The reason why goths are bad (+buff ideas)

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
22

This is basically the inspiration for how the Huskarl looks (they were noted to have round shields as well)

I see someone has been playing Age1 :grinning:

How about a third unique tech? Even a low-powered Dark or Feudal tech would be a symbolic victory. The hunting dogs tech was originally ported from AoM, but not included seriously; if it was super cheap and available in Dark, it might work as a situational eco bonus. Either that, or a higher powered Arson replacement (Demolition/Ruination) that replaces their +1 attack vs buildings to +3 or +4.

It would be interesting for sure. The issues I see arising because of this are:

-It won’t help their early game at all, and won’t help them much in 1v1s. Going for a subpar paladin will be too resource intensive most of the time, and will not have the payoff of the cheap infantry bonus.

-While it will undoubtedly give them more options in Team Games, it doesn’t really address the comparative weakness of their infantry (although it helps with a couple of their counters, in taking out hand cannoneers and siege). Give Goths paladin, and they will still get mopped up by strong infantry civs (e.g. Japanese, Burmese, Slavs, Aztecs, etc), whose champions destroy all Goth infantry, and who will have no problem fielding beefy pikes/halbs against paladins.

-Just in terms of flavor, I don’t know that we need another paladin civ, especially one that was previously known almost exclusively for infantry. The Last Khans already gave us 3/4 new Paladin civs, 2 of which potentially have “better than perfect” paladins. By comparison, this makes the addition of a non FU paladin to Goths seem quite lackluster.

A question that should often be asked when considering balance changes for a civilization is “why would a player pick this civ?” For Goths, it always has been about the infantry flood, and the weakness of their infantry and eco right now is what should be buffed. Sure, having an archery range and stable are nice for some tactical flexibility, but I and many other Goth players try to minimize their use, with the exception of hussars for raiding in Imp. I’ve seen a fair amount of people propose buffs to the Goths’ stable, range, or siege workshop, but IMO none of those changes would make the Goths much more appealing. I’ve mentioned this in many other posts, but there are quite a few other civs that focus on “flexibility” and broad tech trees, but Goths have never been one of them. Bottom line is, I think cavalry line buffs are fixing something that isn’t broken, while ignoring what is broken. I see buffs like this as more of a weak consolation prize - “well, sorry your eco sucks and your infantry are mediocre, but wouldn’t you like this nice, shiny paladin?”

Any kind of military buff or incentive that is not directed towards the barracks I see as undermining the Goths’ infantry focus. The main point of the Anarchy is to (theoretically) make the barracks the only military building the Goth needs. Originally, their champs countered other champs (no longer the case), their pikes countered cav, and their huskarls countered infantry. I see no reason to change this dynamic, but rather to “make it okay again”.

I’m biased of course, but heck yes. It was a rather odd nerf in the first place, considering that they’ve gotten no improvements since AoC and were not OP even then. It was nerfed because of the fear of, you know, Goths being good at what they were supposed to be good at. It should make a comeback, and more unequivocally so if the Perfusion speed boost ever gets nerfed down to 80%.

Maybe, but who ever chooses a civ because “they’re okay?” Not this guy.

This is not a new strategy. This is the Goths’ bread and butter as soon as they can afford to do it. Obviously it was stronger when treadmill crane was around, and is still viable without it, but given the power creep since AoC, I see no evidence that giving it back to Goths would be overpowered.

23

I’m assuming they get an economy bonus and that 10% pop cap bonus, I do not only want to give them paladins. I think that paladins will be great agains other very strong late game civs like the turks where the infantry spam option doesn’t work. Remember that researching paladins is very expensive and costs a lot of time while they’re not even fully upgraded so I don’t think it will remove the focus from infantry.

Every civ needs natural counters. The goths will have the other infantry civs. I only worry about being weak instead of strong agains other civs that they are intended to counter (this is why maybe they’ll need the plate mail armor)

Like I said, I don’t think anyone will choose goth just because their paladins. And if they get the eco bonuses, that will make them more appealing.

The perfusion nerf is only needed in my opinion if they get plate mail armor, because their early imperial would be too powerful. I wouldn’t nerf it if they don’t get that armor upgrade, just like the huskarl pierce armor nerf.

1 Like
24

Not an expert or anything like that but would cheaper infantry techs for Goths help their early eco, like cheaper barracks techs/upgrades. Would help them have stronger infantry earlier, while allowing them to get their late game sooner by saving some resources along the way?

