Spanish are down, but hindustanis is one of their worst matchups and hindustanis soared to the top of the. Again I don’t think it’ explains everything, but I think that is contributing a lot.
Portuguese are down a bit, Lithuanians are down a bit. Burmese are actually up slightly with 1200+ up 11 with 1900+.
Bohemians hit an iceberg and SANK. down 20 places in 1200+, down 37 in 1900+. Admittedly there were also the Hussite Wagon nerfs, but it seems like Bohemians got hit pretty hard.
So yeah, unsurprising to everyone except me, there definitely seems to be decent correlation between being a monk civ and doing worse this patch. some more than others for sure. I knew devotion would be a nerf to monk civs, but I’d figured the effect size was going to be small. Instead it seems quite for the most part appreciable, and quite large for some.
Probably unpopular opinion: I think they may have overnerfed monks at the intermediate level, even if the changes seem good for pro level. Or maybe the RNG just hasn’t been on my side today, but I can definitely feel the extra second(s - after devotion) and it certainly makes monks harder to use, especially vs. mounted units (except eles ofc). I think the change was in the right direction overall, but it’s most beneficial to cav, which I don’t think needed a buff. Vs. Conqs especially it feels like there’s practically no room for error, where there was already fairly little to begin with. Have to give it more time to be sure, but right now it feels like a slight overcorrection.
Not going to comment on civ win rates ATM because they’re surely very much in flux after the very recent patch.
IDK, I remember seeing some very video recent from Hera and he mentioned he’s concerned that monks might be over-nerfed. He didn’t say it as some definitive statement, but I don’t think your opinion is necessarily unpopular.
That’s funny because IIRC Hera was one of the most, possible the most adamant about multiple monk nerfs. Balance between the most powerful units is always a fine line though. I’m a little surprised given how much the rework touched that they didn’t add more variety to the resistances of different unit lines, but I guess it’s easier to keep track of when there are fewer exceptions.
Hera is the most adamant about everything. Everyone else be like “it’s situational” or “it depends” and is always “they’re bad” or “they’re broken.” If Hera has an opinion it’s a strong opinion.
All about the view count. An inflammatory opinion invites views and comments; a moderate opinion can’t really be contested. You have to remember he survives largely on view count.
Personally, I think this is such a significant change it should remain as-is for like 6 months minimum. It’ll take a long time for it to play out and for players to discover the new meta.
Looking at the new rankings, for example Byzantines’ WR is up by 8 places to just over 50%. However, there has been no balance change to their favor.
So how do we decide which civs might need some balancing?
I do feel like the Win Rates need to be adjusted for play rate for high elos. Only then we would know if a civ needs a buff or not. So for example, Mongols have a 6.28% pick rate and win rate of 52.10%. That means they do not need any balance changes. The Japanese have a pick rate of 2.15% but a win rate of 45.76%. They might need a buff. However, this is only for 1200+ ELO.
Which poses the question:
Should we pay attention to ALL Elo for balancing or just 1200+?
If you look at all the Elo, all civs besides Georgians (who need a buff) are in a win rate range of 46.13% for the Vietnamese to 53.98% for the Hindustanis. That’s a range of 7.85%. Is that healthy enough? If the game overall balanced?
Should we look at all elo and 1200+ at the same time?
Hindustanis: shocked but not surprised that they are super sensitive to the amount of villager discount. The old Indians when they don’t have lots of great units to play with, they were completely carried by the villager discount to be competitive.
I’m glad people might be figuring out Armenians. I haven’t. I still don’t like the design of their unit options though.
Poor Georgians. I hope they will be buffed in a well-targeted manner. It’s a civ that looks fantastic on paper so far is my feeling.
They absolutely nailed it with the Chinese change.
Persians are also super sensitive to the dark age bonus. The nerfs are justified but not hurting what made them sky rocket last patch.
Frustration: at this point I’ll just irresponsibly say gitgud with Vietnamese now. They got so many buffs and they feel fantastic to me right now, and I’m nowhere close to the top elo bracket where they seem to shine. Are most players really that bad with archer civs or Vietnamese in particular??
Something that might help would be the inclusion of a new bonus, derived from my own concept: Shepherds generate gold. It would help produce a faster Castle time and give you more gold to work with.
Vietnamese are played as a long feudal into CA civ at high level. Neither long feudal nor CA is popular at mid elos. Its a mid tier civ that scales well with skill.
China should have been nerfed elsewhere that’s more specific to pro player games like no devotion or no heavy camel upgrade or something like that. They were top-5 on 3 vill start and Warlords style start for the pros even before the buff.
Just removing the -50 food at start will be sufficient imo.
Its about numerically how the bonus compares against what other civs get. 4 per vill in dark and 7 per vill in feudal is about 200 food. Its comparable to what most civs get, slightly lower than what top civs get. So they don’t fall behind anymore. Before the buff they’d fall behind a lot against good civs and it used to be too late for the military bonus.
Not a bad idea. Maybe we can run with the sheep idea still. It would be nice to represent the mountain villages that historically focused on sheep and cattle.
I feel like it would make more sense if the food penalty was swapped with a wood penalty. Wood is much easier to attain than food, so starting with -50 wood would still stop Georgians from having a free building, but it would make their start much smoother.
This could be a useful change. But maybe Is It note enough?
In early game they have no eco bonus and actually their win rateo Is very low across all ELOs.
What about a discount on the monasteries? Like -75 wood
I feel like every new DLC making Slavs irrelevant. Faster farmers with FU or above Cavalier with good siege. First Khmer, then Romans and now you are suggesting Georgians too. And this is the reason they had to be power creeped.
In the Dark Age it would outclass both for food, would be outclassed by the Slav bonus for food in Feudal, and ultimately would only save a bit of wood later on. I know your argument, but the Slav increase really has upped them. It would really change the Georgian nomad dynamic.