Civs identities is one of the most interesting parts in this game, however, since the feudal and early castle play have a huge domination by the archers and xbow play, I really think the game now should focus more on some civs identities and force the players to go really of what the civ have rather then the boring MAA archers in every civ most of the time or even 19 or 20 pop direct archers.
IMO those civs should completely lose the access to the xbow upgrade since they already have great powerspikes and strong units to go with and bonuses support them.
-Franks
A civ have great eco, free stables hp, cheap castle, etc. Even if we remove the xbow from them, they will need more nerfs.
-Lithuanians
I don’t even need to put reasons why they should lose the xbow upgrade espcially with their 150F in the start that can make them go easily 17 or 18 pop MAA archers then xbows and they even have thumbring.
-Huns
They have cheap CA so their shift to CA should be much easier and smoother and they should lose xbow upgrade, this civ need a nerf anyway also. They have great tech tree, stables work 20% faster, Paldin, Hussar etc.
-Khmer
-Magyars
Some of you would say Magyars are avg civ and barely do the 50%, well they have free blacksmith attacks and cheap scouts and also best CA. Yeah they need help at some points, so if they will lose the xbow upgrade I suggest to give them “Farms and herdables last 25% longer”.
-Burgundians
One of the most imbalanced civs in the game, and tbf removing xbow will change nothing and will do nothing to them, so they will need more nerfs to their eco and stables discount also later.
-Teutons
-Poles
I would like to add something also; I think all middle/west Europe should lose the access to CA completely.
You’re hitting entirely the wrong areas. They need a slight nerf to their scouts, such as having the HP start only in Castle age, and they need a nerf to Chivalry, to tone them down in team games, such as letting knights heal slowly.
They need none of this. It’s fine for them to choose to play that strat.
Once again, no. You can’t shut down an option like this, CA aren’t viable until you have a lot of techs, the transition is actually better if you can use crossbows first.
They literally got Arb added for a reason, you can’t now remove crossbow.
They are one of the only civs with full Arb and Paladin. It’s a deliberate thing.
If it won’t change anything, don’t do it.
No.
Also no.
And still no. It’s not like they get used usually, but don’t remove them.
Overall, you’re removing crossbow from a lot of civs when it shouldn’t be, it’s meant to be a common tech. Don’t take it away from all of these civs. Especially if you want to bring history into it, in which case it’s definitely not justified. Just not a good idea.
Again, that’s the question you don’t wanna answer seemingly…
Wouldn’t it be fair if we would then also remove Knights from all the archer civs?
You said it’s about identity. So it would be only logical that it goes both directions.
If you are favoring making tech trees more diverse by creating tree holes, then you should not only remove xbows and CA from some civs, but also knights/cavaliers, pikemen Eskirms, light cav, and longswords/2HS.
Such a setting would be interesting, but has many inconvenients for me, that I don’t want to have it as main setting. Especially regarding civ balancing and bad civ matchups.
As i said in other topic, archers cost no food so making skirmisher or scouts to defend againts archers in feudal age will denay your castle while your opponent spam archer and advance to castle age quickly; that is why defending archer with archer is a comman strategy. If your civ does not have access to xbow; that means, you will start to castle age almost 0 army and 0 upgrades (because all the upgrades for archers in feudal will be useless) while your opponent has (average) 15 xbows in the field. Swiching to knights need tons of res, and easly defeat by monks, siege need tons of res: That means your early castle age eco will be ruined in all counterplays. Your opponet will take the momentum and kill you at early imp. That is why xbows is a must for all civs.
Other than Franks, Burgundians it doesn’t make sense in terms of balance for the rest to lose xbow upgrade.
Apart from the starting 150 food, Lithuanians don’t get any other eco benefit. They HAVE to do early damage to be able to carry over the lead into castle age where they might fall behind and later bounce back with +6 kts, Leitis, winged hussar or tower shield skirms.
For Magyars, you could argue that they should lose “Arbalester” upgrade, that’s fair. Unlike Mongols, they don’t get the bonus on CA right away, they get that in imperial age after an expensive tech. So they need to do xbows first and then transition into CA. Same goes for Huns. Opening CA was always feasible only with Huns back when they had -25% cost. So these civs that rely on CA transition definitely need xbows for early-mid castle age.
As far as teutons, if you remove xbows, the civ will just become unusable in 1v1 open maps. Its already quite average and has its fair share of issues on open maps with no light cav nor husbandry.
Poles - definitely need. Maybe removing CA for them is fine.
Cavalry civs without arbalest never stay making xbow. For those civs, xbow is just a transition unit to buy them time. So their civ identity is not ruined by having xbow.
