Sir,
Are you trying to tell me that Lithuanian Priests did not go on to battle field to convert charging knights or rams. I’m starting to think this game is less of a history lesson and more of a lose interpretation for the fun of the player. Next thing your going to tell me block printing was invented by the Chinese and in Africa they use height to determine how tall you are.
Clearly you don’t understand balance design, civs missing units and tecs are because of that, lithuanians are an aberration, there are others ofc, but they went too far with their design, all bonuses were oriented on real advantages of each civs at least for vanilla civs, the lithuanian stuff is just all invented, removing any historical resemblance to what their civ really was, his rant is about that.
But ever since age of rajas DLC every new civ designed has only selling purposes, stop defending that, look at current burgundians, strongest boom in the game, with cheap cavalry upgrades, cavaliers on castle age, farming that generates gold, villagers that turn into militia with bonus vs cavalry, strongest gunpowder units…all eco upgrades cheaper and one age before, but this will get better cause the upcoming civs will have to be even more broken to be appealing and having newer features outside the original game design and the best is that the new civ were no more that small civs or tribes that were dominated by other civs during most of the feudal time line.
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This is a proven false yet you continue yo stand by it.
No other civ has to do anything worse rhen research a tech to get their bonus.
No other civ can lose their bonus once achieved.
Possibly the worst siege in the game.
No long term economic bonus.
“No real trade off.”. Pfft. Yeah okay.
You want to nerf them down to +2 please feel free to provide some compensation for team games
so if you make these changes - what would they use as there army core?
they don’t get paladin - their infantry aren’t all that great - their unique unit is a ranged anti archer unit with lower damage - so what do they use?
yeah that’s why their team game win rates are the best in the game right? oh wait. 50.6% at the highest level.
weak long term economy, the bonus can be denied and taken away, no real plan outside of knights for most game modes as leitis has a huge archer weakness.
and that last part is the problem - in team games, in most 1v1 matchups, they aren’t going to see use because those civs have either arbalesters or heavy cavalry archers.
the best matchups for the leitis to actually see use are Franks, Teutons, Bulgarians, and a few others.
again with the “not so great siege”. lol. earlier you were saying franks have garbage tier siege but Lithuanians have only “not so great siege”. its the worst siege in the game, tied with goths. who at least have cheap infantry and the huskarl to raze buildings.
yeah, that’s why people want to give Italians siege engineers, because despite having cheaper BBC, those BBC still lose to other BBC and theirs isn’t holding up.
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No its not. his rant straight from the get go was about a game where one side got trucked because they let Lithuanians get +4 relics in a 2v2 game. he didn’t care about historical accuracy. he brought that up after his other argument failed.
hes literally reaching for anything he can right now because his original argument failed.
but the fact is, that if he really cared about historical accuracy, where are his complaints about franks throwing axeman throwing a double headed axe? what about Mamelukes? what about all the campaign inconsistencies? what about Meso civs having steel, crossbows, and arbalests? what about Goths being an infantry civilization? i could go on and on. the only place where he has shown even a shred about caring about historical accuracy is right here with Lithuanians. hmm. i wonder why.
here let me show you how much he cares about being honest. here he says they have “only kinda weak siege”
when they literally lack siege onager, siege ram, and siege engineers.
and yet further on he says this about franks.
so Franks have crap siege according to him, yet lithuanians has “only kinda weak siege”.
let’s compare.
both cap at onager and capped ram. both get BBC. Franks get Heavy Scorpion and Lithuanians do not.
Franks also get Siege Engineers, which Lithuanians do not. not only that - but Franks Cheaper castles enables them to more easily get trebs out by virtue of having more, which is another advantage.
so if Franks, despite having Siege Engineers and cheaper castles to push out trebs with, have “Crap Siege” as he says, what does that make Lithuanians siege, who lack Heavy Scorpion, Siege Engineers, and cheaper castles to push trebs out of? seems to me that hes drastically overstating how good Lithuanians siege is.
i’ll even go ahead and say it - Lithuanians are tied for worst siege in the game - tied with Goths. you know the civ who gets cheap fast produced infantry who have extra arson bonus?
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To be fair Halb still has 36 att not including upgrades so regardless of thicc attacking Paladin they don’t resist just a halb switch Teutons and Frank’s need additional hits to go down and that extra lifetime means another hit which is basically the same as a att boost. Also Frank’s bonus being defensive means that it benefits vs ranged compliments whereas Lithuanians yes might say in melee their bonus (if achieved) is better in a 1v1 paladin fight but Frank’s paladin is still competitive there while also having the better resistance to ranged.
