Thoughts on Bulgarians?

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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Bulgarians are already fine at noob level. They need a buff for pros to use them since they weren’t used in any of the recent tournaments. I thought that is what we are discussing in this post:

If the Krepost replaced the castle, then Bulgarians could respond to this by also going to imp and making trebs (and Konniks on the way to Imp). The enemy would have to gather 300 stone more than Bulgarians so that could slow them down enough for Bulgarians to keep up.

Kreposts are way more expensive than towers, they are not free.

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I seem to recall seeing them used in a quarter or semi-final in the first T90 Titans League. That was over three years ago, but it’s still recent enough.

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Sorry, I wasn’t clear.

One krepost costs the same resources as 1.5 stables and 4 houses, for which it provides equal value. By building a Krepost, you essentially GET 1.5 stables and 4 houses.

It ALSO gives you the equivalent of four towers, but since you’ve already paid for the Krepost via the 1.5 stables and 4 houses, the Towers are functionally free.

That’s the huge thing people neglect when it comes to the Krepost; you see many people building houses and stables, when they’d be far better off building Kreposts, instead.

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44

Fair enough.

But with so many civs, there will be some left out. Especially when the map pool is completely unfair to them.

I liked NAC_V drafting for this reason. Some random bans would force pros get out of their comfort picks.

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45

They should have been named Bulgars.

(And Portuguese should have been named Lusitanians).

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46

The idea of their cavalry generate +5 gold after killing each enemy military unit will be too strong compared to Persians one as they have very quick Rate of Fire 1.42 (1.9 for generic Hussar). If that happens, the Hussar tech can be removed. In Beta version, Bulgarians didn’t get access to Hussar.

I previously proposed some interesting ideas for Bulgarians without changing the civ identity and deviating from the history, as follows:

  1. Blacksmith and Siege Workshop upgrades cost 40% cheaper (from -50% food).
  2. Sheperds drop off +15% more food (Early Eco - Bulgars/Bulgarians were well-known for their Cattles)
    OR
    Town Centers slowly generate food (Slower than Gurjaras Mill. This will synergize with their cheap Town Centers as mid game economy bonus).
  3. Mangonel-lines deal additional projectiles (Mangonel has 9 instead of 6, Onager has 12 instead of 8, Siege Onager has 15 instead of 10). Bulgarians had good siege weapons including catapults, they can deal slightly more decent hit especially to skirmishers/archers/siege units in castle age.
  4. Dismounted Konniks base attack reduced from 12 to 11
  5. Elite Konniks and Elite Dismounted Konniks reload time reduced from 2.4 to 2.2
    (Since the Dismounted Konnik buff, Castle Age Konniks can incredibly beat almost all cavalry UU, but the Elite version begin slightly falling apart compared to other cavalry UU or strong Paladins)
  6. Stirrups makes cavalry attack 30% faster instead of 33% (to offset & balance, this technology is strong). This can balance the +5 gold generating

General Change:

  1. Two-Handed Swordmen HP increased from 60 to 65 (Honestly Bagains are too costly for what it provides compared to other UT for infantry. It only affects one unit while Druzhina, Garland Wars, Wootz Steel affect many units. The good thing is that Bulgarians get free militia-lines upgrades. However, although Bagains Two-Handed Swordmen are good against trash units, they mostly lose to other unique Militia-lines and don’t perform well against heavy cavalry compared to other unique Militia-lines. -10 HP than Champion also makes them worse against archers.
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Wait Bulgarians hadn’t Hussar before launch? Only thing I remember is that they once had Hand Cannoneer.
Do you remember more things they didn’t get or once had?

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Ahh, my mistake. It just came up into my mind. They already did get access to Hussar in the beta version and access to Hand Cannoneers, as well as Lithuanians had parthian tactics. I am sorry, probably I saw benchmark testings as there were Light Cav and Hand Cannoneers.

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They were undrafted in NAC5 as well despite having random bans. So they are the only civ that was not touched in 2 consecutive big tournaments.

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My thoughts on Bulgarians:

  • they are a civ with strong cavalry & infantry & siege, but lacking crossbows and gunpowder. I find this design fine and wouldnt change it
  • they have good win rates at low elo and are not liked at high elo, so I would rather sidegrade them than straigt up buff them. The buff should be mainly targeted toward high elo, which mean no buff of an UT or of something pro stay away from. An overall buff to the milicia line could work though.
  • I find the civ has very good late game options in all land maps, and is lacking in early to mid game (fine early game if maa rush is viable, fine mid game if the maps inventivizes kreposting resources). Which is a reason why pros do not play them much.
  • I like the concept of super cheap blacksmith upgrades for easy unit transition.

