After 23 years of the developers trying to nerf the Mayans, I think they are still way too overtuned. I think one of the problems is in Feudal and Castle Age, their best military areas are far too strong for the economy they are given. The sensible solution would be to nerf their tech tree, removing thumb ring and squires is the easiest way as they are both relatively cheap and increase the quality of infantry and archers substantially, to the point where they’re critical techs. Restricting their castle age options would slow down their aggression. What would you think is the best way to handle them.
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They nerfed both eagles and archers this patch, buffed infantry. So it is a huge nerf to mayans comparably, even though Mayan itself is not changed much.
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One way would be to tone down their resource lasting longer bonus by making it no longer affect Farms, so they will no longer have farms that last 15% longer. (and it would also reduce overlap with the existing chinese 10% longer lasting farms and sicilian double lasting farms)
If civ still ends up too good then maybe a small reduction to their archer discount in castle and imperial age.
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Maybe wait to see the impact of the announced nerf before asking for more?
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The biggest problem is the double economic bonus. An extra villager and more food from animals. This along with cheaper ranged units results in a very fast uptime and the other player falls behind unless they’re something like Portuguese or Franks themselves.
Removing squires is a good way to balance El Dorado but I wouldn’t recommend removing thumb ring. If archers are to be nerfed as an option I guess best thing is to either remove Arbalester upgrade or bracer with adjustments to elite plumed archer stats. The second javelin damage could be adjusted as well in case bracer is getting removed. This way they’d follow the cheap but missing important upgrades rule followed by Goths, Poles, Byzantines, Gurjaras.
Either ways nerfing just the mid game techs will still only have a minor impact since the primary problem imo is their insane double economic bonus plus the early archer discount.
What was the nerf to archers?
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If were referring to gambesons or the archer speed nerf for britons then that doesnt hurt the mayans in particular and i dont see how they could fix the mayans without nerfing their best bonuses into the ground maybe closing up their tech tree in the early to mid game might impact them at all stages and make them have trade offs like the britons having extra range but no thumb ring italians with discounted bombard cannons but no siege engineers vietnamese battle elephants with more hitpoints but no blast furnace chinese with rocketry but no siege engineers franks with a hitpoint bonus on their cavalry but no bloodlines huns with more accurate trebuchets but no siege engineers teutons having good paladins missing husbandry aztecs with good skirmishers missing thumb ring and the last archer armor lithuanians having good cavalry without blast furnace goths having good halberdiers in spite of missing arson and the last armor tech turks with artillery but no siege engineers portuguese having discounted monks missing illumination malay with discounted battle elephants but missing chain barding and plate barding armor compare that to mayan archers with all techs and a discount and eagle warriors with all techs and el dorado maybe they could remove mid game and late game quality no thumb ring squires and bracer to rebalance them
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That or make them the only civilization who is missing loom
I’d consider any of the following:
- remove 2 archer armour upgrades, (but in compensation make their UT skirmishers stronger)
- remove squires
- remove the free vill, (but in compensation buff the longer lasting resources back up to 20%, and/or increase the amplitude of some of their other bonuses)
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Option 3 isnt good on its own but yeah the first 2 combined with no thumb ring and no loom would be enough to drop them from 7 of 42 to 25 of 42
Honestly though the developers probably dont want to nerf the mayans in any meaningful way so the best way to nerf them until they actually decide to do so is with mods that either leave them useless or remove all of their source code from the game as i actually am baffled that at any point in the conquerors and later that this civ was thought to be balanced enough to put in the game
it’s getting tiresome reading 900 elo players suggestions trying to fix the game while not understanding the core issues. First of all, Mayans in Castle age aren’t very scary. They only get 1 combat bonus, cheaper archers, which is comparable to what a civ like Portuguese or Byzantines can get. Their longer lasting resources means that you save a bit of wood on farms but again, nothing compared to what Khmer or Burgundians get. Also in nerfing Mayans you need to realize that their tech tree is already VERY narrow, they are 1 of 3 meso who don’t get Champion upgrade, they don’t have Siege Engineers, they don’t have Redemption (making their Monks fairly niche, for example you can’t all-in as easily as Aztecs, and you can’t convert Bombard Cannons in Imp). Mayans can like make 6 units total in the game realistically in Imperial Age, that’s Halberdier, Eagles, Arbalest, Plumed Archer and Siege Ram. Remove Squires and Thumb Ring, they are supposed to play generic Halb Siege Ram? Their UU has 5+4 damage in Elite form (which is low damage) and you want to remove Thumb Ring?
