Nerf to Chinese and Mayans

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
41

Against melee, Mayans Eagle is the best among all 3. They are the only eagle that can beat FU cavalier gold efficiently. IDK why you still think they are not good against melee.

Incas also have FU arbs to deal with infantry and FU halb to counter cav. And still have 2 UU, one to counter infantry and other to counter cav. Similarly Aztecs have an UU to deal with infantry and the best monk to counter cavalry. On the other hand Mayans rely on FU halb which is still a great counter to cav, but having a good melee eagle is needed for them imo.

Point is - why buff an unit that absolutely never felt under powered? 5 more HP means they can take 2 more xbow shot, 28 → 30. Is that really necessary?

42

True i guess i even underestimated them.

But how is your previous post an argument to let them keep these overpowered eagles? Like i said they still have helbs so they can always deal with cav. I don’t see any reason why they should keep this overpowered unit.

And there will be still situations where they are still useful
even if its just raiding.

43

I think Mayans need one extra option to deal with melee just like Aztecs (JW, Monk) and Incas (Kamayuk, Slingers). They don’t need to be OP. Once again, I have no complaints against permanent (which is tone down the effect, not just increasing the cost/upgrade time) El Dorado nerf.

44

Tell me in how many games you actually see jw or slingers :smiley:

I don’t think that u need an extra option, no.

Some people are already questioning if the championsupgrade is even worth it with the recent buff.

45

I will never get this “the unupgraded unit is better so now the upgrade is bad” mindset

46

Mayans is already basically a 1 trick pony civ which is good only at 2 things
 archers and “cav”. Even so, their “cav” is situationally stronger or weaker than regular Knight-line, sometimes you’d rather have Knights and sometimes Eagle Warriors. I am astonished by how people complain about Mayans when Aztecs is definitely the strongest meso civ, better Feudal and better Castle Age and Mayans shine only in early/mid Imp.

Their Siege is average, even below average, probably only like Turks or Huns comes to mind as being worse. Even a civ like Magyars which is widely considered as having below average Siege has the Siege Engineers + Capped Ram combo which is probably better than Siege Ram without SE overall. Their Monks are average, their Militia-line is below average, their UU is good but gimmicky, trading damage output (5 damage in IMP!) for mobility and HP, basically a very pop-inefficient cav archer.

Idk how anyone wants to nerf this civ in good faith, it’s a really averageish civ, mostly good because Crossbows are the best unit in the game and Mayans piggyback on that, nerf Crossbow or buff Mangonels and Mayans drop down a tier for sure.

El Dorado, don’t even make me laugh that people cry about a tech that becomes relevant at ~50m mark. If you can’t beat Mayan player before then, get rekt by Eagles tbh. Plenty of other “all in” techs that have similar impact, Chivalry from Franks, Flemish Revolution, First Crusade, Hauberk, Spanish, Silk Armor are all techs that allow you to create a similar deathbed that is very pop-efficient but I don’t see people complain about those.

Elite Eagles, even Mayan ones, still lose to Cavalier overall (EEW does 11 dmg to Cavalier vs the Cavalier’s 12! Also Cavalier has 40 more HP), and also this is a close fight ONLY when El Dorado is researched, maybe stop hiding in your base as a Knights civ and go push the Mayans, this game has timings where your civ is favored or at a disadvantage, learn them.

People just need to stop pretending to best ladder players with spear skirm comps, this is not AI.

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47

People complain about Mayans more than they do about any civ that isn’t Franks because they are very often played in TG and because many people one trick them in 1v1 so most players end up losing to them more often than any other archer civ.

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48

Because it always depends on the costs of the upgrade if its worth or not. 750f and 350g for +1 attack and 10 hp is quite an investment.

In 1vs1 its not unusual that u don’t even see paladin due to its high upgradecost
and the difference between paladin and chevalier is quite big.

Do you really think it would be still worth it to upgrade to paladin with these costs, when Paladin only had 1 attack more than chev?

49

Meanwhile Mayans hold up a 58% winrate on 2k ELO, yeah totally a balanced civ :rofl: :rofl:

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50

If paladins only had 1 attack over cavalier then they would be a bad unit, and nerfed compared to what we get, while champions are the same as ever. Heck, they are technically better since longswords and 2HS are harder to kill.

51

Before the patch: champion 1 attack 1 melee armor 10 hp more than 2handed swordsmen

After the patch: champion 1 attack 10 hp more than 2handed swordsmen.

The Upgrade cost is equal to 17-18 2handed swordsmen who have just 10hp less and 1 attack less. so yeah, it’s understandable if people think about if it’s still worth upgrading to champs whether you have the same opinion or not.

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52

Then they should remember that they are using a unit that is less pop efficient than a cavalier so they could use every extra bit of extra stats.

