Nerfs to the evergreen universal S Tier civs

[AlphaCreator727]

It feels so bad to loose against Mayans, Franks and Aztecs
They are always one step further
Funny thing is that when I play them it never feels the opposite

What about instead of nerf top civs, the game encouraged players to play random civ?

[Green4uu]

you can always out-micro the Aztecs player, what feels bad exactly about losing to a player who managed to micro Monks, Siege etc. well and not take unnecessary damage? In the end, you can micro Scouts past pikes, Aztec Monk with all the default upgrades has 55 HP and takes the SAME number of hits as a Monk with Sanctity to kill. Once Redemption is researched, it’s 1 extra hit to kill. Once Monk numbers have been dealt with, Knight-line runs over every Aztec unit and after that it’s GG. Not saying Aztecs aren’t strong, it can be frustrating to play vs them too, but they are far from unbeatable.

Another way to beat them that you see all the time in tournaments is 2x Gold comp, after all Aztec is going full Gold army, it makes sense that you do the same if you wanna hold him back so you go Crossbow + Knights.

Agree with Mayans but just because the strongest unit in the game, Crossbowman, doesn’t need to be even stronger by being cheaper to produce. A discount on Archer-line just doesn’t make a lot of sense tbh, but Mayans are very uni-dimensional so to a degree they need this discount, they don’t have good Monks, they don’t have particularly good Siege and they don’t have good infantry aside from Halberdier.

Franks are just a joke, not sure how anyone can think this civ is OP in 1v1. Close to top tier, sure, they have a good early game eco. But nothing more, I would rather have Lithuanians, slightly weaker eco but far better tech tree than Franks. It’s a noob-friendly civ for sure, it’s very easy to win as Franks. You have a very smooth Feudal transition because you don’t need the Farm upgrade. You get a good Castle time and you save resources on free Bloodlines which is like 3-4 extra Knights and a nice entrance in Castle Age. But really there are other civs with comparably smooth economies and that feel “nice to play” without seeing one of the resources drop to 0. For example, Ethiopians have a similar transition, or even Burmese or Burgundians, you never have to drop Horse Collar-less farms with these civs, as Burgundians these days you drop Heavy Plow farms in Feudal as well…

[CactusSteak2171]

@FurtherLime7936

Yeah, let the always OP OG civs (pure bias towards older civs, keep nerfing newer even more), the whole balance of those is untouchable…

Tbh this thread is super biased the way around. It calls the good civs “evergreen universal” even tho only the Britons were pretty much untouched among them and none of these civs are universally good.

@Pulikesi25

It’s quite the opposite. If this were the case Cumans, Indians would never have received the severe nerfs that they got over time. I think there were about 4 changes for Imperial camels, 2 for fishing bonus for Indians and 5 changes for steppe lancers.

Cumans were literally an auto-win civ, so ofc they had to be nerfed. Meanwhile Indian were nerfed in TG because they were also way better than pretty much anything you nerf in this thread. And both received counter buffs.

@Pulikesi25

The point is to have civs that have relative strengths and weaknesses and can do well against some civs but might struggle against others

That’s pretty nice, but slapping like 3 nerfs per civ isn’t doing that nicely/fairly. Especially Aztecs, what is this civ supposed to be strong against with a shell of an eco bonus (does +2 even matter?) a military bonus that is a straight downgrade from the Goth TB and one of its only late game units nerfed?

@Pulikesi25

It’s a very good example. Look at the weaknesses Malay and Goths have in return. Malay don’t even get 2nd armor on cavalry nor bloodlines. Goths are primarily an infantry only civ.

Speaking of different strenghts and weaknesses, turns out Chinese don’t get a unit with a 40% discount, nor do they get a UU that counters their weaknesses perfectly.

Like, really, no need to do this much to balance these civs. Chinese for instance are only this good because their start has been made consistent over the years (they got the extra LoS on their TC which now doesn’t matter as much cuz the first sheep spawn right under your nose always anyway) so maybe just your wood nerf proposal is enough.

@Green4uu

Franks are just a joke, not sure how anyone can think this civ is OP in 1v1.

The genius who said pikemen are the worst unit sure can? Really idk why you spend so much effort disagreeing with him when you’re able to do stuff like listing all the Ethiopian civ bonuses, and go like “these bonuses are good hence this civ is too good”. You might have more elo but you’re not that different.

[AttilaTheHUN270]

i like the idea. But Leave Tatars alone

[Green4uu]

@CactusSteak2171

you’re able to do stuff like listing all the Ethiopian civ bonuses, and go like “these bonuses are good hence this civ is too good”. You might have more elo but you’re not that different.

you realize that crossbow is much better than Knight as a unit?

