If you give them Bombard Cannons, it makes krepost play more viable by giving them a good answer to Trebuchets without needing to invest into castles for their own Trebs, which is a big problem for the Krepost, which also costs stone. It leads to the civ wanting to make castles because you can’t afford to do both and you suffer the vulnerability of the rather fragile nature of Kreposts.
Giving them Bombard cannons doesn’t really change their matchups against siege and monks, they already have fantastic cavalry options to handle those, and all it really does (which is what it needs to do) is allows the Bulgarians to get away with not needing to place castles to have access to long-ranged siege for pushing castles and defending their kreposts. You’ll still want a castle for your unique techs, the occasional treb, potentially the Konnik upgrade, conscription, so you aren’t just ignoring castles entirely.
They do not have an economy that would make this too dangerous, basically the worst the Bulgarians could do with this is early imp behind a much cheaper Krepost instead of a Castle, but they still need Chemistry behind it for access to bombards, so I think it’s much a wash minus the clear, obvious defensive benefits they so sorely need to make the Krepost viable in the midgame.
But what is the point from a civ-balance perspective ? Wasnt it overall agreed that Bulgarians struggle mainly in early to mid high elo games due to weakish civ bonus + no xbow ? In that regard giving them bbc wont make them much more appealing in tournaments, be it in closed maps, open maps, water maps and hybrid maps ?
On this topic: Thoughts on Bulgarians? - #57 by DemiserofD , you made a conserning point about Konik being worse than cavaliers in every aspect and being the “3rd best cavalry option by a wide margin”.
If high elo players dont use Bulgarians and kreposts because they are afraid of then being treb down, why not just give koniks (mounted and dismounted) a bonus damage against siege ? Then it will be better for then while still in castle age (all in or being behind), while still only needing a single castle for upgrades.
I think giving them BBCs will make their good win rates at lower elos even better, but not make them more popular in tournaments, where most of the complaining about Bulgarians (being underpicked) comes from.
A bonus to the konnik for anti-siege doesn’t make it any less ineffective against trebs underneath a castle unless you really go overboard with it. The Konnik isn’t ineffective by nature of it’s stats, it’s ineffective because it’s expensive for a civ that doesn’t really have a reliable eco bonus. The Konnik isn’t the point of this. We basically never see the Konnik, and that almost has nothing to do with the Konnik’s strength (or weaknesses) to begin with.
Focusing on the Konnik is where you’re mistaken. This is not about making the Konnik good. This is about making the Krepost usable. Kreposts delay the building of your own castles, do not provide trebs, and are instant treb fodder in imperial. The point of giving them bombards is to give them a non-treb answer to Trebs and Castles, which then allows you to keep your Kreposts alive.
If Kreposts are a reasonable defensive structure in the long-term (which they currently are not) then you will see players use them more in place of castles. If you see them used more, you will see more Konniks. If you don’t, you won’t. Right now, the Krepost is basically a 350 stone, castle-age only defensive building that’s an easy target four minutes later when your opponent inevitably reaches Imperial. You could give Kreposts the ability to make trebuchets and I think the end result would be similar, but given the Chemistry delay I think this is the more elegant solution.
So to answer your original question:
The point is to acknowledge the slow eco of the Bulgarians and give them a strong option in the midgame to secure positions with the cheapest castle any civ gets, the Krepost. If the game stretches long, the civ has possibly one of the best trash armies in the game with Stirrup Hussar and plenty of ways to spend gold with a relatively open tech tree. But right now, the Krepost does not do that job. The Krepost is underperforming because you simply can’t defend it. It’s a sunk investment.
Giving them bombards to defend the krepost gives them the option to play into them as a method of controlling important space or deterring raids, whatever the situation calls for, without it being clearly wasted when your opponent reaches Imperial.
I like it in principle, but I do feel like it would somewhat take away from their Siege bonus. It seems to me that they are supposed to use battering rams or whatever else; Siege units with upgrades.
Maybe something like giving them capped ram, heavy scorpion, and onager an age earlier, instead? To synergize with the cost savings?
I don’t dislike the idea of someone being given those tools earlier, but I don’t think that solves the problem with the Krepost. Maybe the Krepost is supposed to be exactly as bad as I’ve described it. If that’s the case, I declare it a failure in design, because it doesn’t give enough of a benefit to warrant using it when it’s available and it’s terrible past that point.
If the Krepost were more like the Donjon, where you could rely on it for basically every age except imperial it’d be a different story. That’s not the situation. You only get it in castle age and it’s obsolete in imperial.
Okay. I think the point I tried to make has been muddled (mainly by myself) so let me clean it up.
Premise: The Bulgarians can use the Krepost as a castle for the purposes of going Imperial, and that is a unique strength. It’s not as cheap or efficient as going for two wood buildings, but it can be placed in a manner that gives you adequate anti-raiding and some map control on the cheap, whereas other civs need to commit to a castle to do so.
Problem: Going imp behind a Krepost play does not help you. You don’t get access to trebs with them. You don’t get access to UTs with them. You can’t upgrade the Konnik with them. You basically get to imperial for almost no benefit. So any Kreposts you do build in Castle age delays your proper imperial age powerspike, even if you get to imp earlier on the back of it. You need castles for Trebs to assail other castles, and there’s not a real alternative for the civ.
My Proposed Solution: Give them Bombard Cannons. If you give them bombard cannons, you can defend the kreposts from early trebbing without the need to dive and toss away units. Your Imperial age powerspike will not be entirely dependent upon your Castles, which if you consider it for just a brief moment, makes sense. Why would a civ that gets a unique, cheaper castle be dependent on making the OG castle in order to make progress? I don’t think they should be. I feel like both options should be viable.
I hope that crystallizes the thought process and gives you an idea of why I ask specifically for what I did.
I’m neither against nor for this change. I think BBC is too late to have a meaningful impact for the lack of attractiveness in Bulgarians. However I think it is a very good move to make them slightly less miserable in Arena and closed maps.