Mayans have the same problem of Gurjaras and Byzantines in that their Imp armies are on the cheap side. If Byzantines and Gurjaras are considered tolerable in Feudal and Castle age, Mayans are considered strong here. So if you want to nerf Mayans, you either need to address the fact that they can make a full Imperial army from some 90-100 vills (most other civs need 120+ to function in Imp), or you need to address the Plumed Archer + 100 HP Eagle combo. But either way, people are largely overreacting, these nerfs are needed at top level (2500+ elo) where pros play, but below that, and below 2k especially, I’ve never seen Mayans win due to their efficient Imperial age, it was almost always, they win in Feudal or with a Castle age Eagle all-in, or lose in Feudal/Castle. So for the majority of players, Mayans are fine. And for mid- and low-elos in particular, probably Mayans are easier to deal with than say Berbers or Franks Knights timing so I don’t see what the fuss is all about.
I’d remove food from the bonus. But now I’ll wait how Eagle cost increase and Gambeson play out.
Before archers nerf mayans winrate were always near around 54-55% on 1600+ elo When aoe2stat was still operative.
Right Now they are more around 52-53%. Yes the civ is still strong but archers nerf patch was a meaningful nerf on them. Let’s wait and see the eagles nerf coming soon.
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I disagree honestly because a nerf to eagles nerfs aztecs more and gambesons also nerfs vietnamese italians and britons more and britons also got a massive direct nerf in spite of these civs being significantly worse than the mayans. Indirect nerfs can only do so to limited effect whereas I think they dont want to alienate fans of the games with more drastic and direct nerfs. They had a fear that britons would become overpowered in the conquerors expansion and subsequently nerfed them into the ground for 13 years in my honest opinion. Then they overlooked balance for mayans koreans and spanish until 1.0c or the forgotten or honestly in mayans case they never did. Mayans cant be nerfed indirectly because it makes other civs like aztecs britons italians and vietnamese go from bad to worse. Remember that aztecs and britons had a 49.3% win rate and italians and vietnamese had a 44.9% win rate overall in the previous patch on comparison mayans at 52.9% rivaling franks huns berbers hindustanis gurjaras slavs and poles as the most broken civ with those civs having a 52.6% to 53.6% win rate.
I would say that the problem is that they get too many economy and military techs in the mid game where 850+ elo players or about 77-78% of players lie. Even if we go to sub 500 elo they still win more than they lose. Compare that with civs like byzantines vietnamese and italians with no early eco bonus britons and aztecs who now have lackluster eco bonuses portuguese who only get 1 early eco bonus plumed archers with all upgrades a discount and thumb ring and el dorado eagle warriors with all techs and squires and a game ruining eco bonuses is too much in comparison.
You say it as if it is a super bad winrate and need immediate buffs.
aside from the 3 first. Hindoustanis got a huge nerf on their eco and are no longer what they were at release. Gurjaras will get a nerf next patch (again) with SR and kshatriyas cost increase. Poles got nerf twices on their eco bonuses. As for slavs since the farm bonus nerf after DE they are average.
Because a nerf to the mayans is also a nerf to the aztecs who are already below average now and britons not only were below average before but got the same nerf mayans got and more their team bonus is useless now thats what i was saying not that they were so bad before but because theyre going from underwhelming slightly poor choices to something much much worse in comparison.
