Well yeah I also wouldn’t say these two are generelly worse than vietnamese on arena. Personally I prefer Italians to them (though maybe not in a direct matchup) since they have super effective unit comps against most of the strong arena civs. And portuguese is just difficult to compare because they play out so different with castle age pushes monks or feitorias. My point was just for the purpose of that quite common early imp forward castle arb bbc push vietnamese are great and not rivaled by many civs.
They are indeed insane but when you go for ca you don’t have that arb powerspike which allows you to finish the game or at least get a huge advantage at that point. It’s the overall better civ, no question about that (for different reasons though).
The other civs are generally stronger I agree. But early imp pushes aren’t about uncounterable unit compositions, UU or the like. It’s just really about arb bbc and castle age eco bonus to get to that stage. And with great boom for closed maps, good archers and free conscription to get trebs and bbc faster vietnamese is great for that. That’s all I’m saying. I don’t even like the strat and find it pretty boring. Like moa6 you could see this one basically every game because the area between two players’ bases was shrinked down and as a consequence vietnamese was much more popular compared to regular (e.g. ladder) arena. However even on regular arena vietnamese is a good civ so I don’t know why people here call for buffing them on closed maps.
I thing viet can not massed rattan becausse, aerrly game they had not much êconomy for it, neww eco jusst good after castle age. So earrly bonus eco. + fixx frame delay shooot = plume âre imporrtant more than elephanr war. + kirmish onager knight now antti rattan easay, and impe skirrmisshkish not cheapp male viet nêwd the uu gixx forr more choicce. Bonusfixx rattan frame delay shoooot is not bonus it was fixx uu becausse archer of viet worrthy get ot more than any other civil archer. And bonuss eco aerrly game let they can eass moree, noww earrly they so wweaky for defff and before rush attack
Which is not a bad thing because SOs are expensive to tech in, and rattans should have more than one counter (not only skirms).
Having said that, I wouldn’t mind a tiny frame delay buff to smooth their micro a bit
Regarding a possible eco bonus buff, this one comes to my mind:
“Archery range techs cost no wood”
This would be an extension of their eco bonus. In total, it would be extra 480 wood in castle age (elite skirm plus thumbring), and even more wood in imperial age thanks to imperial skirm.
Both techs usually are not researched in early castle age. Most of times vietnamese would save an extra wood from thumbring for their crossbow push.
I dont know how this compares with tatar bonuses. Tatars sace a lot of wood thanks to their sheep bonus and they also have free instant thumbring. However, compared to italian bonuses, this proposal seems to be excesive.
This is not an early eco bonus as OP requests but I cannot think in any other one.
I used to think papermoney should be changed to grant a gold trickle, similar to wine yard but when chopping wood instead of farming.
Recently I came to understand that such a change would mostly just make them op in trash wars were they already got imperial skirms.
IF that’s the case then I think the best it to just completely replace paper money or keep it as it.
I am not entirely convinced Vietnamese are even that bad that they need buffs.
Leaning more into the direction of nerving meta civs brits (remove free range in Castle age), Franks (remove free farming upgrades) and also better archers civs like Ethiopians (sliglty lower attacks speed bonus), and mayans (-5% archer discount in all ages), vikings (not instant, but cost free hardcsrd and wheelbarow)
Every nerf of a meta civ is a buff for everyone else.
I’m on the side of buffing the weak civs. Nerfing just makes civs more similar, and games become less interesting. Buffing often creates larger differences between civs and makes games play out in new ways.
I still like the paper money gold trickle idea. Even if it means removing Imperial Skirm, their Elite Skirms with 20% HP are still good. Vietnamese trash in general is not great though, since they are missing blast furnace.
Srory I’m in barrack of vietnamesse and in hể can’t use smartphone 2 month more I just come back home I in here for 2 year. If stay at home will not have too much wromg spell like it very sorry all foe delay reply and word + grammar. But like you say archery ranger tech no wood not make diferent but I think :
100 wood early game or
Reveal 8 sheep like sugguest before
/-1 I think it ok for early game when other civil get 100f, or 50f 50w, .v.v
-/but for 2 many people say it not suitable. Anđ it just my sugguest if you ând people can find other think better so good, but with me earrly game better forr they and not make they too slow at earrly game make they weak before they can upgrade to castle age
-/And forr rattan archer frame delay I think ok for viet because dificult forr bônus power for viet, improve the thing wrong from start better! I hold on Idea frame delay of rattan toô high was problem, fault, it neeed = plume archer it not bonus. I can not alway folllow forum but thank you all forr reply my topic.
