The water meta is wierd

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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I was just thinking about this the other day, and I think it’s kind of strange how Italians, Vikings, and Portuguese are the top water civs. I mean, sure they all have discounts or similar for naval units/techs, but they aren’t the only water civs. I’m not proposing nerfs or anything (Although they do need some), but I’m just questioning why the following civs aren’t really the water meta:

Byzantines:

They are literally one of the only two civs with every naval tech in the game, but for some reason they don’t really seem to be top tier. They also have Dock’s with more HP for free, Fire ships that attack 25% faster, and a unique tech that gives their Fire ships +1 range. Considering that Galleons tends to be the main water unit, why are Byzantines not really the best?

Spanish:

The only other civ with every naval tech. They also can’t really be rushed on water, and in the lategame, they have Cannon Galleons that fire 18% faster (I think the bonus applies to cannon galleons as well), are more accurate, and have faster cannonballs. They also have trade units bringing in 25% more gold, for the longer team games on water with trade. Seems weird that a civ with such a good lategame isn’t that popular. Probably because cannon galleons need other units as well though, and Spanish don’t really have bonuses for them.

Malay:

Malay miss only heavy demolition ship in their tech tree. They also have fish traps with 3X the food, as well as being the only civ that can make their docks shoot arrows, effectively becoming wood-only towers that must be placed on the waters edge. Their docks also have double the LoS.

Koreans:

Granted, Koreans are missing the entire demolition ship line, but they have military units costing less wood, which I’m assuming applies to naval units as well, not to mention the superstrong Turtle ships. If Turtles had a +0.1 buff to their movement speed, they could be a lot better. For defense, they also have towers with extra range, as well as heated shot. They really could be viable if the Turtle ships moved slightly faster.

Sicilians:

Sicilians aren’t as good as the other four, but I think that they are still pretty reasonable, considering that they only miss Elite Cannon Galleon, save extra wood with the farm upgrades, and have transports that are 50% cheaper and have +5 LoS. That seems like they could be potentially alright on water.

Chinese:

Last one, Chinese seem like they should be alright on water. They do miss Fast fire ship and Elite Cannon Galleon, but they have demolition ships with +50% HP, as well as cheaper techs, which I’m assuming apply to naval techs as well. They could be ok.

Okay, there are probably other civs as well, but those are the six biggest ones I can think of. They all seem like they could be alright or even good on water, but they don’t make the meta. The top three probably all need slight nerfs to open the way up for some other civs like these to shine on water.

Disclaimer: I don’t really play water maps, but I know what the meta is, and I was just thinking about this, so here it is.

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There are some big ones that I think are stronger than some of the civs on your list.

You forgot about Saracens: their Galley line attacks 25% (!) faster. They also have a bonus on their Transport Ships. Considering the Galley line is the most used warship, I am most surprised about Saracens not being a top water civ.

You also forgot about Japanese, with their faster working and tanker Fishing Ships. The Japanese are considered to be strong on water maps, probably because they also can get a faster Feudal time with their cheaper dropoff buildings, but they are not considered to be top 3.

Then we also have, of course, the Berbers with their +10% movement speed for all ships. That’s handy, as they can dictate when to fight.

I think early game is more important for naval civs than lategame. You can’t wall on water, so you must have a strong early game in order to not lose right away.

I think that it would be awesome if more water civs were viable! I wonder what needs to be done for that. If I didn’t know anything about the meta, I would not have guessed correctly which civs were considered to be the strongest on water.

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I did. They aren’t really a top tier civ, and I don’t really like playing them, and I was also just looking at dock techs on the wiki, so I kind of forgot them.

I did consider them, but I wasn’t sure if I reckoned they were good enough.

True, true.

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From my perspective, dark age eco boni are more important than most naval military bonuses. with better dark age eco you can start fishing earlier and snowball your eco advantage to a tech or number advantage. For this reason I review civs like Persians and Lithuanians way stronger than most of the civs you mentioned. Even Celts is a decent water civ imo despite a terrible tech tree.

I even review Koreans and Chinese as some of the worst (maybe Flop5) water civs in the game. Chinese kinda cannot fish boom in dark age at all.
And Koreans are also a slow civ, which is compounded by not having demo ships, which makes it very hard to come back from this disadvantage.

Btw, this is just a perspective from a 1k player

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As other says: missing econ / ship discount hurts. Although I think most of the civs on your list are pretty good on water (just not the best)

Btw pre-imp bonus or even pre-castle bonus are much more important, as the water fight starts at Fedual age (you cannot really wall the water) and the fish bonus is just huge

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Until I started playing a streamlined water buildorder with Italians I would have thought the same.

Properly executed the Italian buildorder can completely crush the enemy navy & fishing fleet. After that you can get to Imp far faster than your opponent because of fishing, and harass her/him from the coast.

