[Suggestion]Buffs and Ideas for Old Civs

Hi everyone I recently joined here but I m long time lover AOE series so with release of DE and new attitude of community friendly devs I have some suggestions that I would them to consider. I m sure some or maybe all of these could be already considered by devs if so please bear with me.

In my opinion some of the old civs has really good potential at the moment feels kinda wasted or meh or simply not living up to their full potential so below I made list of my suggestions good or bad. Some of my suggestions simply for rationalty, some for to make civs more balanced viable and some for both. All of my suggestions are about buffing some kinda meh civs so there no nerf suggestions which to me doesnt take much creativity so I focused buffing and adding new stuff. I do not mandate these of course I m simply pointing out these are all open to disscussion.I hope these stuff that I mentioned here will be fully or to some degree patched to DE or at least provide some extra insight.

Goths
Spec:Infantry

-Supplies tech made them less unique only thing that makes them unique is faster creation which is definitly not enough to set them apart, I couldnt think any good unique suggestions for them but something definitly needs to be done.

*Teutons
Spec: Defense, infantry and monks
Despite having full monastery tech tree they really lack solid infantry and defensive bonuses(which supposed to be their specialty towers really fall behind at later stages due to lack bracer) to set them apart in my opinion here is my suggestions for them.So I think these bonuses should be added or swapped with current existing ones.Also teutonic knight very good UU but kinda very very situational.

new bonuses

-Town center +1 attack,1+ range in feudal,castle,imperial age(+3 attack,+3 range in total).

-Give them Bracer or Crenellations should also give towers extra +1 range maybe but cost of tech also should be increased if thats the case.

-Architecture can be given.

-some speed boost for teutonic knight or give them siege rams or maybe both.

  • Ironclad should give units(infantry or cavalry or maybe both because right now bulgarians semi-teutonic knight two handed swordsmen are with free upgrade and better speed despite lower armor overall makes them more viable) +2 melee and +1 pierce armor and siege units +5 melee,+4 pierce but cost should also be increased accordingly.

*Turks
Spec: Gunpowder & Cavalry

-Sipahi can effect all cavalry instead of just CAs after all turks had great cavalry during this time periods so it makes perfect sense in a way.

Result would be fully upgraded

Hussar 115 HP, Cavalier 160 HP and CA 100 HP

but also cost increased again or to balance it differently make it percentage based(cavalry + %25 HP) rather than just straight 20 HP boost which will end up like

Hussar 113 HP, Cavalier 170 HP and CA 95 HP

I dont think 170 HP cavalier would be OP or unbalanced after all malians have very similiar tech just gives extra attack rather than HP.

-Janissary needs to be buffed at this current stage there are very few reasons to choose them over hand cannoneers which are already stronger than normal for turks.

*Byzantines
Spec: Defense & open tech tree

-Give them Siege engineers(they really lack late game pushing power despite having good army comp and generally very open tech tree and late game supposed to be the time when they are supposed to shine)

-Either Bloodlines or blast furnace(for catas)

-Masonry(buldings stronger true that but overall(SoTL pointed out in his video)its not a bonus but rather a trade off because at end their castles almost same as other civs’ fully upgraded ones they just dont pay for it or research it)

*Chinese
Spec: Cheaper techs & defense

Chinese has very solid and balanced tech tree but I think these few stuff can really make them perfectly solid, balanced and historiclly makes far more sense.

-Siege engineers(their scorpions are very good kinda feels underwhelmin due to lack of range)

-Hand cannoneers and bombard cannon.(They invented those stuff in first place and they are not that OP civ anyway)

Franks
Spec: Cavalry

Their knights in castle age are nothing special(yes extra HP but more feels like free bloodlines rather than bonus HP) and paladins are solid but only takes 1 more hit from halbs and also they lacking in super late game trash wars ith only having fully upgraded halbs so buffed would be nice additions.

-Give them hussar.

