Nerfs to the evergreen universal S Tier civs

Here are some of my thoughts on nerfing Chinese, Mayans, Aztecs, Britons, Franks which are extremely powerful and quite versatile on most of the maps and settings. These are the top drafted civs on almost all tournaments, have a very high pick/win rate and its very difficult to win against them with a mid tier civ. Considering how balance changes moderated very strong civs like Vikings, Indians, Khmer, I think it’s time for these civs too.

Chinese
Technologies cost -10% feudal age, -15% castle age
Start with +3 vills but -200f, -75w (instead of -50w to account for the extra pop space)

Britons
Town centers cost -35% starting from castle age
Foot archers +1 range from castle age (no extra +1 in imp) Elite longbow base range adjusted to 7

Mayans
Resources last 10% longer
Archers cost -10%,-15%,-20% in feudal, castle, imperial (as suggested in another discussion)
El Dorado cost increased from 750f, 450g to 900f, 500g

Franks
Horse collar free, other mill upgrades cost -50%
Chivalry: Knight line produced 30% faster

Aztecs
Military except monks produced 11% faster
monks get +3 hp per tech

Changes to some other civs which can become the new super powerful S Tier post these nerfs
Tatars
Herdables last 25% longer

Ethiopians
Get +75f, g feudal +100 f,g castle and +150 f, g imp

Please post your thoughts and feedback on this.
Edit: Nerfed my nerfs based on community response.

2 Likes

Are you proposing all the 3/4 nerfs for a civ or just one of them?

2 Likes

So you decided to make Ethiopians absolute trash for no reason (they arent even A tirr). Great. Tatars will also be pretty dreadful tbh but at least they didnt get absolutely destroyed for no reason.

And Vikings are absolutely an S tier civ.

But in general a lot of these changes dont adress the problematic or are in general way too harsh. A lot of them are silly bonuses too

6 Likes

I think instead of nerfing the best and most fun civs, it’s better to buff the bad civs. So i wouldn’t nerf any of these civs. Just my opinion.

11 Likes

these are the top civs on arabia, but aren’t any good on hybrid maps or closed maps (except for britons on BF)

this is such a big nerf. currently half the bonus is that you dont need to spend the res, and the other half is that you get it instandly once you hit castle age. still having to research it puts you way behind in CA numbers

6 Likes

All. And even then those civs will be pretty good.

How reducing 50f, 50g bonus would make them trash. They’re one of the most picked in RBW series and 2nd or 3rd most popular Arabia flank in TGs. Right now it might seem like it but after the super powerful civs are nerfed, the civ as it is would seem too strong.

which ones and how? The reason why the current S tier are problematic is because they have multiple powerful eco bonuses and some very strong military bonuses. I haven’t removed any of them but proposed a reduction much similar to Khmer getting a 5% reduction in farming rate, 5% reduction to BE speed.

Except for Franks and Aztecs, the other civs are great on hybrid maps too. And except for Chinese, the others are great on closed maps or maps with gold control too. And majority of the games are played on these maps and maps with some fish but water not being super important. Almost every rotation there’s only one map where water fight is very important.

They lost most of their RBW matches and they arent nowhere near broken on TGs to need a nerf (and they are more like 4th or 5th in TGs). In general the civ is just average.

And like half of the reason Ethiopians are played at all is their early aggression since the rest of the game they dont have anything too crazy until Torsion Engines kick in, and you are making their early aggression really bad by removing half their eco bonus until then and removing their only feudal military bonus. You made Ethiopian early aggression trash.

No. Not at all. Ethiopians is a viable and solid civ but they are very very far from being S tier. There is a ton of civs better than Ethiopians.

The Aztec and Briton nerfs are absoluteky ridiculous. Also Frank Chivalry is now absolute garbage, Chinese losing blast furmace would be unnecesary and go against the civ identity.

And as mentioned before Tatars and Ethiopian nerfs as well.

What Aztecs need is a general nerf to the EW and Mayans would in addition need to have their archer discount nerfed but beyond that they are totally fine.

2 Likes

Overnerf city much? Try just two nerfs instead of 3 or 4.

And good job making chivalry utterly terrible.

6 Likes

this is way too much, Chinese are not THAT strong and the last thing they need is a late-game nerf where they are very average. Also Chinese with this would be forced to go to Wood early, and they don’t need further nerfs in that regard. Really Chinese are fine, they are top tier but there is no point in making them a bland version of Byzantines. Their UU is average overall and the only power unit they have is Arbalest.

this I like.

