The civ currently works with a high risk-reward concept which is obviously bad for competitive games. Especially when considering that this high risk only involves a ~53% lateame winrate on average. There are other civs with a good Feudal and Castle Age which have higher win ratios in +45minute games.
With the faction design in place you can’t make that competitive, at least not if you want to use them the way they’re meant to be used. The only option is to break them, just like the recent militia cost reduction in Dark Age showed a few weeks ago. So no, it’s not fixable with a few stats changes.
Video from viper easily shows how “a few stats changes” on Goths can go wrong and turn them from “underpowered” to “game cancer” tier. Oh and did I mention that a lot of people thought that this was a good idea? When I googled for “Goth AoE 2” I found lots of topics and the “give Goths -25% inf discount in Dark Age” was pretty popular, even among good players.
https://aoestats.io/civ/Goths
https://aoestats.io/civ/Slavs
https://aoestats.io/civ/Franks
You can see that there are quite a few other civs that have lategame powerspikes similar to goths and even higher win ratios while being more versatile and powerful in castle and feudal age. All have higher Castle Age win ratios and significantly better or just as good 45+ win ratios.
Alright, time for a history lesson then.
click this
Goths are sort of the predecessors of a lot of central, western and even eastern european civilizations. Portugese, Spanish and Italians are their “late Middle Age” successors. You could even argue that Goths were predecessors of Magyars and Bulgarians, too.
Anyways, in terms of combat Goths used a variety of heavy infantry along with heavy cavalry units. They didn’t use plate armour, simply because it didn’t exist back then. Plate became standard in the late 14th century when the “classic” Goths already were massively on the decline. The timeframe the ingame Goths cover is from ~500 - 1200 AD (last references loosely in the Barbarossa/Dschingis Khan campaigns which play in the 13th century). Also it’s very far fetched that they had access to gunpowder. Earliest reports are around 1350, so roughly 150 years later than the Goth timeframe spans.
About their characteristics:
Goth blacksmiths were known to be very advanved for their time and their armies in general were well equipped with lances, axes and weapons that are sort of earlier versions of longswords. They had massive shields and the more wealthy soldiers also had helmets and very effective armour.
Overall Goths were feared for their combat power, which ultimately brought down the Roman Empire.
I included this by giving them a discount on their infantry related blacksmith techs.
And while we’re at it, about the historic relevance of their unique techs:
Anarchy
The term Anarchy refers to absence of rulership. Pretty much Each village/tribe had their own leaders, and in general these were called “Huskarls” among other names.
Huskarls (from hus = “house”, karl sort of means “lord”) were goth chieftains and so the local rulers of Goth Warbands. That’s the historical reason behind training Huskarls in barracks. Gameplay wise this is ofc course to support Goth infantry against archers.
However, not only the Goths had Huskarls, they also had “nobles” who were engaged in heavy cavalry, similar to Norse Jarls. My concepts further establishes “Anarchy” theme by giving Goth “nobles” Knights a boost to reflect their important role in the Anarchy. Them coming out of Stables fit the peripheral theme of Anarchy.
gameplay wise they help in late Castle Age against melee units which are the most potent counters to Huskarls. This is to make their Castle Age more viable and improves their raiding and give them options for taking the initiative in the late midgame.
Perfusion
The 2nd tech perfusion is reasoned by the fact that Goths used to show up, raze or raid a town and then disappear from one moment to the other. Also they were known to conscript people on their raids, similar to the Vikings. This is meant to be reflected by the faster creation time for barracks units.
However, this isn’t really a good way to portrait that trait, nor is it fun to play against. Goths are one dimensional and boring enemies because of that. Either you crush them early on, or they flood you, and if you survive it you win again.
Until that point gameplay wise it’s knight + xbow combo even though it’s dead weight for Goths since there are no bonuses or imperial upgrades for them available at the moment.
That’s why “my” perfusion allows building of heavy siege in early imp from Workshops (Goth Castles can be placed defensively instead of at the front) and their siege is faster and cheaper to put pressure on the enemy. Cheaper siege means more damage for less resources afterall.
