# Sincere opinion on Poland after 400 team ranked supremacy matches **URL:** \ **Category:** III - Discussion\ **Created:** [October 5, 2026, 10:33pm UTC](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/sincere-opinion-on-poland-after-400-team-ranked-supremacy-matches/290289 "2026-10-05T22:33:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Boagrius](https://forums.ageofempires.com/user_avatar/forums.ageofempires.com/boagrius/32/134219_2.png) [@Boagrius](https://forums.ageofempires.com/u/Boagrius)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2026, 10:33pm UTC](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/sincere-opinion-on-poland-after-400-team-ranked-supremacy-matches/290289/1 "2026-10-05T22:33:43Z")
You can do a lot of math, calculus, statistics, and analysis, but everything ultimately comes down to actual playing experience. It is in actual games where you see how good, bad, overpowered, or underpowered a unit, a strategy, or an economy really is. I’ll sum up here the things I think are worth noticing. **Economy:** Poland’s economy is very weak at the beginning of the game, at least until you upgrade your Folwarks or send the Kielbasa shipment and reach the 30-pig cap. Doing either of these right away is very costly and leaves you extremely vulnerable. Once you manage to set everything up, your economy becomes good, but not overpowered. Poland’s economy becomes OP in the late game, when the food-gathering bonuses and pigs provide an insane amount of food. I would suggest nerfing only the late-game technologies that affect Folwark food gathering and leaving everything else as it is. **Units** **Piechur:** A very bad skirmisher until you get the Royal upgrade and the Piechota Wybraniecka shipment. Even Veteran Piechur is bad: it only has 18 range, so it can be kited by other 20-range skirmishers. Even in the late game, it doesn’t trade particularly well against other skirmishers despite having a multiplier against them. I think this is because skirmishers have very high ranged resistance from the beginning, while Piechur only has a 1.5× multiplier against other skirmishers instead of the 2× multiplier that Haiduks have. I would not nerf Piechur. **Retainer:** A mediocre unit until you get the Royal upgrade and buff it with all its shipments, especially the National Cavalry shipment. It is quite weak, dies easily, and is somewhat expensive at 50 wood. In the late game, it becomes quite good, but nothing close to OP. It still dies easily to goons, although at least it can now deal good damage to skirmishers. I would not nerf it. **Church Jan:** Nothing close to OP considering that it costs 800 wood. Its high siege damage compensates for Poland’s general lack of siege power. I wouldn’t nerf it. **Konfederatka Uhlan:** Its rate of fire is OP and should be nerfed. **Cossack Revolution:** Haidamaka is a cheap and annoying unit. It reminds me of the Insurgente Yucateco strategy with Mexico, which basically allows you to mass a single cheap unit that becomes very strong in large numbers. It has one clear disadvantage: it trades very poorly in direct combat, so you basically have to wall yourself in. I don’t think the unit itself should be nerfed, but perhaps it should be made harder to reach the point where you can mass it nonstop. I’m not sure about this one, though. **Ducal Poles Revolution:** Absolutely OP revolution. It gives you a huge number of very strong units—like, a LOT of them. By far the most OP feature of Poland. Everything else about Poland seems normal to me. ---
**Author:** ![VonValinor](https://forums.ageofempires.com/user_avatar/forums.ageofempires.com/vonvalinor/32/74681_2.png) [@VonValinor](https://forums.ageofempires.com/u/VonValinor)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2026, 2:18am UTC](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/sincere-opinion-on-poland-after-400-team-ranked-supremacy-matches/290289/2 "2026-10-06T02:18:15Z")
> [@Boagrius](#): > > **Piechur:** A very bad skirmisher until you get the Royal upgrade and the Piechota Wybraniecka shipment. Even Veteran Piechur is bad: it only has 18 range, so it can be kited by other 20-range skirmishers. Even in the late game, it doesn’t trade particularly well against other skirmishers despite having a multiplier against them. I think this is because skirmishers have very high ranged resistance from the beginning, while Piechur only has a 1.5× multiplier against other skirmishers instead of the 2× multiplier that Haiduks have. I would not nerf Piechur. This skirmisher can’t be strong, because it’s a skirmisher that kills other skirmishers. Its only problem is the training speed. > [@Boagrius](#): > > In the late game, it becomes quite good Another absurdly strong unit: its spear (which has longer range) has its cost changed to food and gold. It costs 1 population and has a multiplier against other cavalry. > [@Boagrius](#): > > I wouldn’t nerf it. Grenade attack against structures, Shadow-tech, and 3.5x damage against cavalry. It should be nerfed. ---
**Author:** ![JordiGarLee](https://forums.ageofempires.com/user_avatar/forums.ageofempires.com/jordigarlee/32/162587_2.png) [@JordiGarLee](https://forums.ageofempires.com/u/JordiGarLee)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2026, 3:38am UTC](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/sincere-opinion-on-poland-after-400-team-ranked-supremacy-matches/290289/3 "2026-10-06T03:38:24Z")
> [@Boagrius](#): > > **Cossack Revolution:** Haidamaka is a cheap and annoying unit. It reminds me of the Insurgente Yucateco strategy with Mexico, which basically allows you to mass a single cheap unit that becomes very strong in large numbers. It has one clear disadvantage: it trades very poorly in direct combat, so you basically have to wall yourself in. I don’t think the unit itself should be nerfed, but perhaps it should be made harder to reach the point where you can mass it nonstop. I’m not sure about this one, though. Just had a 1 hour game against them as inca, they just camped with the farm card and spammed haidamaka the entire game, I only won by the trade monopoly and the slow unit upgrades trickling in. They didn’t even have that many military building, yet filled the center every time. ---