Teutons seem to be losing drastically but keep in mind jn early castle monks are a popular counter so Teutons shine. While also as castle hits they can straight away pump out Knight with their conversion resistance and armour vs Lithuanian knights at this stage and for awhile are just generic.
Pretty sure whenever anyone sees their opponent has chosen Lithuanians in the loading screen they instantly know I need to be securing the relics for myself early to taken them away from the Lith player so someone who lets an opponent get all relics is either an idiot or someone who was under so much pressure they’ve already lost
exactly - Lithuanian paladins are better in a 1v1 fight but Franks paladins are better against archers, have a more streamlined economy, they also can pump out theirs faster and research it faster.
which is pretty much what happened in the game the OP is complaining about. they ignored relics and got trucked.
also Teuton paladins take an extra hit from Halbs to take down - furthermore both their and Franks bonus is FREE.
Lithuanians has to invest in a monastery and monks to get relics to achieve their bonus, which can then also be taken away or denied. it gives them a very weak mid game.
They should have never become a playable civ as they relied on other civs for way too much and were really small and rather unimpotant (for Europe) on their own. But since they are a civ in the game I would do the changes as I described, but moreover let them keep the Paladin and the heavy cav archer as a borrowed unit from Polish and Tartars. Let the Paladin be FU, they come from Poland, they had really good heavy cavalry, but without any bonus, give a flat bonus attack of +1 in CAge and +1 in Imp to scout line and Leitis, Towershield should apply to Leitis, the militia line (although the 2 last upgrades don’t carry a shield, I am always prepared to suffer a little ocd pain) and Skirms as a +1/+1 armor (resulting in 8, 3 and 9 pierce armor respectively, melee armor should be 1 base for Leitis that results in a max of +5 FU, also give Leitis 5% more speed and reduce their cost by 15 gold), give the 10% speed bonus to pikes and milita-line, remove it from skirms.
That would fit the role Lithuania took up way more and should also be quite balanceable with a tweak here and there. The result would be:
- FU Paladins (thanks to Poland)
- Heavy Cav Archers as they are right now (thanks to the Tartars)
- Normal speed FU skirms with an extra +1/+1 armor due to Tower Shield
- 10% more speed halbs that are “only” +2/+2 fully upgraded (you can’t have the best skirms, one of the best halbs and FU Hussars… all in all the full trash line without any real downside)
- 10% more speed milita-line with an end game armor of +3/+3, resulting in 4 melee and 4 pierce armor, so they lack 1 pierce armor eventually but are 10% faster.
- Their Hussars would be FU with a 7+6 attack eventually (without gathering relics, the relic thing would just be gone)
- The endgame Leitis stats would be 150hp, 5 melee, 8 pierce armor and 11+6 attack with 1 range and very fast speed that is a tad bit faster than the Hussar. (with the gold cost reduction they might turn out too strong, this would need testing. Maybe 140 hp would be more balanced. And maybe they could deal a little bonus dmg to siege)
- remove dry dock and elite cannon galleon (I get it that removing bracers would result in too many issues)
- let castles and barracks work 20% faster, but remove the monastery bonus.
- remove illumination and theocracy
Now you’d have a civ that rather fits its role and is more in line with its history than this potpourri of techs and weird boni that it is right now.
Btw.: I always care about historical accuracy, I am a sucker for the European medieval age. And at the start I hadn’t gone deep enough into the topic. And yeah, the issue that got me going was the +8. I didn’t think this topic would generate so much controversy which is why I try to justify my issues more deeply now.
On the one hand balance arguments are led with “they have heavier armor, which is why they should be slower as it is historically accurate and also makes a lot of sense”, but on the other hand it’s okay when heathens have a relic bonus and are all about heavy cav when they actually never were while their light cav has no boni except full tech.
The problem this game has is that there are vanilla civs and new and very new civs that diverge wildly from one another giving niche civs ridiculous roles for selling purposes. Just like SouMexican said. The +8 is completely out of line as it also applies to arguably the best all around unit in the game (Paladin). You gotta collect the relics, yes. But it is proclaimed to be harder as it is. This is a bonus that once achieved has an insane impact. The winrates are explained by the fact that +8 is rather endgame content and in a lot of TG you have Liths fighting Liths. I am talking about stuff that cannot be fully covered by winrates.