25

I pretty much agree with what @Szebo210 wrote, but @SirWiedreich does bring legitimate concerns, like

or

I will try to answer these as best as I can. So for the first point, while buffing another part of their tech tree would make the Goth’s infantry focus less essential while playing them, it wouldn’t “undermine” it. We have several exemples with other AoK civs: the Britons for instance had quite an underwhelming anti-building potential with their lack of Siege ram, Cannon Galleon and BBC. Later on they received Cannon galleon so that they get a better navy than American civs (ie.not being denied by fortifications) and even latter received Warwolf that completely makes up for lacking BBC and made their siege among the best. And yet when you say Britons everyone thinks “Longbows” first. Same for Japanese: buff on trebuchets, access to bloodline that made their cav definitely better than Vikings and now allows them to go cav archers (and gave them a complete archery range) But everyone remember the Samurai first. And it goes up to today’s Persian, whose trashbows overshadow their elephants only because the latter is so impractical to use in Random matchs where trashbows shine. However, their cavalry focus isn’t weakened but made stronger since it compliments their cav armies so well (btw is there a problem with Hand canonneer? Everyone forgot them on Persians and they don’t look enough for the Goths either, despite being their only (!!) FU unit) So basically if it’s done right (and I’m completely open to the idea it might be not by giving them Paladins) it will make the Goths viable alongside an actual eco bonus.

Second point is that while there are indeed 3 new Paladin civs, each one of these have another cav option that might be more useful/practical to use, while Goths won’t have such conflict. Also, right now all usable Paladins are FU. Basically, the Gothic Paladin would be the “not perfect yet still strong cuz 1 upgrade from being FU” option, while Celts and Byzantine have the “almost bad cuz 1 upgrade away from being Korean” option. Such units are often still useful for their civs, like Mongol Arbalesters, SE onagers, and so on. Exceptions to this are the really upgrade/bonus dependant units and only 1 I can think of right now is the Cav archer: for instance you never see Persians (and rarely Cuman despite Steppe Husbandry) HCA cuz no bracer, nor you see Bulgarian HCA cuz no Ring archer armor and no discount (unlike Huns). Another advantage of Goths over Celts/Byzantines is that while they would have to bear with imperfect Cavaliers before getting the upgrade at least they wouldn’t have the burden of both bad knights and horrendous Cavaliers.

26

After thinking for a while and playing a few matches with and one against the goths my opinions have slighty changed. Let me start explaining what balance changes do I think would be right now:

  1. Some kind of early economy bonus which the community always agreed about (I still think, that faster TC building speed and extra villager hp bonus with free loom can make for it)
  2. The +10% instead of +10 population bonus of course
  3. They don’t get paladins. The reason why I wanted them getting paladins is because then they would have an answer for situations when spam is not possible. But what are those civilizations who can counter this massive goth flood propelry, but would be wrecked if the goths get this unit? The two civilizations that would be most affected by this are Turks and Koreans, in other words not the worst but slightly below avarage strength civs. If we buff the goths this way we would just weaken other below avarage civs which isn’t the way how we want to buff them. Another fair point is what @SirWiedreich said, 3/4 of new civilizations got paladins, and that goths should stay goths (with the same principles) using infantry in 95% of the cases.
  4. Yes, Perfusion should get nerfed down to 80%, and they should also receive treadmill crane for exchange. I’m getting more and more confident about the importance of this change. First of all, I was wrong about the production rates in the post above, I said that goths will only have that early imperial age game where they can outperform the enemy production, and that’s because of perfusion, but later the enemy can catch on. This is not true. Once the goth player realises that the enemy has the same production he starts building barracks again and for every barracks the enemy has to build approximatly 2 military buildings which is definitely not worth it (more time to build and more cost), so all in all, the gothic late game is really not low-tier, lets says it’s slightly above avarage. :slight_smile: In summary this perfusion tech could be really overpowered in both early imperial age and late imperial age game, in early because of the quick coming big production boost, in late because goths get +20 population limit instead of +10.
  5. They get plate mail armor, and huskarls have -2 pierce armor. The main issue with goth champions is that they’re just weaker huskarls in nearly every perspective, the only advantages they got over them is that they have +1 melee armor, more bonus damage vs eagles and have around 3/4 of their cost. Huskarls even can be created from barracks given that you research anarchy. Like I said, if we want goths to counter the civs they are intended to counter then we definitely should give them a some kind of military buff also and I think this will do the job. It won’t make any difference is many cases (like vs other infantry like sirwiedreich said), but those are not the civs they are intended to counter. But versus archer civs like mayans this +1 melee armor will come in handy when some troops arrive to block the way to archers. With champions getting not only +1 melee but also +2 pierce armor this will make them more viable over the huskarls and in some situations they might be even used over them like the elite skirmishers over elite genitours. To bring up another reason why this upgrade is needed: goth champions are actually not cost effective versus other fully upgraded champions.