-Make cav. HP bonus +%25(from %20)

Result would be
before:
120 hp knights, 144 HP Cavalier and 192 HP paladin
after:
125 HP knights, 150 HP Cavalier and 200 HP Paladin

before:
54 HP Scouts,72 HP light cav. and no hussar
after
56 HP Scouts, 75 HP light cav. and 93 HP hussar

*Celts
Spec: Faster infantry

Their infantry faster but %5 faster doesnt make much impact I know that cumans had similiar case but cavalry was far more OP than infantry so I believe this is still viable to try out at least.

-lower %15 speed bonus to %10(staring in feudal age)

-give them squires

Mongols
Spec: Light Cavalry & Cavalry Archers

-Give final archer armor and cavalry armor.(their hussars’ extra HP feels like trade off rather than bonus and fully upgraded Heavy CA beats mongols’ faster firing Heavy CA I know they have mangudai but its a late game unit and can only be made from castle if it made them very OP that can be taken again after all balancing all about trial & error)

-Give them steppe lancer(makes perfect sense and its nerfed now anyway)

*Huns
Spec: Cavalry

-Buff tarkans a bit more to make them more appealing.
-Replace atheism with something else(just like persians boiling oil tech)

*Indians
Spec: Camels & Elephants

-Elephants archers needs to be buffed in some way.( they are lacking at the moment almost nobody uses them)

-Give them battle eles.(makes a lot of sense they are recently nerfed too)

*Incas
Spec: Infantry

-Replaces their team bonus.(very underwhelming)

-Start with 2 llamas instead of one.(good bonus but still lacks)

*Italians
Spec: Gunpowder & Navy

-Give them siege engineers(Again like byzantines they are supposed to shine in late game but due to main reason they lack pushing power and really fall behind)

*Magyars
Spec: Cavalry

-Replace their team bonus.(again useless bonus)

*Ethiopians
Spec: jack of all trades master to none

-Replace their team bonus.(Useless bonus)

*Vietnamese
Spec: Archers

-foot ranged unit hp boost to %25 or %30 maybe(like %20 FA, %25 CA and %30 IA)

Tartars
Spec: Cavalry Archers & Light Cavalry

-Replace team bonus

Also some new ideas I think that can be used but I didnt think about where.

-Gold mines lasts longer(like mayans bonus but only for gold)

-Stone mines lasts longer(like mayans bonus but only for stone)

-Trees lasts longer(like mayans bonus but only for stone)

-Huntables lasts longer(like mayans bonus but only for stone)

-Farms lasts longer

-Team bonus:Castles work rate +%10

-Team bonus:TC work +% ??

3 Likes

I mean that all sounds fun and all but do you really think that this would make the game more balanced ?

Franks, Mongols, Incas or Chinese are already top tier civs and you’re suggesting massive buffs. I would really recommend getting to know the actual strength level of a civ before suggesting these kind of changes.

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I sadly 100% agree with TriRem, I know, it is really fun to think about balance changes but don’t post them until you know the civilizations’ strength and if you’re not familiar with high level playsytles.

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@TriRem and @Szebo210
In my second para I already talked about this before hand.I definitly know the playstyles of almost every civ. Its just there throw some ideas which can be bad or good so thats why posted here but how about other ones.I do not like repeat here is the exact sentence.Although I still respect it but at least you could commented on other suggestions too instead just ones you outright rejected.

I do not mandate these of course I m simply pointing out these are all open to disscussion.I hope these stuff that I mentioned here will be fully or to some degree patched to DE or at least provide some extra insight.

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I know everyone has its onw opinion (I created myself a topic about balance), but i have to firmly disagree with your suggestions. You can’t be serious about buffing mongols, Chinese huns and franks. They’re the best civs out there.

I agree that vietnamesse, teutons and turks need a buffing, but I think there are better things to buff (for example, more hp in vietnamesse archers won’t change anything; they need either an eco bonus or something that make tjem more powerful for battle)

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For franks yes they are strong civ but 5 hp more in CA for knights its not game breaking like cumans nor 8 HP extra for paladin.As for hussar upgrade persians new thrash crossbow far more OP than that and its not like persians have weak eco too.Again franks use to be avg civ before foraging bonus so I left thing that made them OP in first place untouched.

