I'm concerned about Armenians and Georgians - I think they need buffs

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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After almost a week, I am so far not impressed by the new civs.
Ofc it’s clear that we haven’t figured out the optimal opening strats with them yet. But there are already good tight BO for them which I doubt could be improved a lot. Especially for the standard openers.

And it doesn’t look to me they would perform well. Imo Georgians actually fare a bit better with the passive healing for the scouts which can be quite nice in careful hands.
Armenians on the other hand I struggle to see a decent gameplan for them. In theory you can imagine how strong their lategame comp with champs + composite bows can be. Practically it’s hard to find a way to build up towards this. You feel you need to open trash + towers - but there are just a lot of other civs that do that better. And it’s a tactical build where the slight mass differences count the most.
Also cause of their bad Siege even when you manage to get to that comp you usually can’t make it work.
It feels like Armenians can theoretically do a lot of things, but then there are just crucial aspects for these strats that they miss in comparison to other civs.

Georgians also have a big initial burden with the uncommon start, missing 50 F. Which leaves even the best players with the struggle to decide wether they take a risk for a more optimized BO or play safer but less optimized. There are some Scout BO which seem to get a good timing without risking much (those where you chop stragglers). But that’s really only for Scouts which makes the civ very predictable. The fast drush BOs usually at least for now end in terrible eco setups for the Georgians - so if they don’t kill vills with that they are usually so far behind that they just die from there.

At Aoestats.io we also have a sneak peek showing that the civs so far struggle to perform also from the objective perspective, not only my own subjective one. Though ofc this could indeed just come from people getting them by chance struggling with the uncommon start.

I just want to statem that imo it’s crucial for the perception of the new civs that they perform from the beginning. And as they seem to struggle so far I would like to see a hotbuff for them.
Which ofc can be reversed if retrospectively they only didn’t perform cause of the incommodities at the start.

My buff idea:
A) Make Mule Carts just 100 W like camps
B) Remove the -50 F for Georgians
C) Increase the Armenian Mule Cart Bonus to 40 %

This should result in Georgains having + 70 F in the early game and Armenians having +30 F and +30 W and after DBA about 10 % faster wood income. But most importantly you can just basically play all standard BOs with these civs, you don’t need to learn specialised ones.

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Georgians could jusr start with -50 wood tbh

I also think theres the problem withbunsafe woodlines

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yeah that#s also something I mentioned in my other thread about the mule carts
but that’s probably not as easy to target in a hotbuff

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If I had to compare them to an existing civ which has an unsafe base probably the closest thing we have rn is the Huns, and Huns dont need to pay food to build lumber camps and have a fairly useful early game bonus

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I also feel like the civs are relatively weak, which is kind of new for a DLC. Other DLCs have at least had some civs that are overpowered at start - which got criticized or presented as p2w, but it’s rather funny. It feels as though the devs were a little worried about the new civs feeling overpowered, so they overcorrected and made them weak.

I think I’d just say they don’t really have many options. Armenians have Infantry + Arbalesters/UU, or Monk + Siege (in Castle Age - their Siege is bad in Imperial). Georgians have moreso Infantry + Siege or Cavalry. I guess Armenians are also good on Water, since they’re labelled as Infantry + Naval civ, but that’s a painful niche. Like Vikings, their eco should be good to carry them even though there are holes in their tech trees, but I’m not as convinced, especially with how sometimes the Mule Carts are clunky to use.

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I thinks both civs have nice tools, they just have issues to get them rolling.
Also it feels like they are always missing a crucial backup element when the opponent manages to counter the goto units/comps.

Like Armenians really struggle against enemy Siege and Georgians have issues against lots of halbs/good cavalry counters.

But tis might also just be a result of the civs being behind from the beginning.

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So you draw conclusions from preliminary stats?? Just wait to a major tournament and see how will do, this kind of posts are just the same as the ones claiming Gurjaras were going to be a weak civilization when they were a busted civ at release and the nerfs confirms that.

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Two words: Persians Rework. I know they’re not DLC only, but they were reworked with this DLC.

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Yeah I understimated the sheer raiding potential of the Shrivamshas.
I didn’t expected unit to fair significantly better than Knights if I’m honest and I also had the wrong perception that they wouldn’t be as fast as they were.

And I take this as fair critique.

But here we have the stats and they are telling enough to me.
I don’t like your desperate attempt to equal these different situations.

