So…
It has been a few week now since the Infantry patch was released.
Time to have a holistic look on the changes, how they would be best classified in the apsect of concepts in this Thread. See what the predictions for the changes were and if this is reflected in the Stats.
Maybe let’s begi with having a look at the stats at first because they might be gone in a few days when jerbot actualizes aoestats.io . Unfortunately we don’t get to see the opening winrates anymore, but we can infer from the results of some infantry civs what the effects are.
When we just have a look at the “patch delta” we see a lot of infantry civs jumping up quite a bit:
| Civilization | Picks | Play Rate | Win Rate | Patch Delta | Game Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Italians |
7,084 | 1.78% | 51.95%±1.16 | 30 | 42:47 |
 Japanese |
10,462 | 2.63% | 51.08%±0.96 | 25 | 41:26 |
 Bulgarians |
8,578 | 2.16% | 52.03%±1.06 | 18 | 40:55 |
 Dravidians |
4,130 | 1.04% | 50.73%±1.53 | 18 | 41:50 |
 Britons |
11,928 | 3.00% | 49.08%±0.90 | 14 | 44:29 |
 Mayans |
7,892 | 1.99% | 50.20%±1.10 | 9 | 42:08 |
 Saracens |
7,102 | 1.79% | 49.94%±1.16 | 9 | 42:12 |
 Goths |
10,042 | 2.53% | 50.50%±0.98 | 7 | 41:50 |
 Spanish |
11,673 | 2.94% | 50.99%±0.91 | 7 | 43:27 |
 Ethiopians |
11,477 | 2.89% | 52.35%±0.91 | 5 | 41:15 |
 Incas |
5,953 | 1.50% | 51.65%±1.27 | 4 | 41:42 |
 Burmese |
4,248 | 1.07% | 48.54%±1.50 | 4 | 41:20 |
 Malians |
7,397 | 1.86% | 52.79%±1.14 | 4 | 41:23 |
 Vikings |
6,286 | 1.58% | 53.75%±1.23 | 3 | 42:31 |
 Portuguese |
7,527 | 1.89% | 49.45%±1.13 | 3 | 43:18 |
 Aztecs |
10,440 | 2.63% | 47.53%±0.96 | 2 | 41:55 |
 Koreans |
9,889 | 2.49% | 49.28%±0.99 | 2 | 42:06 |
 Vietnamese |
10,038 | 2.53% | 47.54%±0.98 | 2 | 42:58 |
 Armenians |
6,790 | 1.71% | 48.91%±1.19 | 1 | 40:43 |
 Burgundians |
7,319 | 1.84% | 45.74%±1.14 | 1 | 43:23 |
 Huns |
11,930 | 3.00% | 52.89%±0.90 | - | 42:34 |
 Romans |
6,783 | 1.71% | 55.01%±1.18 | - | 41:15 |
 Malay |
5,761 | 1.45% | 52.39%±1.29 | 1 | 41:06 |
 Poles |
6,732 | 1.69% | 47.76%±1.19 | 2 | 43:12 |
 Magyars |
13,394 | 3.37% | 50.13%±0.85 | 2 | 41:54 |
 Mongols |
21,284 | 5.36% | 51.13%±0.67 | 2 | 41:53 |
 Byzantines |
9,744 | 2.45% | 47.18%±0.99 | 2 | 45:17 |
 Celts |
8,161 | 2.05% | 50.74%±1.08 | 4 | 41:34 |
 Bohemians |
7,320 | 1.84% | 51.27%±1.15 | 4 | 43:19 |
 Slavs |
6,799 | 1.71% | 49.71%±1.19 | 5 | 42:21 |
 Tatars |
5,007 | 1.26% | 47.63%±1.38 | 5 | 42:15 |
 Berbers |
6,200 | 1.56% | 49.34%±1.24 | 5 | 42:42 |
 Gurjaras |
4,547 | 1.14% | 43.66%±1.44 | 5 | 42:59 |
 Hindustanis |
8,562 | 2.16% | 52.24%±1.06 | 5 | 42:43 |
 Persians |
13,174 | 3.32% | 50.87%±0.85 | 6 | 42:57 |
 Khmer |
11,485 | 2.89% | 48.09%±0.91 | 7 | 42:58 |
 Lithuanians |
9,803 | 2.47% | 49.05%±0.99 | 7 | 43:24 |
 Franks |
17,697 | 4.45% | 49.89%±0.74 | 9 | 43:00 |
 Teutons |
11,748 | 2.96% | 50.10%±0.90 | 9 | 44:02 |
 Turks |
8,666 | 2.18% | 49.63%±1.05 | 10 | 41:42 |
 Chinese |
11,057 | 2.78% | 47.92%±0.93 | 10 | 43:20 |
 Sicilians |
8,057 | 2.03% | 50.25%±1.09 | 13 | 40:52 |
 Cumans |
7,865 | 1.98% | 48.05%±1.10 | 14 | 41:34 |
 Bengalis |
3,664 | 0.92% | 48.44%±1.62 | 16 | 41:26 |
 Georgians |
5,575 | 1.40% | 47.30%±1.31 | 25 | 42:38 |
Italians ofc had a minor rework, so this is a special case anyways.
Japanese, Bulgarians and Dravidians seem to have improved the most. They are also probably the most known for just having the best amplifying bonusses for the standard MAA rush. Goths, Burmese, Romans, Malians and Vikings only see a mediocre winrate increase. Aztecs and Armenians almost nothing.Celts for some reason even dropped in winrate.
For me it really looks like the civs beneffiting the most were those which usually only want to open MAA and then transition into other units as the game continues. Civs like Slavs which usually only play Militia as an lategame option even dropped in Winrate.
And the winrate Jumps for some Civs are massive. Japanese made a 3 % Jump (though some of this comes probably from the Chicken Maps). Bulgarians and Dravidians increased by 2.6 %. That’s a lot, given that they didn’t receive any targeted Buffs, just the changes to the militia line.
Now I have tried to look at different elos, but there the results were inconsistant. What I mean that some of the civs seem to have only increased in winrate on certain elos and it’s not really explainable why they shouldn’t on others in between. It would be interesting to see if these winrate increases come from mostly “low elo” or “high elo” play or whatever. But as far as I can see it the influence of the elo on the increases is actually not very big. At all elos some civs got quite good winrate increases. The biggest outlayer is probably Dravidians which seem to have gotten very elo-dependent increases. The civ is tricky, probably at lower elos people don’t know what the righ transitions are. Possibly also not using the eco bonus well as it usually requires build adaptations to do so. But that’s only a guess.
Also it is appearant to me that in almost all cases the winrates of the good Infantry Civs come mostly from a good early game winrate. Some of them like Goths have a tip at the very long games point again, but most don’t. Most of them fall off immediately in the midgame, depending ofc on other meaningful bonusses like economy. So it’s to me very clear, that it’s mostly driven by the initial militia line rushes.
But it’s not like the winrates are completely plummiting. It’s usually less than 10 % drop and 15 % for 30-45 minute games. It’s ofc a huge question to answer why the drop isn’t seemingly bigger than before the patch for some of these civs which were already known before for their maa rushes.
Next post I will try to class the changes done, what i predicted for them and if the prediction was right or not from my personal observation perspective.