**Author:** ![Kingfisher1787](https://forums.ageofempires.com/user_avatar/forums.ageofempires.com/kingfisher1787/32/142926_2.png) [@Kingfisher1787](https://forums.ageofempires.com/u/Kingfisher1787)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2026, 4:24am UTC](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/sincere-opinion-on-poland-after-400-team-ranked-supremacy-matches/290289/4 "2026-10-06T04:24:18Z")
Looking at what I believe is your game info on some of your ranked games on Free Food Party, I think I see your problem. You’re playing short games (mostly). With Poland you have some nutty scaling so you should try to extend things _basically_ as much as possible. Use the 50% age up discount and play greedier. I’ve used 3 Vill, Treaty of Lublin, 700w and spammed buildings for 9-12 vills off of the age 1 card (it’s an FF build to be clear). If you get to sit back and boom, you send 1k wood and add TCs, then if possible get the cav discount before going heavy into units. You normally shouldn’t have to make stuff happen too hard in a 3v3-4v4 with a civ that scales like Poland. Btw, lots of optimization left to be done there probably. You want the game to reach a point where you have carded cav (or skirms) and have switched to farming. Age 4 will only cost like 1k food and 600c, so it’s kinda dirt cheap. In age 4 you can also get 2 vills per Folwark. If you can raid or your team can force military expenditures while you age, even better! Because it will take some time. Your profile shows 21% pick rate on Mexico, I’m guessing Revo plays with a lot of tempo etc. You also show very little ranked treaty, suggesting you don’t play that (that’s not a value judgement btw, just something I noticed), but if you aren’t used to going late game you likely aren’t going to be playing to the mathematical strengths of the civ. You’ll probably want more unit and eco upgrades in deck as well. > [@Boagrius](#): > > You can do a lot of math, calculus, statistics, and analysis, but everything ultimately comes down to actual playing experience. It is in actual games where you see how good, bad, overpowered, or underpowered a unit, a strategy, or an economy really is. Btw, nice hand waving on all that boring math stuff. There are perfectly reasonable trade offs to ask for with a lot of the nerfs people want to the late game scaling. "How about we give Piechurs 19 base range (maybe +1 with Gaurd), and move the training unlock to age 3 so they get Vet for free, we move their base attack to 15 (matching a skirm) and give them 2x vs heavy infantry and lower the anti skirm bonus to 1.2x. Then they’d get kited less, give more tempo, and still outperform vs skirms for their cost. Not to mention pairing better with heavy cav in 1v1s and 2v2s where you may not get CIR. Even if you had to increase the cost closer to a regular skirm, a skirm with +20% damage vs skirms and more speed is a decent deal for 1 less range. A lower base attack and anti skirm bonus would help a lot in treaty and late game team (even if the problem wasn’t totally fixed), and given that Poland can ship 5 in age 2 (who would still have 19 range) and train xbows it would probably help in 1v1 too. Something like that combined with eco nerfs, maybe “A farming Folwark should do 0.5 food per second and the Sejm can actually be made less effective than a factory because you have cav discounts and can rebuild it, and then a normal 99 vill eco and work.” Would also have been a reasonable suggestion, and would frankly probably be easier to balance, though it would hurt the early farming boom a bit (which I didn’t really want to do) and a little extra pop might have helped with the slight pop inefficiency on Winged Hussars. Winged Hussars could use some buffs (directly or not) to the base unit and some nerfs to some of the card stuff like Stampede and Grand Hetman. I think Retainers still need a nerf, but at minimum an eco nerf will help reduce the spam late game. On a design philosophy note, I do what the civ to lean harder towards Winged Hussars. At least culturally speaking, Winged Hussars are as Polish as Redcoats are British imo. I find it sad that they are normally just worse than retainers later on. I’d love to see the civ lean harder on WH + CA and be a hard cav civ. **Suggests help** , you can have your concerns heard. Instead you seemed to like the short 1-3ish sentence replies where you seemingly don’t even try to under why people are complaining. > [@Unified Thread on Poland being op](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/unified-thread-on-poland-being-op/289903/3): > > so you basically want to render the civ unplayable. If devs take you literally, point by point, the civ will be absolute trash and played by no one. > [@Unified Thread on Poland being op](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/unified-thread-on-poland-being-op/289903/54): > > you are so eager to make poland unplayable that it’s border psychotic at this point > [@Unified Thread on Poland being op](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/unified-thread-on-poland-being-op/289903/41): > > ethiopia has 56% win rate in 3v3/4v4. Winrate matters On that last one you didn’t even bother to reply when I tried to explain why the WR being so high there isn’t surprising given the specific data set. You dipped in with a few short sentences and didn’t bother refuting hardly anything being said. > [@Unified Thread on Poland being op](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/unified-thread-on-poland-being-op/289903/50): > > **Civ Bonus** > **-Seed Drill (+15% on Folwarks) and Artificial Fertilizer (+30% on Folwarks) are researched for free from the beginning of the game.** > **-Hetman now heals nearby Polish Cavalry at 2hp per second.** > > _ **The healing ability from Grand Hetman is almost too cool to lock behind a card, and is a nice bonus, but I did cut its total max power in half.** _ > > **Economy** > Settler > -Build limit reduced to 85 (down from 99). > > Folwark: > -Unspecialized base rate reduced to 0.40 (down from 0.5). > -Farming Specialized base rate 0.54 (down from 0.69). > > _ **Note that given the free techs you have 0.58 and 0.783 respectively. This is higher early, but leads to ~1.296f and 0.1296c at fully upgraded. That’s better than most civs when farming late game, but closer to normal.** _ > > **Sejm:** > **-Each increment is slightly larger to adjust for the 85 vill cap (final rates are the same as current).** > > _The Sejm currently reaches a better-than-factory rate, which remains unchanged, but further justifies the lower vill cap. You also have a cheaper cavalry card, which also justifies a lower max eco than they currently have._ > > **Units:** > Retainer: > -Cost reduced to 70f, 40w, 1pop (down from 90f, 40w, 1pop) > -Training time reduced to 28 seconds (down from 35). > -hp reduced to 170hp (down from 210). > -Siege reduced to 13 (down from 16). > -Melee reduced to 18 (down from 22). > -Unit deliveries adjusted accordingly from cards, age ups, etc. > > _This is slightly over 20% cheaper, trains 20% faster, roughly 19% lower hp, about 19% lower siege, and about 18% lower melee attack. With these changes they are closer to in-line with Coyote Runners and Chimus, but with higher speed and melee armor (hp on both Runners is lower, but effective ranged-health will be somewhat similar._ > > **Winged Hussar** > **-Speed increased to 7 (up from 6.75).** > **-Ranged Armor increased to 25% (up from 20%).** > **-Melee attack increased to 36 (up from 30).** > **-Melee multiplier reduced to 1.33x (down from 1.5x).** > **-Invisible Melee range made visible.** > **-Charged Attack penalty vs artillery reduced to 0.75x (up from 0.5x), other multipliers and damage remain the same.** > **-Siege Damage (vs buildings) increased to 27 (up from 20).** > -Damage Cap on AoE damage from Stampede Mode reduced by 20-30%. > > _After further testing I no longer believe Winged Hussars need to be balanced to 2 pop. I think these buffs along with the civ buffs and nerfs will put the unit in a fine spot without considering Stampede Mode, and a nerf to the damage cap on the AoE damage in Stampede mode should hopefully make it fair there as well._ > > Piechur: > Cost increased to 65f, 45c (up from 70f, 40c). > -Ranged Attack reduced to 15 (down from 16). > -Anti Infantry bonuses changed to 1.8x vs heavy and 1.20x vs light (from 1.5x on both). > -Veteran and Guard upgrades add +2 range (unchanged), Imperial no longer increases range. > > Konfederatka Uhlans: > -RoF decreased from 1 to 1.4. > > **Cards:** > **-Cavalry Combat (III) and Polish Cavalry Combat (II) combined and moved to age 3. +15% attack and hp on all cav and +5% attack and hp on Winged Hussars and Retainers.