As always, I think it is important to agree about which goto game plan the civ should have. I would like it that the civ keeps (or gets) the feeling that you can easily switch between skirms, knights, pikes and LS. So:

  • free milicia upgrades for easier transition vs eagles and (byzantines style) trash. But we probably need a LS buff for this to really work.
  • cheap skirms upgrade against archers/xbows (elite skirms costs no food)
  • cheap transition to castle age knights (cavalry armor)
    The objective would be that the opponent has to invest into 2 or 3 different lines, and falls behind economically because of it. In comparision, the Bulgarian players falls behind if he is on the usual scouts into knights because the opponent makes his own knights while having a better regular eco bonus behind.

Simple buff ideas in my mind, which got proposed in older topics:

  • give back paladin, remove the stirup affecting knight line → instant love in team games at the expense of less konik love
  • buff elite koniks (ex: +1 PA, +10hp, -4s train time) → koniks can be better used as paladin replacement in team games.
  • move the blacksmith bonus more toward early game. ex1: techs costs up to -125 (min cost=0), ex2: all 5 feudal age techs cost no food.
  • buff LS in some way (ex. movement speed up from 0.9 to 1, and get +1 MA, same buffs to 2HS and champions). If LS are viable, Bulgarians have a potent transition, saving 250f 105g + blacksmith savings.
  • Kreposts 50s cheaper, but are also weaker (like -600 hp, provide +10 pop instead of +20)

And aain, Bulgarian are entirely fine for most of the player base and only needs a change if we want to see them used competitively. And even then, the buff should be targeted toward open land maps, if possible maps like Gold Rush and Atacama.

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51

Okay. i get it. But still Bulgarians archer play being a dead end means their Feudal aggression is not so easy as Magyars. Magyars can easily add archer with scout as CA will follow. But Bulgarians archer play with 50 food savings from Fletching is a big gamble.

Yeah good response. Maybe DauT didn’t think deeply.

Thing is putting eco bonuses on civs is really a bad way to balance. We have only 2-3 civs without eco bonuses. Removing one of them will really ruin the game for the most part. If anything some civs could lose their eco bonus.

Ironically there are not enough CA bonus left either.

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Free Ballistics Honestly, I don’t think Bulgarians should be a good CA civ. I think militia buff is more possible.

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53

It seems to me that the point of the civilization is flexibility. That being the case, I would be more inclined towards more General bonuses, rather than specific unit bonuses.

That said, it costs an ordinary civilization 850 resources to get all the blacksmith upgrades for castle age ca. Bulgarians can do it for 575. And, of course, they don’t need the crossbowman upgrade.

If you wanted a specific bonus for cavalry archers, I would be inclined to make them buildable from kreposts.

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54

175 wood is way cheaper than 350 stone.

Collection of wood and stone is not same. You’ll most likely have Two Man Saw while no stone upgrade. That’s 30 wood/min vs 20 stone/min. Also you’ll have very likely 2 stables anyway. Also for monk, you need stable.

That’s solid. But don’t think Krepost as a replacement of either stable or Castle. You need all 3.

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55

Valid points. Don’t forget you have 100 stone left over, though, which helps things a lot in early castle age, and more than makes up for the collection difference. Most often you end up seeing no use for the stone for a significant length of time, and then maybe 5tcs if they survive the early pressure.

Plus, to play a civ correctly you need to intentionally lean into their civ bonuses. When one of your greatest strengths is a stone building, not going for stone techs is a classic mistake. Not instantly, of course, but far sooner than other civs.

Sure, but it’s all about timing. You’re probably going to have a stable left over from feudal age, and you don’t need a castle until late castle age or even early imp. So the main priority going into castle age is gonna be Kreposts, especially as your blacksmith bonus starts to wane.

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56

Don’t be. They don’t get utilized for the same reason towers seldom get utilized. They’re an expensive bandaid that become an extremely easy target once the opponent has advanced. The difference between towers and Kreposts are that Krepost can make a knight-like unit, but again, if you’re spending resources on this building and then spending (a non-negligible amount of) food/gold to make the unit, your opponent will definitely be able to beat you to the next age and remove your investment.

Also, Konniks are incredibly expensive to make and upgrade for what they provide, given needing at least one castle for Stirrups and a stable for the cav upgrades and the blacksmith for the armor. If you’ve ever made Konniks without Stirrups you know that their performance heavily belies their statistical footprint. Further, if you’ve made any other cavalry with stirrups you’d never, ever consider spending all that time investing into Konniks instead.

I like the Konnik. I’ve played with them quite a bit. That’s why I can tell you it’s their third-best cavalry unit, by a country mile. It’s so anemic compared to the Cavalier, and it’s too expensive to justify going for them when I can have an insane hussar and turn that gold into Siege, quality CA, Cavalier, Monks, or any mixture of the above and have a better army with a less severe vulnerability to Archers and Monks at a lower cost.

The Krepost is a vulnerabiliy in the later ages and the Konnik is a legit resource trap in most matchups.

