I know there are a lot of these threads already out there. But for me most of them seem less focussed on only trying to solve real balance issues but rather mostly a transport for the creative ideas of individual people. I will try here to only focus on really needed ones with explanations what I think is the issue and then ofc also make my own creative solution concept.
I won’t discuss the 3K civs here for now, as there are specific topics for them open already.
Romans
Romans eco Bonus is too bland but strong. It doesn’t require any specific adaptation as it just gives you more from everything. Which in return makes it actually even stronger on higher elo because of the principle of “easy to use, hard to abuse”. Meaning WHEN you adapt your eco management to the romans bonus you can squeeze stuff out of it other civs just can’t. But the Bonus feels lazy and is just overtuned.
My idea: Replace Roman eco Bonus with “Felling trees gives +4 Wood” and “Constructing wooden structures takes 5 seconds less”. It’s a specific bonus also designed to represent the roman legions ability to construct wooden forts in the shortest amount of time.
Bohemians
They are too good on closed Map Types but weak on open ones. I try to make the civ less specified.
My idea: Chemistry cost and research time - 40 %. Houfnice upgrade effects halved across the board. Cost reduced by 25 %.
Mongols
This is a tricky one. Mongols are famous for their hunt bonus. But it’s a pain when designing maps. Too much Hunt and Mongols are usually immediately broken. Since the addition of extra HP steppe lancers they also have no weakness in the midgame anymore on generally more open maps.
My idea: Mongols get “balanced Pastures” (when they are adjusted so they aren’t just strictly better than farms). The Hunt Bonus of Mongols is changed into: “Hunters work 20 % faster” and “Pasture upgrades increase work rate instead of adding animals” with an increase of about 15 % each. Mongols SL no longer get extra HP.
Gurjaras
Gurjaras took a big hit with the addtition of wild chickens. I would like to add a specific bonus that helps them out there.
My idea: Gurjaras Camels scouts now can convert wild chickens into tame ones. Tame chickens also only take half a garrison space in the Gurjara Mills.
Generic change can also be done? A supplies-like tech in University for towers? Tower-line upgrade move to Towers and Guard Towers onward gives additional pop space.
I agree at most of the issuess you mention, and in general I think yoy are a reasonable and enjoyable forum user. I also kind of hate how weird your ideas to fix them always are.
Believe me, I dont like saying it like this, but thats how I feel
Considering that herdable chickens gather slower than hunted chickens, this would be more of a nerf than a bonus. It’s basically a bonus to remove your own hunt, which are used for power spikes. And due to the logarithmic nature of the mill bonus, the extra chickens in the mill would have a tiny (maybe even negligible) impact in food collection rate.
I think a small multiplier increase to the mill collection rate would be both more generally applicable and help Gurjaras build up the forces needed to defend their mill(s).
I think this would synergize way too well with their castle age hand cannons. Would do little to hurt them on closed maps (late game would still be very strong), but their castle age would be deadlier.
The idea of giving mongols (rebalanced) pastures in exchange for a reduced hunt bonus seems like a fine idea to me, but that’s the only suggestion I actually liked. And even then, I don’t think the increased work rate bonus (after eco techs) would actually be needed.
I absolutely do not want to hear another houfnice nerf idea. This unit has been massively nerfed so many times—just no. Mongols have insane siege on top of having early eco bonus and a cheat-unit-like UU and no one bats an eye. Bohemians have one good power unit, the only unique upgrade to the BBC in the game which is the backbone of their identity and late game strength on select maps, and haters go crazy
Sorry what, the fact that one civ that has so many one-sided MUs on arena mostly because of that unit is fine? Lol no, Bohemians after many years are still ridiculous and unfun to play against there, and the removal of SE from Bohemians is still a long overdue.
Comparing to Mongols? Mongols haven’t any booming bonus and Mangudai need a lot of upgrades + having at least 3-4 castles before they are a danger, Bohemians have all mining techs for free and the fact they can get out BBCs right away in Imperial + UT that makes those faster as well is insane.
Plenty of matchups are one-sided on arena because civs that miss what’s important on arena just suffer. No, it makes no sense to have one unique BBC upgrade in the game and remove siege engineer from the civ making it worse than generic SE BBC. That’d be absolutely disgusting design. And no, houfnice tech plus siege engineers and castle age UT is not cheap at all even compared to what you get for mangidai.
Bohemian boom is not that good. At best you buy food with the extra gold from market, not remotely a good booming civ
Yes there are come civs that are quite bad on closed maps, but then you have Bohemians whose MUs are far too oppresive vs many civs, including some decent ones like Slavs and Poles, while just being kept in check by Turks or Burgundians for insance. And no, that isn’t bad design, is called bringing good balance, how comes that other civs with strong BBCs (Spanish, Turks, Burgundians) have to lack something to be on line with other civs, while Portuguese and Ethiopians need a Castle to get their main advantage on BBCs but Bohemians can get Houfnice (that doesn’t even need a castle to research) which has stronger attack and attack bonuses, better HP and PA, then a higher blast radius, extra speed with UT that comes earlier than the other civs… All of this is already a top BBC, then why they need SE to have same range and even more attack vs Buildings… Like where is the drawback here? And pls stop saying that is expensive because then why Bohemians are still a constant pick on closed maps from ranked games to tournaments in pro level? on closed maps isn’t that hard to get into that point where the civ becomes close to uncounterable.
All four free mining techs alone saves good amount of res, and it isn’t just about boom, that bonus gives the civ absurd all-ins in catsle age with Wagons and Monks with Redemption that some civs just can’t counter at all, and then you also have castle age HCs and stronger vills with fervor and Sanctity… this civ is just stupid, just as how Khitans currenlty are on open maps.