Franks have one of THE most limited tech trees in the game already, with subpar light cav, unusable Skirms, and a somewhat average Siege Workshop with only Bombard Cannons with SE as a selling point, which many other civs also get, for example Poles. Franks don’t need to be even more limited, in 1v1 they are already pretty average, I dare say even bad if they don’t gain a decisive advantage within the first ~20 min of the game. If you think Franks need nerfs, you don’t understand the game.
Until Imperial age, all that Lithuanians have is the 150 extra food (which is 2 free Scouts, or a very early uptime of like 17 pop Feudal or a combination) and faster moving Spears + Skirms. Their Castle Age is decidedly average with Knights that require capturing Relics to be worth it, overall in Castle age I would rather play Berbers who get a -15% discount right off the bat without having to put in the work to build an early Monasstery, train Monks etc. As Lithuanians among other disadvantages, your early Castle age is somewhat awkward because you always want to drop an early Monastery, so for example 3 TC boom into defensive play is generally a bad idea. They are good on hybrid maps but not much else. They are probably more of a top Arabia civ than a bottom one, but they are probably not top 10. I think you fail to grasp that Cavalry civ =/= isn’t allowed to train Crossbows. Else let’s remove Knights from Ethiopians and Britons and Eagles from Mayans, after all these are Archer civs, they shouldn’t play cavalry, they already got archers.
again failure in understanding the concept of transitions, while Huns is maybe the only CA civ where you POSSIBLY can open CA in early Castle age, generally opening CA in Castle age loses games. Until you build sufficient mass and get all relevant upgrades (at the very least, Bodkin, Bloodlines, Husbandry and Ballistics, better if you get Thumb Ring also), CA are not a great unit and the standard play/transition is always Crossbow → Knights OR CA, opening CA vs good player is impossible because in small numbers, CA lose to both Knights and Crossbow opening, also CA hits your wood eco HARD unlike Crossbow so likely you are forced into 1 TC while opponent can 3 TC boom + spam Crossbow.
Khmer have a very nice design actually, they have a very wide tech tree but miss key upgrades everywhere. Last armor AND Squires on infantry, no Champion, no Thumb Ring. IF Khmer need a nerf, it has to be to their farm bonus, because the games that you see Khmer win, they generally win due to an insane Imperial Age timing which is a consequence of increased farming rate and not having to drop a University or Monastery or Siege Workshop which saves 200+ wood. But even if Khmer are top tier and hard to beat and you see them win often in tournaments, they still have counters, for example Mayans or Byzantines.
???
One of the most middle of the pack civs in the game? Again I think you don’t understand the fact that if you don’t get an eco bonus at all, your tech tree MUST be wide, else why even bother with the civ. You already have civs with both a wide tech tree AND an eco bonus, like Hindustanis… but sure let’s nerf Magyars.
Persians have the best 200 pop army because if you mass 50 Elite War Elephants they are unstoppable. So let’s nerf Persians early game I guess?
Magyars rarely get to their late game comp, if they do, you got outplayed in Feudal/Castle Age and l2p issue.
Burgundians have a very bad tech tree already, sure their eco is nice, and you can make a case for them being unbalanced on Arena (on Arabia their eco is mostly fine actually), and you want to remove Crossbow? Again I sense a pattern of “Knight civs don’t need Crossbow” which is really wrong unless you are willing to remove Knight-line from most Archer civs too.
Burgundians notably lack a FU Hussar (as a cav civ), they have a very bad Imperial Age Archery Range (one of their supposed go-to units, the Handcannoneer, isn’t really strong enough to work because +4 attack is generally irrelevant on Handcannoneers). Their Siege Workshop is also decidedly average, lacking all final upgrades and lacking SE. They have early Paladin, FU Halberdier, a good UU and good Bombard Cannons. In Castle Age they can play Crossbow too. Those are the usable units that you generally see Burgundians make. If you remove Crossbows from them you can just blind open Pikeman vs Burgundians in early Castle Age and win every game.
again, cavalry civ = not allowed to use archery range? That’s just stupid.
here I actually agree, Poles have 2 sick eco bonuses and a VERY wide tech tree on top of a very good UU and good Siege. Still I wouldn’t remove Arbalest/Crossbow, but would rather nerf their UU to 1 pierce armor only, for example. Or nerf the Folwark bonus by 2-3% per age (it’s too strong in Feudal/early Castle and somewhat underwhelming in late Imp).
Overall the only civ I agree needs nerfs in your list is Poles.
Wrong, In early game the Folwark isn’t that effective, the risk of be raided is just too high on open maps for Poles, but is OP in any closed map starting at the castle age, you get heavy plow before placing farms and your score will dramatically increase the more Folwarks you place, such bonus only gets stronger the late game goes, and in Arena is impossible to raid Poles (check Arena WR, Poles are outright at 59% WR).