I don’t think this is needed. Britons don’t have that good of a tech tree, lacking Bombard Cannons, Siege Rams notably. You are meant to boom in conjunction with the Archer flood because Britons will always do Archers in Castle Age which is very predictable, unlike other civs like say Tatars who can do Camels, Arbalest, Cav Archer or Knights. Their cavalry is decidedly average, lacking both Hussar and Bloodlines. I see them as overperforming only on Arena due to Longbows mostly, on any other mode they are very average and the bonuses they get until Castle Age on say Arabia are in line with what other newly released civs get (e.g. Khmer). In fact, on Arabia I’d rather be Khmer or Lithuanians say, which are DLC civs, than Britons, an “Evergreen civ”. You guys should stop judging only from Team Games.

this I like

this I don’t think is needed, Mayan Eagles can stay as they are.

I would keep 15% but remove huntables. Getting more food from Boar is a bit too strong indeed.

most pros agree that Franks aren’t a very good civ, more like A- tier than anything. You guys should get out of your head that Team Games have ANYTHING to do with balancing. Franks can basically make 4 units: Paladin, Handcannoneer, Bombard Cannon, Halberdier. What strikes about this list is that 3/4 units are GOLD UNITS. Compare that to something like Lithuanians, they can do 1 of the best Skirms in the game, acceptable Halbs, really good Hussar, and they still get Paladin, a decent CA, and BBC. The rest of the Frankish units are super garbage. Notably lacking Arbalest, lacking usable Skirmishers, lacking Siege Rams, lacking Heavy Scorpion. If you don’t win the game before ~min 20 as Franks, you are in trouble. They can be good until min 20 yes, with their more HP Scouts and their Castle Age timing, but overall late game Franks are uninspiring in 1v1 and you are in trouble vs most civs if you haven’t found early damage. So I don’t think they need a nerf.

why nerf Aztecs? They seem fine overall, they are top tier but overall it’s basically an Eagle 1 trick civ, you can’t even argue that Aztecs have good Archer-line, CA infantry flood is their thing.

if you understand the game at all, you know that Tatars are a nice but not OP civ in Castle Age, where they are problematic really is in post-Imp where they both have tons of power units (Heavy Camel, Cavalier, Elite Keshik, Cav Archer…) so nerfs should be directed here. For example, Tatars could lose access to Heavy Camel (not sure how that would play out since their Halbs also suck). That would be a nice nerf.

this seems reasonable.

Also you forgot Khmer farms, Khmer houses, both very OP and making Khmer an S tier civ also, you forgot.

You forgot Berbers cheap Knights + insane late game that might need also slight nerf. You forgot Poles insane CA timing due to the farm drop off but especially you forgot the big elephant in the room Burgundians, who aside from broken techs they might or might not have, have too much in terms of eco. Getting discounts on techs AND 1 age earlier, if you do the math, Burgundians player normally has gathered like 600w more than opponent before min 20 of the game. That’s an insane amount and always makes it very hard to create a lead vs Burgundians even on maps where they should be allegedly average (e.g. Arabia).

This civ can’t lose blast furnace, and your suggestion just make the cheaper techs too weak in late game, idk about the wood nerf.

I know Britons are OP in TGs but nerfing shepard and Town Center bonuses are too punishing, but I like making the extra range bonus just +1 and buffing longbow range to push people to use more them, and at the same time halting people to overpick them in TGs so that isn’t too one-sided.

Just reduce the longer lasting res to 10%, that’s enough. Agre about the archer discount, and regarding El Dorado, the techs must be more expensive (is already the slowest reseaching UT, so making it expensive is enough).

Again, Franks need eco bonuses to be good, let alone the forager and mill upgrades, move the cavalry HP bonus to castle age, so you create a whole like how Burgundians work.
As for Chivalry, just replace the effect, Fallen Knight return 33% of gold cost is good, helps them in the area where they are weaker (Post-Imp).

Aztecs are fine, more balanced than Mayans at least, if you see them too strong, nerf eagle cost from 20f to 30f (to offset the nerf, specifically for Aztecs, Garland Wars cost 750f and 450g).
Another option is moving the faster military unit creation to feudal age, so they don’t get a lead at dark age when drushing.

