This is one of the rare instances where the pros complaining about how strong a bonus is was misdirected
The 5% starting in dark age was something that should’ve been with them since inception but apparently it’s op because it’s an extra villager
You know, despite the fact that Chinese and Mayans literally get extra villagers from the start
You wanna get more nuanced with it, now goths can be factored with an extra vil since they start with loom
Or talk about vikings, how they can keep producing vils without researching wheelbarrow
I see the decision reasoning, but it’s honestly kinda deciding when the bigger war elephant in the room was the kamandaran tech
Kamandaran changes how persians play entirely
Virtually every inception of Persians had their composition be either straight stable units or halb siege in some situations
So let’s lay it out - the best eco bonuses are with civs with few options
Mayans have one of the best economies in the game - yet their only real options are eagle, archer/plume
Vikings eco is amazing but their only options are infantry/archer
Contrast this with civs like Byzantines and Spanish who have no strong eco bonus but a wide open tech tree
Persians, with the 5% dark age bonus joins the ranks of Mayans and Vikings
However
The kamandaran tech completely ruined the progression of their playstyle
Pre-DE Persians have a good eco but their post imp is bottlenecked into paladin/heavy cam and hand cannon - stable units were always your only real option . That’s a good thing though, they’re good at one thing and that one option, just like Mayans with their eagles, requires a lot of gold and therefore map control
However Kamandaran takes a crap on it and just says you can survive better as long as you have a wood line
Why even go for hand cannons when they cost more?
The importance of balancing a good eco is bottlenecking their options and my main point is the 5% dark age buff would’ve been just fine if Persians couldn’t survive without gold like it has literally always been
Kamandaran made them waaay too flexible. Even against counter-archer civs like Vietnamese, kamandaran spam is just too ■■■■■■■ good honestly and I don’t think it’s really a situation where you can nerf it and proceed. I think it’s a fundamentally bad design that might work for another civ.
The 5% bonus in dark age was never the problem. People act like the eco lead you get from the “extra villager” is anything different from the mayans. It’s not going to win the game.
Additionally, I think it would be good to cut the 5% out of dark age for docks - that’s a lot of what makes them hard to kill on water maps
My main arguments
- The 5% faster dark age town center buff shouldn’t have been removed and should have always been with Persians.
**- A lot of pros suggest that it’s equivalent to an extra villager - so? Chinese, Mayans literally have extra villagers on top of STRONGER economy bonuses. Malay who can age up later, Goths as of this patch, and other civs can make a similar claim. **
- The reason why the eco bonus seemed to strong was because one of their weaknesses was removed - by adding the kamandaran tech. Kamandaran makes them very strong. Kamandar + Hussar is one of the deadliest trash armies out there, not even mentioning the fact that this removed their reliance on gold to have hand cannons.
- Kamandaran makes them more flexible and gives them a very strong trash option whereas pre-DE their options were bottlenecked to stable units and hand cans
-The best eco civs have few options and little flexibility but they’re good at what they do. For Mayans that’s archers and eagles. For celts that was always siege infantry. For persians that was always stable units. Kamandaran ruins that balance
- They should’ve just added the 5% in dark age on DE and went a completely different direction with the castle tech.
Instead of giving them a gold-free gold unit, give them a buff in their castle tech somewhere else. Maybe for cav archers, like extra attack since they don’t get bracer