Mongols hussars not OP(in SoTL civ overview he tested it agasint various stuff turns out its only slighty better in melee and actually worse vs ranged units than generic fully upgraded hussars).Same goes for their heavy cavalry archer in late maybe mangudai might get too strong idk about it but its not like giving them free tech its just unlockin it on their tech tree.What makes mongols op is mainly their hunt and scout LOS bonus(which I did not touched at all) rest generic late game stuff.

Chinese received big nerf in nomad recently and they are definitly not weak but not strong like slavs,aztecs,mayans or franks either and giving them couple of imperial age techs wont really affect them much in 1v1 where most games end in CA anyway.

Huns atheism total garbage and useless I dont understand your point here.

Vietnamese I agree with you but for eco there isnt anything that comes to my mind that fits their theme so thats I sticked with hp bonus.

For eco buff I suggested some at the very end but I couldnt fit them into specific civ or theme so I just left them there

-Gold mines lasts longer(like mayans bonus but only for gold)

-Stone mines lasts longer(like mayans bonus but only for stone)

-Trees lasts longer(like mayans bonus but only for wood)

-Huntables lasts longer(like mayans bonus but only for food)

-Farms lasts longer

You said it yourself. Franks are a strong civ. They don’t neeed to be op. I agree persians xbows should be nerf. They should be nerf, not every other civ buffed. Same for mongols. They have the edge in DARK AGE. Not other civs has a so early advantage.

And chinese
 Man, everything is cheaper, they start with more vils, which means faster feudal time, and in post imp the have an unit that it’s, probably, the most difficult to counter when is massed.

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Getting something for free IS a bonus. They also get some benefit from it in earlier ages, before other civs can get masonry.
Someone in another thread suggested that Byzantines should get Town Patrol free, which I agree with.

I could live with Teutons getting bracer. Alternately, as I suggested elsewhere, Ironclad could be renamed to “Crusade” and give a small speed or pierce armor addition to Teutonic Knights, in addition to the siege armor.

Perhaps Turks could get a small buff, but +30 hp for cav is a bit much, and doesn’t fit their gunpowder theme. Janissaries are pretty good, but I’m always down to make UUs more viable. Perhaps they could be given slightly improved accuracy or maybe +1 attack for elite.

Celts are quite strong. I could live with their infantry being 5% faster, but I wouldn’t buff the civ beyond that.

I mostly agree with this one, for historical reasons, and since it wouldn’t be that strong in Imp due to missing the last armor upgrade. However, Mongols are already very strong and there’s a chance this would make them slightly OP, but I think it’s worth trying.

Not every tech needs to be super useful - think Nomads (and Huns probably don’t need a buff). I think it would be interesting if, in addition to its usual effects, Atheism slightly increased the conversion resistance of all Hun units (like a reverse Inquisition tech).

Incas don’t need a buff. However, there are definitely a lot of lame team bonuses that make me roll my eyes when I see I’m allied with those civs. I’d like to see some of the dumber team bonuses slightly re-engineered in ways that would synergize better with other civs, but without making the host civ OP.

Italians are basically an insta-pick on water maps, and are arguably situationally OP for that reason, and they’re really not bad on land either. I don’t think they need anything else right now.

Yeah, this bonus is kind of dumb. What I really don’t like about it is their towers/outposts apparently have the same LOS as everyone else’s once they research the 2 LOS techs. I’d be okay with this bonus staying if they ultimately got +3 LOS over everyone else even in Imp.

This is basically a weaker version of Berbers’ Castle UT, Kasbah. Rule of thumb is, when there’s already a civ (or especially team) bonus that affects something directly, another Team bonus that also affects that same thing can easily become OP. (E.G. Mayans + any of the res bonuses you mention, Persians or Malay + the TC bonus).

As other posters mentioned, these other civs generally don’t need a buff. Especially not Franks. They had a stupid high win rate in HD, and the only nerf they got in DE was the delay of their cav hp bonus to Feudal.

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Ok so the only thing Byzantines buildings are weaker to is Manipur Cavalry. So it’s just 1 civ specific bonus and it’s countered by your cheaper harbs. Against everything else Byzantines buildings are better.