[Nheltarion]

@Green4uu

this is a lot of low elo talk

What’s your elo then? I already asked yoilu once and you didn’t reply

[Pulikesi25]

@ElizaKolmakov

Aztecs are like 48% WR rn,

56% wr RM Closed and these nerfs are primarily for that. Infantry production bonus remains as it is for open maps.

@AllergicTable49

Berries is just a bad source of food, it needs to be 50% longer lasting Berries to actually be meaningful. So yeah we’re left with Herdables, that’s the only impactful early-game bonus they can snowball with, on top of their extra Vill that they get at the end of the Dark Age, not a big deal.

No, no and no. If you deny berries by drushing your opponent and lame 2 sheep it IS a big deal. Comparing to the eco bonuses, mid and late game bonuses of most civs, mayan eco and military bonuses are much stronger.

@AllergicTable49

Burgundians bonus is one of the strongest, perhaps too strong, it’s meh in terms of design. I do agree that Franks are OP, but on top of that they’re poorly designed as well, you need a bigger change to fix the civ in both ways.

I really don’t understand what you mean by meh then. And also what do you mean by poorly designed. Its a cavalry civ with good barracks, gunpowder but bad archers. Problem is multiple strong eco bonuses.

[Pulikesi25]

Interesting point but people will always pick these civs unless they stop being that good. Once upon a time, people almost only played Huns till the ca discount was fixed.

[Pulikesi25]

@CactusSteak2171

does +2 even matter?)

Every +1 is like 3% faster farms pre-wheelbarrow, so its a 9% faster food collection from farms and 5% post currently (they had 16% faster farms pre-wb than generic civs back when it was +5 carry capacity). When first line of trees get chopped the bonus is like 3% faster wood collection too. Also has a small effect on gold and stone. So yes it does matter.

@CactusSteak2171

Cumans were literally an auto-win civ, so ofc they had to be nerfed. Meanwhile Indian were nerfed in TG because they were also way better than pretty much anything you nerf in this thread. And both received counter buffs.

Yes definitely. I was replying to his message saying S Tier civs give identity to the game.

@CactusSteak2171

Like, really, no need to do this much to balance these civs. Chinese for instance are only this good because their start has been made consistent over the years (they got the extra LoS on their TC which now doesn’t matter as much cuz the first sheep spawn right under your nose always anyway) so maybe just your wood nerf proposal is enough

hmm. But isn’t 2 extra vills and tech discounts a lot?

[Green4uu]

@Pulikesi25

hmm. But isn’t 2 extra vills and tech discounts a lot?

Technically it’s 2 extra vills IF you do perfect BO (and let’s assume it’s 1500 ish elo so you do). But also -200f, -50w. So overall, those 2 extra vills have to “get their resources back” for the first 10-15 min of the game. That’s where the break even happens and after you get the permanent advantage. So in a sense, Chinese have +2 vills only from mid-Feudal onward because before that they are recovering the disadvantage in resources they have. Before, having 2 vills paying back the lack of resources you have, or having a “generic civ” like Byzantines makes no difference.

[Pulikesi25]

@Green4uu

A posteriori rationalization happening right here, Malay have a very strong and hard-to-stop Elephant push that can happen at 16 min when opponent is still Feudal. They also have 4 extra vills by Castle Age and can play FU Crossbow

Going by the same unreasonable argument as yours, if the malay player loses those elephants for free or those vills for free, everything is same. Do you see how ridiculous your argument of throwing 4 knights is (800 resources is 6 knights actually and no one throws 6 knights for free by 20 mins)
In a more rational sense, yes Malay bonus is quite good which is why they lack cavalry upgrades even in castle age. Chinese on the other hand have full upgrades.

@Green4uu

It seems to me that these civs have a nice spot on some maps and are average on others

Agree with your pick of best civs for certain maps except that these civs are top tier if not the best for many maps, maps with gold control in the mid, semi closed, aggressive maps like Socotra, Empire wars maps and EW mode in general as well. Whereas those civs like Turks, Bohemians etc are like you said great on closed average on others, Persians great for hybrid but one of the worst for EW.

I guess the community in general is against multiple nerfs to civs, I’ll probably edit my original post shortly removing one or few changes.

[Davyman3583]

@Pulikesi25

Agree with your pick of best civs for certain maps except that these civs are top tier if not the best for many maps, maps with gold control in the mid, semi closed, aggressive maps like Socotra, Empire wars maps and EW mode in general as well.

Disagree here. Chinese, Mayans and Franks are only really good on open maps. They can be decent on some semiclosed maps and not so great on others. Depends on the map. On closed maps these civs are average at best (probably worse than that). On most water/hybrid maps they are bad too. Aztecs is the only one mentioned that performs well across basically any land map.

