Nerf to Chinese and Mayans

With the recent Viking change, it makes sense to nerf Mayans and Chinese too. The Vikings are now a pure economy + infantry civ, like the Celts. Infantry is quite underused in mid game, so it usually slips by. Mayans, Chinese and previously Vikings had a solid Eco with great Arbalesters, making them quite a dangerous civilization. The approach I am taking is an eco nerf.

  1. Mayans: lose the Villager bonus completely. Already have 1 military and 1 economy bonus. Can throw away some token bonus in exchange as mid game buff, but it is not at all necessary.

  2. Chinese: basically the same idea. Start with +2 villagers, -150F -25W (from +3 villagers, -200F -50W). Can also modify tech discount to -15% always, which is a slight nerf in Imperial.

  3. Token change for Aztecs: Loom doesn’t cost gold, rather than starting with +50G. Nerf for Arena.

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-Resources last 10~13% longer.
-Foot archers are 10%/15%/20% cheaper.
-Elite plumed archer cost 850f 1000w.

It’s the only nerf mayans need imo.

Resources last 10% longer
Archer discount now is 10%/15%/20%

Elite Plumed Archer -1 range
El Dorado cost raised to 1000f and 650G

What’s all the fuss about plumed archers? Aren’t they nerfed enough?

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I think having all mobility, HP, PA and the same range as arbalester is too much

The unit has less damage output though

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Yes, -1 attack is a big deal in this case. And it’s not like the unit completely overshadows Mayan arbs, actually most people prefer arbs nowadays I think.

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I disagree. Plumes are effectively the cav archer replacement for a meso civ.
Compared to cav archers they have less speed, HP, and armor (same pierce armor after parthian tactics), as well as -2 attack vs any non-infantry unit. I think it’s fine for them to match Arbalester range, which is 1 more than generic cav Archers.

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But mobility is often offsest by less range, imagine Kipchak, Mangudai and Camel Archer have the same range as arbalests in imperial

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people who want to nerf the top dogs: do you realize that there will ALWAYS be a best civ in the game? Right now, the difference between the top 2-3 on Arabia and the next 5-10 is not that huge. Say you are Tatars (a top5-10 civ on Arabia) vs Mayans, it’s a pretty even game.

So I ask, let’s say Mayans and Chinese and Franks are nerfed, and now the next top tier civs are Tatars, Khmer and Burgundians.

Do you proceed to ask for nerfs for those also? And then the cycle never ends? At some point you will target loser civs on Arabia like Spanish or Goths who are bottom tier but in 5-10 balancing iteration will be the top dogs?

tl;dr: it’s OK for some civs to be top dogs. It’s not necessary for the top dogs to change, either, as long as the game has variety overall.

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No
We want to just tone down at once the unfair advantages of the S tier civs, then start improving the less powerful civs.
Mayans, Chinese, Franks really need more nerfs

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It can be, but it can also be offset by less damage, which is the case for plumes. They could have -1 range if they were buffed with +2 attack to match the cav archer. Low range and low damage would just make a niche unit even more rare.

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wow wow hold on. The idea is nerfing, not neutering.
-1 range to plumes not only is a bad idea. It’s a terrible and absurd idea.

Just nerf their eco and discount a little bit. Mayans just have the smoother growth in game right now, so let’s slow them down a little.
Don’t reduce their power.

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how are Mayans unfair?

They start with the same amount of vills as every other civ (due to the housing issue) and gain a permanent vill lead at around 20 pop (when you research Loom and Mayans don’t have to). Funnily, Goths also gain a permanent vill lead here, and they are widely considered bottom tier.

The “resources lasting longer” bonus is something that kicks in at 30-50 min+ mark when people start running out of gold.

The cheaper archers bonus is equally strong to other bonuses like cheaper Scouts with free attack upgrade (Magyars are mid tier).

The only thing Mayans have going for them before Castle Age/Imp is that from Hunt/Herdables they get more food (somewhat close to Tatar bonus overall).

So I ask, is Mayans getting 250 more food from herdables (which they must gather) THAT strong?

Lithuanians starting with permanent +150f seems a stronger bonus, and those are also mid-tier on Arabia.

Maybe people need to l2p and stop crying for nerfs based on winrate.

Because Goths don’t get the super Mayans eco.

and at the same time means extra food on sheeps, deers and boars much earlier, equates to more food.

Tatars get way more food on herdables, but their eco is less powerful in feudal. Mayans have much better feudal and castle age.

Not comparable, Magyars dont have any eco bonus, Mayans have two.

That same bonus needs nerf because is too strong on Hybrid maps, but after that, Lithuanians have nothing.

Not only winrate man (that already shows need a nerf), check pro tier lists, Tournament usage (Mayans are consistently used here, with high pickrate and banning rate, so Chinese, which is eve worse).
So no, both Pros and average players doesn’t pick Mayans, Britons, Franks, Chinese because of cool units, or ask why they don’t go for Vietnamese, Magyars, Italians.