Ok so some people are super salty about Chinese getting Block printing for accuracy’s sake because now they can counter onager (ie.their only real counter) much better. So bombard cannon? Plz no.

Welp, the Woad raider is almost the best cav unit of the Celts (unless you enjoy losing all your cavaliers before getting to Paladin) so it would feel like Cuman all other again.

Mongols & Huns, just plz no


No, villager bonus +BE = OP. And while the Elephant archer doesn’t see a lot of play in Arabia, it’s more used if you get time to develop because it’s the only archer that can eat several onagers shots before going down

This + cheaper BC = no

Archers are a raid unit like kngihts, of course it’s useful

2 llamas? It’s a top 5 civ already!

Ok they definitely aren’t jack of all trades. Bad cavalry, bad cav archers, and the Shotel warrior isn’t a replacement to champion. I guess asking for a new TB is fair enough but it would be 1 more nerf to trushing (what this bonus is for)

Fair enough I guess

Even better than the Magyar bonus since Cav archers are better at raiding but have less range wich means less Los without the bonus (only issue is that not much civs use cav archer)

Ok the thing is that not only those are already normal bonuses but on top of that any civ with such a bonus would become the new Spanish (ie.it will become mandatory in team games and defintely a better team civ than Vietnamese)

Plz don’t feel attacked or something like that but I don’t feel that you know every playstyle (I mean come on you say 'meh civ" in the introduction and the only meh civs mentioned are Goths (with no suggestion) Vietnamese and Teutons (if you forget about trushing, cheaper farms, Paladin, Ironclad
)

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Well balancing means getting every civ about same or similiar power level can be done two ways.First Way is Nerfing the strong ones and second way buffin up the weak ones while leaving what can be considered avg untouched.

Most of the time nerfing feels like quick lazy method I mean steppe lancer nerfed it barely has much place(not saying that it didnt need any nerf it was ridiculous beyond comparison but doesnt change the fact now it feels like its just there to be there which in my opinion better if it was non existent).I didnt suggest any bonus like free armor upgrade,free bloodlines etc because those feel like rather lazy uncreative on small doses yes it can add flavour but large scale feels dull.

@OliveCereal4714 And chinese
 Man, everything is cheaper, they start with more vils, which means faster feudal time, and in post imp the have an unit that it’s, probably, the most difficult to counter when is massed.

Answer More vills but lesser food and kinda messed start in practice its +1 vil lead at the most(barely),for cheaper techs yes true but its not like everything so cheap right away its fairly distrubuted to all ages accordingly and scorpions very easy to counter with onager which only few handful civs lack.

@SirWiedreich Ok so the only thing Byzantines buildings are weaker to is Manipur Cavalry. So it’s just 1 civ specific bonus and it’s countered by your cheaper harbs. Against everything else Byzantines buildings are better.

Answer1 Well %99 of people use siege to take out buldings so my argument was about bulding armor but how it compares just purely HP bonus,so if byzantine castle(argubly one of the most important buldings if not the most) gets taken by siege at the nearly same time as generic fully upgraded one yes free upgrades are a bonus but it doesnt make them unique or special . Free upgrades only gives limited time power spike once specific time passes its just everyone normal again what makes civ really unique cumulative bonuses that really sets them apart from generic fully upgraded stuff and think about Britons’ range that no one else gets, Malians +7 attacks stable units, Spanish faster firing gunpowder, Ethiopian faster firing machine gun arbalests or Goths before supplies etc. My goal was here to suggest to make as many civs like that so each feels in a certain way that feels unique for the late game. Some civs are already have this but majority doesnt or they do have it but its felt enough to make a difference.

Arguement2 Perhaps Turks could get a small buff, but +30 hp for cav is a bit much, and doesn’t fit their gunpowder theme. Janissaries are pretty good, but I’m always down to make UUs more viable. Perhaps they could be given slightly improved accuracy or maybe +1 attack for elite.

Answer2 No one tested it yet but Cavaliers even with that HP bonus will never match paladin civs at the most it ll only feel like malians cavalier but different version(Malians do get early game bonus too but not considered OP), 100 hp CA doesnt fit gunpowder as well but historiclly turks also very diverse and good cavalry too so it matches their theme. As for janis they have nothing special going about them expect +1 rangewhich doesnt make much difference and them being created from a castle.