** > > Szlachta (III) > Sets Retainer wood cost to 0 and coin cost to 45 (a slight improvement over 50w to 60c). > > Piechota Wybraniecka (IV) no longer increases Piechur range by +1. > > -Treaty of Lublin (II): > -Liberum Veto now makes age ups 25% cheaper (down from 50%) but only take 50% longer (down from 100%). Economic Upgrades are 50% cheaper, but now only take 75% longer to research (down from 100%). > -Sobieski’s Janissaries get +25% siege attack (down from +50%), and adds 0.50 to Hand Bonus Damage against Cavalry and Shock Troops (down from +1). Now reduces infantry training time by 10%. > > -Agrarian Reforms (I) improves villager gather rate on Folwarks by +30% and Mills, etc, by 15% (down from +30% on all). > > -Kielbasa (I) enables Livestock Folwarks to gather from up to 2 pigs (down from 5) at a rate of 2 food per second (down from 4). > > -Grand Hetman (I) Increases Hetman Healing Aura by 150% (leading to a max of 5, down from 10). > > Note, some of the Revolts are also apparently op, and will need to be nerfed. I’m looking exclusively at the base civ. Also, further fine-tuning will be needed after this, but I believe these changes would push them closer to balanced. The civ has certain very op features, but otherwise feels rather weak. 50% cheaper age ups being nerfed (along with the Uhlans and Jans) should help 1v1 a lot. The farming changes should give them a more obvious boom while not giving them quite as insane of an economy late game. I went ahead and bolded a few sections in there that should be straight buffs earlier on. Polish Cav Combat would become possibly the single best attack/hp upgrade in age 3 of literally any civ in the game, and +2hp per second healing on all cav units near your Hero (even in combat) should be pretty strong in lots of situations. I also added faster infantry training to the Jan tech in exchange for the skirm nerf and buffed the early Folwark rates. I’d be willing to talk about more [early game buffs], or [other reasonable] changes, etc, _at least if you’ll listen_. But idk, I was told I want the civ to be unplayable and seemingly am “border psychotic at this point”. ---
**Author:** ![Boagrius](https://forums.ageofempires.com/user_avatar/forums.ageofempires.com/boagrius/32/134219_2.png) [@Boagrius](https://forums.ageofempires.com/u/Boagrius)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2026, 12:13pm UTC](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/sincere-opinion-on-poland-after-400-team-ranked-supremacy-matches/290289/5 "2026-10-06T12:13:15Z")
> [@Kingfisher1787](#): > > Your profile shows 21% pick rate on Mexico, I’m guessing Revo plays with a lot of tempo etc. You also show very little ranked treaty, suggesting you don’t play that (that’s not a value judgement btw, just something I noticed), but if you aren’t used to going late game you likely aren’t going to be playing to the mathematical strengths of the civ. You’ll probably want more unit and eco upgrades in deck as well. I have 4 accounts, my most played civ in ranked is ethiopia, then mexico. Some games are 15 or 20 minutes long, I know, but some games are long enough to test late game features, I talk about the 40plus minute games. > [@Kingfisher1787](#): > > Btw, nice hand waving on all that boring math stuff. There are perfectly reasonable trade offs to ask for with a lot of the nerfs people want to the late game scaling. Of course I do not disregard math completely, but in my experience, actual testing in game beats a lot of good ideas. I mean, for example, considering math alone, piechur should behave like a hadjuk, but it doesn’t, hadjuk completely obliterates other skirm, and piechur just not. > [@Kingfisher1787](#): > > You want the game to reach a point where you have carded cav (or skirms) and have switched to farming. > Age 4 will only cost like 1k food and 600c, so it’s kinda dirt cheap. In age 4 you can also get 2 vills per Folwark. If you can raid or your team can force military expenditures while you age, even better! Because it will take some time. Well, you are describing the economic path for poland. First you have treaty of lublin to make age ups cheaper, and economic upgrades cheaper. Then you have folkwark boom with kielbasa to get one pig per folwark, then 10-15 vills from Rzeczpospolita shipment, then you cheap age up to industrial (the downside is that it takes forever to age up, that compensates for the discount), and in age 4 you can send Robocizna to get 30vills, that way you get up to 80/90 vill without a second or third tc. That economic pathway isn’t overpowered at all in my opinion, its kinda similar to sweeden torp boom straight into industrial, without further town centers. > [@Kingfisher1787](#): > > Something like that combined with eco nerfs, maybe “A farming Folwark should do 0.5 food per second and the Sejm can actually be made less effective than a factory because you have cav discounts and can rebuild it, and then a normal 99 vill eco and work.” Would also have been a reasonable suggestion, and would frankly probably be easier to balance, though it would hurt the early farming boom a bit (which I didn’t really want to do) and a little extra pop might have helped with the slight pop inefficiency on Winged Hussars. I think base rate for folwark should not be touched because its a specific feature for the civ. What should probably be nerfed is Agrarian Reforms shipment, or the imperial techs from Sejm for folwarks, so you can end up with a very good but not broken gather rate. It also should be considered (math would probably be very good at this point), that polands infinite trade its much worse than other inifnite trades like inca’s and malta’s. Inca’s Camayos trade food for equal amount of coin, and Malta’s Barrakka Gardens, trade food for an equal amount of Wood. On the other hand, Poles Grain Export only trades food for an 80% of coin. This is very much worth noticing, because it could compensate for extremely good food gather rates. It is also worth noticing that there’s not enough space in your deck for folwark and estates cards, because you need a lot of cards for buffing troops. Poland troops are generally mediocre to bad without shipments, so you end up having limited space for economic shipments. > [@Kingfisher1787](#): > > On that last one you didn’t even bother to reply when I tried to explain why the WR being so high there isn’t surprising given the specific data set. You dipped in with a few short sentences and didn’t bother refuting hardly anything being said. > > Unified Thread on Poland being op I think ethiopia is one of the strongest civs in 33/44 due to its inherent versatilty and key shipments. Team camp builder can be decisive for a rush, map control or defending a rush. Gascenia/shotel combo for early aggression or defense is very powerful. Water booming is very strong, with the addition of arguably the best warships in age2. Economy is really strong with mountain monasteries and abuns. Proper use of livestock market gives you a lot of advantage also. In the mid to late game you have javelin rider that scales really well, sebastopol mortars, and gatling camels. If people don’t complain more on ethiopia is because, as JulianK said, african civs are the most complex of the game. For example, when playing ethiopia, if you don’t manage properly your livestock market and your mountain monasteries, you end up in mid game without wood and gold. So, in my opinion, if people don’t complain much is because they just don’t play the civ out of fear of its complexity, and when they do, they play it suboptimally, so it doesn’t appear that deadly. > [@Kingfisher1787](#): > > I’d be willing to talk about more [early game buffs], or [other reasonable] changes, etc, _at least if you’ll listen_. But idk, I was told I want the civ to be unplayable and seemingly am “border psychotic at this point”. I’ve read all your suggestions on nerfing poland before I wrote this post, and I discuss only those I think there is some common ground. ---