I agreee but I think reduce cost upgrade better. Like azztect skirrmish but so expensive, when ratttan expensive tô + trash unit viet not have any thing woood when no hussar , no ram, spike lack 2 damage too. Skirrmissh ok but it not have damage too much it thing forr defend , tank unit so skirrmish imperrial need reducw update I think so
Basically a 100 wood start bonus. In empire wars you start with lumbercamos so not as strong here, which is intended.
Very comparable to the Japanese discount bonus. Japanese benefit eventually more but Vietnamese have the wood free eco tech.
Small resource bonuses at start of the game have a, snowball effect so this could already make a difference.
Vietnamese aren’t bad, just harder to play than cav civs which for the average players makes them weaker, but for pros they are very usable.
Vietnamese just suck for those games where nobody attacks pre imperial age and then they face paladins and siege onager. In this scenario their amazing imperial rattan won’t fare well. This also pulls their winrste down on the average players side.
In the case of Lumber, a civilization would be better off having their first two camps free, to allow for early efficiency. Such an eco bonus would foster a very strong Dark Age, and even Feudal Age.
My gut feeling is that if we were to go the buff route (personally prefer the nerf meta route) that it would be better to give them a castle age military bonus or CA specific eco bonus rather than any form of early eco buff.
The biggest hole in their win-rate is against cav civs in castle age (as well as being nothing special against other archer civs in late feudal / early castle). I think an early eco bonuses would be too hard to balance with their existing setup/bonuses.
My favorite suggestions atm still are
Reworking elephants so they take longer to die vs pikes/halbs (but not more efficient)
Some form of discount to the elite skirm tech / archery range techs in general
Though yer neither of these address the weakness to cav civs but I don’t think there is any easy way of doing this outside of bonuses to pikes/monks both of which are out of character for Vietnamese sooo ¯\(ツ)/¯
I haven’t thought it through but would free crossbow be too OP ? Its essentially just an indirect CA eco bonus (free 125F, 75G), I don’t think its too big of a powerspike bonus because its quite a cheap/quick tech that players get straight away anyway.
EDIT: On reflection, I still like the idea of free CA conscription. Its only a CA buff as they already get it for free in Imp anyway and I’m not completely convinced its OP as in CA resources tend to be a bigger restriction than production. I guess the main thing it could upset though is going for CavArchers as you can more easily get to the critical mass (which is awkward when you consider that they already have in theory the strongest CA cav-archers anyway…).
I agree with you, and that is the reason I ended proposing military tech bonuses that mostly affect castle age.
Free fortified walls (almost useless in Arabia)
Fortified palisades walls available in castle age: a defensive boost against cav civs for castle age. Also quite more Vietnamese-like than stone walls. Maybe this should require an Unic Upgrade tech, so the upgrade is not automatic. This would be useless in arena, but I don’t mind so. (In case you don’t know, fortified palisade walls are available in the editor, and are palisade walls with double amount of HP. So they can delay a knight push much better than standard palisade walls.)
Free elite skirm upgrade, or …
discount in all skirm upgrades (not free, but also affects imperial skirm). or…
Regarding your favorite suggestions:
This is not complicated to achieve. For example, they should deal negative damage against spears to compensate for the less bonus damage received, making them as efficient as before. In this case, skirms/arbs would deal against halberdiers pretty easily. The problem I see with this is that the elephant pushes may become very slow.
I think this is the simplest way. But I’m not particularly eager to make the discount apply to all archery range techs because in this case, they would became another Italian civ with discounts everywhere (and elephants instead of condotieros). Tatars already have free thumb ring, and the Chinese have discounts for unit upgrades as well. Thus, I would only pick free crossbow or free elite skirm
Free elite skirm costs a lot more resources than free crossbow. But the power spike would be worse except against archers/pikemen. This fits Vietnamese identity because they are an anti-archer bonus, and the problem is that their skirms already have an HP bonus and an unic upgrade. Also, this doesn’t address the issue against cavalry civs.
Free crossbow. It doesn’t seem so powerful at first glance and could be a decent power spike against cav civs. But besides their resources, the tech cost time (35 seconds, like a new archer unit) and have noticeable effects on the crossbow production (you save 8 seconds per crossbow). These effects may help snowball quickly in early castle age and mass enough crossbows so fast that knight civs cannot deal against them for a long time. I would give it a try in a beta server, but I think this may be OP. Also, having free crossbow upgrade discourages making rattan archers.