Argument3 Celts are quite strong. I could live with their infantry being 5% faster, but I wouldn’t buff the civ beyond that.

Answer3 Celts above avg early game but not Top 5 imo(Slavs,Franks,Aztecs,Mayans and Britons) maybe top 10(Indians,Mongols,Huns,Celts,Incas,persians or even Tartars) for early game. To me their infantry feels not so special expect woad raiders(which are hard to mass as UU its not like bulgars that they spamable cheap proxy castle too) and at late game they cant go cavalry or archers for obvious reasons so their only choice is infantry unlike cumans who had speed of light horses, insta created hussars for thrash war and UU that was literally mangudai without any nerfs before recently)

For Huns I totally liked this makes perfect sense for tech not outright op at all.

Not every tech needs to be super useful - think Nomads (and Huns probably don’t need a buff). I think it would be interesting if, in addition to its usual effects, Atheism slightly increased the conversion resistance of all Hun units (like a reverse Inquisition tech).

@CactusSteak2171 Ok so the only thing Byzantines buildings are weaker to is Manipur Cavalry. So it’s just 1 civ specific bonus and it’s countered by your cheaper harbs. Against everything else Byzantines buildings are better.

Answer1 Well %99 of people use siege to take out buldings so my argument was about bulding armor but how it compares just purely HP bonus,so if byzantine castle(argubly one of the most important buldings if not the most) gets taken by siege at the nearly same time as generic fully upgraded one yes free upgrades are a bonus but it doesnt make them unique or special . Free upgrades only gives limited time offer power spike once specific time passes its just everyone normal again what makes civ really unique cumulative bonuses that really sets them apart from generic fully upgraded stuff and think about Britons’ range that no one else gets, Malians +7 attacks stable units, Spanish faster firing gunpowder, Ethiopian faster firing machine gun arbalests or Goths before supplies etc. My goal was here to suggest to make as many civs like that so each feels in a certain way that feels unique for the late game. Some civs are already have this but majority doesnt or they do have it but its not felt enough to make a difference.

Argument2 Ok so some people are super salty about Chinese getting Block printing for accuracy’s sake because now they can counter onager (ie.their only real counter) much better. So bombard cannon? Plz no.

Answer2 Hmm siege engineers for scorpions and bombard cannon at the same time seemed OP to me now as well so I agree but still they should either get bombard cannon or siege engineers and I see no harm in that I do not honest believe that would make them unbalanced or very overpowered.

Argument3 Welp, the Woad raider is almost the best cav unit of the Celts (unless you enjoy losing all your cavaliers before getting to Paladin) so it would feel like Cuman all other again.

Answer3 Well celts have miserable cavalry so they are supposed to be compensating for that with their faster infantry just like meso civs but at the moment besides woad raider they absolutely lacking. As for unlike cumans who had unraidable eco in FA, speed of light horses, insta created hussars for thrash war and UU that was literally mangudai without any nerfs before until recently so I dont see them being new infantry cumans even with these you can feel safe down that way that definitly wont happen.

Argument4 Mongols & Huns, just plz no

Answer4 For huns this seems fair : Not every tech needs to be super useful - think Nomads (and Huns probably don’t need a buff). I think it would be interesting if, in addition to its usual effects, Atheism slightly increased the conversion resistance of all Hun units (like a reverse Inquisition tech).

For mongols Their hussars nothing special without last armor tech maybe both last archer armor and cavalry armor tech at the same time is kinda OP but I still think they should get one these final armor techs.

Argument5 No, villager bonus +BE = OP. And while the Elephant archer doesn’t see a lot of play in Arabia, it’s more used if you get time to develop because it’s the only archer that can eat several onagers shots before going down

Answer5 Nobody uses onagers for elephant archers just go halbs or elite skirms or both which majority of the civs have already so yes they are strong but very easy to counter(considering they created from castle and rather expensive) which is why they are useless needs to be buffed in first place. For Battle elephants they just got nerfed malay does have cheaper elephants with many other bonuses like faster up time for early eco I see no point why indians shouldnt get it.

