Russia and aztec ( poll )

Alright, these are the two weakest civs in the game in most people’s mind, including mine. I made this poll on potential ways to buff these civs

Here’s a bunch of potential buffs that can be done to Russia, you can pick up to 2 options

  • 5 villager shipment age 2
  • 8 villager shipment age 3
  • Cav archer get ranged resist and slight Hp boost
  • Buff medicine just for Russia
  • Give a card called Siberian fur, make it a better version of spice trade, like Lakota great hunter
  • Buff rusket multiplyer vs cav
  • 2 falc card can be sent twice
  • Buff the advanced church
  • Start with +50 wood -50 food, ( trade post start viable )

0 voters

Okay, next for Aztecs, you can pick up to 2 options

  • Free warrior priest on every age up
  • Age 3 card for increased warrior priest limit
  • Some form of the Arsenal
  • Buff the temple card for slingers
  • Coyote runner HP increase
  • Buff arrow knight
  • New cards to enhance age 3/ age4 economy

0 voters

If you would rather have something that’s not what a mention here for any of these civs, feel free to reply

4 Likes

They do need a small buff yes, I voted for the cav archer buff because russia struggle most against cav with their weaker musk and no regular dragoon and the +50 wood, the vill shipment would be too much of a boost to their eco whilst they’re idling the opponent constantly.

Coyote runners definitely need a buff, they are extremely weak atm especially compared to other civs cav/shock infantry.
Also voted for the arsenal, like lakota can have access to some upgrades in their teepee’s aztec should be able to as well, same for all really, inca lack this as well.

3 Likes

Yeah, I think the cav archer is the most popular choice as of now at least, for a good reason, Russia gets murdered by any above average cav civ, and don’t even get me started on the port mamluk shipment.
The +50 wood is also pretty decent, I picked the 8 villagers in age 3, but I can see why 50 wood and -50 food is also a good idea, you would have to chop 50 more for a trade post, and you start with 50 less food, together this means that your age up will be slower, but you can play long term builds as a result, I think if you want to rush you’ll instead want to go market start and hope for gold treasure

For Aztec, I think the Arsenal is a pretty obvious choice because their main weakness is bad units overall, and this fixes that, coyote runners Hp would be a decent fix to Aztecs weakness against skirm spam.

1 Like

Give them eco house like shrine, torp or kancha.

However cav archer adjusted to range resist will be worse facing cav due to they can’t hit and run.

Some ideas

Russia:

  • Replace the Dragoon card with a card that buffs cavalry archers and maybe ships some
  • Allow blockhouses to train cavalry with a HC card or church tech.
  • Slightly reduce the cost or training time of the 3 villagers. 5 less seconds or food.

Aztecs:

  • Give Coyote Runners a small modifier against Heavy Cavalry (1.5x) to give a better answer to Age 2 Hussars
  • Change Arrow Knight damage type to siege to make them better against most units (Artillery modifier gets removed)
  • Make Warrior Priests trainable for 200 gold.

We already got more than enough of those.

3 Likes

I’m not sure why you think Russia has problems against cavalry civs. They really don’t.
Between instantly spammed infantry and royal guard cavalry archers, there is little a cav centric civ can really do to russia. Also cossaks trade well with literally every other hand cav in the game.

The problem is people use cavalry archers as if they were dragoons. They are not. They are meant to tank melee cav, not hit and run.

The problem with russia is their extremely slow age 2 if they choose not to cheese with proxy blockhouse.

Cav archers cant kite like goons, and strelet cav archers/ musks lose very convincingly to Skirm mass or Skirm with some Huss/Axe Raider.

Also Russian Musks lose to Cav in the early game (unless you really mass them)

My suggestion to russia, is TP start + a little buff to Cav Archers.

For azzys, the problem is that FF is not viable since your Fortress units are not as good due to lack of a skirmisher type unit. Your late game eco is very nice with all the eco cards, but Fortress to industrial you dont have the cost effective units to hold the line.

So you need to always rush - and after spending 4 or 5 unit shipments in age II your eco is severly behind.

To make Azzys viable in fortress i would sugest more WP and a “arsenal” to make war hut units more viable in the late game. (cause you need a good skirm type unit---- not the Jaguar warrior)

4 Likes

:arrow_forward: RUSSIANS

Ok, how many people would agree with changing THIS? Because as for me and a lot of people, they aren’t really that used, so it would seem like a real waste.
Even Aussie Drongo said once they suck…


Should they change the GRENADIER royal guard upgrade for some other unit?
  • Yes, PLEASE!
  • No no no, I use grenadiers all the time (Said no one ever heheh)

0 voters


What unit should receive the RG upgrade instead?
  • Strelet, making them decent as a late game unit that is population efficient.
  • Rusket, wouldn’t really have synergy since there is already an anti-cavalry royal guard.
  • Halberdier, I don’t know, it’s up for debate, a bit slow of a unit for Russia’'s play-style maybe.
  • Cossack, This would make them a strong cavalry civ since we’d have 2 royal cavalry guards.
  • Oprichnick, I love this unit, but giving them the RG upgrade would make them OP hahah.

0 voters


In my opinion, changing that would be a nice buff.


:arrow_forward: AZTECS

As for this civ, not really sure but there is one thing that always bugged me, that ARCHER KNIGHTS SUCK.

