A few months ago, I opened a thread to propose some changes for thr Slavs. I don’t think they are bad but they are not more than a mid tier civ and mainly reach that status with their strong economy.
Their main problems in my opinion are
slow and therefore weak early game
heavy weakness against cavalyry archers
no solid source for pierce damage
identity as infantry civ, but only infantry bonus is a heavy cost late imp tech
Anyway, meanwhile, the change from orthodoxy to detinets improved the situation a bit. Detinets is not op but at least decent. Besides that, the old ######### if druzhina cost shall be reduced, is also no longer a real issue. Slavs late game is strong already an even stronger with a castle spam tech, so there is no need for cheap imp techs at the moment.
What I stll suggest:
Free supplies available in dark age:
That change is a minor one, but improves the drush and therefor the infantry identity. I won’t be OP either, since the food save at a drush is still much less tha Lithuanians 150 food in start and even Lithuanian drush is not OP at all.
Skirms + 1 range:
This is a buff in eary game and support againstcarchers, exactly tje two fields where Slavs suck. Since Slavs lack bracer and thumbring, their skirms in late remain still among the weaker ones and definitly won’t be op.
If it’s just their overall strength, the devs can just adjust the farm speed. 15% was too strong (apparently). If you think they’re too weak now, maybe you’d be happy with them if it was 12%?
If it’s something more specific, like Slavs being unbalanced somehow, leading to lopsided matches, you haven’t expressed that clearly enough.
Think before you speak, Slavs when had 15% faster working farmer were OP, and that was a time when Boyar armor was worse, the training time was slower, Supplies wasn’t present, and they just had free tracking, which was a bad bonus, as well Orthodoxy was a thing.
And still managed to get 59% WR at 2k at the time.
And if slavs are akward now give them Monasteries costing -75w, and the siege workshop units pushed from 15% to 20% cheaper. if they won’t be great on open maps let them be better on arena.
Sry but balancing slavs all arround the amount of their eco bonus is just dull. They have a heavy weakness to cav archers and no real unuque identity till late ca or even imp. The suggestions adress the early game, where slavs are nearly completely generic and therefore weak and boring.
And? Farming bonuses are probably the strongest eco bonuses in the game because food is super valuable in dark, feudal and castle age, even early imperial, and faster food income=better uptimes, booms and food intensive units out quicker.
Look at Khmer and Poles farm bonuses, Khmer since farm bonus only received nerfs, and Poles farm economy is broken on closed maps.
As previously suggested by others, give them free squires and arson. Not a big buff but adds a little flavour to their infantry identity
When scorps(and maybe rams) are eventually buffed, then the siege discount will mean more(this might take a couple years though, at the rate Devs comprehend diversity buffs)
I wouldn’t actually mind a bigger discount on Siege units, that could be pretty fun. Otherwise generic, but cheap generic full Siege Shop with SE is a powerful bonus itself, while not oppressively strong in 1v1s.
Much like Celts (or Turks), I think it’s fine if the civ has an identity that isn’t very strong in 1v1s (outside of Hoang stuff). And much like Turks - but not Celts - you have a good Stable and in general options other than Siege.
And give them springalds so they can counter siege with them, since they lack BBC
But honestly siege prices would need a rework if you could spam them in the field , aoe4 has many different mechanics which wouldn’t work in aoe2 without major overhauls
Eg FU siege ram is vastly superior to the rams in aoe4
Slavs don’t need any buffs at all, they are a good civ. If they may need a thing, they maybe should have something for their CA since the Slavs in aoe2 are clearly (The Rus) and Rus were famous for their horse archers; but in general Slavs don’t need buffs.
Eh Rus should be a different civ. As they’re more East than the Slavs we got. Russia is a big place and a change to push towards CA really requires access to Thumb Ring and Bracer.