Argument6 Archers are a raid unit like kngihts, of course it’s useful
Answer6 Archers already have good line of sight for raiding and doesnt seem impactful at all.

Argument7 2 llamas? It’s a top 5 civ already!
Answer7 Its my own subjective point of view but I believe majority will agree that top 5 is Slavs,franks,mayans,aztecs and britons(for arabia which is the most commonly played map on high level) Incas maybe top 10 it depends on point of view of the person but slingers got nerfed and out of all meso civs they are probably the weakest one.

Argument8 Ok they definitely aren’t jack of all trades. Bad cavalry, bad cav archers, and the Shotel warrior isn’t a replacement to champion. I guess asking for a new TB is fair enough but it would be 1 more nerf to trushing (what this bonus is for)

Answer8 Ethiopians are good civ main point here that the fact their team bonus garbage also it was long para I couldnt remember everything on time so my mistake here they are great archer civ.

Argument9 Even better than the Magyar bonus since Cav archers are better at raiding but have less range wich means less Los without the bonus (only issue is that not much civs use cav archer)

Answer9 Tartars at the moment fairly balanced but LOS bonus for ranged units feels very underwhelmin definitly something better can be made without being OP.

Final Ok the thing is that not only those are already normal bonuses but on top of that any civ with such a bonus would become the new Spanish (ie.it will become mandatory in team games and defintely a better team civ than Vietnamese)

Final answer I just wrote bonuses just to throw some ideas out there thats main reason I didnt put them over specific civs so I m expectin some other people saying stuff like ‘‘yea this might good for 
 civ etc’’

Overall I m achieving my goal here I really dont take it as being attacked , I m a human after all I can be wrong or right and sure I know a lot of stuff but I cant know the best of everything thats why I posted here.

I don’t want to be arrogant or condescending, but there are literally hundreds of these kind of “balance-change suggestions”.

Aoe2 is the kind of game that the more you play it, and the higher skill level you have, the more you find out that balance is complicated and you cannot justify giving random changes to each civ. Kind of a Dunning-Kruger effect.

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I don’t want to be arrogant or condescending, but there are literally hundreds of these kind of “balance-change suggestions”.

Aoe2 is the kind of game that the more you play it, and the higher skill level you have, the more you find out that balance is complicated and you cannot justify giving random changes to each civ. Kind of a Dunning-Kruger effect.

@SpartanCow696 Considering 35 civs exist in the game currently of coarse its gonna be complicated and those not some random changes majority are either buffin currently existing ones or replaces something that has barely any presence in the game to begin with.From my understanding you are just saying well game is working and fine with some twerks which is acceptable so there is no need to try any new changes at all

But you’re trying to buff things that don’t need it. And you believe stuff like “byzantines buildings are generic” (even tho the bonus is BETTER than masonry+architecture. And unlike those techs it’s there since the start of the game) or “Incas are top 10 instead of top 5 let’s buff them”. And BE for Indians because Malay have a discount? Then enjoy playing Imperial camels with only 1 armor upgrade and no bloodlines 11

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Ok so I’m doing what I do every single time I see one of these posts : pull out the stats card.
https://aoestats.io/stats?elo=2000%2B#?orderby=-win_rate
This is the winrates for civs in 1v1 at the highest level. I know it’s HD balance so it’s not exactly DE balance, but the civs I will mention didn’t receive any sort of strong nerf on DE anyway.

Chinese are top 3 civ. They are not “meh”, they are a top 3 civ. If you know what you are doing you should have almost a 2 vil lead throughout the dark age, and once the opponent gets loom too you should be close to 3 vils again. It’s a super strong bonus, add to that a very wide tech tree, cheap techs and a killer UU. Chinese are one of the best civ in the game.
In NAC3 many pros were picking Chinese as their best civ for Arabia. They just received block printing which is already a hugely unwarranted buff, and now you want to buff them further ? That’s crazy.

Likewise, Franks are the #1 civ on the ladder. Do you really want to make them even better than they are ? How do you justify that ?

