Looking at their winrate curves, the biggest issue of both civs is that they have a very hard time surviving past the early game.
This makes sense; Armenians are heavily biased towards Infantry, which are great at attacking if they have enough of a mass, but terrible at defending, as they can’t catch either cavalry or archers. Then, of course, they get all the relics thanks to their warrior priests, so if they can survive to the lategame they’ll do pretty well.
Georgians, by contrast, rely on their Monaspas being in sufficient mass, as well as their fortified churches boosting their eco.
Notably, most of their bonuses don’t kick in until castle age, and the higher ELO you get, the harder it is to survive that far without anything. This is compounded by their Mule Carts being weak to raiding, so if you pressure them at all, they can quickly lose the mule cart and then the game.
I think I’ve got a simple fix for this problem: Let them build their Fortified Churches in the Feudal Age.
The big thing this will do is make them much harder to raid early on, as well as allow their eco bonuses to kick in earlier. They wouldn’t be able to produce monks or research any techs, but they would be able to garrison inside and benefit from the free relic and economy bonus. This would be especially important when paired with the Mule Cart, which can garrison inside.
This would allow them to shift from aggression to defense more effectively, and even if their early strategies fail, gives them hope of making it to their lategame power anyway.
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IDK
I think the first step should just make the mule cart flat 100 W . Armenians also could just get 40 % diescount istead of 25 %. And georgians could just not start with -50 F.
Especially Georgians need also something different than the Monaspa, they feel like entirely designed around that unit. Which is also just too strong still.
For Armenians I would like to adress the glaring Weakness to Archer + Siege the civ still has on land maps. In compensaiton their water bonsses could be tuned down a bit.
I don’t really see how building fortified churches could improe the game experience whith these civs - as you would only make these at the end of feudal or even the way up to castle when you have that wood to your disposal cause you don’t need to add farms. Investing 200 W into a garrison building early feudal is hardly ever worht it. And when you have to rush up you want usually towers as stone is a more disposable ressoruce (as you have 200 you can’t spent in anything).
For me it’s really mostly early feudals where the civs are already behind. Especially Georgians also don’t have anything to catch up whilst Armenians have the faster wood income after dba.
Also - selectively picking stats that support your point and not commenting on that selection isn’t good. It would be absolutely sufficient to just post the 2 graphs from Arabia 1200+ even if it shows a small drop of georgians after the super early game. This tells also the whole story as Georgians even can’t catch up until they get the monaspas out.
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Well, here’s the 1200+ stats:
As you can see, they’re basically the same, so I didn’t see much point in including them.
Anyway, changing the price of the Mule Cart won’t do much; its problem is its vulnerability, not its cost. Removing the Georgian food thing also wouldn’t make much difference, except at sub-1000 elos, where people don’t know how to play unusual starts. I actually LIKE the georgian start; it’s notably different and that makes it entertaining and heart-pounding. It’s perfectly fine to dislike it, too; many dislike the Chinese for similar reasons. But that doesn’t make it bad.
Bear in mind, the Fortified Churches offer a pretty significant economic benefit on top of their cost. The Armenians get that free Relic, which is basically like getting an unraidable gold miner, which is definitely worth 50F or more. And the Georgians get that 10% eco bonus, which if properly placed would add up significantly even without the defensive benefits.
But it’s the defensive benefits where it would really shine. Being able to garrison not only the villagers, but also the mule cart? That’s priceless.
Yeah, they’d want to delay it as much as possible, but that’s fine; the better they play, the longer they can wait. But crucially, it’s available when they need it, and it allows them to recover from a bad situation that currently is almost unwinnable.
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What if Armenians have even M@A avaible one age earlier? Would be too much OP?
I doubt it would make much difference. You don’t have the resources to afford it. It would be more of a noob trap than anything.
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I would make a simple change:
- Mule Carts back to 100 Wood 20 Food
- Both civilisations start with a free Mule Cart and full resources
That should give them a slight Dark Age advantage without helping them in the Late Game where both are strong already.
If they still struggle in the mid game we can talk about other buffs.
This is why I partly think that the Georgian starting TC also needs to get the eco bonus. This would allow it to kick in on Dark age food production, as well as Feudal farms, and nearby trees if so used. It might be quite strong in Dark Age but would mellow out by the Feudal Age. It would add dimensions to both their Nomad and their Arena gameplay.