Perhaps its just because on Islands there’s only one battleground and walling is impossible, causing small advantages at the start to snowball extra hard.
As evidence for this, in team islands a lot more civs are viable, possibly because the ocean is bigger and there’s often fighting on land (at least in pro tournament games).

Vikings can come back because of their insane discount + longboats, and Portuguese get a ‘free win’ if they survive till late Imp which puts the Italians on the clock, but for all the other civs its really difficult to come back into the game after losing the first water war.

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How unfortunate that the Saracens miss out on Shipwright. Their Galleons could dominate late game naval battles. ’

Berbers, too, I suppose could make good use of their faster navy.

Their naval bonuses don’t warrant missing out on the crucial Shipwright, unlike the Vikings and Portuguese.

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In my opinion, cannon galleons’ duty is siege, destroying buildings, instead of fighting. The better accuracy and faster cannonballs are meaningless to bombarding buildings. I would support removing this civ bonus and then add a new one that the elite cannon galleons upgrade free. That may be more useful.

Really bad in the feudal fire galley battle. The victim for balance.

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I feel water mechanics are too simple in comparison to land mechanics to do much for changing the current water meta. Simple, straightforward mechanics = Simple, straightforward bonuses are the strongest bonuses. Unfortunately adding brand new water mechanics has up to a 99.999% of never happening. But imagine something like Fishing Ships gathering more types of resources, like gold through a sea animal valued more for luxury than food. Or Fishing Ships having a weak attack and repair ability, like Villagers have, to give players the option of using Fishing Ships to boost their military rather than their economy, so Naval civs with good water military bonuses, but no water economy bonuses, have something to leverage with their military bonuses.

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Yes, or builder boats being able to construct docks, sea walls, sea gates, and sea towers. All in shallow/medium water, except for docks. Also they could repair boats. If that was added, the water meta would have walling, and could get quite a tossup. Then vikings could have longboats double as transport ships, and gain shipwright, but maybe lose galley line as well. Then it just comes down to longboats, which could also be allowed to move overland, in a packed form. Meso-american and some other civs could get canoes, which would be quick, cheap, rapidly produced, have a bonus in shallow water, but die super easily. And boarding rafts/privateers to capture enemy ships. There are a lot of things they could do to change up the meta. Sadly none of them are likely to happen.

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Pretty sure this is why it wasnt added ingame.

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Maybe, but do you not agree that the water meta is rather stale, and that would make a change?

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I dont think we can make it any better.making it complex is unlikely to make much difference.

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The bonus lets CGs be not completely useless in naval fights. The become a viable long-range support. Comparable: skirms with hulche are still terrible vs cav. but they are less useless, which situationally can mean that 30 hulche skirm could maybe beat 4 paladins, while generic skirms probably could not even beat 3.

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They are totally different. What you stated about is the effect of additional projectiles. You can use this example to compare the Kipchak, Chu Ko Nu, Longboat, etc. but just not the cannon galleons.

If you need a comparable example, you could mention the trebuchets. You may not use the trebuchets just for killing the oppose units on purpose right? So do the cannon galleons.

Surely, mixing few cannon galleons could help against oppose navy incidentally. However, nobody would use them on purpose when he/she is just urging a navy battle, only if there is a requirement to destroy oppose shoreside buildings.

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It’s a different mechanic, but the impact is similar. If at some point you have to engage with CGs/skirms against galleys/paladins, spanish bonus/hulche lets you do almost double the damage. and in the rare case you have so high numbers that you win the fight, the bonus cuts your losses almost in half

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You already stated it. “Rare”.
A bonus only useful in the rare case. Really passive. Would you design the bonus that the galley line having attack bonus against infantry for a potential civ?
Sure that having it as a bonus better than having nothing but I would like to change it into an other active one if there is a chance. For example, free elite upgrade I had stated.

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and in the usual case when you dont have overwhelming numbers you lose the fight but cause almost double losses on opponent

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“The water meta is weird”

I am already working on it… Gimme time till next year

:face_with_hand_over_mouth:

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The key is snowball on water. There is no sophisticated strategy involved, so the initial start is what counts the most. Several of the civs that are mentioned in this thread have basically no eco bonus on water, to make the fish boom rolling. Some of them (CHinese!) have a tough start with very restricted ressources and can go even later on water than generic civs. Chinese are maybe one of the worst water civs because they are just late to start any kind of snowball.

Look at Lith, they dominate on hybrid maps because they can start the fish boom snowball way earlier than any other civ. Maybe they aren’t good enough for full water maps as then you need to make more actual navy, but the civ actually showcases quite nicely how water currently works in the game.
I think that’s explanation enough why certain civs are so strong on water and others not, it’s the extremely snowbally mechanic of water in the current game design. And the lack of alternative strategic choice to compensate for falling behind.

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