[ZeroEinna]

I agree with you on the Chinese and Mayans by leaps and bounds, but the Franks can be effective on closed maps. I would go so far as to rank the Chinese as possibly the weakest civilization in the game on team game closed maps. The Franks lose precious momentum on closed maps, which stings, but they remain viable (Particularly in team games) as they both have Paladins and Bombard Cannons. I agree that their tech tree has issues.

[AlphaCreator727]

Franks are only weak in Post-Imperial games, one of the weakest civs in the game IMO (no gold no stone)
The problem is to get there with enough boom or army to counter back
Franks players are the opposite of AoE2 players, they want a smooth eco and short game with a single strong unit, the Knight line. A truly AoE2 player playing with Franks can give a lot of problems with archers, UU, 1TC push or other weird strategies

[ZeroEinna]

An experienced player never forgets their options, but also must consider their drawkbacks. If you get the jump on someone with Frankish Crossbows on an open map in Castle Age, who cares that they will never get Imperial Age upgrades. That does not remove the sunk cost.

[GermanAttorney8]

@Green4uu

Technically it’s 2 extra vills IF you do perfect BO (and let’s assume it’s 1500 ish elo so you do). But also -200f, -50w. So overall, those 2 extra vills have to “get their resources back” for the first 10-15 min of the game.

Didn’t know 1500elo don’t know that chinese vill+TC is a 150f 25w bonus itself, so the cost is 50f 25w

[WoeIsToWho]

Snark is not a good approach, generally.

50f, 25w doesn’t account for the idle TC time, so while you can just say that’s the effective resource cost of the bonus short-term, that’s oversimplifying. If the bonus only costed 50f, 25w, Chinese would be a consistent three villagers ahead and would make up the cost of the bonus incredibly fast. How about we stay off jabs and stick to arguments?

[GermanAttorney8]

I intentionally snark since he snarked lower elos as well.

For the argument, chinese BOs usually guarantee you to lose production for exactly two villtime, so you will have a two vill lead at the end (since you research loom that is around one vill time). So it is actually a two vill bonus - what is the argument here? (it is not a bonus for nothing - generally you consider that two vills come out of thin air after your 10th vill or so)

I guess you misunderstood the bonus - Chinese do make up of their lost resources really fast, but the 2vill lead is not immediately effective (it does not work like Pole folwark) - it stacks up in particular when you move from dark age to fedual age

[WoeIsToWho]

@GermanAttorney8

So it is actually a two vill bonus - what is the argument here?

The argument, which you have pointed out, is that it’s not clearly a cost of 50f, 25w. If the end result is a two-villager advantage, the actual cost is higher. If you put in 200f, 50w, and at the end, have a ROI of two villagers, than the bonus did not cost 50f, 25w in excess that has to be regained. That’s the argument.

Simple subtraction doesn’t really express the nuance of what’s going on. Yes, you start out with an extra 3 villagers and an additional house of pop space. At the very beginning of the game, you don’t need the excess house space (even if you were pop-capped at the beginning, you can’t make vills until you get your starting vills to collect food for you) and no food means the TC can’t work, which is eating into the value of the initial villagers you gained.

[GermanAttorney8]

@WoeIsToWho

Simple subtraction doesn’t really express the nuance of what’s going on. Yes, you start out with an extra 3 villagers and an additional house of pop space. At the very beginning of the game, you don’t need the excess house space (even if you were pop-capped at the beginning, you can’t make vills until you get your starting vills to collect food for you) and no food means the TC can’t work, which is eating into the value of the initial villagers you gained.

First of all, the TC can work whenever it has enough food - it does not need to have 200 food to start creating vills. The cost of TC time here is exactly two vill time.

• That means when a Frank TC has 5 vills, Chinese TC has 6 vills and can and will never stop working from that on, so the TC is out of the question when Chinese has one vill lead

The 3 vill at the meantime is still working. Just imagine that both Frank and Chinese stop producing vills at 6, then the current state can be roughly described as (if the game starts now, notice that both TC will never stop working from now on):

• Frank bonus: get an additional 3 vill at the start, get resources equal to the resources gathered by 3+4+5 villager, -150f, -25w (the 3 in 3+4+5 means the resources gathered at first vill time, the 4 means the second vill time and so on)
• Chinese bonus: get an additional 3 vill at the start, get resources equal to the resources gathered by 6+6+6 villager, -200f, -50w
• Comparison: Chinese lose 50f, 25w (and gain some resources equal to 3+2+1 villager) compared to Frank

Do you think the 3 vills from Frank also costs more than 150f?

Edit: the 50f 25w cost is relative to other civ, that means Chinese starts with 50f less when compared to other civ, if you put the viewpoint at Feudal age.