civs. I realised I don’t think I’ve played as them since they got their hunting buff, though.
Bottom 5
Celts – I’ve never been keen on them for some reason I can’t really put my finger on. I think it’s partly that they were the demo civ, so seem blander than the others. Nowadays they have castles with auras, and I don’t think auras are a good fit for AoE2, so that’s an extra point against them. Also they’re historical nonsense, and their lack of Illumination disproportionately irks me.
Slavs also seem quite bland to me. It doesn’t help that Bulgarians have a similar concept but with a more interesting execution.
Dravidians just seem like a mess to me – their assortment of bonuses feels almost random, and their unique unit has three mechanics but is still almost useless. Plus I thought their campaign was really grindy.
Armenians and Georgians just don’t feel quite ready yet. The mule cart feels awkward (especially when villagers get stuck around it) and doesn’t make thematic sense to me. Also, Georgians have two aura effects!
I know you are a Romaboo but the civ design for the Byzantines doesnt need a rework. Theres a reason people really like them. Some aesthetic changes would be fine tho
I guess you do have a point about the civ balance, but I’m not going to let go on those mediteranean architecture. Come on devs, how many civs already using the mediteranean set?
And since nobody is asking for it, I’ll share an overly detailed and ridiculously complicated commentary about my choices:
Least favorite civs:
The bottom 4 felt pretty easy (Lituanians, Poles, Romans, Persians), as I heavily dislike the concept of alternative upgrades.
For the last choice, I ended up picking Gurjaras because they stack too many weird behaviors. It doesnt feel like playing the same game
Favorite civs:
I do not select 5 “favorite civs in a vaccum”, I select a roster of civs I constantly play to enjoy a diverse playing experience. My roster usually doesnt change over the months, and barely changes over the years. To spice things up, I decide to go for civs with different architecture sets and no common missing trash unit tech (except Thumb ring, faith and heresy).
Last pool (July 2021), I went with Saracens > Portuguese > Koreans > Burmese > Tatars.
While I continued playing, I asked myself whether it is an acceptable civ karma-wise to main a civ whose speciality is to be the ultimate toxic civ on island-maps. And the answer was “no”, so I ditched Portuguese despute their amazing in game flexibility.
I ditched Koreans as a reaction to the crossbow upgrade nerfs, thinking “If xbows play is going to be nerfed, what is the point to play a civ with meh infantry, bad monks, terrible stables and meh siege” (I do not play on maps/settings where SO see some play). It felt a little bad bt no regrets until now.
Instead, I went with Chinese, a quiet civ on most of the ladder, but with good flexibility for open maps and apparently high skill gap.
I spend a lot of time in 2023 struggeling to choose between Saracens and Persians, who bothbhave a lot of things I like: FU hussars, another FU trash like, gunpowder, and some mid game options. Saracens have the nice flair “play without eco bonus, until you decide to get dirty with market usage”, while Persians has the feeling of a civ under ######## where you have to keep things tight for most of the early to mod game until you outboom. The balance team made it easy for me to choose (and keep Saracens from 2021/2022) by replacing paladibs with Savars.
With the Persians vs Saracens struggle from 2023 and other civs slowly fading away, Burmese stayed there as a civ I could rely on and stayed a strong pick.
Tatars gots ups and downs due to having in many ways a similar taste (persinally) to saracens and chinese, they did not stay as strong as Burmese, but they hold on. And now they are a proud strong choice while in 2021 they barely made the cut as the clear 5th civ (compared to the other 4).
This leaves me with 4 civs I mainly play nowadays: Burmese > Saracens > Tatars > Chinese.
The candidate for a 5th civ are Byzantines, Celts, Ethiopians, Slavs, and Spanish. All of them are nice civs I am willing to add, but none stands out. Maybe Celts and Spanish less than the others because Spanish TB feels like an abuse and Celts tech tree lack a meta option. Ethiopians have a nice balance of strenghts to my taste (as camels are a decent cavalry option, and halbs/shotel do the trick just well for infantry need), but I am hesitating because I would feel bad taking a “civ everyone defaut to as archer civ” and I would rather pselect something more exotic (wrt. to whole community, not the forum only). Byzantines are really cool too but I am also hesitating a little as I already have 2 “flexibke AOK archer civs”.
In the pool I took Slavs, but it is not a locked 5th pick yet and any of the other 4 might swap in depending on a chane of mood… Or the devs destroy one of my 4th main pocks and the whole roster might blow away.
I find this quite surprising, and I’m especially surprised about Mayans, who I thought were quite popular. Since you said this, a few DoI civs have worked their way up the least favourite list, with Dravidians at the top.
I agree about architecture, but not the civ, especially since it’s winning the poll. The only thing I’d change is Greek fire’s underwhelming effect on towers: either enhance it or remove it (I don’t care which).
I actually like the concept, but not the execution. For Lithuanians and Poles, it increases the bloat of units called hussars, and it means that the regular hussar isn’t available to the main civs who used it. With Romans, I don’t like that a c. 13th century swordsman is upgraded to a c. 4th century swordsman. With Persians, I don’t like that the European-looking knight and cavalier upgrade into the Persian-looking savar.
Funnily enough, I decided against picking Saracens as my 5th favourite option because of their new aura effect on monks – otherwise, I think they’re a really great design. (I’m not very good at using the market bonus though.)
I’ve never really got into Burmese – they’re very distinctive without feeling gimmicky or overly weird, but I just can’t really figure out how to play them. Any tips appreciated. Their archer armour situation is the opposite of what I’m used to with Koreans, so that doesn’t help…
I honestly feel like the Indian civs arent that extreme compared to Vikings or Malay, but I guess the lack of knights and focus on slow units really annoys people
The only one hich I feel is really weird is the Gurjaras, of which I dislike domewhat the implementation of the Shrivamsha but I really like the role its meant to serve and the army composition of the civ overall
And yeah Im also surprised how many of the old civs are at the top, but there are some civs with features that can be frustrating (Goths, Britons) or civs which are way too much on the spotlght (Mongols, Franks), or just Koreams, which have the whole tower rush and turtle gameplan
In theory I actually really like Bengalis – they’re basically what I expected Khmer to be (i.e. elephant civ with monk and navy bonuses). In practice, though, I get annoyed by their lack of thumb ring and frustrated by how easily countered they are by skirmishers – even with their cavalry having bonus damage against them.
I’ve never thought of Vikings as extreme – what do you think is extreme about them?
I’m not sure anyone still plays them like that much, but I guess people still remember it being annoying to play against.
