So from what I’ve read in the forums, much of the community still finds the game unbalanced, despite the efforts of the developers. DE just came out so there will be time to fix it, if necessary. However feels to me that some civs ( like in the original ) have not only a disadvantage, but are completely unusable in a standard ( no Deathmatch ) multiplayer game – like the Palmyrans or even Greeks, for example. This is the impression of a player who prefers single-player experience; so I’m asking to the experts of multiplayer here:
When (in what unit-situation) and where ( on which maps ) do the lesser played civs excel?
Hoping to start a useful discussion 
The Palmyran economy can be very strong if you can keep your villagers alive. They are very vulnerable to raiding, but if you are able to wall properly and boom in peace, they can get very powerful.
The Greeks are best on water maps. Their faster fishing ships make their economy rather strong and they have good ships, though they do fall behind the best water civilizations like the Minoans.
I actually think the game is not nearly as bad as people say. Palmyrans for example, can take part in chariot archer wars as well as anyone else, but even if you don’t want to do that, you can deal with those with slingers, and you have access to most other iron age units. Greeks are gold dependent, have no archers, and little cav, but if you can survive till late, they can spam cheap, fast hoplites. Those two are probly not as good for 1v1 but certainly viable in team games
Yeah that’s what I meant. Those civs are basically unplayable in 1v1 to my knowledge and have barely something “special” to offer in a team game. What I was looking for was a unique way of using some of the lesser known civs, if there is one.
@Totalste said:
Yeah that’s what I meant. Those civs are basically unplayable in 1v1 to my knowledge and have barely something “special” to offer in a team game. What I was looking for was a unique way of using some of the lesser known civs, if there is one.
I’m playing Greek in 80% of my matches in 1v1 (I play Sumerian or Egypt from time to time aswell since a couple of days), they work well enough. Just focus on collecting food and get to Bronze Age quickly. Even if you cannot bronze in below 14 mins, a 15 min Bronze with 22-24 villagers is totally possible. You won’t win every game, but it’s not as if the civ would be unplayable.
@ZheBoyzForum said:
@Totalste said:
Yeah that’s what I meant. Those civs are basically unplayable in 1v1 to my knowledge and have barely something “special” to offer in a team game. What I was looking for was a unique way of using some of the lesser known civs, if there is one.
I’m playing Greek in 80% of my matches in 1v1 (I play Sumerian or Egypt from time to time aswell since a couple of days), they work well enough. Just focus on collecting food and get to Bronze Age quickly. Even if you cannot bronze in below 14 mins, a 15 min Bronze with 22-24 villagers is totally possible. You won’t win every game, but it’s not as if the civ would be unplayable.
Of course you can win with any civ if you are the better player. But the Greek bonuses don’t help you much on 1v1 land maps.
Fast Bronze still is a valid strategy with Greeks and they’re not as weak as they are in RoR, even on land maps. Mainly because the OP civs (Shang, Assyrian) got nerfed. The faster, cheaper Hoplites are pretty nice to have and the bonus is pretty significant, as you can train 1 cav unit for every 3 hoplites, or 1 slinger every 2 hoplites for free. Combine them with Slingers and some cav and you have a pretty mobile army that can take a lot of beating, while also being very efficient (you only need metallurgy/infantry armor/cav armor and all your forces can profit from that). Since Hoplites are as fast as swordsmen you’re superior in infantry vs. infantry fights and you can even raid with tem.
Hoplites are literally “walking tanks”… and with the greek speed bonus and + the academy speed upgrade they are unbeatable, but thats of course if you’r able to survive to late game with strong economy.
btw I won once two other players with only a few Hoplites when they wern’t ready (but other times when facing better players they knew to send composite bowman as counter)
1°) Hoplites are extremely powerful and can beat 1v1 all bronze units, and massacre infantry.
The problem is, Hoplites are very slow and not really versatile, the greek bonus is helpfull.
You can’t attack / defend / hunt villagers all in same time like you can do with Chariot Archer or Cavalry (balance between power/versatile), but Hoplites offer different way, like clean base in few seconds, or counter other units (camel? infantry?) very well.
