I’m not talking about the civ as a whole, I’m talking more about how often you see unique units come into play for the civ.
They already have a high base damage. Why would they need even more damage against cavalry? 7 base damage in Castle is already nuts.
Agree. I don’t think they need an extremely big nerf to their speed, but they should not be faster than archers after the UT is researched…
Coustilliers are fine, they’re pretty useful in the right situation. They’re excellent against archers, because of the charge damage, they can down them very very fast.
They’re literally the worst performing civ in the game right now. By a long shot. They have a huge, aching weakness to archer civs. They definitely need to be reworked in two ways:
- more consistent civ bonuses instead of the random mess they currently get
- a useful bonus against archers to make up for the lack of archery range
Like when? Countering Infantry is literally the least useful thing a unit can do, given that Infantry is already the least threatening unit type (generally speaking).
I agree for now, let’s see if the farm nerf was enough to nerf them. But we should be open to more nerf in the future.
Cumans need a more consistent set of bonuses instead of the random mess they’ve been given. They need to be given a game-plan. Although with the mega-cheap production buildings, they can do really strong feudal all-ins. (which makes their TC bonus kind of pointless)
They have their uses. For example, it’s the best answer the civ has against Eagle Warriors.
They’re literally obsoleted by the other two meso civs. After Dark Age, you’re basically playing a generic civ with no bonuses 
According to winrates, you’re wrong. It has been pointed out that their winrate is ~50%, which is actually the exact sweet spot for a civ.
I’d wait with it. Sicilians have received a lot of buff recently, they might not need anymore buffs at all.
They’re one of the weakest civs on Arabia 1v1. They’ve been a victim of power creep. Tower rushes aren’t as good as they used to be, Conqs got nerfed with the armor class, they definitely need a major buff.
I wouldn’t. Berserks are fine as they are.
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Ok, would you like me to change it from: How I think unique units should be altered to make them more viable? To: How I would buff/nerf every single civ in the game and unique units to make it reasonable? Because that is what everyone seems to want me to do.
That had been pointed out, I just forgot to change it. Done now.
That’s reasonable for them to still be slower than archers, but I feel like it would be nice if they were slower than mangonels, but after the tech they were slightly faster. That would allow mangonel to be a counter, but only before the tech comes in, or if they can get a sneak attack.
Nothing I can really say to this, I just like the idea of a charging mechanic somewhere.
How would you suggest that is done? I’ve already done suggestions for a lot of the 39 civs.
They have good counters to cav and archers as well however, due to the cheaper units, and Cataphract shouldn’t be buffed, if it was, it could become very much OP.
I would kind of like to see the wood discount nerfed or removed, and make the Feudal TCs cost extra stone, or extra resources in general. This would push them more towards the 2TC boom, but at the expense of a 3rd TC in Castle age without mining stone.
That is 3/39 civs though that it can counter.
I’m talking more about the Kamayuk than the civ as a whole. Maybe if it had a slight stat buff it would be good in comparison to the other meso civs?
Ok, but I still think that the mining bonus is OP, and should go down to at least a 1:3.
Right, but if they wanted to push the playstyle more towards Donjon rush, and they need more buffs, this could be considered.
We then, just don’t play them on Arabia. There winrate also might improve if Arabia was balanced better, I’m planning to make a topic soon on how I might go about that. Also, as this is about unique units mostly currently, and Conqs make up most of their army, I think that my comment is ok.
I find it sad that everyone says this, but I can also understand it. I’m just not really a fan of passive slow healing abilities, and think an enrage type effect, especially with new graphics could be cool.
Thanks for the feedback.
Thing is rhats the problem with glass cannon units.
Yeah, I don’t know what their exact speed should be, but as long as they’re slower than archers, I’m fine. I don’t want them as slow as a Mangonel, because that would be probably too slow. Maybe a base speed of 0.8 would be fine. (Mangonel is 0.6, current Hussite Wagon is 0.85)
For Burmese, my suggestion would be reviewing their civ bonuses, For example, free Lumber Camp technologies is kind of garbage on a civ that doesn’t actually need to use that much wood to make units (since Archery Ranges are not an option, and Arambai are now trash). So I’d replace that with some kind of food bonus instead, and I’d add bonus damage for Scout Cavalry line against Archers and Cavalry Archers as an additional new civ bonus.
