State of the Vietnamese? Fine or Underwhelming a little?

HI! recently i started playing some archer faction, but i don’t like the obvious Britons/Mayans dicotomy.
i found the vietnamese quite interesting with a lot going for them, but i have several doubts for them in terms of performances, so i wanted to know if it was just my impression, and thus gain some intel on how to use them better, or if there is some serious limitation

My points are:

1- HP buff to archers is not that significant, since HP is nowhere near the most important stat for archer. In addition, a percentage buff on a low HP unit is not very good i think. Arbalests end up having 8 HP more…not a lot! might survive narrowly a hit more here or there but nothing more than that. and it does not even affect the rattan! this is the only direct bonus to archers they get, so better be good no?

i know that cavalry archers profit a bit more, but they are not that great at cavalry archers, which is already a not great unit type by itself.

imho it would be better as a flat increase, bloodline stile. so something like +10 HP in feudal. the final result is almost the same, but at least early game archers are seriously more resilient, while being basically the same in imperial, with the tradeoff of slight weaker cavalry archers. or maybe is a strong bonus and i’m wrong?

2- the rattan archer is not great. it’s very expensive, it has a delay in fire rate, it has relatively poor range for a not impressive damage. chu ko nu has the same range, but much more damage, plumed has the same range, but much more HP and is faster and cheaper, even generic arbalest from vietnamese looks better being cheaper and not that much weaker (with better HP also!). i know they are good against other archers and resilient to skirmisher, but if you are fighting skirms with rattan you are doying something wrong, and while they deal better to archers, they are not as effetive with anything else with their delayed shot

so maybe a combination or tweaks could help them and justify making them over arbalesters. make their range 5 from the castle age, have their HP buff bonus affect them, make the elitè variant shot a bit faster (equal or closer to arbalest). maybe not all of these but something along these lines. or maybe they are strong and i’m wrong?

3 and final, the well known paper money problem. it’s not a bad tech, but it’s only really useful in teams games and very dependant from number of allies and situations. i think team play is already supported trought their team unit and scout TC.

to make something similar in flavour and still useful in teams but not as useless in 1 vs 1, the tech could maybe make market wood selling price increase by a lot for all members of your team, giving your team an edge in gold using market, or could change the rattan gold cost into wood (PAPER money after all you know?) similar to the magyar unique tech, or some other way of using wood more effciently in the late game, since they already have a wood bonus that sinergize in terms of flavour

4 bonus point: in an ideal world, i would have the imperial sirmisher as a new generic upgrade for the skirmisher not only reserved for vietnamese, and a new team bonus added to truly help archers, similar to the britons

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on the Rattan, i guess making them a bit cheaper would do as well, but i much more like the addition of a tech to turn gold into wood so that their higher cost is justified by being a “trash” unit basically

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Vietnamese are completely fine, they were picked a lot in KOTD 4 and RBW

Something that’s criminally underrated, Vietnamese arbalests can take one extra hit from paladin before die, which is nice, also, the Elite Leitis can’t 2 hit vietname arbs with relics because of that bonus, the HP bonus is fine

The Rattan Archer is also a completely fine UU too, it does the intendeed job by design, counter archers, they also have 7 base attack offset with less range, frame delay? is needed to not make them OP, Plumes are better and cheaper? No, Plumes are just straight up OP in Imperial being essentially a straight up better version of arbalest with range+speed+armor, lesser attack is more than compensated with such cheap price, on top belonging to the OP mayans, so no, Plumes need a nerf.

I agree that the tech needs something useful and permanent but not sure how.

Also if you want to see more Vietnamese, then go ahead and first nerf Britons and Mayans because both are currrently abused in 1v1 and especially in TGs and are soo strong to the point other archer civs can’t compete so that’s why you don’t see Vietnamese, Italians and Koreans being picked in the same rate.

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Italians and Koreans in general may still need a bit more help

  1. I couldn’t agree more, Vietnamese do have an issue. Being classified as an Archer civ yet having arguably the worst Archer bonus, extra HP gives them an edge just in Archer vs. Archer early interactions, the later the game goes the over-kill potential in this kind of Archer vs. Archer interactions just gets bigger, so HP matters much less, you rather have attack speed, range or discount.
    I wouldn’t make it a flat bonus since it’s mostly useful in Feudal Age, the lame potential of Vietnamese on top of this theoretical flat HP bonus is way too much. Kinda abusive.

  2. Since Rattan is VERY hard to counter when massed unlike Plumed (who loses to high armor Cavalry) and Chu Ko Nu (that dies against Onagers), buffing it is very tricky thing to do. The unit is quite balanced, the problem this unit has is similar to Longbow, the civ has no reason to build a Castle to begin with, the unit doesnt serve any form of win condition for the most part.
    I suggest making Vietnamese a Skirmisher civ, the attempt to make them an Archer is is a little bit desperate considering how bad their Archer civ bonus is. So rather having the HP bonus apply to Skirmishers only, and additionally giving their Skirms +1 damage flat.

