IMO, this change is garbage. You literally nerfed their cheaper infantry when they used to get a 35 percent discount in Feudal before the last patch. Goth discount should have gone 25 Off Dark, 30 Feudal, 35 Castle and 40 Imperial. That makes more sense. And let’s not forget they’re still the only civ in the game that doesn’t get Supplies so this change is a clear nerf to their one dimensional game play.
Giving Goths in theory free arson and an extra +1 attack in Imperial Age isn’t the change needed to offset the infantry price. Nor is it a boost they needed where their economy needed the change. Poor decision IMO. I don’t like it and I’m sure others won’t either. Microsoft failed 2 patches in a row trying to get Goth balance correct IMO.
It might look like their infantry is more powerful in Imperial now, but remember the old building damage bonus before this update was +1 starting in Dark Age, for a total of +3 in Imperial Age with Arson. They still have the same +3 bonus damage to buildings in the Imperial Age with this update, but now they save 150 food, 50 gold, and 20 seconds of research time in the Castle Age. It actually nerfs their Castle Age damage to buildings too by -1 in comparison to the old bonus.
Strange update to buff a thing and then nerf it in the same patch.
I feel they’re more balance now. They still have a good drush, and the result in imperial age is the same, so I feel it like the buff the should originally had had
They do get Shipwright which actually makes them above average, and while they lack Dry Dock they get both Fast fire ships and Heavy demos. It’s not great but manageable. Besides the fact they have no eco bonus for that is that of course there are only a handful of viable water civs that outclass everyone else.
Siege engineers don’t work on boats. And regarding the lack of Elite Cannon Galleon, half the civs lack them as well. And only Teuton castles, Turk BBT and Korean towers outrange them anyway.
But half of the civs have bonii to stuff that is not the weakest unit type in the game: Infantry.
Goths are all about pure Infantry, and suffer a lot because of it. Bulgars, Aztecs, Incas, Japanese… all do a much better job at being an Infantry civ than Goths do, and still have other options, while Goths do not.
Not sure where you’re seeing a buff in this change. It’s a clear nerf. The fact they changed Goths 2 patches in a row shows they have no clue on what direction to actually take with them. I saw some real good ideas for Goth changes on this forum in the past few months and this wasn’t the answer. Goths already had +1 attack vs buildings, so you’re giving them free Arson big deal. There wasn’t even Arson in the original AOC days. And once you get the full benefit in Imperial, it still ends up the same building damage as it originally was.
Like Turin said above, unless the devs intend to give them some type of Eco bonus, or non-infantry military change next patch this isn’t the change they needed. If the Devs give them the infantry plate armor upgrade in Imperial I would be fine with that change too, but as I said before you’re still a one trick pony. I play Goths a lot, so I don’t like the change.
I’m really not sure what kind of argument you’re trying to make here.
If by balanced you mean bad, you’re right on. It’s an unequivocal nerf to Goths’s midgame, where they were already weak, so I’m not sure how that improves their balance…
Yep, I’ve made this argument quite a lot in my dedicated Goths thread.
I agree with this assessment entirely. It seems like, rather than having a vision for Goths, they’re just experimenting with random buffs/nerfs, and seeing how those changes are judged by the community.
Well, if they were doing that as they did for Tatars (ie. Silk armor for SL, free Thumb Ring and Flaming Camels were all very popular changes) we would have Goths with no Dark age discount, +10% pop instead of +10, and an actual eco bonus that replaces the “boar luring doesn’t exist” meme bonus. I wonder why they often listen to the community except for civs with orange roofs that speak German (hello slow TK !)
how about letting goth reserach two handed swordman in castle age,
oh and change their 10 pop bonus to max (+5% pop,+10). It feels unfair in games with mire than 200pop, just like with portuguese in lobbys with team los enabled
how much yall wanna bet goths will get a buff in the next patch? something except for the infantry cost changes?
which BTW they HAD to nerf! yall complaining like goths are useless, which they arent, they are just weaker than their game breaking version, goths were ROFL stomping the average player for drush to m@a (remember elo 1000 is the average) and they were being banned from tournies no??
on top of that there were (still are) factions that arehard countered by goths post imperial infantry flood, regardless of what yall think…
i bet devs will give goths an eco buff of some sort, or some other kind of mlitary buff/armour/etc
people had recommended this staggered cost reduction all across the forums (this isnt the only place, and it doesnt represent the majority, or the top players(my self obviously included))
i like the idea of the 2H swordsman in castle age (like how the cumans got the ram tech) but im not sure about the increased pop cap, making it even harder for factions like mayan or ethiopians to handle the flood… unless they in turn get some kind of buff to deal with goths sooner…
I hope Cumans now having Capped Ram in the Castle Age and the nerfed Goths infantry discount opens up the possibility for Goths to get Man At Arms/Long Sword/Two-Handed upgrades in Dark/Feudal/Castle Age.