Tatars are fine, the herdables bonus was indeed too strong when they had free sheeps in fedual age, but after nerf the bonus is fine.
Free TB is fine by the fact the civ lacks arbalest (they have to push into cavalry archer in Imperial, and is very slow and expensive, so that helps a lot, plus being quite vital in castle age for accuracy).

They are fine, just an average civ.

Its already too discussed, but in land Vikings took a hit that was just enough, removing Thumb Ring. This civ better deserves a nerf on water where they are still broken.

No, the “bEsT and mOsT” fun civs are just too overloaded with a large amount of unfair advantages compared to the rest, others can’t compete with that, nerfing those will allow the other to be more competent (doesn’t means buff aren’t needed).

Also, your suggestions only target Arabia and open maps, but in closed maps there are other completely overpowered as well (Turks, weak on open maps but just as broken as Bohemians and Mayans for open maps, so Poles). In water you have Italians, Portuguese and Vikings.

2 Likes

I would personally let them have -50s/-75s rather, both wood and food missing would make them even worse in some hybrid maps. Less stone would make the snowbally boomy option (which is the meta) less viable. Anyways I overall like these two first changes.
Regarding the Blast Furnace, Chinese already have one of the worst late-game compositions, no fancy units but generic Cavalier/Arb, no good Siege to cover their Chu Ko Nu’s which make a deathball less likely to happen. You should only address their start, which you did.

Not the way to deal with this civ, sanding down may work as a nerfing technique when it comes to Chinese, but with Britons it’s a whole different issue. I wouldn’t touch their eco, just like Franks this civ has a poor design, stream-lining towards the very “OP” meta unit, leaving no room for anything else. It’s beyond just being too strong. This civ deserves a better treatment, sorry.

Once you removed hunt from the equation (which was the biggest deal about this eco bonus) you dont need to also decrease its value, it’s already an eco bonus that serves little to no playability, sanding down here just kills the civ in terms of its identity.
I like the change for the Archers, the Eagles nerf is not needed (I’d just make the tech cost more gold), but okay.

Same as Britons, it’s a poor design, that’s not how you address it. This new eco bonus is pathetic, you rather just give them no eco bonus beyond their berries one at this point. Burgundians and Vietnamese dont need another brother, the game loses its diversity if we keep with these kind of meh eco bonuses.

So you made it exclusively for Infantry but you kept the same value, 11%? That’s another killer to playability. Sorry this one is bad :frowning:

First one is okay I guess, sanding down kingdom, the second one is again another nerf that’s far from being elegant, you approach the game as if it was a code, either give it for free and deal with the power-spike you’ve created or give them a completely different bonus.

I actually like this one, I’d make it 50/100/200. Be bold. It’s still a nerf.
However the latter change just makes their Feudal Age the most generic one, you cant take this away from Ethiopians. All civs need a defined identity in Feudal Age.

Every now and then we hear the same change regarding Vikings, people seem to refuse to accept the nature of the civ, which in my opinion is brilliant, having the best eco in the game, yet arguably the worst army. Developers (for once) did wisely and took away the access to Thumb Ring, that’s how you nerf a civ without killing it’s identity. Yet you choose to give them a nerf that kills playability. Not elegant again.

2 Likes

They lost to an even stronger Vikings, Aztecs or Mayans. But they had a crazy high pick rate.

That’s because there are much stronger civs like the current S Tier ones and once those are nerfed, these bonuses would seem too strong imo.

Wish you elaborate more on why. Those civs have been a super strong civ for 20+ years now and continue to do so. At some point Huns had 25% discount on CA in castle age and were OP on Arabia. They got a huge nerf and are still competitive. +2 carry capacity, +50 gold, +3 hp per tech for monks, +11% infantry production rate are still very good bonuses and certainly wouldn’t make Aztecs unplayable.
A general nerf to EW would make Incas even weaker.

Mayans get about 300 food extra for free without pushing any deer. The cheap walls helps them get walled early and the 1 extra villager would gather about 20 resources/min. By mid castle age this translates to about 500 resources. This is just much much more than any other non S Tier civ and it gives them a lot of flexibility. So no, they are not totally fine other than archer discount adjustment.

They lost to a bunch of other civs too like Sicily, Bulgarians, etc. They were considered to be the most overrated by the end of the tournament.