I would lean towards making the Feudal TC build a bit faster (no extra cost), but remove the 100W bonus on the production buildings. I’d remove Steppe Husbandry UT, and replace it with a stat buff for Kipchaks (and maybe CA), and I’d also improve the Cuman Mercenaries UT so that the 10 units can be replaced at their normal cost (but ultra-fast train speed). I’d also remove the faster moving Cavalry civ bonus, add husbandry to tech tree, add heavy camel to tech tree. I’d remove the current Siege workshop bonus, and just make Capped Ram a free and instant upgrade in Castle Age.
Aztecs and Mayans are some of the more popular, and most powerful civs though. (RIP Incas)
No it would not. Incas have something like 30% win rate against Mayans 11 Just pretend Incas don’t exist.
They kind of suck everywhere except for Nomad. Basically as soon as E. Skirm is in, Conqs are obsolete. Unlike other cavalry archer UU civs, Spanish can not afford Light Cav as meat shield, because Conqs and Light cav both cost food… so yeah, idk Spanish need a major rethink as a civ.
Sounds reasonable.
I think the whole idea of the 2TC boom is that the second one takes 2x as long. Otherwise it just can’t be stopped. You said you would remove the step husbandry tech, but if you want to do something like that, you need a new tech in mind. I definitely agree with the ram thing, it makes more sense your way, but they might need to balance the Kotyan Khan campaign a bit if they did. I think heavy camel should be added, but I’m less sure about removing the bonus, seeing as it ends up being only 5% faster than husbandry, but gives them the fastest paladins and stuff.
The Cuman bit was quite long, so this next part is on Cuman Mercanaries:
This is part of one of my posts about Cuman Mercenaries: I would rather see this kind of mechanic implemented instead: Allow players to replenish the ten mercenaries at full cost whenever there are less than ten. (Paying for each one the way that you would normally create a unit). To make it more useful in 1v1s however you might need it to let the player replenish those ten at half cost or something instead though. The Kipchaks spawned could also be a new unit called Kipchak Mercenary instead of Elite Kipchak with better stats, but only ten of them at once. Not sure what would happen if you had 4 Cuman players on your team though.
Maybe buff slingers movement speed slightly to make them more viable hit and run units?
Ok, agreed. This is a long post, so I’m not going to put suggestions here now.
Some stat buff to Kipchaks and Cavalry Archers, not sure what exactly, as it’s quite hard to come up with something that isn’t bracer, but compensates well for the lack of it.
Yeah, that’s just too long, especially on the new Arabia, where you are wide open in basically every direction.
The 5% faster Heavy Camel would end up being too good at chasing things down I think. So I’d be happy to just give them Husbandry and Heavy Camel, and “sacrifice” the current civ bonus in exchange.
That’s what I said too 11 So we agree.
I’m fine with that, but you just need to come up with a name for this new tech, unless you want it to just be called Steppe husbandry.
I think the Arabia needs changing, here is my list of how I would do so: I would have the balanced Arabia be similar to new Arabia, but more the mines closer to the TC, make at least 1 of them spawn on the back, make none of them spawn on hills, prevent berries spawning on hills, move hills further away from the TCs, then bring the side and back woodlines closer, and add 2 woodlines on the front to allow walling, but have them be smaller woodlines so less desirable. That should allow your drush because it is still open, then wall and FC because walling becomes easier, tower rush can still deny stone/gold and now forward woodlines, wall and boom becomes more of an option due to it being more possible to wall. Keep any small water things or cliffs from generating like they did in the old Arabia. That is how I would fix it. That should allow the boom. Also bear in mind that Arabia isn’t the only map in the game, and if the 2nd TC was built faster, Cumans would become broken on some of the other maps.
