The latest patch improves the Portuguese. The Portuguese were previously considered by some to be a less motivated civilization, so getting the buff itself is a good thing, but not what we’re talking about here.
Goths seem to have not changed in two years.
I don’t know if the current state is what the devs want, but at least some ideas are listed here. Some old and some new, some mine and some others, but since I didn’t want to revive old threads, I created this new one.
- Remain the team bonus, infantry siege bonus and infantry cost bonus.
Keep their iconic Militia rush and infantry flood powerful.
- Gain the Plate Barding Armor.
The weakness of the infantry flood strategy is that it develops its strength late. Plate Barding Armor allows them no longer one-dimensional. Now they can use decent Cavaliers to help them transition to the infantry flood or have a place in team games.
- Gain the basic stone walls.
This is also to help them survive the mid game, especially before they access UTs. From what I’ve observed, many people feel their designs without stone walls suck rather than interesting. It is often said that this is their identity, but maintaining such an identity for a dying civilization is no fun. We also have Cumans, so lack of stone walls is not exclusive identity that hard to change. If we had to need 2 civs without stone walls, maybe the Huns could lose it.
- Loom is no longer researched instantly.
- Villagers are no longer having bonus attack against boars.
- Units receive -50% damage from animals.
These changes still maintain similar effects, like villagers being less likely to be killed by wolves, and hunting boars safer and easier, but help keep Goths from being so hated in certain situations, like lamings are easier to stop, or villagers fight more fair on nomad map.
With the changes above, we have cavalry as a viable option to use if needed, and stone walls to protect the boom, so we can survive to the time of infantry flood more safely. But honestly these abilities are only basic to most other civs, maybe they still need some decent economic bonuses to make them more competitive.
- Economic techs now are researched instantly.
Inspired by instant Loom. The biggest advantage of this is that it has the opportunity to provide a lead in the late Feudal age, such as about 3 more villagers or clicking age advance earlier.
- Villagers carry +15 food not only from hunting but also from farming.
When we are all harvesting the meat of animals under TC, the effect of the hunter’s carry amount is not important. Maybe also allow farmers to achieve the same effect. Archaeology shows that the Visigoths, unlike the Ostrogoths, were predominantly farmers.
- Farms are built 100% faster.
Just a little candy. But why not?
Perhaps this could reflect the frequent migration of the Goths. People quickly opened up farmland in new places.
Finally, about the population bonus.
The current one only apply to the Imperial age and (if I remember correctly) need to wait until the population cap is reached.
My current idea is to break it apart, which means when hitting the Feudal/Castle/Imperial age, directly increase the population cap by 3/3/4 without requiring buildings. Alternatively, every four houses or TCs or every castles built provide the extra population cap permanently by 1, up to 10.