Poles civ identity

The composition itself dies hard to SO or scorpions, yes. But once you add bbc it’s actually super strong. Especially since arb and obuch is pretty cheap while you also have two good eco bonuses. But at some point it’s not super pop efficient. Played with and against that comp couple of times. Comes down to who does better job at microing in my experience. Also to what units you’re facing ofc. Against cav civs this one is great. Against archers it doesn’t really work too great. If you play vs something like britons or Ethiopians you’re probably better off going full winged hussar despite laking that armor. Bit poles struggle here no matter what they do.

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I have to agree with this, my main point is that Folwarks should be the identity of the civ primarily, not spamming cheap cavaliers without armor. The latter is a flavor, but shouldn’t be what we balance around- a UT in late castle age.

Since I’m replying to you, I might as well mention that I see the game in this way for some civs- Poles with Folwarks, Portuguese with Feitorias, Burgundians with the eco techs, Slavs with the farming, Celts with the lumberjacks.

I think those bonuses should be emphasized instead of removed.

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The moment we knew Poles is coming to the game, I suggested an UT to give LC line regeneration ability. We instead got trample damage with a trade off of 2 PA.

Because any ranged unit behind Obuch destroys everything. Poles is one of the very few civ that can go for double gold composition without much trouble. And even if gold is an issue, Obuch + Skirmisher is still a decent combo. Very slow compared to their other cheap cavalry spam but much less weakness.

Wait, what? I though they should be like Lithuanians.

Fine. HC doing 2-3 damage per shot is not a big deal compared to arbs and skirmishers doing 7-10 damage to a every single units.

I think we can start with small step and make them Khmer house, 5 garrison capacity for villagers.

Well there you go.

And they will slowly regenerate.

I have I think three times played as Poles in post imp with obuch/ranged units and I have to say that it was quite underwhelming. In a straight up boom game obuch arb loses to halb SO, or huss SO that Bulgarians, Slavs, Mongols, Cumans, Malians use sometimes, it also loses to many UU compositions, like Genoese huss, and also huss CA. It’s good for countering infantry civs, but aside of that I don’t think it as a composition is any stronger than champion lbow is for example.

In a real scenario I have much more often seen and used arb huss.

Lithuanians are versatile, up until imp, where they have to rely on heavy cavalry + ranged unit- skirm/hc. Poles are more like magyars where they have the option to go for arbs as well and don’t mind it. If I was to compare their tech tree to any other civ I think that probably… Sicilians is the most similar? Not sure. Either way, Poles are a civ you can play on archers and on cavalry without an issue, despite lacking the final armors for both.

Boring honestly. If you are going to make them capable of safe farming, just increase the range and lower the %. Sure, I want folwarks to garrison villagers as well, but I think it has something to do with them regenerating and if they can also garrison they will become literally unkillable, and the devs probably wanted poles to be an “exposed vil, high risk-high reward” civ.

And Poles are too.

Plus they have an infantry UU.

Agree on that but

Actually very difficult to balance the perfect number imo. Area change is proportional to the square of range. I’m calculating this without running the game. So I can be wrong.

Currently you can fit 8 farms on Folwarks range. Increasing the range just by 1 tile will allow you to fit 25 farms. If you want to keep the same effect in the infinite time span, 10% need to be reduced to 3.2%. Sure you can’t fit all the 25 in real game but just giving you the hint that it needs very very careful calculation. 10% to 5% can be a drastic change - both as a buff and a nerf.

Nonsensical. In a square of 13x13 (3 base + 5 radius) which has 160 tiles available for farms it is not possible to fit 225 tiles worth of farms.


This is the most you can do (I think, just not sure about the middle one). I don’t think 24 farms per folwark is unbalanced if it’s 5% per farm, if we were to increase the radius by 2- or, in other terms, make the current range affect any farm placed inside, not just those with 9 tiles in it.

I thought you wanted the right one where you can fit 24.

Sure, I don’t mind that. This is a very optimistic design of course, the primary goal is to make it more useful on arabia and not requiring as much investment in folwarks everywhere.

I’m really curious why people tend to say “change this change that, it’s weird to play” when the approach should be “how do I play them correctly”. Just because you can’t play every civ like Franks or Britons, doesn’t mean a well designed and unique civ is bad or lacking. Poles are a pretty cool civ and their UTs are both well designed.

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Not sure but I think Franks and Mayans are even more one straightforward civ than Poles, what I mean boring to play and play against

Lechitic Legacy is fine but Sczhlata Priviliegies isn’t.

Burgundians cough cough, Sicilians cough cough.

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Totally agree. It is both too expensive and too strong at the same time.
Basically the definition of “broken”.