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57

Again, you don’t need stirrups; Konniks, even without stirrups, still beat knights on a 1v1 basis, even without getting unhorsed. Per cost, they’re even better.

Again, I think your problem is waiting too long to go into them and spending too much on improving them, rather than getting them out right away. You don’t need full infantry upgrades for them to be worth using; they’re already extremely powerful even with just the cavalry upgrades.

Again, the Krepost can be considered to have no effective extra cost, because you’re basically just paying for 4 houses and 1.5 stables, not to mention that free 100 stone you start Castle Age with.

What it sounds like to me is, you’re not going for Kreposts because you want Stirrups, which means you end up spending something on the order of 1550 extra resources before you even get to production, including the infantry upgrades.

You then enter the fight with a ~13 unit disadvantage, and naturally, you lose.

Give Bulgarians Bombard Cannons
58

In what world do you expect this matchup? Genuinely curious. They have no eco bonus to lead to reaching castle age with an edge, they need to collect the stone to make a building everyone else will have up on the way to castle age by default and it costs more to get into it when you do. Then, you can’t actually make the unit until the Krepost goes up.

If you don’t skip Bloodlines you’ve had to pay for the military building they already have and conceded you have to eat the 350 stone cost of the Krepost right out of the gate and then you definitely lose the fight.

You see this as a “not making this earlier” problem. That’s why you don’t understand the problem. You can’t make them earlier. Your economy is trash. It started as trash. It continues to be trash. It gets no better as the game goes on. You commit to a fight in castle age with whatever you want as Bulgaria and Bulgaria will lose because they are now twenty minutes into a game without an economy bonus and as a result are likely thousands of resources in the hole. Spending 350 resources into stone and digging yourself further into the hole to make a unit will not save you. Plenty of people have done this experiment with the Georgians. Some were successful. Many were not. The Konnik is two tiers separated from the Monaspa in terms of unique unit strength, and a lesser stone cost upfront, with that economy does not make the difference.

In 1v1’s konniks win. Konniks do not fight 1v1’s. When they do, it is the result of the player dramatically outplaying the opponent to make that situation happen that is to be credited, not the Konnik. Wanna know why Bulgarians do pretty good in low ELO? You know now.

P.S.
And the Georgians actually have a good castle age economy. The bulgarians do not.

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59

It’s not like you’re going to just pretend feudal doesn’t exist. Your blacksmith upgrade bonus is at its strongest in feudal, and you’re going to have scouts coming out and harassing your enemy; that’s how you’re supposed to make up for the eco difference. If you’re not doing damage at that point, you’re playing them wrong.

I do get a bit confused as to how people expect to play civs while not using any of their bonuses.

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60

I’m not going to grant that, given how hard it is to utilize multiple units in feudal even if the upgrades are cheaper. It’s expensive to put down the buildings to go scout skirm or M@A archers, and that expense is not shorted by the Bulgarians, but let’s run with it.

If you pick up Fletching, forging, and scale barding, the three most expensive techs from the Blacksmith and add up the savings, you’ll have saved 200 food, or effectively gained 1 villager worth’s of gathering food for ~10 minutes on Sheep. (it’ll be 8 for a faster source, but we’ll run with it.)

That’s not really comparable to a “good” economic bonus like the Britons, the Mongols, the Chinese, the Mayans, etc. So we’ll try to find someone similar to compare it to… Aha! The Japanese have a camp discount, where they get to make mills/camps for 50 less wood. Assume you make one of each, at 50 wood apiece that saves you 150 wood, fifty less than the Bulgarians save in food… starting at least a full six minutes earlier. So even against an objectively weak land-only eco bonus that the civ doesn’t even get picked for and assuming the minimum benefit you would very easily make the argument that this is a vastly superior eco bonus.

Would you like to argue the Bulgarians have a good economy in a different way, or are we done on this tangent?

P.S.
Right, let’s be specific, because details are important and I like to be thorough.

Villagers gather wood faster than food, which is a reasonable question as to whether or not the Japanese bonus is actually better. Villagers gather just under 24 wood per minute. So let’s look at it this way. You’ll go for your lumber camp usually at villager 7. That means it’s been 100 seconds before the bonus kicks in, at which point you’ve saved 50 wood, or, just over two minutes of work time. At villager 10/11, you drop the mill, and again, two minutes of work time. So I’d argue, with this largely ignored eco bonus, you’re effectively a villager ahead for the first four minutes of the game without doing anything. I quantify that as being strictly better than getting that discount (which I can then use) in the middle of Feudal. It’s arguable, I guess.

Count in free Man-At-Arms, and if the Bulgarians are able to make use of that window, it’s certainly better than the Japanese eco bonus on land. No argument. But then it does require you to play well and to actually take advantage of that timing, so it should be better than the bonus that comes from dropping a camp in dark age.

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