Maybe they could increase the building siege damage and change the base damage for a siege one, like inca’s huaracas. I end up not using them at all for their cost/pop/damage efficiency…

It is interesting seeing how people want to buff russias eco when they have got one of the strongest ECO in the game already

I think you haven’t played enough russia but Russia has close to 0 problem against cav

The true problem Russia encounters is having to kill 30+ Skirms. Which you got nothing to kill that. You can probably do 2 canons or a couple of canons. Are you aware that Goons come close snipe them and go out? Because russia simply has nothing to deal against goons properly or against skirms properly?

There is no amount of eco buff or other aspect of russia’s buff that could lead them towards dealing properly against something that has more range or goons going to Strelet’s face and strelet not being able to do much. And in the case of overbuffing other things them it would make them too strong maybe too OP

Giving russia a real tool to deal against skirms is the only buff they need.
Whether it is making strelet scale into 20 range to the Imperial age or giving russia the ability to train skirms. These single buff right here Changes russia.

I think it is all a matter of perspective. Russia having trouble against masses of skirmishers? When cossaks can match them 1 for 1 in numbers? Don’t think so.

Cannon balls not being enough to beat goon/skirmishers? Well goons can get sniped by strelets.
The problem here is that Russia’s infantry units are not that population effective compared to other units. This is in part offset by better resource efficiency and training time. But in the late game, Russia has no inherit eco advantage compared to other civilizations. Once everyone is at max villagers, russia population inefficient infantry starts to show, since everybody has mostly the same pop slots, but Russia has poorer starts per slot. Russian players need to overcome this through superior macro, but this usually requires forward bases, which prevent a russian push from gaining momentum.

This can be fixed in many way: sure, we can upgrade strelets to 20 range in imperial (i’d say as early as industrial). Or we can make ruskets get some bonus damage to light cav through some sort of card. There are luckily many ways to fix it.

I do agree though that Russia has no trouble dealing with cavalry. Ironically, Romania is a pretty good late game path for Russia, given their awesome dragoons.

2 Likes

I’ve played russia late game and even at that stage I believe Musk+canon is good it deals well vs infantry and cav. What it doesn’t deal well with is skirm+culvs+goons because those are too superior. But put it simple Any goon not only dragoons. War wagons and so on as those just outrange Strelet.

So if we take that Strelet’s with 20 range becomes close to useful and fixes lots of russia’s problem. Or in the case they consider giving russia the ability of skirms by Fortress This right there open doors to a very strong civ As they will get the needed tool to deal against mostly most army comps which they currently lack.

I go for skirms due to people complaining when I suggested 20 range strelets by Imperial

EDIT:
I want to clarify that they way people want to buff early russia’s eco is what still does not fix their problem of being inefficient later on Or not having tools to properly deal with some units

giving cav archers ranged resistance or extra hp would be a terrible idea while not solving Russia’s problems. in general all light cavalry should switch to melee resistance, not the other way around. instead removing cav archer attack delay, making them move as fast as dragoons and increasing damage while reducing hp would make the unit feel alot better to use and be far more effective vs heavy cavalry.

giving strelets higher damage, lower hp, and an extra range rg upgrade would make it fit better with their attrition based playstyle and be effective counter units. a gold instead of wood cost would make it fit better with both their other age 2 macro units(cossacks and muskets) as well as late game sustainability.

as for Aztecs, making coyote and eagle runners cavalry units and destroying the shock infantry tags would be the simplest way forward, with coyote runner hp increased to 200, ranged resistance to 20%, and a 1.5 mulitplier vs light infantry for a cost of 100 food and 20 gold. as long as they keep the shock infantry tag and take reduced damage from anticav they can never be as strong per pop/cost as true cavalry.

all civs in general should have access to arsenal upgrades, and native civs need guaranteed access to cannon equivalents in the mercenary hut. a big button overhaul would also go a long way to improving aztec gameplay. arrow knight attack delay and slow move speed hurts its micro potential and makes it feel terrible to use, while puma spearmen(50 gold 50 food no range lower damage and hp than musketeer) and jaguar knights(slow and just terrible stats per cost) need buffs.

1 Like

This I agree with. Upgrading cav archer speed to 7.25 like other light cav would make them better. And making bow units this applies to longbowman be able to instashot just like Yumi archers [ Japan unit ] would allow them to feel better Then applying needed nerfs in other areas of the Cav archer.

I also think cav archer need a small buff, but i think it should better be a small range increase (like just +1), , similarly for strelets late game the range is really too low, u cannot counter goons efficienly so also a small range buff (but only in late game imo like at age 4 guard upgrade and only a small range buff, 20 range seems way too much).

1 Like

You’re not the 1st player to say but 20 range is too much. It is either that or strelets will still be an inefficient unit.

Or what could go wrong with adding skirms? they cost food gold it fixes it all. And it has 20 range.

I personally would prefer the strelet scaling into 20 range into imperial as most games do not get to imperial but when they get there russia should have a good unit to use not something that is Totally inefficient

1 Like

I think strelets were meant to be an early game unit by design and they do it very well already.

I hope they find another way to fix Russia’s late-game without meddling with Strelets, they have a very well defined role already (Is Russia’s late-game even that bad? They can spam several cost-efficient units instantly from several sides with a good eco behind then)

The units are cost efficient yes, but that’s not what matters late game, what maters is getting the most power out of your population, and Russia certainly does bad at that

For Russia they could also consider making the musk the same hp as other musks, maybe for a slight increase in cost. One of least player-friendly things in the game for a newbie is discovering that Russian musks are secretly worse than other musk even in age II. It really makes no sense for a new player and is not explicitly stated.

2 Likes

Oooooh, looks like a chance for a re-skin, make the musket look a lot more… well, Russian, and also give him another name that has historical significance.
:slight_smile:

4 Likes