Most likely. Even Vipah said he thinks they should get a buff, and nothing anywhere near the level of the long-promised Supplies compensation buff has been delivered.
No civ is useless. Any civ can win games. The thing that myself and other long-time Goth players were saying was that there wasn’t really a compelling reason to choose Goths anymore since many other civs did infantry about as well, but also had better tech trees, defenses, and eco bonuses. There’s the huskarl, but a good UU doesn’t make for a good civ (see: pre-buff Viets). And of course most of us anticipated that the Dark Age discount would be nerfed, since it made them very strong in Dark, but didn’t address any of their weaknesses in later ages.
Before I read the rest of your post, the civs that came to mind were indeed Mayans, and Ethiopians (ish - massed scorps can still be effective). The recipe for being hard-countered by Goths in Imp is basically to be an archer civ without hand cannons and with bad infantry and bad siege, so a pretty small niche there. Not every civ has to be better than Goths at every point of the game - Mayans and Ethiopians have a clear advantage at least until mid-Castle, since they both have actual eco bonuses and archers > infantry until mass huskarls become available.
2H in castle is interesting, but I don’t love it. I tend to think it might suffer from the same sort of thing as last-months Dark Age discount - (e.g. either OP when it comes into play, or useless when it doesn’t). Then again, I’m open to ideas that make infantry civs, you know, actually want to make infantry.
2 Hand swordsmen would be bad in castle age even OP, as the capped ram is, just wait for the players to complain specially in team games.
They just messed up goths really bad, going back to goth balance changes before 1.0c patch about 18 years ago, slavs are now superior in every single way, specially because of the food bonus and guess what, they have also strong monks and cavalry.
After this patch i don’t see anyone picking goths in a decent level, good job.
I played Goths last night against Japanese. The game went late late Imperial and I ended up losing. At any event, Japanese Elite Skirms in mass totally shred Goth Champions. Why is this? Because Goths lack the last plate armor upgrade for their infantry that’s why. When I tried making Elite Huskarls to counter the Skirms, the Japanese player used his own Champions or Samurai to shred my Huskarls. Even late game, they’re struggling against other Infantry civs in the current state of the game. If I had to play an Aztec late Imperial I would have lost even quicker.
Every infantry civ that I know, other than Goths, has a fully upgraded Blacksmith infantry tech tree. Every Archer, Cavalry and Naval civ has all fully upgraded Naval, archer and cavalry blacksmith tech tree. You would think at this point Goths would get the last infantry armor upgrade by now… this isn’t the AOC days 20 years ago. The other alternative, as I saw mentioned before, increasing the population cap to 10% in Imperial. An extra 10 units may have swung the battles in my favor, possibly in the situation I had last night as well. With infantry civs other than Goths reaping the benefits of supplies, their Champions almost cost the same as a Goth Champion in Imperial.
As for the early game, well I would address this with an eco bonus of some sort as mentioned by many on this forum. I was thinking something along the lines with boar hunters, but I don’t know if that’s enough even after the change they made to the staggered infantry prices per age now. I would think something along the lines of what the Vietnamese got. Maybe 50% off all economy techs or something along that line. Or all food production is 5 or 10% quicker. At any event, I can’t recommend playing Goths in 1vs1 at all. I do enjoy playing them in team games though. This civ needs something in the next patch. It’s about time Microsoft gets it right…
Goths need complement to their Infantry. All other Infantry civs have complementary non-Infantry specialized units.
-Malay have cheaper Battle Elephants.
-Japanese have good Archers, Fishing and cheap Eco Building.
-Aztecs have great Monks, Skirmishers and Arbalests.
-Vikings have 2 free Eco upgrades, good Navy and Arbalests.
-Teutons have an Armour buff, Paladins and good Siege.
-Celts have good Lumber economy and great Siege.
-Slavs have good Farming bonus, good Siege, resilient Monks, and a good Cavalry UU.
-Malians have Champ-skarls which avoids the expensive Elite UU upgrade, a strong and fast raiding UU, and Farimba Light Cavalry that can beat FU Hussars.
Goths are the only Infantry civ that has nothing but Infantry going for them, to the point where even their late game trash has no fully upgraded units, and their defenses are the worst in the game.
Just give them FU Hussars, and you will see Goths will pick up a lot after the Infantry push is countered, not to mention they would have units that are good vs Siege, which is the general bane of Infantry.
Goths just need Plate Barding Armour and +10% max pop bonus, and they will be fine.
At some point I suggested giving them Paladins because historically Goths had good cavalry too and a Paladin without plate barding armour would be barely better than a FU Cavalier at sponging arrows (ie.it wouldn’t replace the Huskarl as anti-archer) Ultimately it wasn’t very popular, for various reasons, like the last expansion adding 3 new Paladin civs, and some others I forgot. Just FU Cavalier would be more widely accepted I guess but often people don’t use just FU cavalier without bonus and just go for their bonused gold units. People barely bother with Boyars and Leitis as well, only the Keshik is popular, because it’s cheap I guess.