  3. I’m with you man, Paper Money has to be changed, I’d redesign it completely. But changing the Gold cost of Rattans to wood? Are you insane? First you wanted to kill their identity and making them even more similar to Crossbows by giving them 5 range, and now you’re going to murder their Imperial Skirms by making Rattans Trash as well? I’m talking about design only, not to mention how impossible balancing it would be.

  4. Imperial Skirmisher as a generic tech available to most civs would change the game completely, encouraging boom and defensive approach, and would destroy the Early-Imp Arbalester power-spike. It’s highly relevant subject these days since the current meta is all about Skirmishers, we have a pseudo-aggressive type of a gameplay by most pro players, we don’t want to increase it.

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I agree with this comment, first nerf Mayans and Britons, I’d even rework Britons a little, range bonus should be belonged exclusively to Longbows, Yeoman however should remain the same yet lower cost.

1-that’s kinda true this bonus can feel underwhelming at times but you can’t casually give the HP of an arbalest to a feudal age archer.

2- Rattan archers are god tier. Trust me if those guys belonged to Britons or Mayans everyone would be spamming nerf demands right now. I’m kinda surprised you overlook their additional damage so much. It means they can deal twice the damage to mangonels in castle age and kill stuff in general faster. You dismiss their speed for being slower than plumes but guess what? They are closer in speed to plumes than normal archers. In fact, only 4 foot archer units in the whole game (3 if you don’t count Bohemian hand cannons) have more than 0.96 speed. So that’s quite a special attribute and a good quality. Which more than makes up for the bad attack delay. So all in all it’s pretty much worth the castle requirement and additional 25w cost, and should be made over normal archers whenever possible.

3 ok paper money is kinda lame. Changing market prices only for one team is not possible for the game I think, and ig making rattans cost only wood would have the merit to make people realise they underestimate it. No seriously, look at the kamandaran xbow’s stats and price and compare that to a trash rattan archer, do you really think this is a good idea?

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Can’t their archers also tank 2 direct mangonel hits because of the HP buff?

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ok on point 1, it seems there are different opinions, but if the bonus lets the archers tank 1 more hit here and there, is that really that good? i mean, if a paladin has reached up to your arbalest, they are dead anyway unless you have a serious critical mass. i still think that 6 more Hp in feudal upt to 8 in imperial is a very limited bonus considering is the only direct bonus to your archers.

2-i don’t want to make rattan as OP as plumed of course, but i think they pale in comparison to generic crossbows in castle. they need a castle, they are way more expensive, and have less range for 1 more damage. yeah the pierce armor helps, but it’s a niche, while range is more universally good. in castle age, i never felt the pressure to get rattan over crossbows. thus why i argued for the +1 range. they still get it in the elitè upgrade after all so the unit in imperial would be totally the same.

also, not using longbow or plumed as benchmark, look at chu-ko-nu, that have the same range and similar HP while having tremendously higher damage. they will perform better against other archers and skirmishers than rattan. thus why the higher faster rate in imperial could help, otherwise they have the same damage output than arbalest over time, while being much less effective in hit and run

i don’t think it’s a bad unit, but i do believe it is very niche atm, but that may well be just me!

i do believe that if the identity of the civ is chonky archers (the HP buff suggest that), rattan could get the benefit too and that would already make them much more comparable to generic arbalest

remember they cost an arm and a leg as far as archers go

3-the proposal of gold-free rattan was bold i admit, but it was just a suggestion to make the tech more useful and keeping the theme of wood turning into gold in someway, which i think sinergize well with the eco bonus

and we already have trash unique units trough a unique tech (magyars) so it would not be crazy if cost is appropriate (of course it would not be the same cost as it is now)

but i would love any kind of change tbh, mine was just a suggestion, that would also help seeing rattan more and would make them better without any direct buff

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maybe the HP bonus could be staggered in +5 in feudal, +10 in castle, up to maybe (maybe, enphasis) +15 in imperial, but benefit only archers and skirmishers and not cavalry archers to compensate. or maybe up the buff to 25% hp, making it 15% in feudal, 20% in castle, and 25% in imperial. alltogether it would not change that much (slight less in feudal, same in castle, slight more in imperial) while making a noticeable impact in the late game

i dunno, feels just like a token bonus to me with how little impact on HP it has, considering that HP is the less useful stat for archers overall (yeah a good player would avoid the mangonel shot altogether, not tank it anyway)

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Well that’s pro level. With the amount of archer play in kotd4 it shall surprise nobody how good vietnames perform there as “anti-archer archer civ”. Vietnamese still don’t perform as good on the ladder. That’s also a fact.

Vietnamese is a complex case cause it is so strong at pro level but one of the worst civs and low level. Sotl once made a testrun of the best civs for the AI and Vietnamese won this competition.

I think about this civ like for more than 1 year and still don’t have an answer. Opposed to Chinese where you know it’s the start which makes the difference that it only shines on higher level of play, the Vietnamese discrepancy isn’t as easy to determine. Yes, the anti-archer archer theme is a point, but there are other civs with similar theme like Koreans that don’t excel at pro level as Vietnamese do.