**Author:** ![Quirriff](https://forums.ageofempires.com/user_avatar/forums.ageofempires.com/quirriff/32/66356_2.png) [@Quirriff](https://forums.ageofempires.com/u/Quirriff)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2026, 1:37pm UTC](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/sincere-opinion-on-poland-after-400-team-ranked-supremacy-matches/290289/6 "2026-10-06T13:37:58Z")
> [@Boagrius](#): > > **Piechur:** A very bad skirmisher until you get the Royal upgrade and the Piechota Wybraniecka shipment. Even Veteran Piechur is bad: it only has 18 range, so it can be kited by other 20-range skirmishers. Even in the late game, it doesn’t trade particularly well against other skirmishers despite having a multiplier against them. I think this is because skirmishers have very high ranged resistance from the beginning, while Piechur only has a 1.5× multiplier against other skirmishers instead of the 2× multiplier that Haiduks have. I would not nerf Piechur. Yea, the bonus vs light infantry isn’t a big deal as it first appears because other skirmishers have range resistance and because skirmishers are usually the units to get killed last. And even then Skirmisher wars are meaningless they have awful siege and awful damage against anything that isn’t heavy infantry or counter cav. The piechur’s bonus only helps mopping up enemies you’ve already defeated. > [@Boagrius](#): > > **Retainer:** A mediocre unit until you get the Royal upgrade and buff it with all its shipments, especially the National Cavalry shipment. It is quite weak, dies easily, and is somewhat expensive at 50 wood. In the late game, it becomes quite good, but nothing close to OP. It still dies easily to goons, although at least it can now deal good damage to skirmishers. I would not nerf it. You forgot that 90 food for a cavalry that has 0 range resistance is pretty expensive too. Also it still has the collision of normal hussar big numbers but you can’t pack them as tightly so they get picked off more easily than you’d think. > [@Boagrius](#): > > **Church Jan:** Nothing close to OP considering that it costs 800 wood. Its high siege damage compensates for Poland’s general lack of siege power. I wouldn’t nerf it. They still have pikemen and grenadiers as they also come out of the church card So the siege damage is the only thing I’d consider nerfing. I think the issue with their food production has nothing to do with cards… Even before cards you’ve got 2 upgrades for folwark production at Seim and the specialization upgrade…Also pigs cost 100 food but start at 100 food which means you always get back your food if you invest into pigs even without cards. ---
**Author:** ![Boagrius](https://forums.ageofempires.com/user_avatar/forums.ageofempires.com/boagrius/32/134219_2.png) [@Boagrius](https://forums.ageofempires.com/u/Boagrius)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2026, 2:51pm UTC](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/sincere-opinion-on-poland-after-400-team-ranked-supremacy-matches/290289/7 "2026-10-06T14:51:18Z")
> [@Quirriff](#): > > They still have pikemen and grenadiers as they also come out of the church card So the siege damage is the only thing I’d consider nerfing. Poland pikes are not good in the early stages of the game, u have no buffs to pikes and xbows in early game unlike other civs like malta or spain. I have no reasonable use for them up until royal upgrade. And grenadiers come also from church at the high cost of 1500 wood and you can only send it in third age with the requirement of having sent the jans first. ---
**Author:** ![Kingfisher1787](https://forums.ageofempires.com/user_avatar/forums.ageofempires.com/kingfisher1787/32/142926_2.png) [@Kingfisher1787](https://forums.ageofempires.com/u/Kingfisher1787)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2026, 6:54pm UTC](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/sincere-opinion-on-poland-after-400-team-ranked-supremacy-matches/290289/8 "2026-10-06T18:54:01Z")
> [@Boagrius](#): > > I think base rate for folwark should not be touched because its a specific feature for the civ. What should probably be nerfed is Agrarian Reforms shipment, or the imperial techs from Sejm for folwarks, so you can end up with a very good but not broken gather rate It probably won’t be possible to balance it like that. It’s a 38% higher base. If you remove AR entirely (lose a +30% in total upgrades) you should get +110% in total available upgrades for ~1.449 (and 0.1449c) which is a higher total than Maxed Aztecs with like ~4ish cards, and the Wise Woman age up. You might say “it’s similar to another civ, so that’s the big deal?” but Aztecs don’t have unit discounts, or over 2 factories worth of res trickling in. If you go more aggressive, and remove +50% in total upgrades you still get ~1.311f and 0.1311c, which is still high for a number of civs. Not to mention this gives Poland a very irregular boost on maps with Farming Upgrades from Natives unless you give all those techs a lower effect on Folworks. _Btw, ignoring everything else and just looking at current framing folwark vills, you get a vill that’s worth 1.38 at base. French CDBs are 1.25. Using the same calculation you ~73 vill cap. Less if you add in the Current Gather Rate +10% from Wodka, because a current stat boost is basically a base rate boost. It’d be higher in reality when we average in some normal gathering on other sources, but still lower than 99… and the average isn’t that fair if late game you’ll be doing 100% vills on Folwarks._ > [@Boagrius](#): > > It also should be considered (math would probably be very good at this point), that polands infinite trade its much worse than other inifnite trades like inca’s and malta’s. Inca’s Camayos trade food for equal amount of coin, and Malta’s Barrakka Gardens, trade food for an equal amount of Wood. On the other hand, Poles Grain Export only trades food for an 80% of coin. What I found online is that to get the real numbers from Mills and Estates with walking time you take the number and multiply by 0.7. Both Poland and Inca can add +140% to food rates, though Poland has a 38% higher base rate. Inca also has 9 less Vills, which I won’t be calculating based on. Mill: 0.67 \* 0.7 = ~0.469f Rice F: 0.5 \* 1 = 0.5f Farm: 0.5 \* 1 = 0.5f Folw: 0.69 \* 1 = 0.69f Rice C: 0.31 \* 1 = 0.31c Estate: 0.5 \* 0.7 = ~0.35c I’m going to use a Farm as the generic to compare the Folwark to, and the Estate rate for coin, even though a little randomness is added by walking. 