I just wanted to talk about the state of civs and share my ideas.
For those who remember my posts from last year, you’d probably think that all this thread will be about nerfing top tier civs.
But no. Instead of watering down civs, imo it’s better to buff weak civs so they aren’t hopeless.
Specially when top tier civs like franks, chinese, mongols and mayans have one thing in common: their best matchups are vietnamese, koreans, burmese, etc.
These changes are based on the current live build. I’m not taking into account the PUP changes that will be implemented in the future (eventhough there are things I like a lot like vietnamese eco techs researching 100%).
Once again, these are just my ideas. Just my opinion.
Civs that need reworks:
Vietnamese
1: Archery Range units have +20% HP.
2: Reveal enemy initial Town Centers location at the start of the game.
3: Archers and Elephants are trained +20% faster
4: Economic upgrades cost no wood.
5: Stone miners work 20% faster
UT2: Gives 300 gold and lumberjacks generate gold when working.
→ UT1 is researched in 35 seconds.
→ UT2 is researched in 40 seconds.
Vietnamese are a highly aggressive civ. Very strong if you take the offensive route, but weak when you don’t attack your opponent constantly. Like for example in closed maps or unorthodox maps that force you to play defensively. Last year, I said vietnamese were fine and didn’t need changes. But now that the meta has become very fast paced and their “natural enemies” have increased, I think it’s necessary to help them with their weakness: playing defensive in early-mid caslte age and regaining momentum after succesfully defending in late castle age. This time I replaced their free conscription bonus for a faster production of archers and elephants. This will allow them to attack first, and also to defend (counter attack) faster since the feudal age. Second, their stone miners now work faster. They’ll collect stone faster to build stone walls, towers and castles to defend; which will increase their chances to survive castle age pushes without compromising their tech development and keep using archers. They won’t need to soft/hard transition into other units that cost food (like they do in the current patch) because castles benefit from arrow blacksmith techs and viet archers can still survive mangonel shots because they have more hp. However this is only the defensive aspect. More castles also increase the production of rattan archers. To follow up with a counter push, elephants are also trained faster. A couple of elephants can help to keep up the momentum. A quick reminder that viet elephants were the original ele-rams some years ago. Even in the current patch, imo the only viable elephants in castle age are viet and malay. The imperial unique tech now is a combination of the old money paper and the current one. Except now it gives gold only to the user. This will bring back its original concept as a hard pusher/emergency button.
With these changes I just wanted to keep its original identity as an offensive oriented civ, but still getting options to defend.
Persians
1: Each Town Center provides +50 food and +50 wood.
2: Town Centers and Docks have double hit points and work 15%/20%/25% faster in the Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age.
3: Knights and Cavalry Archers have +2/+3 attack against infantry and camels in the Castle/Imperial Age.
UT2: Cavalry Archers deal +50% bonus damage.
→ Elite War Elephants technology also increases their speed by +30%.
I think that, originally, persians were designed to be a cavalry-generalist civ that also had access to a super unique unit. They have a wide tech tree, and were supposed to have decent answers against other civs. However, over the years they’ve been left behind thanks to newer civs. First berbers out paced them militarily, malians were better at being a pseudo-generalist, italians were better at gunpowder and dock production in water maps. Then, DE came out and old civs got updated. Like teutons for example. Persians weren’t supposed to be weak against teutons. Persians have access to hand cannoneers and were one of the original civs that had FU camels; by design they weren’t supposed to be weak against infantry (eagle compos, ghulam compos, pike-shot compos, etc) and camels. But now they are weak against infantry-gunpowder and camels. On the other hand, economically, newer and updated civs are better as well. In this thread, I’m trying to boost their eco by improving their original eco bonuses. Meanwhile, the new civ bonus and imperial unique tech intend to correct their weakness against infantry and camels that emerged thanks to powercreep. Besides they also serve as a soft power spike in early castle age and mid imperial age. In the castle age, the civ bonus synergizes with persian trashbows. In the imperial age, it synergizes with the unique tech to turn cavalry archers into a second power spike. So CA can protect persian cavalry better without an abrupt tech switching from crossbows. Making the transition into hand cannoneers easier or even only necessary against specialized infantry units.
Koreans
1: Villagers have +3 Line of Sight.