It makes sense for Poles to be a cav civ without last armour, as literally every other cav civ ever has last armour already. I also don’t get how eco bonuses don’t carry enough civ identity (that’s what you meant right?) especially since they help you in the majority of games. Like all the eco bonuses you mention are quite famous and player remember them when thinking about their civ. Heck the Polish civ is already based around economic bonuses since its 3 main civ bonuses are economic, so it’s pretty good that it’s UU and UT stand out on the military side. I see why Szlachta is controversial but if it’s changed it would be changed in a way that allows the civ to function without plate barding and halbs, or as little change elsewhere as possible.

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I didnt disagree, I complimented his idea. So I dont get the attack.

Anyways, Poles are doomed to go for their cheap Knights into Hussars, it’s inevitable, all their bonuses push to this direction, which is a little sad, makes this civ another single dimensional Franks, despite their open tech tree unlike Franks, that’s why I see huge potential with this civ rather than Franks/Britons…

You want to encourage out of the box thinking, an enviorment that will push strategy to maximum prosperity. Folwark at its current state is the most generic farm bonus, Slavs style, hidden behind a gimmick of a fancy feature. Khmer bonus is brilliant, simplistic yet so iconic, playability at its best.

I want you to show us a balanced “unique” civ without an early eco bonus.

Magyars are almost a perfectly designed civ, minus their unique unit that’s a little tricky to handle conceptually, the civ has no eco bonus yet keeps up with all the great civs, same goes for Byzantines, just a great civ to play.
Eco bonus isn’t a mandatory component when it comes to civ design, we have to first accept this, it’s okay for 15-20% of the civs to be generic in this aspect yet extra-ordinary in other aspects. That’s the beauty about this game, there are no rules.

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Yes, but eco bonus clearly impacts how civs are picked in tournaments at pro level, Khmer pre DE were close to the extinction, in DE since buff Khmer are now picked in tournaments.

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Nah they have quite a lot of viable strats. You can go scouts to get some army presence in feudal and then boom with mining stone. Gives you castles to protect, eco is great for fast boom and with gold you can make monks or obuch. Ofc you can play the classic knight game. Also the farming bonus can give you insane food count to go fast imp. You can totally play the civ like vikings with early imp arb push. You lack last armor but that’s not crucial for this strat. Also you can add bbc here.

The civ is weird sure. There’s a pretty large pool of strats you can use though.

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What about Arena? You can’t fit all 24 because of TC and woodlines but in Arena you can still plan where to place houses and maybe fit 16-18 farms. This can make their boom even stronger. I think your middle one will be better. 12 paper, maybe 10 on practice with 5% immediate food.

Khmer

Khmer was an awful civ, a fantasy play kind of civ, with BBC…
Farming bonus was needed, very convinient way to buff a civ, but again not the only way to do so.

Vietnamese is a horrible example of how not to buff a civ, their eco bonus is pathetic. I wish they had a different eco bonus, something that concrete, playable.

So sure I dont mind eco bonuses, just have to implement it nicely, just like they did with Khmer, if you choose the easy path to balance a civ, the least you can do is implementing it elegantly.

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I absolutely agree, in theory there are plenty of options, its lovely, unlike Franks. However its awfully designed, one strategic path is highly favored. Boom is the way to go there. Arbs are not as viable, due to the way their eco bonus works, Vikings have an eco bonus (brilliant one btw) that does not rely on booming in order to be well used, Poles eco bonus, just like Teutons and Indians, relies on a boom situation in order to be fully utilized.

Arbs strats, just like oldschool lierreyy Early Imp Arbs power spike, tend to go for a narrow economy, 2TC maximum, no room for multiple Folwarks because it’s less about large farming eco, more about food efficiency (not making food units), idle TC at times, and market abuse. Some eco bonuses fits 1TC plays, some dont, Poles’ sadly, doesnt.

That’s the main problem of this civ, if you want versatility you cant just ecourage booming into Knights.
(Their stone mining bonus is absolutely awesome, sadly it doesnt build up into anything impressive but an even more defensive playstyle)

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This is not coherent considering on Arena you can already afford and fit all your farms around Folwarks.

With this change you will still be able to have all of your farms under aura, but the stack of 24 farms becomes costing 1565 wood instead of 1815.

For Arena this 250 wood is nothing compared to getting the immediate 450 food that you would lose if it was 5%, not 10%.

So in a sense it is nerfed on Arena, where it’s ridiculously strong, but on Arabia, where its seldomly used due to the huge risk and perceived investment, it will be used all the time. Just like the “hidden” bonus of Slavs for example, but it’s not 10% over time, it’s 5% upfront.

And this is why Poles are so hard to balance currently, their economy is completely different on closed and on open maps. By making it consistent we will actually be able to gauge their real average strength and balance the civilization from there.

Given, 10% → 5% might be a bit of an overkill, but still, we will be able to come up with a fitting number.