100f costs 200vs on a farm. 100f costs about ~145vs on a Folwark. 100c costs about ~285.8vs on an estate. 80c costs about ~228.64vs on an estate. This means the trade is a ~42.9% VS gain for Inca. This means the trade is a ~57.68% VS gain for Poland. _Pretty sure my math is right, but I could have messed something up._ Poland also receives coin while farming, which I didn’t include in the calculation. Having 99 bettter vills on food also functionally helps you rebuild your food stockpile faster. If Inca does this during combat it’ll take longer to rebuild your food stockpile. If you remove +50% in total upgrades from Poland, you still get ~1.311f and 0.1311c which is higher than Inca’s gather rate. The trade will be worse, but should still be profitable. Poland can add a higher percentage to estate rates than Inca, but I think it’s fair to assume you don’t what to give that much deck space to estate rates as Poland. Regarding Malta, you get 1 factory and basically needs all the wood they can get. Late game Malta either largely sheds it’s civ bonus by using Tongue Units, or spams Xbow pike artillery because Sentinels are super pop inefficient. It’s super good, but the rest of the civ is pretty bad in treaty-type situations (or at least was last patch). Inca also doesn’t have real artillery, and almost everything in their roster (even their ranged art counter) has the infantry tag. Chimus are your only unit that isn’t tagged as Infantry I believe. > [@Boagrius](#): > > It is also worth noticing that there’s not enough space in your deck for folwark and estates cards, because you need a lot of cards for buffing troops. Poland troops are generally mediocre to bad without shipments, so you end up having limited space for economic shipments. So why don’t we fix that problem? Merging a couple cav upgrades and adding part of Grand Hetman to the base civ would help reduce the crazy scaling, and help early. Not to mention a base stat buff to WH. > [@Boagrius](#): > > I think ethiopia is one of the strongest civs in 33/44 due to its inherent versatilty and key shipments. Team camp builder can be decisive for a rush, map control or defending a rush. Gascenia/shotel combo for early aggression or defense is very powerful. Water booming is very strong, with the addition of arguably the best warships in age2. Economy is really strong with mountain monasteries and abuns. Proper use of livestock market gives you a lot of advantage also. In the mid to late game you have javelin rider that scales really well, sebastopol mortars, and gatling camels. > > If people don’t complain more on ethiopia is because, as JulianK said, african civs are the most complex of the game. For example, when playing ethiopia, if you don’t manage properly your livestock market and your mountain monasteries, you end up in mid game without wood and gold. So, in my opinion, if people don’t complain much is because they just don’t play the civ out of fear of its complexity, and when they do, they play it suboptimally, so it doesn’t appear that deadly. Not impossible, but again, I was explaining something about WR and with a small data set (from my understanding) it’s possible it could just be noise. I believe all time games (all ranked modes is I think how FreeFoodParty is calculating) for all patches etc for Ethiopia is ~140k (rounded up) and Poland is already at ~24k after like a month. I don’t think you’re comparing similar data sets. And even if Ethiopia is so op that it breaks free from the ELO system’s gravity and therefore the WR is useful, that doesn’t mean a civ that’s highly played isn’t going to do what things normally tend to do and just inflate ELOs. You have Revo and Church cheeses and then crazy scaling. The scaling won’t matter in 1v1, but anything treaty-ish and it should be a major problem. Having said that, even in Solo FFP (all ELO) shows Poland with a 52-53% WR (showing 53%, 48% losses right now (with 101% I think there’s some rounding)). The 1800+ is also showing 369W and 337L. The data set isn’t big enough, but it’s not looking great. It should go to 50% in time, but something could be inflating ELOs right now (ie you get pushed up until you lose 50% of the time to theoretically better players). New civ and I more-so know of the inflation phenomena than am versed in exactly what we should see looking at the data. On design philosophy again, do we want the civ balanced off a few strong revos, church cheeses, and the uber late game, or do we want the civ to actually have good “normal builds” where you make your own units and things are just kinda fairly balanced kinda all over? The civ feels really weird at the moment imo. Most civs’ units scale more naturally, they have some spikes at different points, but it basically follows a path where it’s roughly balanced throughout. Poland (at least cheese aside) seems weirdly underpowered, than weirdly overpowered only after stacking a ton of stuff. Even Ports who probably have the worst age 2 in the game and have some really card-able units with some bigger spikes don’t feel as weirdly schizophrenic imo. > [@Boagrius](#): > > > [@Kingfisher1787](#): > > > > I’d be willing to talk about more [early game buffs], or [other reasonable] changes, etc, _at least if you’ll listen_. But idk, I was told I want the civ to be unplayable and seemingly am “border psychotic at this point”. > > I’ve read all your suggestions on nerfing poland before I wrote this post, and I discuss only those I think there is some common ground. Okay, either comments that don’t try to refute the actual points people are making, or are just rude, and then suggest things that probably won’t mathematically work and then ignore the serious late game issues because most of the civ isn’t op early. Retainers and Piechurs are both great examples, they’re very strong late game but too nerfed to work well early game. Both those problems should be fixable. For Retainers, if you don’t like an already better cost/stat ratio change with a lower pop efficiency, you could make the ratio better. Reduce hp/attack by 18-20% and cost by like 25%, maybe 30%. Your early eco is kinda poor, and it helps with pop efficiency issues later. For Piechurs, do you actually want them in age 2? You have Crossbowmen already, and for a civ that wants to FF in some fashion do you really want to need to upgrade them? Cost wise Piechurs look a lot like Wakina Rifles but their stats are more like a skirm. There’s a lot you could do with that. You could probably do ~ Cost 70f, 40c, 1 pop. HP: 100 with 30% RR. Attack: 16, 2x vs Heavy Infantry, 1.15x vs light infantry, normal cav multipliers. 20 range (flat). 