Funny enough, I listed here down all the changes I listed in the original post (except that they get treadmill crane), however explaining with completely other arguments. What do you think?

27

That’s fair enough I guess (I would like to have more experience in MP but last time I got to play Goths the opposing pocket obliged me by going mass crossbows and letting my castle go up 11) However I don’t think Champions are just “inferior huskarls” and are often more useful against melee opponents. With the exemple of the Mayan matchup, Eagles vs Huskarls = Eagles win! (likely not really cost effective but we are speaking of the civ that get more ressources) So right now the Goth player has to mix Champions and Huskarls to win, while with this change Huskarl spam would be enough (so no need for Champs anymore)

Against bonused infantry sure. But normal champs? I mean I don’t see a Mongol or Saracen player switching into Champions vs Goths and coming on top.

28

Ooops I forgot about supplies. RIP me 11

29

How about give them +15-20% popspace. Make all their military cost 5% less resources per age starting from feudal age.

Remove the discount on infantry, nerf perfusion, give them supplies.

Like this they get an eco bonus when their military is still fully upgraded (feudal & castle age). They don’t have fully upgraded units in imperial. They can make up for it due to more popspace & cheap units.

30

They lack thumb ring so their archer are equal to Franks and Celts (!!!) in Castle. I’m not sure how strong the bonus would be, after all Portuguese have a 15% discount on gold for ALL units and yet no one would use them for an archer rush (only -6 gold!) or even knight rush (only -11) . And while the bonus will be good in Imp, why wouldn’t they start doing a Hand cannoneer flood (yes, it’s FU) since Perfusion would be nerfed?

31

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JWMoO3oGto It’s just funny it happened right now (even though debates on Goths have been going on for a while here)

32

So what do you think of the goths now? I definitely disagree with the most recent change and I think it should be reverted

33

You had pro players like Viper who told this development team not to make this recent change and they did it anyway. The Devs don’t even listen to the pro players let alone peasants such as ourselves. As I said before on several accounts, you give them the plate mail armor upgrade in Imperial to offset not getting supplies, and you have their Boar hunters work like 40% faster in conjunction with what they have already. That’s it. Pretty simple and would work well. I play Goths a lot on team games and I enjoy them. Those are my proposed changes, but they’ll fall on deaf ears with the people who run this game.

34

A lot of playes told this was a bad idea. Heck, it was not so difficult to see. I think it should be reversed ASAP. I would buff them give by giving them 50% more food on hunting animals

35

Wouldn’t that possibly give them too much of an edge in rushing? Especially on valley v non mongols?

Imo their main weakness is castle age or vs CA factions (thus i also agree on the plate mail buff)

36

Welp, some peasants here happened to propose this change. Also many peasants wanted SL on Mongols.

But Goths get Huskarls…

37

No. They’re not getting food faster. Just more food. It would save them some wood, and yeah, hunt food is faster than others, but still, it’s not as good as mongol bonus

38

Can’t kill what you can’t catch.

39

If the Goths have a 1.5 multiplier on their boars, they would get 680*1.5 = 1020 food, which is a 340 increase. So it’s weaker than the Tatar bonus (+400) and since said Tatars are perceived as underpowered…

40

Yeah definitely not as good as mongol bonus. But the hunt would help them for feudal rushing.

I play goths a fair amount and i always feudal rush. You have to have farms for it, and the hunting will allow more pressure as you can delay farms(so less workers on wood, so more workers on food, meaning more m@a training + sooner BS upgrades )

Or same workers on wood but more barracks or blacksmith sooner.

Its an extra 300 food from boars roughly? And how much from local deer 300 - 400 is a rough guess. And that’s extra food harvested faster than would be harvested from farms (further compounding the buff)

Now throw into the equation valley(even more animals)

41

Not 100% sure. Because while in theory cav archers can kill any melee unit except light cav, you need to spend time microing them, and the huskarls is quite hard to outmicro, virtue of speed+pierce armor. And at the slightest mistake your CAs get slashed to death. Also, Goths get serviceable skirms, their only prob is that their onagers are bad.

1 Like