Let’s talk Mongols too, why not. Mongols are so good an account of very fast scout rush and great mobility throughout the ages, they had to be banned entirely from a map during NAC3 because they were the only viable pick. And even then, they became a almost 100% pick for Land Madness where map control is key. Mangudais are one of the deadliest units in the game and you would want to give them +1/+2 armor, as well as making their cavalry stronger too ? How justifiable do you think this is ?

I could mention Huns too, firmly installed in the top 8 and one of the must picks on open maps like Desert. But I think I’ve made my point clear. You feel like some civs are meh and they need some buffs, but many of these are just your subjective picks and you don’t have any evidence to suggest that yes indeed, they are in need of a push.

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@TriRem
Winrates have some truth not entrilely reliable because when you average win rates its about %43,88 which means any civ below this are weak or below this OP according to that. But Persian according to win rates than actually is weak civ at the moment needs a little buff because they are right at 43.09% and the goths actually %45 so they are actually OP and dont need buff at all which sounds like total nonsense at the moment I believe win rates does have some truth but its not the entire truth and in many cases can be misleading. Reason for franks get top(yes they are good civ but at top 5 differences are small) they are liked by many people(yes they are stong but thats not entire reason) just like back when everyone played huns because not getting housed was very comfortable bonus and people like to play with the civs that they feel comfortable with so makes sense in that regard.And again according to win rates mongols and britons are actually weaker than byzantines which again sounds like weird.

@CactusSteak2171 But you’re trying to buff things that don’t need it. And you believe stuff like “byzantines buildings are generic” (even tho the bonus is BETTER than masonry+architecture. And unlike those techs it’s there since the start of the game) or “Incas are top 10 instead of top 5 let’s buff them”. And BE for Indians because Malay have a discount? Then enjoy playing Imperial camels with only 1 armor upgrade and no bloodlines 11

I m sure SoTL made video about byzantines buldigns so its tested by an experienced person so their buldings definitly not better than generic fully upgraded ones because byzantines bonus doesnt give them any armor they end up getting same results vs siege stuff I dont need to say further here its a proven fact not some imaginary stuff.

About Battle elephants your point was they would become very strong combined with their cheaper vill bonus and I said that malay have similiar thing going for them with cheaper eles and malay still strong civ people just dont like it for some reason but not because they are outright weak like khmer. As for camels it seems you do forget reason their camels are stonger they lack knights completly thats reason their camels get buffs in first place.

No, I’m saying that people tend to overrate their knowledge about this game, and as they get better/more knowledgeable of the meta they know that it’s very difficult to balance the game.

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Man, at the end of the day, you’re asking for buffs for mongols, franks, Chinese and huns. They’re at least 10 civs that really need to be balanced up. If you would like your preferred civs to be buff, that’s one thing. But do not claim that they need to be buff.

Civs needing a buff are 2 or 3 we all agree on:
Vietnamesse
Teutons
Turks

And some more arguably:
Burmese
Goths
Portuguese
Koreans?
Tartars?

Maybe i’m missing something, but i’m quite sure which ones don’t need anything else

4 Likes

In my opinion some of the old civs has really good potential at the moment feels kinda wasted or meh or simply not living up to their full potential so below I made list of my suggestions good or bad. Some of my suggestions simply for rationalty some for to make civs more balanced viable and some for both.

Thats my point whole time its my point of view as I did mention on before even mentioning any buffs or stuff I said clearly some for rationaly and some for balance and some for a bit of both, rationality for like Franks are strong indeed but I do not think they are very special at the late game at least their paladins in the %7 stronger in the end and created faster which huns already have for free(despite being cav civ.)at the moment so you can say my goal with franks or mongols(their hussar not OP actually equal to fully upgraded hussar again which doesnt suit them their hussar supposed to be a bit better than generic same goes for cav archers and this is tested so its pretty much proven fact too) or any other current OP civ is to make them a bit more unique like britons’ epic range of archers or stuff its just make them a bit more unique.In the end I m saying what makes so called top 10 civs or whatever OP or strong or great entire time is mostly comes down to their early eco bonuses which I didnt touched at all but rest stuff dont have too much impact on game so therefore not OP to such degree they cant even be considered at all again I did agree with some points and did not with some so thats why. I know there more civs that needs buff like burmese etc but I dont have any creative good ideas at the moment for them so thats I left them out on this one.