4 speed. That’s better at base than a Wakina vs skirms (hp and range) and then you have the 1.15x vs skirms for 10f (which seems like too much btw). You could also leave the shipment of 5 in age 2. Some 20 range skirms there would be pretty good even if you can’t make more. The unit is a bit cheaper than a skirm, maybe being consistently worth that would be better than overpriced becoming underpriced. > [@Boagrius](#): > > > [@Kingfisher1787](#): > > > > Your profile shows 21% pick rate on Mexico, I’m guessing Revo plays with a lot of tempo etc. You also show very little ranked treaty, suggesting you don’t play that (that’s not a value judgement btw, just something I noticed), but if you aren’t used to going late game you likely aren’t going to be playing to the mathematical strengths of the civ. You’ll probably want more unit and eco upgrades in deck as well. > > I have 4 accounts, my most played civ in ranked is ethiopia, then mexico. Some games are 15 or 20 minutes long, I know, but some games are long enough to test late game features, I talk about the 40plus minute games. I saw a few longer ones, but if you are taking cards for short games there’s a lot you won’t see. In anything treaty-ish they can get super op. _ **Would it not make sense to fix that and buff them early?** _ Wouldn’t you prefer a more normal progression that isn’t held up by Revolt stuff, Otto-ish Church cheeses, or the super late game? Some of those revolt things and late game things are probably getting nerfed. Shouldn’t we think about what else to do? If all that happens is they nerf half the op stuff, things probably just get more disjointed. **What about something like the below?** Frankly I’d be a bit concerned it might be a bit too much to juice their early game, but at least the civ would feel better and wouldn’t be so reliant on Revolt/church cheese (which could both be nerfed) and the late game would be brought out of the realm of insanity and probably into the realm of just over-tuned (other than Kielbasa which I think would still be op, but that’s a whole other can of worms and this post is already too long). **Also, if it was too much early, at least by partially normalizing some of the scaling you could balance things more easily.** * * * **Civ Bonus** -Seed Drill (+15% on Folwarks) and Artificial Fertilizer (+30% on Folwarks) are researched for free from the beginning of the game. -Hetman now heals nearby Polish Cavalry at 2hp per second. _The healing ability from Grand Hetman is almost too cool to lock behind a card, and is a nice bonus, but I did cut its total max power in half._ **Economy** Folwark: -Unspecialized base rate reduced to 0.40 (down from 0.5). -Farming Specialized base rate 0.50 (down from 0.69). _Note that given the free techs you have 0.58 and 0.725 respectively. This is higher early, but leads to ~1.2f and 0.12c at fully upgraded. That’s better than some civs when farming late game [we talked about Inca earlier to name one], but closer to normal._ Sejm: -Sejm Rate increase techs are reduced to bring it closer to a factory at max rate, but won’t impact early game rates. _The Sejm currently reaches a better-than-factory rate, but is also rebuildable._ **Units:** Retainer: -Cost reduced to 65f, 40w, 1pop (down from 90f, 40w, 1pop) -Training time reduced to 28 seconds (down from 35). -hp reduced to 170hp (down from 210). -Siege reduced to 13 (down from 16). -Melee reduced to 18 (down from 22). -Unit deliveries adjusted accordingly from cards, age ups, etc. _You spend 27.78% less food, and 20% less wood for roughly 19% lower hp, about 19% lower siege, and about 18% lower melee attack. Chimu Runners cost 75f and 40c, and have less hp, no melee armor, and are slower, but get hit with the lower anti shock bonuses. You could also reduce the unit radius a bit at some point if needed._ Winged Hussar: -Speed increased to 7 (up from 6.75). -Ranged Armor increased to 25% (up from 20%). -Melee attack increased to 36 (up from 30). -Melee multiplier reduced to 1.33x (down from 1.5x). -Invisible Melee range made visible. -Charged Attack penalty vs artillery reduced to 0.75x (up from 0.5x), other multipliers and damage remain the same. -Siege Damage (vs buildings) increased to 27 (up from 20). -Damage Cap on AoE damage from Stampede Mode reduced by 20-30%. Piechur: -Moved to age 3. -Speed reduced to 4 (down from 4.25). -HP reduced to 100 (down from 120). -Anti Infantry bonuses changed to 2x vs heavy and 1.15x vs light (from 1.5x on both). Cav bonuses/penalties reset to mirror a skirm. -Range increased to 20, range increases removed. -Shipment in age 2 remains, and gives 5 without the vet tech. Konfederatka Uhlans: -RoF decreased from 1 to 1.4. **Cards:** -Cavalry Combat (III) and Polish Cavalry Combat (II) combined and moved to age 3. +15% attack and hp on all cav and +5% attack and hp on Winged Hussars and Retainers. Szlachta (III) Sets Retainer wood cost to 0 and coin cost to 40 (a slight improvement over 50w to 60c). Piechota Wybraniecka (IV) no longer increases Piechur range by +1. Infantry train 40% faster (up from 20%) -Treaty of Lublin (II): -Liberum Veto now makes age ups 25% cheaper (down from 50%) but only take 50% longer (down from 100%). Economic Upgrades are 50% cheaper, but now only take 75% longer to research (down from 100%). -Sobieski’s Janissaries get +25% siege attack (down from +50%), and adds 0.50 to Hand Bonus Damage against Cavalry and Shock Troops (down from +1). -Agrarian Reforms (I) improves villager gather rate on Folwarks by +30%. Mills, etc, by +15% (down from +30% on all). -Kielbasa (I) enables Livestock Folwarks to gather from up to 2 pigs (down from 5) at a rate of 2 food per second (down from 4). _Kielbasa nerf doesn’t even fix the issue fully for treaty most likely._ -Grand Hetman (I) Increases Hetman Healing Aura by 150% (leading to a max of 5, down from 10). ---
**Author:** ![M00Z1LLA](https://forums.ageofempires.com/user_avatar/forums.ageofempires.com/m00z1lla/32/104042_2.png) [@M00Z1LLA](https://forums.ageofempires.com/u/M00Z1LLA)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2026, 7:24pm UTC](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/sincere-opinion-on-poland-after-400-team-ranked-supremacy-matches/290289/9 "2026-10-06T19:24:52Z")
> [@Kingfisher1787](#): > > What I found online is that to get the real numbers from Mills and Estates with walking time you take the number and multiply by 0.7. Everyone just parrots this, but I’ve never seen anyone actually demonstrate this. Assuming the baseline Mill/Rice Paddy are roughly equivalent it should only be like x0.75, not x0.7. Is the other 5% from bumping/walking speed? Or is the claim not accurate? I still think Folwarks should have farming animations like Mills, and if that’s too harsh, the farming Folwark boost could be increased slightly to compensate. One idea I had to rework _Agrarian Reforms_ would be to have it improve farming animations (Folwarks would have to have them first) instead of being a +30% gathering boost. Like instead of wasting 25-30% of the time walking around, it is reduced to ~15-20% time wasted. Since it’s effectively changing base gathering rate it would be proportionally worse early on, but would scale with upgrades to be just as good once all the upgrades are online. Maybe it could have a smaller improvement and affect Plantations as well. ---
**Author:** ![Kingfisher1787](https://forums.ageofempires.com/user_avatar/forums.ageofempires.com/kingfisher1787/32/142926_2.png) [@Kingfisher1787](https://forums.ageofempires.com/u/Kingfisher1787)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2026, 7:39pm UTC](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/sincere-opinion-on-poland-after-400-team-ranked-supremacy-matches/290289/10 "2026-10-06T19:39:57Z")
To be fair, if you use the rice paddy calculations it’s just a somewhat higher conversion value. Shouldn’t really matter here. On animations for Folwarks, it’d basically just be nerfing them to the mill-farm-rice paddy level so does it actually matter if you do it that way or go to ~0.5f per second base? ---
