When bulgarians were released, they were op, as the other new civs, but they didn’t have anything really special, only two things: strong kreposts and strong konniks that can be created in kreposts.
Kreposts were nerfed in area and building time, and konniks dps was nerfed too. Bulgarians remained underpowered for almost one year after that, until their new food discount bonus arrived. Without that bonus, they didn’t have eco options to push through the game.
Sicilians are similar. Even worse. They have donjons and sergeants, and they had s strong first crusade. First crusade had been nerfed. They don’t have early eco bonus, and donjons are not that powerful.
What if sergeants could repair (in addition to build donjons) any kind of building? Even siege?
Bulgarians never weren’t that OP at release, in fact more underwhelming than ever, was the pre nerf Konnik that was Broken as hell due to their attack rate and HP.
Sicilian are nowhere near as weak as Bulg used to be. They have two bonuses that help them booming in castle age, while Bulgarian stone discount is like the weakest booming bonus.
i think sicilians are stronger than bulgarians were, i mean their scout rush might not hav an eco bonus, but it is much stronger to counters than opposing ones. people should actually be laming more with sicilians as well (its much less risky, and doesnt hurt your scrush as much) their knights are also stronger vs counters (iaw they have more good match ups, especially when knigths + pikes engage opposing kts + pikes) and while 1st crusade is weaker its still very cost effective.
the civ needs a buff, but certainly not to the extent bulgaria does… as a reminded… bulgaria received 50% BS discounts ,and 50% siege tech discounts, that is really big. if sicily had the same extent of buffs they would be OP
and wasnt it a buff to reduce the krepost size? it means you can put it in more difficult areas, and takes nearly 50% less space in your base.