Italians are not the issue here. The wish to give them SE stems from a completely different setup. They were also much more of a gunpowder civ than Lithuanians. It seems like that in your world if something is not fully upgraded it must be terribad. BBC is much better with SE. But having BBC is also much better than not having it. And the Lithuanians having the BBC is totally fine. They just sucked at sieging. They were not very successful at that. There is no reason at all why they should have better siege than they do. Franks lack so much other stuff, like archer armor, bracers, cannon tower… Look at other tech trees and the holes in there and look at the Lithuanian. Look at their history and at their role. You think they need compensation for any change and them being bad at siege justifys them being good at everything else and should let them have techs that just make no sense. Lithuania from my perspective is the civ that is more out of line than any other civ in the game. By far.
There are many civs that don’t have +3 melee armor halbs and these halbs die with 3 hits from +8 Paladins. You also in general try not to run your Paladins into an army of halbs. And Teuton knights are slower which results in dealing less and taking more damage in the same amount of time. When there are other units around, archers, scorps etc. the damage boost of the +8 really does it’s trick.
And the conversion bonus… Well, if you are Teuton you can still have bad luck and get kinda insta converted. The conversion bonus is way too unreliable. It’s 50% more protection and yet conversions can happen within 2 seconds.
There are maps with more than 5 relics. And in TG your mates can help you secure relics. In 1v1 you are bound to gather at least 3 relics, because if you don’t, your opponent get’s a bonus that is a +3 for the strongest standard line in the game. Whatever your gameplan might be, vs freaking Lithuanians you need to go for relics. It guts your approach to the game and makes you play to the Lithuanian rule set.
Gathering relics while managing a good economy and military is tough, which is why low level Lithuanian plays often do not compliment their boni. It will probably take a few more months and then the Lithuanian winrate will rise up. Lithuanian mirrors are also mostly won by the Lithuanian with the most relics unless he gutted his macro to achieve that which again is a question of skill. This civ is still being learned.
Franks got their trade offs. Franks is one of THE heavy cav civs. Lithuanians should not even dare to say “heavy cav” when Franks are around.
Everybody has to invest into monastery and monks when FACING a Lithuanian. Otherwise you would be called dumb to not do so.
So Pros ignored the relics and got trucked. Yeah, well… Ignoring the relics is stupid. That’s my whole point here. You have to go for them if it is part of your gameplan or not. Ignore them and you face 10+6 knights in mid castle age. Good luck with that…
to give you an idea of how bad the Lithuanian Relic bonus is compared to other bonuses., if i was to make an “overpowered cavalry civ” like SotL did a month or so ago, i wouldn’t even use the relic bonus. it would look something like this.
Tech Tree - Magyars
Civ Bonuses: cav 20% more hp (Franks), 50% bonus damage reduction (sicilians), cavalry cost reduction (Berbers), Free Wheelbarrow/Handcart (vikings), and lastly eco upgrades available earlier and cheaper. (Burgundians)
for unique techs i would give them Farimba (Malians) and Stirrups (Bulgarians).
for team bonuses - i would give them the conversion resistance (Teutons).
you could say the same about Aztecs, Incas, Mayans, Huns, etc all terribly small. yet i don’t see you ranting about them. what you fail to realize is they don’t care about the size or population. if they did several civs would have never made it into the game.
lol, 35 gold 8 pierce armor unit? go look at the keshik for why that’s bad.
at +1/+1 they don’t have the best skirms anymore - that belongs to someone else, furthermore with only +2/+2 halbs they don’t have one of the best halbs either.
which is terrible.
and at 35 gold that’s just broken.
and yet what do we see you qqing about? Lithuanians. but you ignore literally all the other inconsistencies in the game. why no massive qq thread about those?
the point is that BBC without siege engineers really isn’t that great. its one of, if not the most expensive unit in the game. and yeah. its good at sniping onagers but that’s about where its advantage ends, especially without SE.
and that’s fine. i’m not saying they should have better siege - but the fact is you sit there and say that they have “kind of weak siege”, when in fact its THE WORST SIEGE IN THE GAME. you’re literally being dishonest when you say its only kind of weak.
yeah but you know what franks do have? a streamlined gameplan that works very well - all their bonuses stack together to make them a very strong civilization. yeah their navy sucks, but guess what? how many games are actually played on water? yeah. their archers are not good, but they don’t need them when their entire gameplan all lines up to get them knights and fast. they get berry bonus to help them age up faster, free farm upgrades enables them to not need to invest into that before throwing down farms, and then they get free bloodlines - all this works together to save them a bunch of resources and put their food eco in a great spot to ensure they can pump out knights the second they hit castle age that have everything they need. as for cannon tower - honestly bombard towers rarely see much use in tournaments so i’m not sure why you think this is a selling point.
