IN MY HUMBLE OPINION Britons, Ethiopians, Goths are badly designed civs that concentrate on a singular unit too much and it was designed to work so often cause otherwise there’s nothing else going for them.
So the issue is how one dimensional those civs are.
You can literally go into the 1v1 game with the same attitude:
“I’m gonna do … no matter which civ I’m gonna face or what my enemy is gonna do” and it’s gonna actually work because of the level of civ bonuses these civs get for the specific unit.
You can go skirms against Britons and Briton player will still go archers with a small adjustment of mangonels and win. Yaya I hear you - Briton adds light cav in imp, ok, ok.
Same with Ethiopians. Only here literally nothing else is going for them.
And Goths, Goths, Goths - just always go the Huscarls against anything else than infantry and cav then champions against infantry, halbs against cav. Always. If Goths is against a unique unit that doesn’t get countered like a Throwing Axeman it’s over.
But it applies for all of these civs if the enemy has a unit that doesn’t meet the criteria (like a Rathan Archer, Atlatl Skirmisher, Plumed Archer) you have no real answer. The problem is not really about these counter-units themselves but about how one-dimensional the countered civ is.
Probably, it’s too late to do any changes about the current state, we’re simply too deep into it already.
Having said that you need to give an identity to the civ.
BUT there’s a thin line between making the civ too one-dimensional and making a civ having an identity.
Perhaps something to think about when designing civs for aoe 4.
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I like one dimensional civs, when goths go for knights from a sneaky stable nobody expects them and you can surprise you enemy.
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Is it something you can rely on every game? - No.
how can you list mono dimensional civs and not list Mongols?
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Or Franks.
Specially considering Franks and Goths are both the most one-dimensional civs in the whole game, by a wide margin.
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I don’t think that’s quite fair. While Mangudai are very strong - Mongols have one of the strongest siege workshops and are up there on light cavalry. I think a few of the other examples he mentioned + Franks are more 1 dimensional
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Mangudai is a powerful unit once FU and you want to get to it. In reality you cannot comfortably allow yourself to get there without going crossbow (into arbalests), knights (into cavaliers) or even siege first. In the end you want to have Mangudai, Hussar, Siege Ram but the journey there might go any way available. Now you even have Steppe Lancers that are a really sweet unit for microing like sniping siege and vills.
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I would agree with Frank being too one-dimensional if they didn’t have Throwing Axeman.
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The one other civ I was thinking about is Huns, but they have many other options apart from cav archers (Hussar, paladin, skirms, halbs, tarkans).
And cav archers are crap on DE so it’s not that relevant anymore.
I’d like to see a shotel warrior buff to make Ethiopians less one dimensional, however I see Ethiopian siege+halb quite often, but I’m speaking about closed maps.
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Their arbalests are excellent fully upgraded and they fire much faster. I don’t think they are one dimensional. That being said - I think Shotel Warriors are a bit too expensive, particularly in gold, for what they offer
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their light cavalry get easily wrecked by even archers due to lacking armor and their siege can’t win games on its own.
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Actually they have one of the strongest scout rushes with the HP bonus and their hussars are better in melee than most others while being weaker against archers. In trash war late game, the archer weakness matters much less
I don’t know what your definition of winning a game by itself is - what if you only build Mangudai and your opponent builds skirmishers and / or light cav? My point was that the Mongols are much less one dimensional than you suggest
No, but however it fun to go for huskarls 9 times and then the tenth for knights.
One dimensional civs aren’t that easy to counter, and have identity.
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I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.
-Bruce Lee
Sometimes, all you need is to punch once, really hard.
It is often better to do one thing to perfection, that do a lot of things in a shabby manner.
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Yeah, then consider that goth are one super infantry civ out of 35, it’s still something that you don’t see every day.
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I don’t find Britos and Ethiopians to be that one dimensional, they still have some degree of versatility. Mongols and Franks are what I would call one-dimensional.
Is a one-dimensional civ a bad civ from a design perspective, though? I share your oponion when it comes to civs I like to play with but I don’t think it’s bad for the game. Some people prefer civs with a lot of options, others like civs that focus on only few units. When it comes to some details, I tend to agree that stuff like extra range is briton’s civ bonus, their UT and also a feature of their UU is a bit lazy with respect to design.
In feudal and castle age Huns are more flexible than most civs in the game so I think they are far from one-dimensional. Imo variery not only includes the FU options in imp but also the civ bonuses and the way you can transition from unit into another (which is super smooth in case of Huns).
The hp bonus only affects the scout line after you do the light cav upgrade.
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How are Goth one Dimensional???
You can open:
Militia (3-5) -> FC
Full Militia (6+) -> semi FC
MAA (3) -> Archer
MAA (3) -> semi FC / Skirms
Full MAA (5+) -> Castle
Those steats are all viable. And even going Archers is not bad as you go up with one more vill and 50extra gold compared to your opponent.
In castle you adapt to your opponent and either push pike + siege (against cavalry civ) or go Huskarl/skirm + Siege (Vs Archer Civ). Or you boom (if possible).
Yes, in the very lategame you just spam infantry. But first you have to get there…
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It very much is. Goths have no Thumb Ring or Arbalest.