And also want to mention this: For a long time there were only a few pros like Viper that had good results with Vietnamese, it took a while until other Pros learned to use them as effective aswell.

i know they are very good at countering other archers, but that’s a gimmick of the faction. a problem, so to speak. if the opponent picked an archer civ, you are at an edge, but if it picked anything else, you are not looking good because most of your features are making you good against archers and nothing else

maybe one could trade a bit of anti-archer prowess for a bit of versatility against other match-ups

the buff to rattan archers i proposed earlier could be made at the cost of 1 pierce armor for example, or some other small compensation to make them more well-rounded istead of just a counter-pick for the meta, which is bad for the civ in my opinion…

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on the HP buff if someone has some data or intel on it being strong and useful i would gladly hear them, but atm it seems like the least useful of archer bonuses, and it’s your sole buff.

also, going vietnamese is true that you have good anti archer prowess, but that cames at the price of being very predictable. everyone know you are going archers, and that 6 extra HP hardly helps against skismishers in feudal.

being your only direct buff to archers, i think it should be much more impactful and make your archers sensibly more tanky. maybe it could add a +1 pierce armor, or discounted armor upgrades for archers in the blacksmith…i mean, something that really makes you say “wow these vietnamese are chonky!”

it’s very useful against mangonels and onagers for instance

Why would 20% more HP not being the best archer bonus matter anyway? Are we saying Chinese and Italians are bad because the former only has its UU and the latter has nothing until castle age?
And I guess I didn’t make it clear enough, but rattans are already owning enemy archers and archer UU not named WW/ele archer, on top of being better against mangonel since they kill them faster while being easier to micro. So they don’t need to have 5 range on top of that. Only buff I think would be acceptable would be a reduction of its elite upgrade cost so you’re not stuck too long with 4 range in imp. And no pierce armour is not “niche”, since every civ will use defensive buildings anyway. Against other foot archers you can be safe by hiding behind towers, castles and TCs, rattans just don’t care.

Chu ko nu damage output is only better against siege and units that run towards them because the secondary arrows are so innacurate they barely hit at max range.

Viet arbs only have 3 HP over elite rattans, so if 6 HP in feudal is irrelevant idk what this is.

As of the wood cost it’s kinda covered with the Vietnamese’s wood bonus.

tl;dr anything more than a decrease in elite upgrade cost is too much; once you try rattan archers it’s hard to come back to arbs

More like they remember them as that one civ that’s chronically bad, and their bad rep stick to them. Or some people don’t like tech switches so Vietnamese having a broader tech tree doesn’t come in as much as it could.

That’s a common point of criticism but tbh only the imp skirm falls in this category. Everything else is almost always useful. If Vietnamese had a bad tech tree they might be at a loss against non-archer civs but it’s not the case.

it’s not though, damage from mangonels is a bit random in its splash, but a group of Viet arbalest does not actually tank a direct onager shot much better than a standard civ…it is far better to micro archers and dodge entirely. on that, a 10% speed boost would be much more impactful

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the comparison with arbalest is not only HP. the faster firing rate has a bigger impact, since they have the same damage over time, while being much stronger for hit and run, which is what archer is supposed to do.

ad to that a massively cheaper cost and the independancy from a castle, makes for a pretty tough comparison for rattan

I feel like we’ve had a lot of these arguments before. I seem to recall through simulations and general theory crafting that the archer bonus for Vietnamese only really has 2 benefits:

a) Better at very early feudal fighting
b) A minor safety net from castle age mangonel shots

Outside of this its benefits are neglible at best.

Regarding the Rattens I think the biggest issue is simply the lack of range on the CA version as well as the high wood cost which make transitioning into them before post-imp very difficult. The Imp unit itself is good but the lack of range + high cost makes building up a mass incredibly difficult and you are often better off just sticking to arb and focusing on a transition into LC. I think either nerfing wood cost or removing the castle age range nerf would be sufficient.

Just wanted to add that the stats don’t back this up :frowning: They are currently 25/39 in solo open maps and 32/39 in solo closed maps for the >1700 group (usual disclaimer of small sample size etc). I guess this isn’t strictly “pros” but it is the top 3% (I think) of the playerbase

IMO the big issue for vietnamese is that they have a meh economy bonus + no meaningful offensive bonus which results in them being very weak in early castle age as just don’t really have anything going for them. Honestly until late imp when you can produce rattens and imp-skirms they aren’t even that good of an anti-archer civ either. The stats kind of show this too with their WR hitting its lowest during the middle of the game and then picking back up again if the game runs late.
image

(xaxis = gamelength, yaxis = winrate, redline = 50% source)

I admit Vietnamese are in a better state than some other civs (namely Mayans, Franks, Malay) but overall they are not in a good place. For reference they are currently ranked 38/39 for all solo matches and 37/39 for all team matches (>1200 Elo)

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glad to hear some solid data after all…seems my insights were not that far from reality after all and they do indeed could use a slight buff

and i especially agree of the HP bonus being negligible in most situations, too little bonus.

and it’s true that data shows they are not, surprisingly enough, as good against archer civs as many poeple think. probably because other factions can do else outside of range if facing vietnamese, while vietnamese strenghts are almost useless against anithing but archers (because yes if you are attacking towers with archers then pierce armor is not gonna save you from a bad trade, on top of being a waste of precious time and momentum…)

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