53

who cares about TGs tho? TGs are obviously very hard to balance and the game is (and should be) mostly balanced for 1v1s. In team games, due to team bonuses, you can abuse all you want, give Lithuanians infinite gold to spam their OP Paladins, abuse Spanish trade etc. In TGs there are so many OP mechanics (even as an example, Spanish trade) that idk how people cry about Mayans and not that. Team games are not balanced, they are for fun.

Crossbow as a unit is OP, Mayans have smooth transitions which sure, make them easier to play, but most of their winrate comes from Crossbow-line being OP, Ethiopians, Britons etc. are in the same boat.

Slight Mangonel buff and probably Mayans winrate goes down by 3-8%. Mayans economy is really nothing special, it’s probably not even top 10. Off the top of my head:

  • Vikings
  • Khmer
  • Aztecs
  • Chinese
  • Cumans
  • Franks
  • Indians
  • Teutons
  • Malay
  • Poles
  • Slavs

all have eco bonuses that are for sure better than Mayan one.

Like take even Khmer, there is this video by SotL that shows that their farms are like best or 2nd best in the game next to Slavs and Poles. On top of that they can garrison inside houses (raid-immune in Feudal), have a VERY good tech tree (FU Cavalier, best Elephants, good Arbalest, rly good Siege), like even Castle Age Scorpion push by Khmer is pretty strong
 but since they aren’t good in TGs, nobody cries.

54

Ah.

I however agree for that el dorado and mayans eagle in general is not at all the strenght of the civ and it’s not really strong in 1v1, the strength of the eagles are because they cost low food (which is precious in early games ) but high gold cost ( which make them very expensive in the late game where your economy is set up but easy to afford on early games).
if i want to play eagles i will never pick mayans which have generic one but instead aztecs which have production speed on it and great monks in combo and make the infantry transition in late game more easier.

Mayans is strong in making archers and that’s all but still are op for making archers.

55

Hahaha yeah, let’s even buff mayans cause they suck. Sorry, no clue what u are thinking but on maps like arabia mayans are definitely s Tier and no, other archer civs are not S Tier, or at least not even half of them.

U probably won’t even find 1 pro who thinks they are not S Tier.

3 Likes
56

I was merely stating why people are more pissed at Mayans than at other strong civs. After all this topic is about both Chinese and Mayans and yet Chinese have been barely discussed compared to Mayans, because in most of the playerbase Chinese aren’t very popular. As of whether the game should be balanced around TG it depends to who you ask. It’s funny that you mentioned Khmer because most of their nerfs were precisely made with TG in mind.

3 Likes
57

yes this is the key takeaway I think, Archer discount is by far the best Mayan bonus and it’s a discount that applies to the best unit in the game. Compare to Britons/Ethiopians, Ethiopian faster firerate is more relevant in late games while Mayans is definitely the strongest bonus in early Castle age and so on. Britons are carried mostly by Longbows in Imp while in Castle age, the extra range is micro-intensive and the hardest bonus to use.

nobody said that they suck, I agree Mayans are top tier, but they don’t need a nerf. Like I said, their strongest bonus is the Archer discount and their go-to strat is Feudal Archers and then in Castle age you can decide to either do an Eagle transition (which happens to also require nearly the same type of eco as Archers so you don’t need to rebalance much) or keep flooding archers depending on map, what opponent is doing, etc.

Mayans are top tier because Archer is the strongest unit in the game and early game, more numbers beats other bonuses (faster firerate, more range, more HP
) that other archer civs have.

idk what the old Khmer bonus used to be, iirc Tusk Swords was +5 and not +3, still in this case, it doesn’t affect 1v1 (because in 1v1, EBE is an ultra-late game thing) so it’s a reasonable change, many changes that people in here propose in contrast, for example El Dorado nerf, would leave Mayans with no viable unit composition in 1v1 past early Imp Arbalest power spike. We are talking about a civ that gets a bonus on top of FU Arbalest, yes, but doesn’t have good infantry, doesn’t have cavalry and doesn’t have spectacular siege.

58

They actually got tons of nerf after they received the farming bonus. Elephants as a whole nerfed, speed bonuse reduced, tusks swords more expensive, farming nerf, and loss of BBC which hurts plenty in 1v1. But yeah I kinda agree people exaggerate when they think El Dorado eagles are like paladins or something.

59

No thats not the reason. Are portuguese top tier? Cause their archers are cheaper as well. Its a combination of many things which leads to them being S Tier.

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60

Wouldn’t say that Inca eco is so much worse than Maya. Extra llama, 10pop-houses and faster built farms (comparable to getting 3 instant food when building a farm) is 3 small bonuses that add up and give a power spike in feudal. Mayans also have the worst farmers in the game.
Their eagles are the worst in post-imp, but in early to midgame they are the most practical to mass, simply because they can easily counter swordsmen with slingers. Maya and Aztecs in contrast would have to tech into xbow, requiring at least 3 techs, or get a castle to get to their respective UU