**Author:** ![M00Z1LLA](https://forums.ageofempires.com/user_avatar/forums.ageofempires.com/m00z1lla/32/104042_2.png) [@M00Z1LLA](https://forums.ageofempires.com/u/M00Z1LLA)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2026, 7:51pm UTC](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/sincere-opinion-on-poland-after-400-team-ranked-supremacy-matches/290289/11 "2026-10-06T19:51:21Z")
That would be similar in effect yes, but it would be nice to have some more variety than just Farm clones. Going with animations and having _Agrarian Reforms_ improve them instead of a direct gathering rate boost changes how it scales since it affects current gathering rate. There could be other potential interactions with it like making _Wódka Distillery_ reduce villager speed (they’d be a bit inebriated) would indirectly reduce gathering rates. ---
**Author:** ![Boagrius](https://forums.ageofempires.com/user_avatar/forums.ageofempires.com/boagrius/32/134219_2.png) [@Boagrius](https://forums.ageofempires.com/u/Boagrius)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2026, 8:20pm UTC](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/sincere-opinion-on-poland-after-400-team-ranked-supremacy-matches/290289/12 "2026-10-06T20:20:40Z")
> [@Kingfisher1787](#): > > On design philosophy again, do we want the civ balanced off a few strong revos, church cheeses, and the uber late game, or do we want the civ to actually have good “normal builds” where you make your own units and things are just kinda fairly balanced kinda all over? The civ feels really weird at the moment imo. Most civs’ units scale more naturally, they have some spikes at different points, but it basically follows a path where it’s roughly balanced throughout. Poland (at least cheese aside) seems weirdly underpowered, than weirdly overpowered only after stacking a ton of stuff. Even Ports who probably have the worst age 2 in the game and have some really card-able units with some bigger spikes don’t feel as weirdly schizophrenic imo. > > Boagrius: > > Kingfisher1787: If we are talking about design, you make it sound like the civ is highly irrational, but i don’t think so. You certainly can stay age 2 and folwark boom, or retainer rush, or piechur rush with agrarian reforms and wodka, or you can church ff into cav archer, or church ff into jan, uhlan, 2falc, or church ff into jan/uhlan and fort. Church tech allows you to do market, folkwark and sejm upgrades half the cost. I agree that it’s not a simple or accessible civilization to play with, i mean, it’s not france or otto, or even dutch, but DLC’s that came with DE tend to add complexity to the game, and by any means they try to emulate vainilla simplicity. Some matchups make it impossible for poland to stay age 2 for long, I get it, that’s why they have church ff. The same reason just a few port players do not ff. Economic progression is really weird, it’s not linear, but in the form of spikes. 15vill shipment spike, pigs being eaten by folwark spike, 30vill shipment spike, you name it. But i like that, it’s much more interesting than your average 3tc vill boom. ---
**Author:** ![Moonshadow7475](https://forums.ageofempires.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Moonshadow7475](https://forums.ageofempires.com/u/Moonshadow7475)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2026, 8:49pm UTC](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/sincere-opinion-on-poland-after-400-team-ranked-supremacy-matches/290289/13 "2026-10-06T20:49:50Z")
Maybe we rework the farming animation to be like the plaza animation, villies move around without collision, they generate food at all times and all buildings have identical base gather rates. ---
**Author:** ![SvenKuechler1](https://forums.ageofempires.com/user_avatar/forums.ageofempires.com/svenkuechler1/32/201563_2.png) [@SvenKuechler1](https://forums.ageofempires.com/u/SvenKuechler1)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2026, 9:25pm UTC](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/sincere-opinion-on-poland-after-400-team-ranked-supremacy-matches/290289/14 "2026-10-06T21:25:05Z")
cual es la mania de quitarle las cosas unicas a unidades unicas? ---
**Author:** ![M00Z1LLA](https://forums.ageofempires.com/user_avatar/forums.ageofempires.com/m00z1lla/32/104042_2.png) [@M00Z1LLA](https://forums.ageofempires.com/u/M00Z1LLA)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2026, 10:09pm UTC](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/sincere-opinion-on-poland-after-400-team-ranked-supremacy-matches/290289/15 "2026-10-06T22:09:32Z")
That would be clearer but I kinda doubt they’d do that. And if it’s going to remain, I think Folwarks as a European building with Mill like stats should have a similar mechanic to Mills. ---
**Author:** ![Kingfisher1787](https://forums.ageofempires.com/user_avatar/forums.ageofempires.com/kingfisher1787/32/142926_2.png) [@Kingfisher1787](https://forums.ageofempires.com/u/Kingfisher1787)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2026, 12:51am UTC](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/sincere-opinion-on-poland-after-400-team-ranked-supremacy-matches/290289/16 "2026-10-07T00:51:08Z")
> [@Kingfisher1787](#): > > Btw, nice hand waving on all that boring math stuff. > [@Kingfisher1787](#): > > Okay, either comments that don’t try to refute the actual points people are making… …and then suggest things that probably won’t mathematically work and then ignore the serious late game issues because most of the civ isn’t op early. There’s a tactic in debating where you call out what the other person is about to do because then it looks really funny if they do it. > [@Boagrius](#): > > I think base rate for folwark should not be touched because its a specific feature for the civ. What should probably be nerfed is Agrarian Reforms shipment, or the imperial techs from Sejm for folwarks, so you can end up with a very good but not broken gather rate You suggest a thing that mathematically probably won’t work. > [@Kingfisher1787](#): > > It’s a 38% higher base. If you remove AR entirely (lose a +30% in total upgrades) you should get +110% in total available upgrades for ~1.449 (and 0.1449c) which is a higher total than Maxed Aztecs with like ~4ish cards, and the Wise Woman age up. You might say “it’s similar to another civ, so that’s the big deal?” but Aztecs don’t have unit discounts, or over 2 factories worth of res trickling in. If you go more aggressive, and remove +50% in total upgrades you still get ~1.311f and 0.1311c, which is still high for a number of civs. Not to mention this gives Poland a very irregular boost on maps with Farming Upgrades from Natives unless you give all those techs a lower effect on Folworks. > _Btw, ignoring everything else and just looking at current framing folwark vills, you get a vill that’s worth 1.38 at base. French CDBs are 1.25. Using the same calculation you ~73 vill cap. Less if you add in the Current Gather Rate +10% from Wodka, because a current stat boost is basically a base rate boost. It’d be higher in reality when we average in some normal gathering