Here is a list of how I would alter most of the civs, largely in order to see more variety in playstyle due to unique units entering the field more often in 1v1s.
For clarification: When I say something like “strong,” I’m not talking about the civ overall, I’m talking about the unique unit, and/or how often you see it make up part of the army.
Also, there are a lot of items on this list, if there are any that you disagree with, could correct, or support, please comment on specifics. Thanks.
Aztecs:
- Aztecs have this really major weakness to cavalry, due to the lack of Halberdier, or any other major counter. You also very rarely see Jaguar warriors appear in games. What if Jaguars got a bonus against cavalry, or at least heavy cav like knights? They might have to have their cost increased to balance this. I know they are a strong tournament civ, but this might diversify their playstyle a bit more.
Berbers:
- Camel Archer are, as everyone has pointed out, already strong and no need for a change.
Bohemians:
- Bohemians are a pretty cool civ. However, their Hussite Wagon is either spammed and tricky to stop, or never seen. I think it would be good if the Hussite Wagon moved slower than the mangonel line, allowing mangonels to counter it, but after the unique tech, it moves faster and can outrun mangonels.
Britons:
- Britons are already a very strong civ, and need no improvement in my opinion.
Bulgarians:
- Bulgarians are also a pretty reasonable civ, where you see all of their units normally. Needs no
change.
Burgundians:
- Burgundians were a cool civ, but then their Coustillier got nerfed, which makes them less interesting to play. The Coustillier mechanic was kind of weird anyway, and I would quite like to see it replaced with a better charge mechanic. Preferably, if the Coustillier runs 10 or more tiles in a straight line before hitting its target, without stopping, it does extra damage. This would make it more interesting to micro manage, but it could also be made that if it charges onto a spearline unit, it also receives extra damage
Burmese:
- Burmese are already strong in terms of the options they have. No suggestions.
Byzantines:
- Cataphracts are OP in a lot of situations, they are kind of hard to change though, and the high cost probably prohibits them being the most broken thing ever.
Celts:
- Celts are quite strong, but I don’t think that they need any changes.
Chinese:
- Baring making Chinese the most OP civ in the game through incorporating historical realism, there is nothing they need. They should definitely stay as they are.
Cumans:
- People practically only ever use the 2TC Feudal boom. If the opponent can’t take them out in Feudal, the Cumans gain a massive advantage and it becomes much harder to stop them. I think that the best solution would be to make Feudal TCs cost 50% extra resources, or at least an extra 50 stone, to ensure that they have to mine stone before further booming in Castle Age, which gives opponents a better chance to outboom them.
Ethiopians:
- Shotel Warriors are quite a cool unit, but due to how easily they die, you don’t usually see very many games where they are utilized. Maybe if they gave a small amount of gold each time they kill a unit, or if they returned some of their cost when they died. Other than that, I can’t really think how they might be made more viable.
Franks:
- Franks are very strong statistically, so no suggestion.
Goths:
- Goths are already a really powerful civilization, and the Huskarl is consistently used. No
improvement needed.
Huns:
- As has been pointed out, Tarkans are good anti archer units, due to high pierce armor, but even still, they don’t see very much use in a lot of games, maybe if the UT decreased their cost/training time slightly it would be more used. According to the comments, the best way to improve the Tarkan is to slightly increase their bonus damage against standard buildings.
Incas:
- I can’t really think of how I would improve Incas, they are already decent.
Indians:
- I’m not really a regular player of the Indian civ, but I find it sad that their unique unit has basically just become a meme. Elephant archers logically would be pretty cool, but they aren’t very good in-game. I think that to improve them, as long as their stance isn’t ‘No Attack’, they continually shoot arrows at nearby units. They could also be focus fired on targets like currently. This would allow them to fight while moving, which makes logical sense, and I don’t think it would make them too OP, due to them still being really slow and easy to catch. Naturally their model would need to be tweaked to give them a rider and an archer.
Italians:
- Italians are already a decent civ, maybe just increase the Genoese crossbows stats slightly to make it better than normal archer line units.
Japanese:
- I don’t think Japanese really need buffs, especially if the unique units of other civs got buffed,
making Samurai more useful.
Khmer:
- Khmer are an interesting civ, but the Ballista Elephants are terrible. They should be able to cut trees in a line, rather than single trees, to make them better on Black Forest and similar maps. It would also be nice if it got a small bonus attack against the spear line.