Having the 20% is way better than having the extra vill. This would be broken.
Kindof curious what ELO you’re at.
But at my ELO (1100) plenty of games are won by just spamming xbows regardless of what the opponent does. If you have a big enough numbers advantage, you can overcome all the other more subtle advantages. (It doesn’t always work, you know 50% win rate and all that)
The point is that Mayans are by far the best xbow spammers in the game. Longer lasting resources on hunt and berries is huge, as is the extra vill, and the xbow discount is massive. 20% wood and food discount. No other civ beats that.
The issue of the thin tech tree might become relevant at higher elo’s, but that doesn’t change the fact that Mayans are the best xbow spammers in the game is the core issue at mid elos.
Also rather silly that you’re saying El Dorado eagles need to be nerfed, but then saying they can’t lose Squires. Otherwise their eagles would get too weak??
@NastyHigh
I disagree. There’s videos comparing the effect in dark and feudal age, and the vill is more important there. As for gold lasting longer in Imp when it starts to run out, it’s a matter of opinion. But Mayans had 20% for a long time, and they didn’t do well in late Imp when you’d expect the effect of the longer lasting gold mines to start showing.
at this elo, people cannot macro very well, so you don’t see the Knight spam that you could see at say 1400, but I cannot empathize with a 1-unit spam winning games. If you think that at 1100 elo, what makes you lose or win is civ bonuses, you are wrong. The #1 and #2 factors of winning or losing games at that elo are bad macro and wrong strategy choice/adaptation. If Mayans go full Xbow, “regardless of what opponent does”, it seems going full Skirm wins every game.
Ethiopians win the 1v1 trade. Idk how they trade resources-wise, but I doubt Mayans are significantly ahead here. Britons get the extra range (particularly strong with Ballistics), something like Malay (which I admit is a tricky 1v1 Arabia civ) can hit the Xbow timing before you do. Mayans are a good civ but counting the bonuses is not how you judge a civ. And in lower elos, the +1 vill is very often lost to idle time or similar, it’s always the case that in lower elos one player has much more idle TC than the other and that’s the main source of “lost eco”, translation, Mayans extra vill is irrelevant below say 1700, argualy even 2k elo.
if we balance around mid elos, then we should nerf Berbers, Franks, we should nerf Goths for the 800 elo players while we’re at it. At some point, this just sounds silly and impractical. So balancing for high elo is the way to go.
yes because removing Squires is making the unit useless, the right way to go is maybe take away -10 HP, which leaves them as good in their intended role (mobility/pseudo cavalry), removing Squires makes them horrible in their intended role, you might as well be playing Dravidians at that point.
I’m 1700 elo, my elo however is irrelevant because this is not a “I’m better than you” post, it is just annoying when game knowledge and balancing takes don’t go hand in hand, many of the 1k elo players here watch a Hera video and come here thinking that knowledge applies to them. Also Hera tries to teach the basics of AoE (and he is very good at it), but he also doesn’t explain some of the trickier stuff, for example, why you don’t see compositions like Pike Knight in Castle age, or why a Cavalry civ goes Xbow in one case, and Knight in another). The game at high elo (especially in 2400+ elo) is trickier than it is in mid elos, because stuff like how close opponent is to a transition, how easy a transition is, the final late game comp, mass start to play a MUCH bigger role. For example, if you are in 1600 elo, and you fight 25 Knights vs 32 Knights, you will lose that fight, but the opponent might fail to punish you. The more you climb, the less this is true, because people get better at capitalizing on advantages (here, army advantage) and won’t let you replenish. This is why you might see only like 3 Monks in a 1700 elo game, while in a 2400+ elo game, if it comes down to a Knight vs Knight confrontation, you will invariably see 6+ Monks on each side. Stuff like this, you don’t see in Hera’s videos, and it makes judging civs and bonuses a bit less trivial than your average 1000 elo player might think.