on other sources, but still lower than 99… and the average isn’t that fair if late game you’ll be doing 100% vills on Folwarks._ I point out why it probably won’t work. > [@Boagrius](#): > > It also should be considered (math would probably be very good at this point), that polands infinite trade its much worse than other inifnite trades like inca’s and malta’s. Inca’s Camayos trade food for equal amount of coin, and Malta’s Barrakka Gardens, trade food for an equal amount of Wood. On the other hand, Poles Grain Export only trades food for an 80% of coin. You asked for math… > [@Kingfisher1787](#): > > What I found online is that to get the real numbers from Mills and Estates with walking time you take the number and multiply by 0.7. > > Both Poland and Inca can add +140% to food rates, though Poland has a 38% higher base rate. Inca also has 9 less Vills, which I won’t be calculating based on. > > Mill: 0.67 \* 0.7 = ~0.469f > Rice F: 0.5 \* 1 = 0.5f > Farm: 0.5 \* 1 = 0.5f > Folw: 0.69 \* 1 = 0.69f > > Rice C: 0.31 \* 1 = 0.31c > Estate: 0.5 \* 0.7 = ~0.35c > > I’m going to use a Farm as the generic to compare the Folwark to, and the Estate rate for coin, even though a little randomness is added by walking. > > 100f costs 200vs on a farm. > 100f costs about ~145vs on a Folwark. > 100c costs about ~285.8vs on an estate. > 80c costs about ~228.64vs on an estate. > > This means the trade is a ~42.9% VS gain for Inca. > This means the trade is a ~57.68% VS gain for Poland. I gave you math that seems to disprove your point… > [@Boagrius](#): > > If we are talking about design, you make it sound like the civ is highly irrational, but i don’t think so. You certainly can stay age 2 and folwark boom, or retainer rush, or piechur rush with agrarian reforms and wodka, or you can church ff into cav archer, or church ff into jan, uhlan, 2falc, or church ff into jan/uhlan and fort. Church tech allows you to do market, folkwark and sejm upgrades half the cost. I agree that it’s not a simple or accessible civilization to play with, i mean, it’s not france or otto, or even dutch, but DLC’s that came with DE tend to add complexity to the game, and by any means they try to emulate vainilla simplicity. > > Some matchups make it impossible for poland to stay age 2 for long, I get it, that’s why they have church ff. The same reason just a few port players do not ff. > > Economic progression is really weird, it’s not linear, but in the form of spikes. 15vill shipment spike, pigs being eaten by folwark spike, 30vill shipment spike, you name it. But i like that, it’s much more interesting than your average 3tc vill boom. You ignore the math… and don’t even try to refute it. What’s better still is I was basically just kinda annoyed with past behavior rather than trying to get you to walk into something like this lol. To your point though, it kinda is irrational. The civ has a number of trade offs built into it that largely just go away. Cheap low-range skirms with extra bonuses could be a thing, but then they get higher than normal range, and with CIR and higher base damage the lower damage against heavy infantry also largely gets negated. Cheap lower hp buildings is cool, but then they get higher hp later. Cavalry that gains against other cav but loses harder vs heavy infantry is interesting and could be strong in its own right but later it loses the penalty. Lots of civs have UUs that have trade-offs, and largely retain their downsides (for logical balance reasons imo). Longbowmen have a long set up animation. Cassadors are extra weak to melee and siege damage but are faster and cheaper. Uhlans have low hp and higher attack (heavy cav often tank so this is a bit interesting). Caroleans are weaker to cavalry in melee but stronger at range (and if anything this gets exaggerated later). I believe both Sepoys and Janissaries have lower melee DPS vs cavalry in exchange for higher base melee. Tomahawks have higher melee and lower ranged damage. Then too, a number of upsides don’t show up for units that could really use the abilities. Stampede is too strong, but at the same time the base Winged Hussar is kinda not great. The Grand Hetman ability is really strong once you have a decent cav mass, but it’s yet another thing locked behind a card. Poland also kinda should be a cav civ, so some more reinforcement in the base civ could also be nice. > [@Boagrius](#): > > Economic progression is really weird, it’s not linear, but in the form of spikes. 15vill shipment spike, pigs being eaten by folwark spike, 30vill shipment spike, you name it. But i like that, it’s much more interesting than your average 3tc vill boom. With regard to this, I think it’s kinda an issue as well. It’s very all or nothing on the big vill shipments working out or not. If you get delayed it’s a delay of a ton of vills, if you get it off it’s potentially just too big of an advantage. Balancing something like this will probably be a pain overtime. ---
**Author:** ![Quirriff](https://forums.ageofempires.com/user_avatar/forums.ageofempires.com/quirriff/32/66356_2.png) [@Quirriff](https://forums.ageofempires.com/u/Quirriff)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2026, 2:11am UTC](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/sincere-opinion-on-poland-after-400-team-ranked-supremacy-matches/290289/17 "2026-10-07T02:11:21Z")
> [@Boagrius](#): > > Poland pikes are not good in the early stages of the game, u have no buffs to pikes and xbows in early game unlike other civs like malta or spain. I have no reasonable use for them up until royal upgrade. And grenadiers come also from church at the high cost of 1500 wood and you can only send it in third age with the requirement of having sent the jans first. Pikes are the only standard heavy infantry that poles get, while it’s true they get no upgrade cards neither do british pikes. Pikes in the early game are cheap and have the best siege after grenadiers, and they have cover mode taking 50% damage from ranged units. Also for poles you can get them out of military Folwarks, So you can pump them out almost instantly after you age up to commerce age since you can pre-build the folwarks as they also count as houses so you’re saving resources in the vital early stages of the game. ---
**Author:** ![Boagrius](https://forums.ageofempires.com/user_avatar/forums.ageofempires.com/boagrius/32/134219_2.png) [@Boagrius](https://forums.ageofempires.com/u/Boagrius)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2026, 4:12am UTC](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/sincere-opinion-on-poland-after-400-team-ranked-supremacy-matches/290289/18 "2026-10-07T04:12:10Z")
> [@Quirriff](#): > > Pikes are the only standard heavy infantry that poles get, while it’s true they get no upgrade cards neither do british pikes. Pikes in the early game are cheap and have the best siege after grenadiers, and they have cover mode taking 50% damage from ranged units. You can’t compare poles and brits regarding pikes for early aggression. Brits have their whole economy development around manor boom, that needs wood, and they have both 700 and 600 wood crates, so they can just send both wood crates shipment, build manors that spam vills that goes on food and wood to make a huge food and wood economy that can support pike bow spam. Poles have none of that