Malay could just be reverted to their previous state and they would be perfectly balanced however I think they could use some infantry bonus to solidify there role as an Infantry Civ. Although they are certainly over-powered I do appreciate that they are no longer an unintentional Archer Civ like Viking.
reduced faster age up to 50% Instead of addressing the free infantry armor.
Make only effect the first armor upgrade or make it just a 50% discount and while those are simple but functional nerf they kinda boring solutions.
Remove the third armor upgrade and increase Dlite Karambits PA to 2. This might be drastic but maybe Free 1st and 2nd armor and Gamberson is enough to offset this…Even before the Gamberson Malay 2hs where uncounterable in a trash war exception of trashbows but now they don’t have even have that. This allows them to keep their Infantry strong in Feudal/Castle Age with my only complaint being how this effects their Halberdiers.
We could also replace it with barracks techs cost no gold I intended for this to effect for this to affect the Militia line mostly and in castle age it looks like that’s what it does saving 330G for FU longswords and only 140G for pikemen. However in imperial age Halberdier only cost #### which is ridiculously cheap.
Simple their faster age up bonus it save 52/60/76 seconds putting aside from the time utility of reaching the next age faster than you opponent you are 2 vills ahead in Feudal and 4.5 in Castle age. It’s a powerful bonus enough to make them tournament viable on its own. and now they have free infantry armor on top of this
Their prior statistics and they have been picked in tournaments and not just on hybrid maps. If you can’t leverage a Villager lead and faster up times into a victory that’s a you problem. If you want to see Malay used to their full potential, watch any of the videos of Viper owning with Malay.
Malay seem very well balanced to me at the moment. They have around a 50% winrate across all elos, for 1000-1200 and 1200+, and on Arabia. Based on the data available (on aoestats.io), it’s only for the top 1% of players that their winrate is significantly higher. But you shouldn’t balance around those people – if you’re making decisions based on data, you shouldn’t focus on outliers. Pro tournaments are basically irrelevant to balance, since they are only played by those outlier players and almost always use custom maps that it doesn’t make sense to balance the game around.
Did you even watch the tournaments before KOTD-5 in the past year? Malay were almost never picked in tournaments before the buff. 10 out of 122 drafts in NAC4 main + qualifiers which had several hybrid maps and one water map, 5 out of 132 drafts in Titans league season 2 platinum and gold combined, 1 out of 181 drafts in The Grand Melee main + qualifiers, 10 out of 293 Warlords main + qualifiers which had water and hybrid categories, 0 in RBW Legacy, 0 in Admirals league. It was one of the least drafted, least preferred civ in all the formats. The tournament where Malay were one of the most popular civ is The Resurgence , where players drafted civ for their opponent.
Who did he own? Daniel? miguel? someone else significantly weaker than him?, what was their civ? Japanese? Hindustanis? Dravidians? If he plays 100 games with Malay against Hera, Liereyy, Yo, Tatoh or Villese and they also pick civs, he’ll most probably lose more than 50 games on any land map.
Villager lead and faster up time can guarantee a victory if you have the same or better tech tree and the opponent civ has almost negligible economic bonus. That’s just Dravidians. Rest of the civs have their own economic and military bonuses that kick-in sooner on open maps or have better units and bonuses at later stages of the game. For example Vikings free wheelbarrow and handcart, better bonus than Malay on open maps. Franks, Lithuanians, Byzantines better tech tree and military at later stages of the game.
Malay is still an above average civ but they have their limitations. Overall like many others have mentioned, they are in a good spot balancewise, no where close to being overpowered. Absolutely no reason whatsoever to discuss any nerfs to this civ. I just feel like repetitive usage in Kotd-5 is creating the illusion that they’re overpowered and overused in tournaments but they’re not.
The 1900+ is small data - 400 games with Malay is approx 10 games per civ matchup, quite sparse. Magyars has like 55% winrate and they’re not a strong civ either. You can and imo should balance around collective stats from multiple pro player tournaments, not just one. If a civ is picked a lot in one format but not so much in others or a moderate number of times in many formats, that’s fine. But if a civ is too successful in almost all the formats, that’s overpowered. Likewise if a civ is too underwhelming in all tournament formats, its in a serious need of buff.
IDK about OP, but if you go fast imp arbs park a castle outside his base and then EASY switch to fully armored karambits to deal with skirms and go and raid. Its hard to beat them
What statistics are you talking about? Can you link me the website? Current data says they are not overpowered, here’s the link: Malay - 1v1 Random Map | 1200+ - aoestats
Faster uptimes for malay is a 1-2 vil lead. Bengalis get that for free, with each tc. That is a much stronger bonus. Also, yours is a simplistic view. Look at the data, it shows that malay aren’t too good past imperial age, or during dark age-mid feudal age. Trashmen don’t seem to be doing too much for them. There are a lot of factors other than a 1-2 vil lead that decides the strength of a civ.
Well many pros pointed out that free armor upgrade for a civ like malay is a bit too much. They are not broken or anithing but probably a bit too strong i agree, but i prefere a civ to be stronger than average than bland and random like malay was before, but that’s just personal taste
I would like many civs to received the same treatment portuguese, malay, and malians received with their last upgrades making them very good from being bland and average
Gameplay wise I’m indifferent, but I can understand where the devs got the idea.
The current Malay has Javanese campaign (Majapahit empire) and the Borobudur ship in their UI (Mataram kingdom). Historically the Javanese (particularly Majapahit) is one of the most well-documented Southeast Asian civ with armor before the arrival of Europeans.
It is a bit of Irony that Suryavarman I, king of Khmer, is depicted with armor while his depiction is lacking. His model and box art is likely based on the Thailand film King Naresuan, with a background of 1590-1605. The armor may not be accurate, it is noticeably European, not Asian.
On the other hand, Gajah Mada, the Javanese prime minister, is depicted with no upper clothes while historical record mentioned him using golden armor.
Nerf the hunt bonus to 30% or 33%. I’m not a fan of sheep/hunt/berry bonuses they make for map dependent civs. They make it so all maps need to have a roughly even balance of food resources and it limits the creativity of map creators.
, where players drafted civ for their opponent.