And I also think when we wait until warlords is over it’s too late to savior the civs and they will end up in state like dravidians and bengalis. Even if they get savored then, nobody wants them.

Yeah that’s also a very telling sign. Persians immediately jumped to no1 spot in the ratings with the new DLC whilst both Armenians and Georgians are literally the worst 2 performing civs rn.

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Welp, my favorite two civilizations in the game (Georgians and Khmer) have a history of performing poorly…

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I also think mule carts are not tanky enough, their melee and pierce armour are way too low. Only 300 HP vs 600 / 800 / 1000 / 1000 HP for a lumber camp throughout the ages. Lumber camp is also 20 food cheaper than a mule cart. They either need to boost mule carts to Lumber Camp HP stats or make them much cheaper, e.g. 20 food 50 wood. It can’t be both more expensive and more fragile.

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I think a bit more fragile is ok - especially as the mule carts can theoretically be used as arrow sponges
The issue is ofc that for a building that can be attacked by eg japanese maa in feudal, 300 HP can melt super fast. ANd especially at lower levels some people might just not have the reaction time needed to repair them in time.

Not gonna lie, it’s a dance on a razors edge with the mule carts cause how creative the community is in trying to abuse moving buildings 11
Maybe the garrison ability is a bit too much and it would be easier to balance them at least in the early game without that. (And i don’t think being affected by the university techs helps in balancing them either)

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I think Armenians are designed to be late game civs so it should be a little bit weaker than others in early game. They got the best archer and the best champion.

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a) they aren’t
b) in order to get there, you need to get there
c) they don’t even have “the best archers” or “the best champs” - though the champs are clearly strong, there are other civs that have champ lines which are situationally way better.

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Armenians do have the best archer because their UU is only weak to siege but can kill anything else. Their champion only lose to Slavs in massive fight but they can beat foot archers, paladins and other infantry. Even CA usually can’t clear them in time.

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well, guess what’s the bane of armenians existance?
good siege.

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I think the Armenians should have good cavalry and siege. It would not only be historically accurate, but would help them be good with more than one strategy.

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Yeah, the starts seem a little more awkward than they need to be. One or both of these might be on the table.

I do think it’s too early for this though, and it would probably be excessive. As it is, they already have the best lumberjacks lategame, and the 3rd best gold miners after Malians and Turks.

And yeah, Armenians are weird. Compbows are strong, but apart from them and warrior priests, they don’t have super compelling options. In some ways they kind of remind me of Japanese - early wood savings, infantry and naval focus, great monks, can go knights in Castle Age, but fall off in Imp, bad siege. Pro for Armenians is better overall eco, cons are worse generic archers, no siege engineers, and “infantry bonus” that still needs to be paid for, rather than being free like the Japanese one. So I lean towards thinking they need a buff, but remains to be seen.

I don’t think Georgians need buffs though. They look to be a solidly above average civ with an awkward start, but a decent Feudal and very strong lategame. Extremely defensible base with their fortified churches + UTs and a strong eco boosting aura effect on top of strong cav and siege looks like a very powerful combination. If they weren’t being compared against the (probably overly) re-worked Persians, I think they’d be a little more highly regarded.

Also both of the new civs have several unconventional mechanics that will take a little time to figure out. It’s not all said and done until we see a few Fortified Church mastapizzas, Warrior Priest rushes, mule cart forwards/trushes, etc.

I think you can make the argument for them having the best overall champs once the Imp UT is in (obviously this is kind of subjective). But having almost 50% more HP than a generic champ is comparable to having multiple other civ bonuses combined in one (for example, Teuton melee armor and near-Malian PA without the loss of blast furnace). Or you could compare it favorably to having more/faster attack since they survive long enough to get more attacks in. The only cases I can think where other champs strongly outperform them are niche to the point of comedy, like Dravidian champs vs. ETKs.

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UU killing anything else is sort of a false belief. Yes, the unit does a lot of damage to things with high PA. Yes, the unit is still weak to one of the more common Archer counters - Mangonel. And no, it does not really beat Skirmishers.

Armenians have basically no answer to Gunpowder + Skirmishers. Your best bet against Bombard Cannons are Monks, which will die to ranged units.

You’re also immobile, so you will get raided to death. Fortified Churches can alleviate that pain slightly, but you’re likely spamming fewer of them than Georgians anyway.

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One week is still too early to draw conclusions imo.

In the week I face only once the new civ in ~20 games - cannot really tell anything on my side.

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