Everyone has gotten fine buffs and nerfs.
Last time the Goths got a bit more hunting bonus.
But we still don’t have walls. Not even in imperial age, while historically they had. Like Aquatania and Spain.
The lack of walls is so different in gameplay, just like the Huns don’t need houses. It makes you play the game agressively. But that would mean you need overwhelming strength. And huskarls has been massively nerfed throughout the start. Honestly i feel it’s quite imbalanced, the strenght has been nerfed then we should also get stone walls in the imperial age atleast or even guard towers.
If you don’t then atleast make the Huskarls stronger again, with gambesons the man-at-arms also has a great preference even if you can get huskarls
Great let’s give a civ with a strong dark age and strong Post-Imp better defenses why not 11.
Pls enlight me, what nerfs received, the unit has been the same for more than 20 years…
Just because you aren’t good enough to play this civ doesn’t ever mean they need a buff, especially to possibly one of the most absurd Infantry UUs in Post-Imp (and I mean even lower ELO players know how absurd the Goths’ Infantry spam in Post Imp can be).
Historical Goths werent spamming infantry. They were also better in Cavalry than of Rome. Altho timeline of history differs like early Romans when they encountered Gauls, it was Romans didnt mastered cavalry warfare as much Goths did at its time.
Regardless original Ensembles had this arcade-y approach to design Goths. Intended as spamming infantry as invading Barbaric hordes with stereotypical representation without proper historical knowledge.
Huskarls are a pricey unit (before the Goth discount), but have a very clear role that they perform very well. Goths also have multiple eco bonuses that give them a good early game. Their cavalry is solid through castle age (strong scout rush, especially given their hunt bonus; only things they miss are imp techs). In terms of game balance, I think Goths are performing fairly well.
To be honest, the lack of Stone Walls is sometimes irritating. They in early games do not have a good enough military to provide an defense in my opinion. If the hunting bonus is used in the Feudal Age to train more scouts for defense or offense, then this only economic bonus cannot last until the Castle Age, which is somehow similar to the Mongols in theory.
I would love to see them not even have access to Masonry in exchange for only basic Stone Walls. If they want to flood infantry then it would also be disadvantageous for them to build stone walls, not only sacrificing economy but also delaying starting to build Castles.
In other aspect, changes that might make sense include:
Remove the Hussar upgrade or even the Cavalier upgrade in exchange for Plate Barding Armor. (Depends on which ones of Hussars or Cavaliers people want to fully upgrade.)
Better Monks with Block Printing to replace Bombard Cannons. (Especially when they represent Anglo-Saxons.)
Give them +10 population cap in any situation, allowing them to still afford 10 units without any Houses, TCs, or Castles. In a standard game, an extra 10 population that only works in the Imperial and still requires 2 houses feels like a weak bonus.
I don’t think the stats of Huskarls need to be adjusted yet, unless there are significant changes to the Militia line.
I actually don’t quite get this. I know people use CAs when playing Goths, but aren’t they just average and lack upgrades?
It is similar to the case of Japanese. Contrary to popular imagination they relied heavily on cavalry archers than fighting on foot. And they were more of head collector barbarians than honorable warriors.
Eastern warfare for you. Because Eastern culture including ME(initially were infantry and cavalry) mastered Cavalry Archer warfare. Even so called Knight/Light Cavalry were also masters of Cavalry Archery in the ME. Game, pop culture depiction, etc. makes you think they did something else. Its even a myth that only Europeans were heavily armored knight while ME were far heavily armored than European counterpart. If you go to their museum. Like in Turkey and Arab countries. Atleast many modern art/games/series moving towards that direction instead of stirring away stereotypical light armored narrative.
They do lack Thumb Ring and Parthian Tactics…but that’s it. The reliance on Thumb Ring has been severely lowered due to the Heavy Cavalry Archer’s accuracy increase, and they still get vital stuff like bracer, bloodlines and husbandry.
It always seemed odd to me that the Goths HAD to have a balanced late game. Why can’t some civs be good in the early game and other civs be good for late game? why does every civ have to be balanced every age.
anywho, maybe give Goths and Romans the new Gastraphetoros in place of hand cannon
Gothic armies were primarily composed of heavy infantry equipped with a shield, spatha or scramasax and the occasional francisca and pike formed in wedge formation, with a supporting heavy cavalry force equipped with lance and sword.[3] Although Goths were the first of the Germanic tribes to place more honour in fighting on horse than on foot, equipping cavalrymen was expensive and infantry remained the larger force.[4] Visigoths had fewer cavalry, Ostrogoths had more cavalry than the Roman army, while Vandals were dominated by cavalry.[5]
Cavalry mainly took the form of heavy, close combat cavalry armed with sword and lance.[4] Goths and likely Vandals as well favoured a long heavy lance of Sarmatian origin, the contus, which stood at 3.74m long. The Goths also recruited mounted archers from the Alans and Sarmatians, and light sword cavalry from the Heruli and Taifali, although all of these also fielded lancers.[6] For a Gothic or Vandal nobleman the most common form of armour was a mail shirt, often reaching down to the knees, and an iron or steel helmet, often in a Roman Ridge helm style. Some of the wealthiest warriors may have a worn a lamellar cuirass over mail, and splinted greaves and vambraces on the forearms and forelegs.
There are some non-CA civs that have same or even better CA than the Goths but they don’t seem to rely on CAs like the Goths. It’s like basically everyone has their own golden apples, but the Goths don’t have any. The infantry strategies that are supposed to be the golden apple but not, so they pick CAs as a normal apple which at least isn’t rotten.
I still think it’s not a big deal for a civ like this to have basic stone walls. In Arena, they still don’t seem to be a popular choice.
Hmm that is a very sharp response. I didn’t think about that.
But lately i’m trying to play team games, and in games like Black forest you just wish you had stone walls because everyone is booming thus early warfare before castle age is quite hard.
I guess i’m just struggling with certain forms of the game like Black forest and arena, where the game is more focused on late game. Thus i always try to form an early attack. Sometimes it works amazingly. But against other strong civs it’s a rough batle. Which is a challenge of its own. But with something like Black Forest and Arena you have very limited space. I guess every civ should have it’s own weaknesses.
I’m sorry for not writing my post very clearly.
I’ve always been a lover of goths since the game came out. But the scorpio focus lately like with Khmer and Romans is new to me. It’s pretty though to deal with in closed maps.
Okay i looked up the old book, i remembered wrongly. I take back what i said.
Because i thought the huskies lost pierce armors. But according to the aoe2 wiki they gained it. And many other things.
Because many things were removed from the dark age. I’m a non-pro player and we barely see dark age play. Everybody is going straight to feudal.
Back in the day we had builds including militia rush or villager rush. You don’t see that stuff anymore, the game is played so much faster nowaday. Booming is so much more normal now.