Top priority for Balance

Hi All!

We spend a lot of time discussing balance changes, but I wanted to put forward my thoughts on which civs should be priority for balance changes this time around.

Starting out, my focus is 1v1 Arabia, I don’t want to disregard all else, but for balance that seems to be the best baseline to work from. Additionally I do value win-rates at all levels, but 1650+ means a bit more to me. Finally, I have to say that I like the current balance of the game, in general, so I’m not interested in major changes.

That in mind both at “all ELO” and at “1650+” there are 3 civs that show up in the top 5, and 3 that show up in the bottom 5. So here’s the civs I’d propose for slight buffs and nerfs:
Nerfs:

  1. Frank’s
  2. Incas
  3. Celts

Buffs:

  1. Vietnamese
  2. Cumans
  3. Koreans

So let’s hear thoughts, are these the primary civs you want to see nerfed/buffed? And how would you tweak them? Or are there other civs you’d argue should have higher priority?

Vietnamese are already better than half of the civs

4 Likes


43% at 1650 plus, only slightly better at all ELO for 1v1. Not saying I want a mega buff, but I’d say they need something for 1v1.

As far as a nerf for Frank’s, I’d just suggest a reduction to their stone discount on Castles. They’ve already got such a nice synergized game plan scouts → kts with all the bonuses supporting that, they don’t also need cheap castle drops on top of it.

3 Likes

So the Incas are amazing in the early game and then become trash :thinking: wonder why… lol. Incas are tough because I’d say then they need some buffs, but also a rework of their villager armor. Basically with incas you have to go vil fight, or you lose. I dont love that design. I call for a nerf to vil forwarding and towers, paired with a more long term buff so they compete later in the game. Not sure what either of these should look like.

2 Likes

The aoestats is outdated, and Vietnam is fine, top priority to Nerf are Chinese and to Buff the new civs

3 Likes

Have they not been updating it, or whats going on with aoestats?

What’s your argument for nerfing Chinese over say, Franks?

I agree, 25% is insane… I made a thread about it a time ago but it was not very welcome

1 Like

Out of these the only one I agree with is buffing Cumans, they have a mess of wacky civ bonuses and unique techs, and sorting it out would probably actually really help them.

Franks are strong on 1v1 Arabia for sure, but they are quite average on many other maps.
Celts are a tough call, because they perform also quite well on closed maps, but nothing really strikes me about it as OP in any situation. It’s perhaps more that they match very well against some of the common civ picks.

As for things that really need some tweaking: Burgundians. Civ concept is good, but it feels a little bit too weak right now.

2 Likes

So apparently, Franks are a problem with 55.6% winrate but Mayans with 55.1% are not.

Apparently, Incas and Celts are a problem even though they were marginally played in all recent tournaments.

Hera just published a “Best overall civilizations” Tier list. Out of your 3 “best” civs, NONE of them are even A-tier. Out of your 3 “worst” civs, 2 are better than Celts and Incas and in the same tier as Franks, Hera also considers Koreans underrated.

So by buffing/nerfing these civs you would arguably WORSEN balance at pro level.

I’ve seen artifacts on aoe2stats countless times, imo winrates on this site are skewed and can not be used for balancing. A few patches ago, Britons were in bottom 5 winrates, even though they have always been considered top tier, and Indians had 52% winrate at the time where everyone considered that they were in urgent need of a buff.

If I were too guess I’d say the civs with high winrate are the ones that are easier to play or have a straightforward game plan, Franks one-tricks are probably much better at playing Franks and so they artificially inflate the winrate of the civ, though even that cannot explain the high winrate for Celts and the low winrate for Lithuanians and Britons.