Ok, sure.
Yes, but I think that the ten units have to be a new unit type that is better than the Elite Kipchak, but only a finite number of them are allowed at one. It would probably be called the Kipchak Mercenary.
Please, if you see this, ignore the original post. I can sadly no longer edit it, and because I don’t want my last hour of editing work to go to waste, I’m posting it below. Please read this instead:
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.
I’m now changing this to include how I would balance most of the civs, based on winrate. The winrate statics are from aoe2stats and are only the 1650+ elo for 1v1 games.
Aztecs: (52.80% winrate)
- 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: (51.19% winrate)
- Camel Archers are, as everyone has pointed out, already strong and no need for a change.
Bohemians: (No current data that I can remember)
- 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: (51.96% winrate)
- Although Britons are a good civ, an idea would be to have cav units receive a small amount of damage upon their first attack against a Longbowman, representing the ‘caltrops/spikes’ tactics actually employed.
Bulgarians: (46.12% winrate)
- I think Bulgarians were stronger when they still had Paladin, but stirrups didn’t effect it. Maybe bring this back?
Burgundians: (53.32% winrate)
- Despite the high winrate, I kind of want to see the Coustillier mechanic change. The Coustillier mechanic is kind of weird currently, 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: (47.94% winrate)
- Despite having a lot of strong options, Burmese have a terrible winrate. Seeing as most of their units need food, a food bonus would be more useful than the current wood bonus. The wood bonus exists due to the heavy presence of rainforest and other jungles, so what if lumberjacks slowly generated food while chopping trees? Maybe 10 food for every hundred wood? Their battle elephants could also do extra splash damage maybe?
Byzantines: (47.06% winrate)
- The Cataphract is already a very strong unit, but Byzantines still have a very low winrate. What if the Greek Fire UT allowed them to create Fire Towers as well as the fire ship bonus? That would increase their defense. They could instead be given bloodlines, but possibly have the Cataphract lose 10/20 HP to balance this, that would allow the Paladin to be more viable.
Celts: (51.93% winrate)
- Solid winrate, maybe make the Woad Raider slightly weaker to archers?
Chinese: (51.64% winrate)
- 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. I’m not sure why the winrate is so low however. Maybe people who don’t know how to play Chinese properly?
Cumans: (42.38% winrate)
- This is incredibly low, and surprised me a lot. Maybe get rid of the cheaper military buildings, but decrease the time it takes to build Feudal TCs. Maybe 1.5x the Castle Age time. Then also possibly remove the cav speed bonus, but add husbandry and heavy camel. The other thing I would suggest would be to change how Cuman Mercenaries works. I would rather see this kind of mechanic implemented instead: Allow players to replenish the ten mercenaries at full cost whenever there are less than ten. (Paying for each one the way that you would normally create a unit). To make it more useful in 1v1s however you might need it to let the player replenish those ten at half cost or something instead though. The Kipchaks spawned could also be a new unit called Kipchak Mercenary instead of Elite Kipchak with better stats, but only ten of them at once.
Ethiopians: (47.62% winrate)
- Maybe re-introduce the free halberdier, or make the halberdier upgrade be cheaper/faster/free/instant?
Franks: (55.29% winrate)
- Franks are very strong statistically, maybe have their knight line move slightly slower than usual? Also I would increase the cost of Frankish castles, maybe to 525 stone instead of 488, as I think it currently is.
Goths: (50.22% winrate)
- Goths are already a really powerful civilization, and the Huskarl is consistently used. No
improvement needed.
Huns: (52.83% winrate)
- 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: (48.39% winrate)
- Maybe increase the slinger speed slightly however, to make them better against other Mesoamerican civs or other infantry civs. Also maybe increase their basic attack by one.
Indians: (52.61% winrate)
- 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. Even though they have a good winrate, I would still like to see this implemented to make Elephant archers more viable.
Italians: (48.15% winrate)
- Maybe just increase the Genoese crossbows stats slightly to make it better than the normal archer line units.