To use this strategy you need to build Academy front ennemy base / or sneaky / or on tiny map, and make fast wall, because Hoplites can’t back home to defend (too slow).
2°) Greek can do Cavalry with Nobility (Macedonian can’t), not so bad.
3°) And yes Greek can boom on water map.
The Assyrian / Yamato / Shang vill’s nerf (principally) make the game more balance, and let’s some diversity like play Hoplites with greek.
It’s unable to make all civils balanced completely as it depends on the map setting and game rules. In fact, each civil has its own strength taking advantages against some other civils, but also has weakness that some other civils can exploit.
With 16 civs in AOE, it’s going to be impossible to balance them for every map setting. Instead, you get a lot of options. On the usual settings (stone age, normal resources) Gold civs, by definition, are generally weaker due to lack of versatility, lack of mobility (most are infantry focused or, certainly, played that way), and reliance on securing (and maintaining!) a gold mine. Yamato is the exception to ‘weak gold civs on standard settings’.
Wood-based civs, with early economic advantages (Shang, Minoan on water maps, etc) are better than most others in most situations on most RM maps on most settings.
To very specifically answer your question: If you play non-standard RM types–for example, a Bronze Age start, or a Tool Age with “high resources” or something like that, then yeah—you can make Palmyran work extremely well, perhaps the best civ in their own way on “high resources” settings since you can keep producing non-stop super-Palmy villagers, something that is impractical and certainly expensive in normal games. Choson or Greek or whatnot are improved with gimmicky settings with lots of resources or Bronze/Iron start. But most games are Stone Age start on normal resources and non-economic civs suffer and most gold-based civs suffer (for many reasons) relative to many of the wood-based, chariot-archer focused civs.
This all assumes players of equal ability, that is. A great player can win with Greek, blindfolded, against newbie Shang players.
Palmyrans is a civ that is difficult to play. This civ can not play the major role in the team’s army.
To play Palmyrans, you must be agressive, fast and good in micro. The camel riders is a terrible terror of the enemy’s calvaries and chariot archers (+8 and +6 atk bonus respectively), and with 30% speed bonus, Palmyra’s camel rider is the fastest unit in the game and extremely dangerous. That is to say, nothing can catch them, so that you can play actively, choose the target, when and where to atk. With just 3-4 camel riders sneak to enemy’s base, tons of villagers are gonna get killed. They’re really a pain in the ■■■ that you can never get rid of.
However, this civ has a fatal weakness. High villager cost limits its capacity in economic race. But this could also be an advantage in positive angle. The less villager you have to control means the more you can focus on microing the army. With just 16-18 villagers, a skilled player can rush to bronze age at 9:00 - 10:00 in the game; 7 villagers gather food, 4 villagers gather gold, you can create camel riders from 2 stables steadily and kill enemy with just one hit.
What are the best maps for Persia (hunting)? Large/Gigantic maps.
The hunting bonus, especially the +3 carry, is great if your gazelles like to wander to random directions and because of lag your vils end up killing them there by accident. Doesn’t hurt as much. It’s not as great if you micro all your hunting perfectly so there’s no walking time but still a solid early game bonus if it applies to the map you’re on.
Oasis is pretty solid because there’s very little berries so everyone is forced to hunt. Highland and Hill Country usually not bad either because there’s no shore fish but luck dependent as they often are, might have elephants and gazelles near or might have bunch of berries. Generally any map where both you and your opponent are forced to hunt instead of fish or forage is a good map for Persia. So any map type(aside from oasis) is dependent on the map generation. What can be said though is that the bonus is generally wasted on continental and other water maps because of the fish.
Persia is a good tool/cav/camel rush civ. Doesn’t get chariots though so needs gold from bronze onwards. The lategame eco is bit painful with no farm upgrades after domestication but has plenty of options to go with. Compies, Horse Archers, Elephant Archers, War Elephants, Cavalry, Camels, Swordsmen, Priests and it gets Catapults to go. Navy is good as well. Interesting civ for sure.