In a good state of balance there should be ~10-15 civs which are meta and a lot of niche picks, which are more tricky but could be played as well. I think that would be good.
I think it is actually a lot about opinions. I don’t think the few months we had after a lot of the recent balance changes are enough to totally figure out the best possible way to play. Especially with how many big tournaments we have right now the top players are either using what is known to be good (because they want to win) or they are very experimental on ladder to have some fun. But it’s actual pretty rare that they really try hard with a less known civ, which might have potential.
It’s what happened to Cumans on arena lately. TaToH first I think started to play them a bit more and realized that they’re (especially with Kipchaks) quite fun to play and actually pretty good. Viper saw this and starting using them too. Now they get used quite a lot.
But how often do you see a top player doing something like: Okay, I’m going to play only Tatars (insert whatever civ you want here) on Arabia for the next week and I will really try to figure out how to make them work best on that map. After something like that you would be somewhat able to tell how good a civ really is. Right now even the opinion of pro players has a lot to do with theory crafting (and I’m not saying that’s bad, most of the time they are very likely right). But I’m pretty sure if we just kept the balance right now for the next 6-12 months there would still be some meta shifts.
There will always be S tier civs. That is not the problem. The problem is when S tier is on the level of Cumans when DE was released (or close to that). Right now we’re in a very health state of balance. There is S tier (there will always be!), but it’s not oppressive. That’s as good as it gets with 35 civs.
I dunno. In chess the pieces are the same every game. No one is asking for a new piece to be added every few months that can move in hexagonal formations etc… I am wary of variety for variety’s sake. The point I’m making with the chess example is if the game is well designed in the first place it doesn’t need to be constantly changed.
1 civ slightly buffed won’t result in a whole meta changed (altough it could be possible in water maps since so small amount of useful civs 11). I think koreans are a pretty good water civ right now, even run some baltic matches were they felt strong, but nowhere near to italians or vikings. Those 2 still need some nerfs.
I think most players who pick italians would still want to go with arbalest or hand cannoneers when executing a fast imp strategy, but condos could be especially strong now against the counters: skirmishers.
That’s what’s up for debate. I do see your point, but I think a well designed and stable version of the game, which can slowly be explored more and more deeply also has its positives.
As I said before, cycling has the risk of making balance worse.
Where did he do that?
I’d be interested in reading his arguments. Normally I would agree that some kind of buff for HCs is a good idea.
i’m not sure how you can even believe this.
Goths ships don’t even have dry dock, so they are much slower to get into the fight.
meanwhile not only do Saracens and Berbers have those, but Saracens Galleys attack faster and Berbers ships move an additional 10% faster on top of that.
Indians are not even a Naval civ, but they get two upgrades that allow them to gather gold faster then goths do, which means less workers needed to maintain production, and again dry dock.
Mongols have the same issues Goths do.
Huns? how can you possibly think they have a better navy then any of the other 3 you listed? they like those 3 don’t have shipwright, but they also lack drydock. so they are literally inferior in every way.
the celtic navy lacks bracer, you got to be kidding me if you think they have a better navy.
as for Mayans - yeah but Mayans literally needed something beyond Eagles + Archers.
Malays only water nerf besides fishing ship cost is the harbor nerf, which was justified because people would literally just ring their island in harbors and practically repell any attack. they might need a slight buff for actual naval battles but other then that their fishing ships can literally provide unlimited food for a very small cost and the only thing they are missing is the Heavy Tatoh Ship, which isn’t seen all that often anyway.
or maybe they just decided they weren’t going to do a monthly patch for july and this was the next patch. i think it’s a bit much to expect a patch this soon after the last one.
well this should be a given. i don’t even bother with mentioning bug fixes and the like because those are things i believe should automatically happen. they don’t even need mentioning or debate.
I may like the idea of nerfing top water civs more than others in the forum. Imo now even Koreans (and maybe Portuguese) could be nerfed a bit in water. Plus a more relevant nerf to the meta civs. This is, however another specific topic we may open.