Japanese: (49.27% winrate)
- If the unique units of other civs got buffed, Samurai would become more useful. Because of their code of honor however, it might be interesting if they got extra attack, but only if they were the only allied unit attack that particular enemy.
Khmer: (45.77% winrate)
- Khmer are an interesting civ, but the Ballista Elephants are terrible, at least in low numbers. 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: (49.03% winrate)
- Koreans are a good civ, but their Turtle ships probably need a small buff, maybe slightly faster movement speed. It would also be interesting if you could research the next tower upgrade at the TC, an age early. This could make tower rushing more powerful if they could upgrade their watch towers to guard towers in the Feudal Age. The health of Feudal Guard towers might need to be decreased to balance this.
Lithuanians: (50.54% winrate)
- Lithuanians are a great civ, with a good winrate, and need no improvement.
Magyars: (47.81% winrate)
- Maybe slightly decrease the frame delay of the cav archers to make that more viable?
Malay: (44.04% winrate)
- That winrate is terrible. 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. Alternatively, give them access to the second armor upgrade.
Malians: (53.98% winrate)
- Malians are strong, nothing here.
Mayans: (56.18% winrate)
- Mayans are an OP civ, I would suggest to maybe slightly increase the cost of Plumes.
Mongols: (52.03% winrate)
- I can’t think of any changes.
Persians: (42.60% winrate)
- That is an appalling winrate. Maybe it is the times the Persian Douche fails? 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: (50.04% winrate (I think))
- Poles are far a strong civ. However I think that they need the gold generation while mining stone nerfed from a 1:2 ratio down to at least a 1:3. This would weaken a lot of their key strategies, while still making them viable if they also mine gold, instead of just stone. Szlachta Privileges also possibly needs a nerf, but I would try nerfing the mining first, and see what happens to the rest of their strategies.
Portuguese: (45.54% winrate)
- Portuguese are strong in the lategame, with the Feitoria, but probably less so earlier. Maybe the Organ Gun should deal extra damage to cavalry though, or just have a flat out stat buff. They could also buff Portuguese Hand Cannoneers as well maybe?
Saracens: (49.47% winrate)
- Mamelukes have an infinite supply of swords. Lol. Saracens are fine to leave as they are, unless they got a slight buff to the attack of their castles, to reflect how using round towers was a much better defensive design than the European square towers of the time.
Sicilians: (42.48% winrate)
- Sicilians are better now with their recent buffs, I think the winrate is largely from before the buffs. 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: (45.71% winrate)
- I think that the Slavs probably need the rename to Rus or Ruthenians that everyone is asking for,
due to the number of Slavic nations now in the game. In terms of buffs, maybe change the Orthodoxy tech, perhaps it could also make monks convert faster, or units being healed by monks also gain +3/+3 armor while being healed?
Spanish: (48.18% winrate)
- Spanish are fine once they reach gunpowder, but weaker early game, and have lots of problems when Elite Skirmishers enter the field. Maybe if Conquistadors had lost their food cost entirely, but had their gold cost go up to maybe 100? They could also get +1 range. That would let the Spanish put light cav down in front to tank and kill skirms, but they are still vulnerable to pikes and skirms.
Tatars: (47.65% winrate)
- Check the ‘Steppe Lancer’ buff I recommend down the bottom. It might help improve Tatars.
Teutons: (50.46% winrate)
- That is a good winrate, leave Teutons as is.
Turks: (49.00% winrate)
- Turks are strong in Imp, but lack strength at other times. Maybe if their cav archers received +1 attack or +1 range for free as a civ bonus? The winrate is close enough to 50% that it could also be left alone.
Vietnamese: (43.28% winrate)
- This is a sad winrate. Buff elephants against cav maybe? Or strengthen Rattan Archer as a hit and run unit?
Vikings: (51.88% winrate)
- Ok, Ignore the following bit on Berserks, I just don’t want to get rid of half and hours work: 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. This used to just be a list of how I would change unique units, but now based on the comments, it has become a list of what I would do for all the civs.