3 Likes

leave chinese where they are, at low levels its very hard to play, on top levels the meso civs are counterpicks

vietnamese are fine, maybe the elephant UT could get a small buff

cumans indeed need a big buff (together with steppe lancers)

koreans are fine imo (saying that as koreans being one of my favourite civs, decide whether this means the civ is underrated or I value it too high)

burmese need some 1v1 buffs against archers

franks are fine

also the aoestats data is outdated (for example it still measures franks have 25% berry bonus)

1 Like

Since people love worshipping stats other people than the dude at aoestats create charts, so here is something more up to date ig (warning: contains maths) : https://gowerc.github.io/aoecps/outputs/report.html (I will hate myself for that later)

And this is the reason people still are triggered about Franks for being “too good” and Vietnamese/Cuman for being “too bad” I’m not sold on it. Let’s be real so many people were driven to play only Franks after everyone spammed “Frank OP” that even if they were nerfed again they wouldn’t be able to switch out 11 As of Vietnamese I suppose people don’t use their bonuses to their full potential. Maybe they don’t use their better scouting potential, the wood bonus probs don’t help for people who float too much wood ect. Same could be said to some extent with Cuman. Then there is the fact that Cuman are much better in other settings too.

Tbh I don’t understand this tier list. He puts Vikings in S-Tier because they are good on land and water, but they are bad on anything more close than hideout. He puts Byzantine in C tier despite them only being average on Arabia, otherwise they are good on Arena, hybrid maps, full water… Teuton in D tier, really? I could go on.

They’re amazing on open land maps, and amazing on water maps, and do well on most land maps. It’s maps like black forest and co. where you shouldn’t prioritize to pick Vikings (sorry fatslob), but even in general, Vikings is one of the civs I’m never unhappy to get in random :slight_smile:

EDIT: reasoning:

  1. If civ bonuses themselves had tiers, I’d put their eco bonus as an S tier civ bonus. The free wheelbarrow and handcart saves tc time, saves resources, so you will not only have a villager advantage, but also more efficient villagers before your enemy. It is also not a situational bonus. It will always help, no matter what strategy you’re going for.

  2. Great choice of units to go for… you have Berserks, which are fast, have good stats, nice UT that makes them decent against cavalry. The fact that Berserks can heal between battles can really help you to conserve your gold.

Siege workshop is also very decent: Siege Ram, Onager, Heavy Scorpion. Archery range also not bad. Gets all blacksmith archer upgrades, also gets Thumb Ring.

You basically can do a lot of things very well with this civ.

They’re too good at one thing (destroying anything in melee range), but basically any archer play kills teutons

Hera was kinda too biased towards Hybrid Maps (those were pretty common at the Tournament), most civs here can or not shine, hence why he puts Lithuanians at S tier even when he says that in other maps they are a solid A tier civ.

Teutons are a top pick for closed maps, especially in Arena where Siege can deal better with Archers.

Chinese simply has much better eco and tech tree in all stages of the game, plus an insane UU.
In fact Chinese were a constant ban in several tournaments. Their eco is simply over the top.

1 Like

They’re just okay.

The top players in the game seem to think this civ is fine, and I happen to believe they’re wrong. They just like how smooth the start is with the eco upgrade discount, and I’m with them. They just lack so many useful tools with which to close out the game.

I think the reason the top players like them is because of their counterpick capability against archer civs in a draft environment, and while I can respect that role, I think they could still use a bit more in general. I think it comes down to their two UT’s being fluff. The Chatras tech being just a flat upgrade to the Elephants and Paper money being… Paper Money. If they got a meaningful UT, even a small one, that’d help them out just a bit in the later stages I think they’d be fine.

That being said, if the top players are making good use of the civ, who am I to stop them?

1 Like

Only agree to buff Cumans and nerf Franks.

My suggestion:

-Franks:

-Remove free horse collar upgrade and keep others.
-Give them +5% speed for bushes (20% total)

-Cumans:

-Reduce TC build time by 25s.
-Give them +5% cav speed feudal, +10% speed castle, which means they will have +15% speed in castle age.
-Reduce Kipchak wood cost from 60 to 50.

About Koreans i have only 1 suggestion:

GET BACK THE OLD KOREANS FROM AOC

This is a much bigger nerf than you probably think it is. Horse Collar is the most important and consistently useful farm upgrade, as the time it takes for it to pay off is relatively low. The rest might not really matter as not all games last long enough

This just seems like a random assortment of changes, but not addressing any of the glaring weaknesses and problems with the civ.

hahaha, miss the old korean tower rush don’t you? :slight_smile: :slight_smile: Im neutral about this one

AOC definitely means he’s talking about 11 range on onager instead of minimum onager range reduction team bonus.

Ah… tbf I didn’t remember that at all, never played any other strategy than trush with Koreans until all the recent changes with DE