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If the lith food bonus gets nerfed though it’s going to seriously hurt the civ

Yes, they probably need a better food bonus that still allows them to go for the super early scout rush, but yet keeps them fine on Hybrid maps.

which means? The only relevant bonus Mayans get is really the extra vill after you hit 20 pop mark (Loom time). The other bonus is more of a late-game/arena thing or for drawn out games.

yes, this I wrote immediately below, anyway, I think you fail to realize that it’s food you must gather. The more valuable resource is not the resources themselves, but villager time. You could argue, you can push 2-3 deer into the TC to offset this Mayans early game bonus. So I fail to see how it helps the civ and makes it carry like crazy. Mongols bonus is stronger for example because it frees your villagers sooner, so for example you can retask them to wood or make a farm.

citation/explanation needed??? Mayans have eco 0 bonuses in Feudal/Castle, the longer lasting resources doesn’t mean they get to gather the resources faster. Eco-wise, you are playing a generic civ in Feudal/Castle. Slavs economy is stronger than Mayans in Feudal. Teutons is FAR stronger in Castle. Not sure how you can justify these civs being mid-tier when their Feudal/Castle eco bonus is far stronger. Mayans is a pretty 1 trick civ as well, basically you can only do Archer + Halbs vs them, while even a civ like Slavs, you can do early Castle Age Crossbows, Knights, Infantry, Siege are all choices where you get some form of advantage.

by the time you do your 20 pop Scouts as Magyars, the extra Mayan vill (present from 20 pop mark) will have gathered a mighty… 30-50 extra resources. If you kill him, you still saved like 30f (assuming u made 3 Scouts), 150f from Forging, and also gained map control.

Again, maybe people need too l2p? Yes if everything goes perfectly, then technically Mayans is always 1 vill ahead of you and over a long term that vill can gather 500-1000 extra resources… but this is really not so “wild” when you compare with the 3 extra vills Malay get (mid/bottom tier civ on Arabia), the 1000w+ that Huns save over the first 20m of the game, etc, the Teutons bonus (again another 1000w+ if you count the # of farms you place over 20-30m), the 50 stone that Bulgarians save on TCs, the 137w that Britons save on each TC…

this, aside from the fact that pros have their biases also, is incredibly misleading. If it’s pure Arabia maps, you see Aztecs FAR more than Mayans (main reason being the far stronger all-in Eagle rush, not the eco bonus). On hybrid, you see Lithuanians/Byzantines etc. On Arena, you see civs like Burgundians, Aztecs or Britons (not even Chinese who should also be OP here on paper, right?). On Hideout-like maps, you see civs that can tower rush easily (Byzantines, Khmer, Sicilians etc.)

Overall, I’d say there is variety. You see Mayan OP if you really want to see it, but that’s your bias. You can also spot the odd Khmer pick on Arabia to argue that Khmer is also OP cuz it’s a good civ in EW and on Hideout (confirmation + exposure bias).

I think people need to l2p really. Mayans is definitely not as strong as Aztecs, just people are horrible and probably in low elo Mayans are good due to the Stone Wall bonus which raises their winrate a ton (low elo noobs love to stone wall + FC I hear).

Compared to other meso, Mayans:

  • can’t really go infantry (missing Champion and Supplies)
  • average Siege (lack SO and Siege Engineers)
  • average FU archers (FU is rare, but still they don’t get an extra bonus on top like Ethiopians or Vietnamese)
  • best Eagle Warriors (but also kick in super late and Aztec Eagles are far stronger mid-game due to superior creation speed + better eco bonus), so depending on how you view it, Mayans have best or 2nd best Eagle depending on whether you look at CA or Imp Eagle.

Compared to generic civ:

  • no cavalry (which also means that in Feudal you can’t do 20 pop Scouts and you are basically restricted to one of drush FC, 21 pop MAA → Archers, or MAA → towers + archers so Mayans are fairly predictable as well)
  • average Monastery (missing Redemption so can be Mango pushed easily)

Mayans is not a bad civ, definitely top tier, but people need to stop overreacting and seriously l2p.

Chinese I sort of agree are more OP, but it’s fine for 1 civ of 39 to be the best, and Chinese are also fairly hard to play (in ways besides their start) because while they have a wide tech tree, they also lack some key techs like Hussar, Supplies, Bombard Cannon, Block Printing, Siege Engineers, Parthian Tactics all of which can bite you in the late game vs different civs and in different ways.

Also, cheaper techs, while a good bonus, is harder to use than say, Teutons Farm bonus because with techs you need to pick a direction/strategy (which could be the wrong one), in contrast with Teutons you will always make Farms at some point so that’s pretty failsafe.

I don’t think Chinese are so OP that they are unbeatable though, you see them lose all the time even when top-players play them.

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Maya abuser right here?

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Plumed Archers have the same speed and range as War Wagons (base). War Wagons later benefit from Husbandry and also have an Obsidian Arrows.