and yet the winrates show them to be balanced - think about that.
they have 3 bonuses, one is a short term but good eco bonus. one is purely defensive. the last one carries the civilization and requires heavy investment, and can be denied. - you want to nerf one of those into the ground.
if Lithuanians would be so great with +1 attack in castle and another +1 in imperial age - tell me, how come Magyars aren’t a better civilization when they are even more widespread then lithuanians are (a great UU which is pretty much always useful, Scouts and Knights that get attack upgrades for free, Arbs and even better Heavy Cavalry Archers then Lithuanians get, Better Siege then Lithuanians do…etc)?
by your logic Magyars should be the BEST CIVILIZATION IN THIS GAME. and yet they are not.
by many you mean Huns, whose stables work faster, Indians, who have arguably the best anti paladin unit in the game, Khmer who have an Insane economy, Lithuanians, who have faster Halbs and those paladins you are referring too, Magyars, and Tatars, who have heavy camels, and GOTHS who can pump out their halbs cheaper and insanely fast.
yeah that’s so many. 7 total civs. again with the overstating of things.
and yet their team game winrates remain balanced. weird. its like the civ only has one thing going for it in team games.
not always true. i already showed you a game where the lithuanian player didn’t get 3 relics.
as if you don’t change how you play depending on who you’re playing against as is.
which is exactly why Lithuanians suck during the early castle age - yet you want to nerf the bonus despite how unreliable the bonus is.
will they? you cap the bonus at +2 and right now their team game winrates go down. they have 1 bonus that matters long term in team games - the relic bonus. and if its at 50.6% with +4 relics, what do you think happens when its +1 in castle and +2 in imperial age?
yes, but the point is franks gameplan is streamlined and lets them do with ease - why do you think Franks are still the number 1 picked civ in the game, despite as you put it “lithuanian paladins being better”.
think about that. 1v1 a Lithuanian paladin will beat a Frank Paladin. despite that, and your massive QQ about Lithuanians in team games the numbers don’t lie.
Franks have a 9.99% playrate, and a 51.68% winrate overall.
Franks have a 9.55% playrate and a 51.46% winrate at the highest level.
Lithuanians have a 4.13% playrate and a 51.20% winrate overall.
Lithuanians have a 4.77% playrate and a 50.61% winrate at the highest level.
according to your logic Lithuanians should be higher then Franks. yet they do not.
oh no. a civ requires you to respond to it. do i have to change my gameplan if i’m facing goths or teutons? yep i do.
and yet you aren’t offering Lithuanians adequate compensation for the nerf. you want to know why Lithuanians don’t get better siege? Because their Knights are so strong. you take away that strength but leave them with their weak as crap siege and economy. with your changes why would i go Lithuanians over Franks? or Magyars?
lastly since you say
i’ll expect your rant thread about all the other historical inaccuracies in this game soon.
Actually the Burgundian tech tree looks surprisingly legit with how hard they tried to ruin everything with those UTs 11 They get bonuses for gunpowder, but they miss siege engineer (just like Turks/Spanish/Italians) and they also miss ring archer armour (unlike the previous three). The big cav bonus is kept in check by the lack of bloodlines. Regarding the buff I hope it’s just going to be a second Tatar, ie.they give a big buff so that people play the civ and stop saying it’s bad, then they nerf the civ later when people are tired of the dominance and are all ready to never discuss it again 11
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I like the Burg tech tree. Got enough of good options, but also enough holes in the tech tree to not be broken. But that is what it looks like to me after a few post-buff games. Stats will be more revealing than any of our experiences 
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So now your saying you agree with us that the bonus its fine its just when idiots conceded the relics that they rightfully get punished. 5 relics for Lithuanians isn’t gg I’ve been beaten with it and I’ve beaten others with it.
Its the exact same philosophy as a Cuman 2nd TC its OP if you allow it to happen then boom from where you deserve to face the consequences. anyone who just lets the Cuman player get their TC up while not applying pressure or going castle to drop a siege workshop just is asking to lose against that Civ
Maybe he wanted to mean it’s overpunishing compared to not going for the relics against other civs?
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maybe, but people are always complaining about the lack of diversity of the meta. well here we have a civ that changes up how the game is played a bit and people want to complain about that.
This bonus buff knights, so it’s not the biggest meta shaker around either.
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maybe, but most games don’t center around going for relics right away, and it shakes that up. which means that its a good thing imho, its enough to be different without being “too different”.
