I think there is a fundamental balancing problem with them having an option which is reliably good in team games and also good against some civs (camels), and not having any other good castle age options. Xbows can’t be upgraded, so you don’t want to commit too much to them, plain castle-age CA are a bit lacking.
They just can’t keep up with Aztecs, Britons, Huns, or even Tatars in 1v1.
This is a proposal to attempt to put their 1v1 strength strength on the same level as their team-game strength, so that they can then be nerfed in a straight-forward way. (I’m not particularly committed to any particular nerf.)
see for an example of someone diagnosing this problem earlier today: the last sentence of this post
The sentiments I’m seeing here are
- it’s too strong (which isn’t a relevant argument in the context)
- please don’t make archers / tower-rush stronger (it’s true most civs don’t get a strong tower bonus in Feudal, probably with good reason)
- free techs are boring (not sure how that is relevant when the bonus is specifically designed not to be relevant in post-imp with the current meta Indian strategies)
- free techs currently don’t require the building. This seems like a very strong point. I must have misremembered how free techs work. Getting free fletching as soon as you hit Feudal would be too strong.
Seeing the balance of these reactions, I won’t be implementing this proposal in my mod.
I’m still considering a free xbow upgrade or a Fletching discount.