Looking at the current evidence of weakest overall civilizations (https://aoestats.io/ and https://www.aoe-tc.com/), the Cumans perform absolutely terrible.
I’m quite relaxed with the other civs at the bottom, considering they have excellent navy, which can just often not be used in a lot of maps. Especially the very last one, the Portuguese, is probably the strongest civ in the game in super-long naval maps, thanks to their strong navy + Feitorias. But the Cumans don’t even have a strong navy, in fact, they arguably have the worst one in the game!
The Cumans clearly need a buff. Where should it be?
- Changing their navy to a strong one would be quite a stretch.
- Giving them walls would entirely change how the civ. is played.
- The stable is already top-tier, considering it enjoys all the possible upgrades and even has a civ bonus of speed.
- The infantry and siege is quite good as it is. Siege Engineers is missing, but then, most of the strongest civs. don’t have it, so that can hardly be the reason why the Cumans are so bad right now.
In my opinion, the kipchak is the problem and the answer. He’s just too weak as he is now. He’s losing way too many battles in 15v15 (cf. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gl3UKUCSN4) and even 200 kipchaks are less impressive as they should be with that many arrows in the air (cf. Viper’s 200 kipchak game, post-4 arrows buff, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMBH6DFaJw8).
Considering the Cumans are now in fact the weakest civ in the game and need a serious change, I would argue that they should get bracer. A little HP boost to the kipchak won’t cut in my opinion.