That is true, winrates are not everything, they are just part of the picture. However you can’t completely disregard like you do. The median winrate is 52%, which means that civs with a higher winrate do better than most civs, and similarly civs with a lower winrate do worse than most civs. This should be a basic threshold. Civs around 50% winrate should be considered fine, and at the very least civs with a winrate close to 60% should not be candidate for significant buffs.

You bring up Persians and you are perfectly right. Persians used to have a winrate of around 43% in HD, so they were the perfect candidates for major buffs, which they just received. As a result they are now a strong civ, maybe slightly too strong as we can tell by the recent nerf they received.
This how you should proceed. Civs with a winrate of 45% or lower are the ones that are undisputedly weak, and focus should be on these.

Yes, stats are not the end all be all. But you can’t argue that civs that are in the top 3 statistically are actually secretly below average, unless you have actual evidence that there is a significant bias in the data. Top 3 civs in stats should at least be considered top 10 in practice, so definitely not candidates for buffs. If anything, they are candidates for nerfs.

Ok let me break it down how the Byzantine bonus works because you seem to have a lot of misconceptions about it.

In dark age and feudal age, it’s straight up better than any other civ. It’s better, period.

In castle age, Byzantine get +30% HP for free instantaneously upon reaching it. Other civs need to build a university, pay for masonry, and wait for the upgrade to get +10% HP and some building armor. It costs resources and the timing is later. And also, Byzantine still have +20% HP that more than makes up for the extra armor. Against siege, cavalry, infantry or archers, Byzantine buildings will still last longer.

Now imperial age. Again, Byzantine get the increase for free while other civs have to pay for it. Also, only half the civs get architecture, so Byzantine are already doing better than most civs, for free. Lastly, only 11 civs have architecture + hoardings.
And for civs with architecture, Byzantine still do better than most of the time. Having +40% HP is often much better than +21% HP + building armor. Let me show some examples :
A Treb vs fully upgraded castle : byz takes 19 shots to die, 17 for regular fully upgraded castle
Siege ram : 43 for Byzantine, 38 for others.
Paladin : 814 vs 879
Champion : 740 vs 780
Arbalest : 8131 vs 7028

For barracks :
Trebuchet : 7 vs 6
Paladins : 196 vs 196
Champions : 147 vs 142
Arbalest : 2940 vs 2540

To summarize : Byzantine always do better vs siege, by far the biggest threat to buildings, and against most ranged units. Against melee units, it’s a case by case scenario but the results are often similar, sometimes slightly better, sometimes slightly worse.
For castles, Byzantine always do better than the 70% of civs who don’t get hoardings + architecture, and only do slightly worse than the remaining 30% in some cases of melee units. Again, against siege which is the biggest danger, they are noticeably the best civ in the game.

tl&dr : throughout the game the Byzantine bonus is a net positive until post imp. In post imp a small subset of civs will do about as well, but in the most important situations (vs siege) Byzantine are always the best. I don’t really see how that makes this an underwhelming bonus.

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Ok so when I said “try to enjoy imp camels with no bloodline and only 1 armor upgrade” It’s because the Malay as a compensation of cheaper elephants get no Bloodlines, and only 1 armor upgrade. Even Vikings and Koreans get more! So basically if you give BE to Indians you have to take a lot of stuff away from them, wich would make their hussars and camels useless if they receive the Malay treatment.

But the Huns ARE a cav civ


Their hussar is worse against ranged units and better against melee. That’s not equal. The cav archers are worse in Imp but better in Castle. And who cares if they fall behind since they can be replaced with Mangudai?

Ok so if I play a late game civ like Goths or Portuguese against an early game civ and that I manage to survive I will have no advantadge if they get a buffed late game as well (and those civs already have a good enough lategame)

Doing worse than a coin flip = OP??? How???