Now that the tournament is over, I think there are a couple of things worth saying. I won’t be writing a post about all of them, just a few of the more obvious points.
Koreans & Vietnamese
It’s all well and good making the game appealing to Asian audiences, but come on. It remains a mystery why the Koreans’ discount wasn’t nerfed following the introduction of the Fire Lancers. The Vietnamese are now a major ecomic civ and the pro-lame bonus is now completely out of place, I would remove it.
Burmese
It’s as if they’ve fallen into a black hole. There are no economic bonuses in the Dark Age, so I imagine that starting in the Feudal Age would have offered some advantages. In fact, we didn’t see them at all. But even in a standard start, they are not competitive. I think that until they have the +2 armour on archers, they’ll be too limited in their strategic capabilities. So I suppose we have to accept that they are a slower-paced civ, and make some changes.
Techs
Get access to Leather Archer Armor.
Arambai pierce armour 1 → 0, Elite 2 → 1.
Civilization bonuses
Lumber Camp technologies are free.
Battle Elephants have +1/+1 armor in Castle Age, +2/+2 armor in Imperial Age.
Infantry units have +1/+2/+3 attack in the Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age.
Monastery technologies are 50% cheaperRelics are visible on the map from the game start.
Team bonus
Relics are visible on the map from the game start Mounted archers +2 attack vs Infantry.
Unique technologies
Manipur Cavalry: Cavalry +4 attack vs Archers.
HowdahLal-lup system (It’s not exactly the right name): All military units are created 30% faster.
I don’t think we’re going to see this. Missing leather archer armor is one of their special quirks, and this is an overall nerf to Arambai (who would require 1 additional tech to end up with the same pierce armor)
Why get rid of this? It significantly weakens their monk play (which is a strength of the civ).
I’d be fine with changing the team bonus, but I don’t think mounted archers getting bonus attack against infantry is a good bonus for them - it doesn’t address a weakness of the civ or complement their strengths all that well, and I doubt there’s a historical basis for it.
Burmese can already deal with infantry by using their own strong infantry, and masses of Arambai would kill masses of infantry regardless. And without thumb ring, Burmese CA would still be a bit lackluster
Personally, I think moving relics being visible from game start to a civ bonus and changing the team bonus to “relics generate wood” would be more appropriate. Not so great for maps where you can capture relics before castle age, but we already have that problem with Burgundians (and Aztecs and Lithuanians to lesser extents)
Alternatively, make the +1/1 apply to all elephant units and give them elephant archers instead of cav archers (in which case the name actually is appropriate). With Parthian tactics, the first archer armor upgrade, and Howdah, the elephant archers would end with +3/4 armor (same as Dravidians and Bengalis). Changing the default civ bonus to apply to elephant archers in addition to battle elpehants is also an option (if a further buff is needed), but not exactly obligatory, and the Burmese are missing thumb ring. It would be weird to have two strong ranged units while missing the second archer armor upgrade, but perfectly in line with general AoE2 design.
Not necessarily in my opinion: the Burmese elephant bonus could be adjusted, but it could also stay as is. And Burmese have strong infantry as well, while Bengalis have Rathas and a good naval bonus (Burmese navy is good, but not particularly special). And Bengalis have a very different (and much stronger) economic bonus.
Given how the bonuses are structured in the game, we’ll only see it as UT. As example, look the lamberjacks produce gold (UT) or food (Civ bonus). The devs have always avoided certain combinations.
Here too, given how the devs have worked so far, there must be something special about the Burmese elephant archers compared to all the others, like being effected by the Manipur Cavalry (which would probably be OP). It can’t just be vanilla.
With the release of the “Battle for Greece” DLC, the devs changed the civ’s description to “Cavalry and Infantry”, which kind of sets the tone, and having two bonuses related to Moks play (three if you include the one you suggested for relics) without being a monk civilization really feels off.
Because sometimes their anti-infantry capabilities just aren’t enough. It’s a bit like the Teutons, who despite their UU and above-average Champions, still have HC.
Looks at Aztec and Burgundian team bonuses. The only bonus affecting relic income that isn’t a team bonus is the UT grand trunk road (which affects all gold income).
They’d also be the only elephant archers with Parthian tactics, which means they get extra damage against spears. Seems more special than Hindustani siege elephants (which are unique by being completely generic).
Koreans are fine, is just that Fire Lancers need more nerfs.
Burmese aren’t a weak civ rn, the civ saw some play in Titans League and their winrates aren’t bad either, they are just a victim of Powercreep thanks by Burgundians/Bengalis/Bohemians on closed maps and Romans for open maps, better nerf these civs before buffing them.
Celts was not classified as “Siege” civ until DE. I’ll say no need to check official civ classification nor make changes to fit the classification. If anything change the classification back to “Monk”.
Only if they also get tanky Elephant Archer which won’t be the case if you don’t make them affected by Howdah. I always want Burmese also gets EA and I never liked their BE takes only 1 damage from xbow/arblaseter. So I’ll suggest changing Howdah from BE +1/+1 armor to EA +1 attack, +1 range.
It’s not something that’s taken into account. Berbers vs. Berbers, or Maya vs. Maya, are usually played UU vs. UU with Rams to tank arrows. And in Poles mirror matches, the player who spams the most Knights usually wins (If you’re wondering, the crossbow + meat shield combo doesn’t work).
Well if it wasn’t then why was the whole unit nerfed in castle age?
Without mentioning that Vietnamese Lancers can be absurd to play against thanks by the HP bonus, honestly, the civ got such overbuff for no reason, gained a strenght in an area they shouldn’t have.
But is it the reason to buff a civ that isn’t a weak one at all, they have a strong eco bonus with 2 strong military bonuses and a Monk bonus + Good UU, 2 worth UTs, and outside of range units, they have a good tech tree if anything.