Koreans:
- Koreans are a very strong civ, but their Turtle ships probably need a small buff, maybe slightly faster movement speed.
Lithuanians:
- Lithuanians are a great civ, and need no improvement.
Magyars:
- Magyars are already very strong and need nothing more.
Malay:
- Karambit warriors should have their gold cost slightly decreased, to 10 in order to make spamming them easier, but then also receive even more damage from the mangonel line.
Malians:
- Malians are strong, nothing here.
Mayans:
- Mayans are an OP civ, no suggestions, except maybe slightly increase the cost of Plumes.
Mongols:
- Mongols are good, fine as they are.
Persians:
- It is good that War Elephants are expensive, if they appeared always, it would be too broken, and the Persian Douche is so entertaining that I’m not going to advocate for it to be nerfed.
Poles:
- Poles are far too OP. They need the gold generation while mining stone nerfed from a 1:2 ratio down to at least a 1:3 if not 1:4 or 1:5, this would weaken a lot of their key strategies, while still making them viable if they also mine stone. Szlachta Privileges also needs a nerf, but I would try nerfing the mining first, and see what happens to the rest of their strategies.
Portuguese:
- Portuguese are already strong, especially in the lategame. Maybe the Organ Gun should deal extra
damage to cavalry though, or just have a flat out stat buff.
Saracens:
- Mamelukes have an infinite supply of swords. Lol. Saracens are fine to leave as they are.
Sicilians:
- Sicilians are good, the one change I might make, especially with Polish Obuch being better in comparison, would be to make Serjeants function like villagers, in terms of garrisoning them shoots extra arrows. Probably have it more powerful to garrison archers, but it’s easier to garrison Serjeants, even though Serjeants would have to add very little in terms of extra firepower.
Slavs:
- I think that the Slavs probably just need the rename to Rus or Ruthenians that everyone is asking for,
due to the number of Slavic nations now in the game.
Spanish:
- Spanish are fine, they are very strong once they reach gunpowder, but weaker early game balances
that out.
Tatars:
- Tatars are fine as they are.
Teutons:
- Teutonic Knights are cool, it would be interesting if they would provide an extreme power boost to anything they garrisoned inside, either providing a large buff to the speed of Siege Engines they are inside, and firing several extra arrows when inside buildings. I don’t want them to become OP, but they look very cool, only they sadly can’t catch a lot of units and people tend to just use Champs and Paladin instead.
Turks:
- Turks are already a good civ when it comes to gunpowder, probably leave them as they are.
Vietnamese:
- Vietnamese are strong, leave as is.
Vikings:
- I would quite like to see the Berserk mechanic change. Right now they heal, and the Berserkergang tech increases the heal speed. I would quite like it if the Berserk instead did extra damage below half health, or some other percentage. Berserkergang could then make it that when Berserks die, they deal massive splash damage to all units/all enemy units around them, while doing a special enrage death animation, before dying. It could also drop the threshold for the enrage effect to occur. If the enrage was added, it could also increase the speed slightly to make it easier to catch certain units. It would also be nice to have a separate graphic version for the enraged version, with the cloak in tatters, and the shield gone, possibly with a second axe. That would hopefully make Berserks both look cooler, and see more use. They may also need to have their health reduced. It has been pointed out that this would make them OP, so maybe if they took extra damage and/or lost all their armor for the duration it could be more viable. Or we could just leave them how they are. It also might well be almost impossible to implement this into the engine.
Last one, Steppe Lancers:
- Steppe Lancers are fine as they are, but they rarely see use, due to knights normally being better. I think, instead of buffing their raw stats, It would be cool if they had a large bonus attack against villagers, making them better eco raiding units, but only when there is still gold. When gold runs out, or if they want to use gold elsewhere, Hussars move in to fill this role. I think that might lead to Steppe Lancers being used more, while still being situational and losing one on one to units like the knight.
Right, that’s my opinion on how a lot of things should be changed. Any support? Or do people just prefer the current largely same meta of spears and skirms? Any other suggestions or improvements to this list are welcome. So far I’ve got a lot of valuable critique, are there any suggestions that people think are ok, or are you all happy with unique units rarely making an appearance for a lot of these civs I’ve mentioned? Also, although I think that any of these would be interesting, and could always be reverted if need be, the priority should probably be placed on fixing the big issues like crashes and the Alt f4 problem.