The faster training from stables and Archery ranges like Skirms and Cavalry stabilizes their army in longer fights a lot more than a pure champion flood and makes up for missing plate armour.
I’m not exactly sure where you take the “lack of focus” from.
The theme of Goths is “early middle age” heavy infantry faction with lots of raid potential. In THEORY. However, they can’t raid properly in Castle Age - Huskarls are too slow and too vulnerable to Knights/infantry to do. Although they would have the potential, it’s way too risky. Longswords without proper support are bad aswell, just like with all factions. Their upgrades are too expensive and come too late, and they’re too easily countered by defenses and archers because of that. Additionally, each resource point that a Goth player spends on Castle Age raiding is a delay of his Imperial flood, which ultimately can cost him the game. That prevents Goths from actually playing their faction is supposed to be played. In a lot games players just use Knight + Xbow + mangonel combo in competitive, since these units are overall reliable and can deal with most threats and allows them to get into Imperial Age. Still this is not good at all, since other civs also allow this cookie cutter strat with a more reliable Castle and late Imperial techtree, which makes Goths obsolete for the most part.
My design actually improves their identity of a brute force, straightforward infantry civ:
- Infantry cost discount and cheaper infantry upgrades allow them to equip “heavy armour” earlier than others in Feudal and Castle Age (but no plate because goths timeframe ends in 1200 AD, see historical chapter)
- Cheaper military buildings help to get early blacksmiths and fields as eco bonus
- Boost to Knights in late Castle age to help with raiding. Huskarls and knights go in, destroy defenses and then the heavy infantry comes and razes the buildings.
- anti infantry knights are much more in line with history. Gunpowder for gameplay reasons only is whacky, and it’s widely seen as unjustified
- cheaper, faster moving Trebuchets from siege workshops: replace the hole left by the bombards and allows Goths to get a large amount of trebuchets in early imp, which fits their “simple yet effective” brute force style without fancy stuff. Trebuchets were a lot more common in the 11th-13th century than cannons.
For Bombard cannons you need to get a university + chemistry. If you tech perfusion upon hitting Imp you’ll also have Trebuchets faster than you could get Bombards before.
Each one costs 225w/225g and they actually can be converted. For 2 bombards Goths can get 3 trebuchets in a shorter time (+25% creation speed) that cannot be converted. - the Scorpions are sort of a small goodie, idk if they’re useful at all, would have to be tested. edit: the historical reasoning behind the bonus on Scorpions is that Goths used scorpion/ballistae type weapons in combat after the Romans used their Scorpios against them in the field. They were used as a predecessor of the more common crossbows that came up later from the 9th-10th century onwards.
Actually, with the cheaper blacksmith techs and the saved wood from military structures it’s possible to fast build a Blacksmith in Feudal, get scale armour + forging and still field a couple of Men at Arms, which are definately hard hitting units. In castle, the cheaper upgrades allow pretty easy access to very early scale mail, which allows Goth M@A with +2/2 to actually trade with Archers. Long Swords are even better at that point. You can also add a Mangonel with cheaper Siegeworks and/or add Knights to the raiding party.
It’s pretty interesting how much more potent Goth infantry is because of the changes. Raiding in Castle Age is entirely possible, especially once Huskarls are involved.
I just checked online dictionary, can’t believe I fell for it… lol 
Hmm. What do Italians go for then? To me the civ tree looks like fast castle, knights + xbow + siege all the way and then transition to imp gunpowder + genoese xbows… Dunno why people would ignore Chevaliers along that path tbh but ok…
True, but I fear that Goths then completely neglect the infantry in castle age even more and instead just raid with cavalry + hussars. Also plate armour doesn’t fit the civ theme wise.
Indeed. I was just pointing out the potential for that 11.
Needed a few hours because I had to redo the changes a couple times, but the editor isn’t exactly hard to use and the changes are in my DE now.
edit: enlarged screenshot for better vision.