No. First you would have to nerf Lithuanians, Burgundians, Sicilians, Malians, Khmer, Indians, Celts, Huns, Byzantines and prob more before the Ethiopians who are an average and well balanced civilization can be considered to be anywhere near S tier. Ethiopians are average by any logical analysis

And again, their mid game bonuses are kind of meh, so you are just making them absolutely terrible by making their early aggression trash. This would be like nerfing the cheaper Japanese buildings in feudal ahe but making it better on imperial age, it would just screw over a balanced civilization for absolutely no good reason.

You are comparing slightly more expensive (because yes, once you take into account that cavalry archers got cheaper over time its not that big of a nerf) cav archers who werent the only thing Huns were able to do with basically halving both Briton eco bonuses? And Aztec eco would be mediocre for anything that isnt eagles, it isnt that great of an eco.

Thats because Incas have mediocre bonuses and rely on the stregth of eagle warriors to be competitive. Eagles are just too good in early game. Incas would have to be buffed ofc.

You are ignoring that

  • They still need to gather those resources so no, its not a massive advantage, its just a good eco bonus but not a great one.
  • They only get a villager advantage by the time the other player gets loom so its at best 8 minutes of extra gathering.

I think either Hera or Ornlu made a boom tier list and Mayans were B tier. But sure, you can reduce the lasting resources at 10%, but leave it at 10% affecting all resources

They have warwolf trebs, onagers, full upgrades on infantry and not that bad cavalry (better than Byzantines, Vikings, Japanese). Khmer bonus is good for boom while Lithuanians is great for early aggression. Britons on the other hand have bonuses that are great for both. 25% faster shepherds translates into about 150 extra resources from the extra villager time on standard maps. Cheaper town centers means you can do 4 tc boom or get some crossbows to defend relics and still do 3 tcs on Arena. For Arabia and other open maps, it provides a lot of flexibility imo. I’ll maybe edit to be 35% cheaper instead.

I guess that’s more powerful than current Chivalry for 1v1. I know I touched a nerve when proposing changes to the fan favorite Franks, but seriously that many bonuses which all complement each other is too powerful and that’s why this civ is picked almost twice as much as any other civ even though they have some clear weaknesses.

well how else would you balance OP civ. How about shepherds -20% and tc -35% wood?

well its fine for a civ to have one or few maps where it’s quite dominant but weak on many. The ones I picked for nerfs seem too versatile for most land maps, RM, EW, 1v1 and tg.

what about berries, herdables, longer closer trees, farms, gold, stone etc?

With those changes they’re still a much better archer civ than most of them. Currently they can be matched only with another equally broken civ.

Burgundian bonus is not meh by any means. Its one of the strongest. They don’t have other eco bonuses while Franks get berries too. You still save 75 food which won’t affect your scout play or 200 food when you do knights. The extra villager time from faster berries roughly translates to 100-150 extra resources. The extra hp on knights is equivalent to 250 resources. So by early castle age you save 425 resources and by mid castle age 550 which is huge.

Unsure about the tech thing, don’t agree on anything else. Chinese need a lot of techs, because they are kind of a jack of all trades, so they need blast furnace. I really wouldn’t mess with the starting res as well. What they really need is Chu Ko Nu gold cost to increase to 40.

These are just bad changes, Britons aren’t really a top tier boom civ, and the shepherd bonus is pretty much their entire eco bonus until Castle Age. I support changing the range on stuff though.

Just make it all res, but 10%, fully agree with the archer thing, El Dorado probably doesn’t need changes, Meso post Imp isn’t that great anyway, El Dorado just needs a rename to Cotton Armor.

Don’t agree, it’s overnerfing Franks. I think the HP bonus needs to become 10%/20% in Feudal/Castle, and Chivalry changes effect totally to something like “Knights heal slowly and return 33% of gold cost when killed”. That hits TGs, where Franks can be a problem, and only tones them down slightly for 1v1s.

Aztecs are really hard to balance, they feel quite tightly stretched. Don’t agree at all with the first two changes, their monks are fine, and only infantry getting the production speed is too much. Unsure on the villager carry change.

Tatars don’t need changes, especially as pre-emptive nerfs for something they may not become. Start with other changes, and then see what needs to happen.

Same thing as Tatars.

I honestly think Vikings are mostly fine, although I think this change isn’t terrible.

Those civs are pretty bad already, they deserve no nerfs. Aztecs are like 48% WR rn, and super predictable.

Everything else is fine.

The new top civs will be Huns, Vikings, Lithuanians.

2 Likes