I’m around 1100 ranking and right now whenever I see the Goths I usually think “oh wow free win.” I think even with the buff to loom, supplies nerfed the Goths relative champion power so much. Now there is a legitimate argument for going archers or scouts with Goths and play them unconventionally. Getting loom is 1/3 of the way to how OP the Aztecs were back in the day. However atm, I think even with loom the goths are a little underpowered in 1v1. I don’t think they deserve another buff yet as the Goth flood does make them quite powerful in team games as a pocket player. Too much buff for 1v1 might make them op in team games. The only buff that makes sense to me is to have the pop cap bonus scale with the population of the game. It was balanced for 75 when it was given, so having it scaled to +20 in 200 pop games seems like it wouldn’t break the game while still giving them relative late game flood power that the Goths are kind of designed for.
I would like to some change to the +10 pop bonus:
- They will have this bonus from dark age (now only in imperial age)
- They dont need houses for this 10 pop bonus. So no matter what they own, the will have 10 population space. At the start of the game, they start with 4/15, not 4/5. This will save them 60 wood at the start of the game. In the end you just want to build houses to get to 210, but at that moment, wood is not really an issue any more.
So they get an little early game boost. With 60 wood saved at houses, they probably can do a MAA / drush BO with only 3 vills on wood. Thiis will speed up there drush just a little bit, so they can apply some more early pressure. I dont think this would become OP compare to the previous month patch.
If it is in a 75-pop game, 10 extra pop is really important.
If it is in a 500-pop game, 10 extra pop is a little meaningless.
We can change it into +10% that get 8 pop in 75-pop game and get 50 pop in 500-pop game.
It will be unlimited by ages but the extra pop still need the houses.
Then maybe add the last infantry armor and remove the hand cannonneers.
Or add stone wall and remove the crop rotation.
Balance changes are always done in regard of ranked RM and DM settings, and these have 200 pop by default since AoC.
The room creator still can change the population cap.
Yes, but anything that depart from the 200 cap is not the ranked setting anymore, and then won’t have any balance change considering it.
Imo just changing population cap for the game should not be having too drastic changes to how the game actually plays out. So it should be considered, so lobby games are also enjoyable, too. Balance should be done according to ranked games yeah, but that does not mean that lobby games that don’t even use any custom mods or maps but instead options existing since the launch of the game, should somehow become totally unbalanced. Starting resources could be argued to be a somewhat different case for balance but maximum population room is not so.
Well, you could argue that Cuman are OP if the last age is set to Feudal. Goths would be OP if the last age is set to Dark. Britons are useless in 25 pop games as all their units are low pop efficiency. The list could go on. Basically the best solution for lobby games is to play with people who like fun and won’t try to abuse custom settings to win.
I think Spanish vils with supremacy and sappers could probably down castles too. Sure it sounds silly if you don’t take into account its just a game - not a perfectly accurate battle simulator 
Generally though, there’s a tech called arson that helps infantry do bonus damage to buildings - so even things like militia line, spear-line, throwing axemen and gbeto I believe can take down buildings fairly effectively especially if there’s enough of them.
Not a castle for sure.
according to statistics on aoestats goths are broken . we got multiple hundres of games, its enough data, not just a statitical outlier. check out the winrate vs game lengths. it is way above 50% at any time. compare to portuguese which never even reaches 50% ever.
even before the goth buff their winrate was already above 50%, and back then we had multiple thousand of sample games. These goth buff cries are ridicoulous to be honest.
GOths need a nerf, -50 gold at start.
A handfull of pros dont like goths and feel they are bad and everyone loses their mind??
There’s a reason they don’t like them.
Cause they are underpowered.
btw, we are talking pros, not noobs
i dont understand why people always talk about pro perspective. I am cetainly no pro and so is 99% of everbody else. We should talk about average/all players and for the average player goths are not bad at all, even top tier.
Even for the pro 1650+ goth winrate is great with the data we have so far.
Because they played the game and tested the civs way more than you and me.
Next time, prevent the Goth player from reaching Imp
If you only look at pros (for the first place to look for if you debate about balance), we have 68 picks in non mirror games for games about 1650+ Elo. Winrate is 58.82% and so one of the highest, but this can be still a statistical outlier.
Look at the current winrate by pros.
I meant that if they are pros, they know what they are talking about
i refuse to limit myself to the data of 1650+ since it doesnt make sense to me when considering the general balance patches for all players
At lower level balance doesnt mean so much as at the highest level. At lower level i think more games are determined by skill difference than by civ win. That is just my feeling. So balance needs to be in the first place for pros. Second phase will also look at the other players.
I would say for pros i would like the see every win rate between 45-55% (after enough games). For other even 40-60% is fine to me. Win rate for Goths at top level is even higher than the average level, but again, this can be a statistical error.
Currently the winrate in this patch for pros is even lower than previous month. And they even buffed Goths. This pretty much shows us there is to few data for pro games.
The individual feelings of the pros cant compete with the statistical weight of multi thousands of games in my opinion. We also had statistics on the patches before de, goths were never as bad as their reputation
If we combine multiple hundres of games we have totally on goths on aoestats (winrate above 50%) and then seperately consider the few pro games we have with an even greater winrate, the indication that goths are not in need of more buffs is very strong.
nothing but the fellings of a few individuals says otherwise. I have nothing against pro players and i dont thing i know any better, but the statistic are just better guidance. people can be wrong, data doesnt lie here.