2: Stone Miners drop off +10% stone.
3: Tower upgrades are free.
4: Foragers work 25% faster
5: Military units (except siege weapons) cost -20%/-25%/-30% wood in the Feudal/Castle/Imperial age.
UT2: Gives the Mangonel line +1 range and +1 extra line of sight.
→ UT1 costs 250 food and 250 wood.
→ Adjust War wagons and Turtle ships wood cost accordingly.
The new stone bonus, very much a different version of the new malian gold bonus, tries to increase korean stone income. It could even be +15% so they can build more castles lol. Second, getting food faster from berry bushes is pretty straightforward. Faster up time or faster “first range attack tech from blacksmith” etc. Their wood discount bonus also got improved and it should work in tandem with foragers working faster for an easier and faster maa-archers.
Burmese
1: Lumber Camp technologies are free.
2: Battle Elephants deal +15%/+20% trample damage in the Castle/Imperial Age.
3: Infantry units have +1/+2/+3 attack in the Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age.
4: Monastery technologies are 50% cheaper.
5: Cavalry units have +2/+3/+4 attack against archers.
UT1: Gives Battle Elephants +1/+2 armor.
UT2: Gives Stable units +5 attack against regular buildings.
→ UT1 costs 350 food and 300 wood. It’s researched in 30 seconds.
This one is also very straightforward. Cavalry units getting attack against archers as a civ bonus improves their offensive potential in early and mid game. It also complements their weakness against archers earlier without needing a unique tech or breaking their identity of lacking archer armor techs. The elephant civ bonus giving more trample damage not only increases their overall damage output, it also synergizes with their infantry bonus and the new cavalry bonus in all out pushes. All in all, the changes try to make the civ far more aggressive and fast paced than before. The new imperial unique tech also emphasizes in causing damage. It brings back the original concept the civ had; which was pretty fun. It only affects stable units, so no arambai on superpower mode like before.
Civs that are balanced but suffer from power creep:
Italians
1: Advancing to the next Age is 20% cheaper.
5: Trade units cost -30%/-40%/-50% in the Feudal/Castle/Imperial age.
UT2: Gives Gunpowder units +4 meele armor.
→ UT1 costs 200 food and 150 gold.
→ Elite Genoese Crossbowman technology costs 850 food and 750 gold and increases their line of sight by +1.
→ Condottieri have +2 attack against eagle units.
Magyars
2: Scout Cavalry line is 20% cheaper.
→ UT1 costs 200 food and 250 gold. It’s researched in 35 seconds.
→ UT2 costs 500 wood and 400 gold.
Other changes:
Franks
Nerfs
4: Foragers work 15% faster. → Foragers are more diligent (carry +15 and move +15% faster).
Hindustanis
Buffs
1: Villagers are 10%/15%/20%/25% cheaper in the Dark/Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age.
→ Ghulam (Elite) have 9 (11) base attack.
Nerfs
→ UT1 costs 450 food and 450 wood. It’s researched in 45 seconds.
→ Ghulam additionally have the Eagle Warrior armor class.
→ Elite ghulam have 60 hit points.
I’m going to explain this one. Hindustanis were an anti meta civ. They focused on countering cavalry (the meta), but also had great support for anti archers through gulams and anti infantry through tanky hand cannoneers with +2 range. Not only they had a powerful main weapon that even was anti meta, their plan b options were very strong as well. Ghulams are fast and cheap to produce that have one of the easiest transitions thanks to the castle age unique tech; hand cannoneers are fast to tech into. This was the hindustani problem. The civ just can’t do everything at once. They had to nerf either their gunpowder or their ghulams. Not their villager bonus.
The civ had that bonus since their old indian times. And the bonus itself was never a problem.
On the other hand, the civ just couldn’t have this unique castle unit that was basically an eagle warrior who has splash damage and is trained faster than kasbah’ed camel archers, costs 45 gold (therefore extended lifetime in the ring) without the drawbacks from the eagle armor class (relative weakness vs unique units, milita and spear lines). Plus, this unit was fed by their grand trunk road. Which increases all gold income. Including from relics and carts. Supported by strong HC.
So like I said last year: nerfing their villager bonus will make them weaker than intended.
Now I think it’s better to nerf their castle UT cost and ghulams instead.