Let's tone down the recent Powercreep of AOE 2

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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I think we’ll agree that the powercreep has being notorious recently, with Franks, Britons, Burmese, Aztecs, Teutons, Vikings (just too name a few) that once were good civs that saw play on some maps even in tournaments now are dropped in favour of many civs that do many of the strenghts those do but without the drawbacks that all have… so to start, currently there aren’t civs that are strictly speaking UP (Only Bulgarians and Sicilians still need some buffs), but rn some are the major powercreepers of the game:

  1. Khmer: Top eco and fast timings with rather too open tech tree, constant pick on tournaments on most open maps.
  2. Malay: The civ is busted under pro hands on many maps with fast hitting timings and cheap units to overwhelm everything, guess what? they were top ban on most tournaments in 2024 for instance.
  3. Vietnamese: RN with durable firelancers and strong eco with strong ranged units, in KOTD they were one of the highest WR civs, and a foot archer civ being comically a top CA civ?
  4. Portuguese: A civ being strong at every point of the game being top on every map this game has on both 1v1 and TG???
  5. Romans: Blame them as the reason of why Aztecs/Burmese/Bulgarians/Vikings aren’t seeing action, Roman simple top eco with strong infantry and being played as Cavalry civ with also top Scorpions….
  6. Georgians: Don’t be fooled by their low WR at ladder, civ is still a common ban in tournaments and is still incredibly absurd in late game, top late game eco with wayy too open tech tree and top 3 Hussar spam??
  7. Mongols: Now the most picked civ in MP……
  8. Khitans: Civ with the best feudal age of any civ….
  9. Bengalis/Bohemians/Burgundians/Poles: These civs just pushed over the top how you compete on closed maps vs raw power, OP units and OP eco.
  10. Shu/Wei/Wu: History and Heroes aside, Traction Trebuchets outclassing BBCs, units that don’t need too many upgrades to be Oppresive in castle age, Shu having one of the better archer plays, Wei with rn top eco and a braindead unit to spam, and Wu with another braindead unit as well while being too strong on hybrid maps.
  11. Persians: the time will give the reason of why the dark age WR bonus had to be removed.
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I think Persians is a great example of how far powercreep has come: the dark age WR bonus had to be given back to them to make them competitive (of course a better option would have been to nerf the other civs…)

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I agree that power creeping is 1. a thing and 2. a problem (imo mainly because of polarizing civs and limiting their choices)

Not really sure if your post mentioned why it is a problem and 3. how should we deal with that tho

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Nerfing their tech tree sounds more fun than keeping them such an open civ tbh. Maybe dropping bloodlines (?)

If Malay need help for low level players just replace the free armor with cheaper barracks

It helps them do eles, maa or spears, and fits with their identity, but isnt a power spike

Maybe after a general CA nerf they will be fine

If not, drop the faster research techs

Funnily enough, despite being what broke the civ, the berry bonus is one of their least problematic aspects. A civ with two insanely versatile bonuses, an open tech tree, powerful gunpowder UU and UT and a building that helps the civ outlast the heat death of the universe or do awful clown strats is just wayy too much.

You could make them balanced by nerfing the effect of the berry bonus, but the civ is rotten to the core.

I hate Romans, and nerfing Comitatenses and their eco bonus wouldnt even be enough

They are just a mess

Another civ that is hard for noobs to play but has way too many options and annoyances.

I would replace the starting mule cart with villagers not needing to drop food from sheep and berries

The sheep bonus is just a qol thing, and a “free” mill is less applicable than the mule cart.

Moving the scout and steppe lancer bonus to a UT makes sense I guess. I dont like it tbh

They just have too many bonuses! The pasture alongside any of their mil bonus would probably be already a decent civ, but they have 3 of them

Oh boy these four…

They need to get a whole bunch of tweaks

They just need a rework

Persians are today stronger in early, mid and late game than back in DE release, thats absurd and the worst part is that they arent even a particularly bad case

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Is the powercreep somehow related to release of mostly cavalry civs? The design of cavalry civs is usually good eco+good knight (or else like Sicilians/Bulgarians)

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Well I try to say that people (even pros) have been pushing hard to buff many civs over the years for x and y reasons even though these civs weren’t that weak or bad at all, now thanks by these buffs + additions of new civs then we have cases of civs that used to be good and common to see (Franks and Britons, both which even were subject of discussion to how nerf them in the past) now are left behind because these new and buffed civs do many things better with more options, wos what is the solution, buff these civs to create more imbalance, or nerf the unfair ones so people see the older ones again?

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I like this idea (and most of your other suggestions), but skipping the mill will often lead to not having enough buildings to click up. If you are trying to make this civ more noob friendly this might backfire

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I forgot mulecarts dont count as two diferent buildings to advance

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I think these have similar issues. Top Tier Eco + good tech tree. Maybe remove Hussar from Khmer and Arbs for Poles.

I think a lot of the problem is they’re either S-tier or garbage. started out garbage. then removed the food penalty. S-Tier. obliterate cav heath regen (at least early on). buff fortified churches and aznauri cavalary.

It really feels like Georgian balance consists of looking at all the balancing knobs, picking one, and cranking it all the way to either 0 or 10.

I’ve heard the suggestion of adding a -50W penalty at the start of the game. I think you could also tie the cav healing to building auras. I know not everyone is a fan of auras, but I think it’d make sense for the georgians. they’re supposed to be defensive, but their cav (when the healing rate is actually usable) can just duck in and out and and heal, and that just doesn’t feel quite right. the wording would be an absolute mouthful, but if cav healing was tied to TCs, FCs, and castles starting in feudal, castle, and imperial respectively, I think you could have a stronger regen rate, but it’d play towards a more defensive playstyle.

Monaspa probably need some changes, as well as aznauri cavalry and perhaps the FC eco buff, but that’s where i’d start and then go from there.

Yeah IDK what needs to happen but romans shouldn’t be a cavalier spam civ. actually a little like khmer, especially with the scorpion focus.

I think this is mostly timing. SL are pretty good, but have low PA. but mongols get + 20% hp, which largely mitigates the SL weakness. add in the mongol good feudal, and great late game, and castle age was supposed to be a bit of a weaker part of the game for mongols. I love the SL for mongols, but it’s probably a bit too far. swap nomads and the extra hp on SL, and I think it’s fine.

Not sure what to do about the rest of the list.

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