Like you says its just nice and different vs the standard +1 in a certain age and +1 in the following age like you see with Burmese, Malian’s, Britons, Berber discount, Mayans archery discount. Obviously if they wanted to they could change it to +1 castle and +2 imp but that’ll be boring atleast they went for something dynamic and interesting with both a high risk and high reward side and not a instant upgrade above the generic line when reaching castle age like seen with British Xbows.
Sry, for me the +8 for palas is just a dumb mechanic, Even more than coustilliers charge.
Liths have a good bonus with the extra food and faster trash, they should have a good map control early Game against any civ and combined with the faster monasteries they should get most of the relics.
In My opinión it Will be fine if it was +2 and You get extra +2 through a UT, or if the bonus was just for leitis and with an UT You can affect knights too
The way it is now, I just don’t like it
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Not liking it is fine. But it’s balanced regardless.
if you do this can the bonus be lost? because that seems a bit much imho especially seeing as leitis is just not a good unit in most situations.
Some dumb data for you:
Let’s see how Lithuanian Knights perform in castle age vs the most common units that they face:
With all attack and armor upgrades and relics:
vs Magyar paladin: 11 hits to kill
With two relics: 12 hits to kill
Vs Frankish paladin: 12 hits to kill.
with two relics: 13 hits to kill.
Vs Teutonic paladin: tie with 14 hits for 2 relics.
with all relics: 12 hits.
Vs Heavy camel:
with all relics: both kill each other with 8 hits.
Vs Halberdier: even with 4 relics they still need 4 hits with or without relics.
Alls using the aoe2 database
Just an example: so you literally ask to make the bonus less funny just for like what??? one less hit 11
Again the ignorance of some people is wtf.
And now have a line of skirms firing their javelins or allies with archers behind these Paladins. The +8 becomes insanely visible. In general there are also other damage sources in a battle and not just the Paladin attacks. It makes a huge difference if the units in the first line deal 18 or 22 damage. It is ignorant to think otherwise.
I also do not get why this civ would be gutted if their +4 was reduced to +2 or removed completely and exchanged with something else. They get an additonal bonus when collecting relics as opposed to the vast majority of other civs that “only” get gold from them. It is a bonus that is actually intended as a “bonus” and not as a civ property. And yet some people say this civ would be unplayable or useless if they didn’t have that relic bonus or that it can be taken away. Yeah, relics can be taken away. Big whoop. Instead of thinking “wow, I get +dmg if I collect relics” you guys think “bah, I have to collect them first and then I can lose the +dmg again, so it’s totally okay when it is a little broken when maxed out”. Lithuanians, as historically weird as they are, are designed to be fine without the +damage from relics. Otherwise it would have never been a bonus that was depending on collecting relics if it were so essential for their performance. I bet my ass that Lithuanians would be completely fine without the relics. They’d not be a top civ, they would have a ramp up time like mongols, but they would be fine. Not great, but fine. It’s just wrong to say that they are trash without any relic bonus. It would be like saying FU Paladins are trash if they are not Frankish or Teuton… They are not. And all this is without taking into consideration that their design is quite a historical misfit. If anything they should be a light cav civ and have properties and boni in that direction.
Leitis btw kill a Paladin (except Frankish ones, 11 there) with 10 hits without any relics. ~8.1, thus 9, with 4 relics. But after 8 hits the Paladin is almost down as he is left with 4 hp. Skirms can close that gap easily. A unit that is cheaper, is faster, deals more damage, and was historically not particularly strong against heavily armored opponents, beats Boyars, Paladins, Teutonic Knights, actually any melee unit except elefants. This is borderline ridiculous. Some people just say that they are not good, because they should not fight under castles or against mass archers. In any other situation they are freaking strong and so much cheaper than the knight line. It’s just wrong.
The balance issues I have are also supported by historical inadequacies that are partially so off that it is actually not even funny anymore. I think the +8 is too strong and so is the armor piercing of Leitis and for both boni there is zero historical justification. Every other European civ makes somewhat sense in the way they are designed. And if a civ doesn’t have something that they historically should have, it is probably because of gameplay balance reasons. Not so with Lithuanians as they have what they should not have and tons of it.
But I guess with some people around here I just have to agree to disagree. I am not convinced by any argument that considers the +8 and Leitis to be fine. And what I say seems to be very tough to process for some of you. The way Leitis work is complete fantasy and I showed why that is, but if people don’t want the civs to make sense anymore, who am I to change their mind? And that is fine, I guess. Sometimes there is just no coming together. I said everything that makes my case at least twice. There is no point in repeating it over and over again.
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