Give Goths an early game bonus that helps pros but doesn't make it too OP at the lower levels

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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I’m thinking instead of carrying +15 meat from hunt, Goths should have a bonus that lets them get food from hunt without returning it to the TC kind of like the Khmer farm bonus but for hunt.

That synergies with the faster killing boar bonus and can help pros make Goth more viable in higher levels with laming and long distance deer hunt without mills, while not really helping people at the lower levels where Goth is OP because they don’t lame or use hunt for fast starts and quick feudals

Or maybe you can give them plate boarding armour or paladin without plate barding armour.

But Goth definitely need a buff.

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The periods Goths should indeed be buffed in are the late feudal age and early castle age before a castle is build.
In other words, they are good enough in the dark age and the imperial age.
The militia rush and villager trolling are still powerful Goth strategies, no mention the infantry flood in the late game.

In my opinion, giving the stone wall and cavalry plate armor, and removing the hussars and increase the cost of UTs are worth considering.

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With huskarls and full skirms one would much rather have hussar without armor than light cav with armor. In addition, this is made in order to force Goths to transition away from cavalry in imp, keeping their civ identity.

Wait so I just get to send 4 insta loom vils across the map and take my opponent’s deer without him having a way of engaging me because I can add in a forward rax?

I mean, it’s an option. But it will make goths like… Imagine the word obnoxious, but multiplied by 10. Probably even worse than militia costing -35%.

I insta loom, take your deer, wall in your berries, build a forward rax, and afford 3 militia without being on gold with the food I just gathered from your deer. And you can’t fight me with vils. And you can’t age up either because no food. Yeah.

UPDATE:

I think I’m going to stay with my “+10 pop cap in imp” to “+10 pop available throughout the game”. Sort of like 2 indestructible invisible houses that you start with and they don’t count towards the pop limit. Your dark age is a bit smoother, your imp is the same.

Then, take it from there, I don’t know. All depends on how liberal you want to be with the change, whether a small eco thing will suffice (I won’t even bother considering it because Goths have been established as no eco-specific bonus and the devs don’t want to change that) or something ridiculous like huskarls with 4 PA and attack in feudal made from the town center (obviously not a serious idea).

If someone wants to come up with something:
To keep the civ identity it has to not be sold an eco bonus, regardless of whether it actually is (loom researched instantly, in practical terms this means +1 extra vil on your way to feudal), it can’t be a unit-specific military bonus (can’t be… skirms fire 25% faster), but it can be “military units move 5% faster” for example, as it’s undifferentiated and generic.

All in all, considering their military shouldn’t get any stronger and they shouldn’t get any particular bonuses for something other than infantry, and they suffer in late feudal and early castle, maybe something that helps them during that time. But it can’t be aging up is faster. Can’t be villagers gather resources faster.

… … Town center techs researched instantly…? I have no idea what the ramifications for that will be for the feudal age and how much exactly, it’s going to be a +3 villagers on the way to castle on top of +1 from dark…

It’s too strong though.

Still, who cares. As I have posted before, I’d rather see big changes in the meta and adapting from there, rather than small ones. The problem is that with this change Goths won’t be Goths on the high level. They will be “the drush/maa into archers into knights insane eco civ”. And that’s a recipe for disaster in balance terms.

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Yes let’s make their laming even more insane.

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Ironically this will probably do the opposite as you want in the title. Pros will still prefer pushing deer with scout as villagers still need to go to hunt. They would rather send their villager forward even more and lame everything from opponent.

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Actually, the light cavalries with the plate armor have more more survivability than the hussars without the plate armor while raiding. It means +1/+2 armor is better than +15HP, no mention the plate armor cost lower than hussar upgrade a lot.

The stone wall is for protecting them at their weak period until a castle build.

Even if the Goths gain the cavalry plate armor, their infantry flood is still iconic and works fatally.
Having better cavaliers makes the Goths cooperate the teammate more easily in the team game.

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Maybe longer lasting hunt instead and removal of the loom bonus?

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I was about to say the same but I think in that case infantry discount needs to move to Feudal once again.

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Yeah but that’s not the point, goths have enough ways to deal with archers, they don’t need light cavalry with 6 armor. On the other hand, they do need hussars without the final armor to deal with hand cannons and sometimes champions if low on gold and huss hc is more affordable.

And they don’t get stone walls on purpose, same as cumans not getting them.

And kills civ identity.

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Goth cav is irrelevant in TG anyway as you will likely have one teammate who can make better cavalry.

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I’d be interested in town center techs being researched 100-200% faster

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If include age up is broken

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Obviously won’t.
Hello I’m 20 charcters long

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True, would def have to not include aging up

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I think you’re the 3rd one that I have noticed so far to suggest this. I also liked this one a lot. 200% is too big though. And also need to replace instant loom with this.

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I think 150% faster would be the middle-ground limit, maybe, but 100% faster would be enough of a buff

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Disagree, their early feudal and dark would be worse, and 1.5 vils from a not-free wheelbarrow isn’t enough. Maybe 200% or instant.

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All TC techs are instant? That’s very bad bonus imo.

I think it is enough. Also you have 0.5 from loom.

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Yay lets give eco bonus to every low tier civ, that’s how we do it in 2022.

Goths is another poor civ design we have in AOE, over-emphasis on Infantry to a point of a completely broken late-game and inability to buff their early game, cause it all leads to an inevitable Huskarl Spam.
Loom bonus needs to be removed, if you cant balance a civ dont give it an embarrassing compensation. (Same goes for Portuguese faster teching bonus)

Before we even discuss about “buffing their Feudal Age”. we need to first nerf their late-game, the civ have both the strongest and most cost efficient composition in the game (Huskarl+Halb, fast producing) on top of arguably the best eco bonus in the late-game, 10 more pop means 10 more vills. (pop was never a problem of this civ, faster production = pop efficiency)

Besides that, stop forcing every civ into an eco bonus, that’s the easiest way to balance a civ, it’s okay for some civs to have a generic/bad eco, it’s a strategy game.

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They infantry flood is not OP at all. I’m a Goth player and have to do other things all the time to win vs Teutons, Aztec, Japanese, Khmer, Turks, slavs, bulgarians, celts. All of those civs have good answers to goth spam and the goth player is forced into doing other things.

In team games add Poles, bohemians, persians etc

What can infantry spam do vs full trade war elephants backed by hand cannons and bombard cannons?

Infantry spam is not op at all and specially since everyone knows it’s coming. Goths definitely need fully upgraded cav or thumbring or an eco bonus

If you’re concerned about laming with my hunt bonus, you can remove the insta loom and the dark age infantry discount. The discount can start from feudal age like all the other infantry bluffs (japs celts)

And if you want to lame the deer you first have to find your opponent, then walk vils over (idle time) and then research loom early (inefficient) to not die to wolves on the way.

It’s not too OP at all if you remove insta loom and maybe the dark age infanty discount

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