Didn’t realise it until today, even though I’ve used malay a ton of times,i hardly look at the civ labels.
I mean at this rate some of those civ labels are just memes… 
They aren’t even labelled as an infantry and naval civ just naval
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Huh I swear it used to be infantry and naval. Still the faster aging, Harbor and decent tech tree makes them a good naval civ. They even had 33% discount on FS at some point
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Maybe from the transition to DE infantry got left out?
Can imagine their FS rush must’ve been rough. Pity they couldn’t have a middle ground and left them with even a small bonus to compete better against Italy and viking naval power.
I am not a pro so I usually don’t make any comment about the civ balance. But I think the land/water adavantages of civs might be more complicated than we thought.
We are always told that the Vikings are a naval civ. But in a pure water maps, a part of the food income comes from the fishes, where the Vikings actually don’t have any economic advatanges (because a part of their wheelbarrow advantage is nullified.). Besides, they have no fireships, which make their early economy even weaker on a pure water map. So maybe having the most powerful naval UU is actually a trade-off of their weaker economic permanence on a pure water map?
We are also told that the Celts are infantry and the Huns are cavalry civs. But their wood and house bonuses are actually very useful on a pure water map. Besides they both access full Galleon technologies. So are they really weaker than the “naval civs” on a pure water map?
The Chinese have better demoships and the Byzantines have better fireships. Plus their upgrades civ bonuses, are they not good naval civs?
In the end, I feel only the player skill matters. A better player always has better performance no matter which civ he gets on a pure water map.
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I think people place way too much attention on the civ label. The label is just what strategy the mayority of the Civs bonusses, UUs and UTs are primarily intended to be geared towards, but surely there is nothing stopping you to get creative and play a civ in a different way than the most intuitive.
I think its just there to give new players an indication on what to go for with a civ.
Correct on everything else. But civs like vikings should still be used as an archer race even if they’re mentioned as"naval and infantry".
Sure there’s other misnomers like Teutons are now a siege / cav or infantry. But are labelled as defensive afaik
Those labels dont do anything and are pretty useless to me. I never look at them at all…
Free wheelbarrow is still really useful as it boosts your lumberjacks the second you hit feudal. Also, Vikings have 15% cheaper docks, and since making multiple docks is a bit like making multiple TC, it is a good bonus.
It’s more that Vikings don’t have fire ships as a trade off of having drakkars. Same with Koreans: they don’t have demo ships cuz turtle ships (if you wonder why Port don’t miss galleys then, it’s because they weren’t designed by ES)
That’s true. However both civs will eventually fall of HARD. Celts have no bracer and thus will lose against enemy galleons, Huns have no cannon galleons (can’t break through enemy shore defenses) while being stuck with watch towers that don’t even get heated shot (ie.they can’t defend). Both these civs can somewhat work on water maps, but it’s only a side effect of their bonus. Another example: the very same wood bonus that carry Celts on water also makes them able to go archer into xbows. Are they an archer civ? Not really, and the lack of arbs, thumb ring and imperial age blacksmith upgrades make it pretty obvious.
Celts have no bracer, Huns have no shipwright.
The meme bonus of Chinese
Fortunately, it’s true that player skill matters more than balance (this does not apply to games played between release and the Cuman nerf 11)
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