In any case Mayans is not strong because of the Archers discount per se. How big the discount on your 1-unit spam tactic is hardly a measure of the strength of a civ. The main idea of Mayans and their game plan in 90% of matchups is this:
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in Feudal you are safe because of longer lasting Boar & possibly Deer. This means you don’t have to do risky stuff like long distance gather deer. Or place Farms too early (requires wood). Mayans in Feudal Age are hard to harass because even if you take them, say, off Berries for a long time (which is the easiest resource to deny in Feudal), they still likely have tons of food under TC, so they can afford for example +1 attack for archers or even simply constant Vill production where other civs wouldn’t.
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piling on point 1, Mayans don’t have the best Feudal in the game (that likely goes to something like Khmer or Mongols), but they are like maybe top 10 Feudal age? This means that the Mayans player is more likely to create a lead in Feudal than the opponent. At worst, it’s fairly easy to keep it an even game as the Mayans in Feudal (because of the cheaper Archers and Eagles not having a counter in Feudal + being cheaper than Scouts and healable in the TC). This means that Mayans hit Castle age on good terms (often faster than you).
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there are several openings in Castle age, you can open Knights (has numbers problems initially because you face 10+ Xbow while you ar still making the 3rd-4th Knight), you can open Xbow, or even maybe Skirm Siege. Here I don’t wanna go into detail about Castle Age openings, but very often, at least in EARLY Castle age, you are forced into an Archer war vs Mayans (which is the residual archers from Feudal from both sides, possibly with some Skirms), and in Archer wars, whoever hits the Xbow/Bodkin timing first generally has a huge lead if they can find damage (most of the times, they do).
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at some point, the opponent is forced to switch into Skirms (you can also possibly go Knights but Knight is strong in mid elo and weaker the more you climb due to Monks so I will disregard it, it is also a very all-in strat and while in mid elos it can pay off big, ultimately with good micro, Monk beats Knights all in most of the time), at which point Mayans can just switch to Eagles which is both a very easy transition (requires few techs), and the economy you need for Archers is sort of the same economy you need for Eagles (most of your vills are on gold).
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should you not kill the opponent in Castle age, you can win in Imp as the Mayans, they still got Halbs, Plumed Archers + Eagles combo, they don’t have the strongest Arabia army in the game, it’s possible to beat them in Imp, but it requires a mix of beating their many archers and likely stone walling your eco to fend off the 100 HP Eagle raids. The #1 aspect here though is that Imp has a “cooldown time” in which both players normally sort of make a truce (unless one is very ahead) to get all the Imp techs for their desired composition, the Mayans have this tech switch ready very early because like mentioned their armies can function from 100-110 vills (Halbs are cheap, their UU is cheap, their Archers are cheap, Eagles are cheap).
Again it’s possible to beat the Mayans here but it always feels like they are faster in Imp than most other civs.
This is a non-trivial analysis of why “Mayans are Mayans”. I would say, their archer bonus is not the core issue, the core issue is that their transitions (for example, Crossbow into Eagles) don’t really have a defined way of countering them. The approach to beat Crossbow + Eagles has always generally been Knights + Crossbow, too bad that at that point, the Mayans just need to add a few Monks, and the Knight + Crossbow comp is more expensive than Eagle + Crossbow, also in terms of upgrades. Also surprisingly, 2 Eagles beat 1 Knight, while costing about the same amount of resources, so it’s not like Knights are a super hard counter, either. So basically, since there isn’t 1 army comp you can patrol in brainlessly and win, you sort of have to outplay the Mayans player (micro-wise or otherwise). This stays true in Imp where Eagles are about as fast as Cavaliers so it becomes a bit of a battle of, can he raid you better with 100 HP Eagles, or can you plug the gaps better while pushing his Castles. Again here you have to outplay the Mayans because unfortunately in Imp you can’t spam Cavalier forever and throw it under Castles, while Mayans can sort of spam Eagles for a long time.