This is very hard to quantify, because it is about feeling.
There are units like Gurjaras riders, Goths Huskarls, Mongols Mangudais, Hindustanis Ghulams, who feel unfair to play against no matter how strong or weak the civ is. Not necessarily for you, but I am sure many casuals and low elos are panicking at the sight of these units, and wont take many engagements, even technically good ones.
This makes no sense. You cannot use the “number of nerfs needed” to quantify how unbalanced a civ is. Because nerfs are not equals.
The following single balance changes should make the civs you worry about less threatening:
Franks: lose cavalry +20% hp civ bonus
Berbers: lose stable discount civ bonud
Mesos: increase eagles cost from 25f/50g to 25f/100g
Chinese: add “-100w” to the civ bonus “start with +3 villagers, -200f, -50w”
Lituanians: lose the +100f/TC civ bonus
Burgundians: increase Coustillier cost from 55f/55g to 155f/55g
Hindustanis: decrease Ghulam PA from 3/6 to 0/2
Gurjaras: riders dont dodge arrows anymore
Byzantines: lose bracers
Portuguese: add “but start with -200g” to the gold discount on units civ bonus
No, Vietnamese are more than fine, maybe for newbie who picks Franks 99% of the time will think they need a buff.
There are more civs who need to be considered more than Viets.
I don’t know who you are but I am sure you are below 1200 ELO regarding your way of speech and judge.
Literally anyone who thinks these civs are balanced or Viets need a buff, literally knows nothing about the game nor have any clue about the ladder or tournaments.
again, Vietnamese isn’t fine. Just because you say they are fine doesn’t mean they are objectively fine. They are at the bottom of the bottom by stats. If anything, they should be looked at first.
I would swap their UT’s. Because how often are Elephants bought in Castle Age, and how often do Imperial games last long enough for Paper Money to pay off?
Other than this, I feel what the Vietnamese need is more exploring. Their bonuses suggest straight Archers ought to be their default strategy on first glance. But I feel they’re subtly more of a defensive civ that wants to hold and build eco for a mid-to-late game payoff with a creeping deathball of CA and Elephants. Examples: Skirmishers ought to benefit more from the HP bonus than Archers, because the bonus stacks with the archer armor that is usually bought for Skirmishers before attack upgrades. The TC bonus makes early scouting and countering of the opponent’s build the easiest to do out of all civs. The wood bonus means adding a few defensive units, or one defensive Tower, won’t bite into wood for building farms in Feudal. The wood bonus also means a slightly above average Scouts build, which the Vietnamese may want to consider opening with for a Cavalry Archer transition.
Speaking of their Cavalry Archers, in my opinion they’re more valuable than Crossbows due to benefitting the most from the HP bonus. CA have +10 HP, and HCA have +12 HP. This means CA have the base HP of HCA for free. This is also half of the effect of Sipahai for free and without a Castle. The bonus doesn’t stack with Bloodlines. Combine this with a solid wood economy, and Vietnamese CA are for sure an underrated unit.
But what to do for a late game body shield for the CA without Hussar and Parthian Tactics? That’s where the Elephants come in. For Chatras alone probably makes Elephants a good enough body shield for 1v1’s, and at a fraction of the cost for Elite.
If this is how the Vietnamese “ought” to be played, then I’m fine with how they are, regardless of the win rates. It makes the Vietnamese an Archer civ with a unique playstyle that is an alternative to Crossbows + Mangonels.
For me that looks like it could be an option to give them their castle age UT for free (maybe with adjustments) and replace the tech with something completely different
Clearly better than Bengalis, Slavs, Magyars, Burmese, Bohemians, Bulgarians, Sicilians, Persians, Goths, Koreans, Dravidians and Celts on Arabia, the most popular map.
I have a similar feeling. Looking at their tech tree, the only thing that fits my personality are the tanky elephants but I have developed a love for their other bonuses.
The moment I started to like them a lot was after their buff with the wood discount for eco techs. That is a perfect eco bonis for noobs. I started to drush after that.
They can play defensively, but not too much because they lack proper defensive bonises plus architecture and masonry.