Just watch some Survivalist games on closed maps, everytime that random isn’t it is all vs Bohemians and I ve seen in two occasions how he couldn’t do anything at all facing them.
Why is houfnice is not researched in the castle? Because it’s a unique upgrade for the BBC unit alone, same reason as why imperial skirms is not researched in the castle. Arquebus or torsion engines all have some other effects for non-BBC units. And these are great examples for why SE mustn’t be taken away from Behemians—these other BBCs would straight up outclass houfnice, which makes houfnice a joke of a design. And why would you not demand a drawback on Ethiopian or Portuguese BBC but does demand some kind of drawback on houfnice, which is upgraded by a more expensive upgrade that only affect the one unit line (BBC) alone? Keep in mind that unlike Portuguese having well-rounded tech tree and multiple FU unit line discounted on gold, or Ethiopians having great archer line, Bohemians lean on their houfnice much more heavily than these other civs on their BBC.
Spanish and Burgundians get their gunpowder bonus for free, which is why they lack siege engineer. Turks get chemistry, gunpowder extra hp and creation speed for free. Artillery more than make up for siege engineer, and devs pvviously think that giving siege engineer taking the Turk BBC range to 15 would be too insane which is true.
Bohemians get picked on closed maps more so for their monks than for houfnice.
Castle age HC rarely see play on open or closed maps alike. To get to it requires so much investment, you can easily counter it with crossbows. It’s not at all a smart thing to whine about.
Survivalist clearly just likes to whine against Bohemians on arena. He has a personal vendetta against the civ, because he likes to play late games regardless of civ matchup, and isn’t much of an all-in player or an archetypical clown like JonSlow or Bloodless, so to him any big civ disadvantage in the late game that requires too much skill gap to overcome is unacceptable, even though it’s his own decision in these cases to drag games long
With the Houfnice nerfs I still thik that it would nerf them on closed maps.
You need to also consider that it’s not really a thing to make a castle age push and then go halb houfnice on one TC, that’s just not doable.
Ofc the cheaper Chemistry is inteded to make it easier to go for in castle age. But I also think that’s mostly useful for non-closed maps as on closed maps the idea is usually just “small boom into hournice” and getting chemistry on the way up.
Also some people somehow always ignore that wagenburg tactics is a thing. Even with nerfed houfnice they will still be amazing just because of that tech.
Bohemians are ok in semi-open maps like Arabia. If you’re referring to fully open maps, like Land Madness, well, that’s a non-issue. I personally think that UT should only apply to HCs and UU and not to all units with gunpowder.
Why would you need to go halb houfnice if you’ve killed your opponent with a castle age push? Castle age hand cannons are very strong. Even castle age xbows with the +1 from chemistry are pretty good (and benefit from the free gold mining upgrades). These are both a good option for open maps. And Bohemians also have good monks (and they want a monastery anyways for sanctity/fervor). So closed maps, they can go for castle drop into gunpowder (hussite wagons or hand cannons), monk/siege, or boom into imperial age. If their chemistry was buffed, then they would have a strengthened option in siege/hand cannons.
Well in 90 % of games Bohemians just go eithers small Boom into Halb Hofunice or for a smush on closed maps.
And yes I want to tweak it so the alternatiive unique strat for Bohemians sees more play. Atm it’s more a surprise strat and is very expensive to go for.
Halb Houfnice is just OP so I think it’s fair to nerf it but at the same time I don’t want to overnerf Bohemians as a whole because atm it’s basically all they do, they are super dependent on that. So I buff the “other” speciality of the civ what sees little play currently because it’s too expensive to go for currently.
What if Vikings kept free Wheelbarrow but lost the free Hand Cart? The issue with Vikings is they’re terribly boring, predictable and one dimensional. Their late game is the worst of all 50 civs on land maps.
My proposal:
Lose free Hand Cart (gets Wheelbarrow only)
Gain Thumb Ring
Gain Bombard Cannons
Then they’d actually be exciting to play and could even be playable on closed maps.
They lost thumb ring to play less as an archer civ. They should rather double down on mobile raiding infantry, maybe giving the longboat the ability to transport troops.
I think Vikings could be one civ that could get some meaningful midgame infantry bonusses that allow them to make LS as main play there. Losing free Hand Cart could be an intresting compensation, but I would then probably give them Wheelbarrow form the start of the game, so the early game weakness is a bit better covered.
The idea could be to make the Infantry HP boost increase over the ages but maybe let them miss out on Champions or something like this. Like 10/20/30/40 % depending on age.Without Champion their 2HS would still be top tier but ofc at this stage they would probably prefer UUs if they have the castle production still.
Ofc needs to be checked if their Pikes and Condos aren’t too strong with 40 % HP boost.
I dont want them to have TR as long as Bogsveigar is a thing.
This is the only point you make that I completely disagree with. In a game where most “collect faster eco bonuses”: Celts faster wood collecting, Slavs faster farming, and Frank’s faster foraging, have already been given, the devs found one more. This bonus(+5% everything’s) is not OP, however, what is are the Roman’s options. Your in feudal age, infantry are best in the game and counter all feudal units, your in castle age, go knights(which aren’t even accurate to the Roman’s time period and should be removed from tech tree), your in Imp, no worries, go Legionary Scorpion. Basically they have easy options at every stage of the game.
You know this is a traditional Bonus that was given civs in custom szenarios who just had to get a minot eco Bonus?
It’s just lazy. And big part of why Romans never had a bigger fanbase. Ofc there are some people who love Romans (mostly just because they were the best civ for a long time). But the majority of the playerbase even those who didn’t care about “not a medieval civ” never got into romans because they are so bland (except for their scorpions)