oh trust me i’m right there with you - i literally don’t like hte unique techs of burgundians and sicilians.
Remove then free Wheelbarrow and Hand Cart free, make them researched instantly.
Remove the feudal age warship discount.
Reduce the team bonus to 10% cheaper docks.
Bring back the former cost of Chieftains, the nerf wasn’t even need and worthy.
I could see this as fair too. still costs them resources but they get it instantly. saves on idle tc time.
i honestly don’t think these are needed.
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But if you check the winrates and playrates:
Vikings are simply too above of all civs, Italians are just sightly higher despite the nerf (the university discount is proved to be a buff on water).
true, but i don’t think that is due to feudal age.
honestly i doubt its due to feudal age play tho. vikings aren’t that good in feudal water (no fireship), and you’re already nerfing their feudal (and early castle) by making them pay for WB/HC as is.
Vikings are still very strong in normal mode.
^^^^
My personal opinion is that if we take away free handcart vikings will be a civ with avarage strength in the normal gamemode while a bit better than avarage in EW. If after a potential nerf it turns out that I was wrong and it hit them harder, then we can still give them a dark age buff.
Good day.
I have had an indeapth discussion about this topic and now I see others have a somewhat simmilar oppinion about the current OP vikings as I.
First off, I play exclusively sp and only enduldge in MP with my friends and then we fight against the AI, so my viewpoint is focust on these aspects.
Be that as it may, I too enjoy watching Pro tournaments from time to time.
One issue I have with the current meta is the excessive use of archers and complete lack of infanrty use.
Having archer bassed civs use archers are fine (Britons,Ethiopians and so forth) but what I am starting to find tiresome is the repeatative use of Vikings just because ‘‘Viking strong eco gud’’ , now, sine this game is BASSED on actual cultures and Histories I would suggest that the devs keep history in mind when they alter the civ balances.
Watching game after game where you have Viking arbs vs viking arbs is really boring and tiresome, and what bothers me the most is that the Vikings were far from being an archer civ.
They were an infantry / naval civ , using their longboats to transport their infantry all over and then raid / defeat their enemies.
Secondly, the Vikings had extremely weak lands for argiculural purposes, thus their ecconomy was weak, so weak infact that it forced them to go raiding other poeples/kingdoms in order to obtian goods,food and wealth.
Keeping this in mind, it vexes me that the Vikings are strong due to their OP eco.
Thus I prepose the following:
Have Vikings lose free hand cart + lose Arbalerster but instead they get Halbedier, have their longboats be able to attack as well as transport units (loses transport ships but they have non attacking Longboats in feudal age.) and gift them cheap trash units and castle cost change to Stone 450 and wood 300 (since their castles did consist of a lot of wood). Or Since they get Halbs change their unique tech Chieftains to allow Beserks to be made in TCs.
Raiding your enemies and defending with your cheap trash untill you get to Beserkers.
I’d enjoy raiding coastlines and rivers using longboats to transport infantry and skirms to the shores of my enemies.
Byzantines.
In turn have Byzantines lose Hand cannoneer, bombard cannon and bombard tower , Trash becomes more expensive and Imp becomes more expensive but Civ gets free wheel burrow and free hand cart. (For even when they were still the Eastern Roman empire, they already had WB+HC).
My main goal is to give the Vikings better infantry / skirm/naval options ,paving the way to get to beserks, instead of seeing the constant Viking knights and Viking Arbs.
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nerf vikings on land? buff them on water? is it opposite day?
idk why this forum is full of balance posts by people who have never even played a 4v4
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Hmm. Interesting points.
I would also like Mongols to be inspired by historical accuracy, as such I propose this.
On reaching Castle Age, Mongols get 20 free cav archers, to represent the Mongol horde. In the name of historical accuracy of course 
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Oh when you talk about Mongols and history, I have quite the idea for an event:
If you really want to connect AOE2 to events of today, give us a Plague event 
, with rewards such as a ‘‘Plague doctor’’ Profile Icon and give the Mongols a unique tech (Biological Warfare) that allows their trebuchets to slowly drain the HP of any unit located within 3 squares of the impact point by 1 HP per second for 10 seconds. Depicting how the Mongols flung rotting ,plague ridden corpses into enemy cities to infect the besieged.
Would be OP. Are the units losing hp as long as they stay within 3 feet of impact or do they still drain hp after they leave the zone?
no the effect only lasts for 10 secconds (10 points of hp damage ) untill the next tebuchet projectile hits. So if they run away after the first hit, they will only lose 10HP.
No, when it hits and they walk away, do they continue draining until 10 hp is lost or does it stop draining after they leave the 3 tile zone? If it keeps draining, that is OP, if not I would say it would be an interesting bonus
EIther way can work. It is just a basic idea…based on history. haha
I would just add it as a bonus, not switch out their Imp Age UT
Could be extremely deadly if you hit bunched up units. 2-3 shots could cripple the enemy army
Well… they did not call it the BLACK DEATH for nothing i guess haha
With all these changes Vikings would become useless on water, because without their eco and without their naval bonuses in feudal they just die to fire galley spam.
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Look that’s where the historical stuff just goes too far. Mongols already got a mighty strong siege technology (based off their skill in sieges and on their mobility) and the strongest cav archer unit (still based on history) that’s more than enough. You can’t just keep giving civs more “historical” stuff than they already have, or you end up with a gigantic mess.
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That is honnestly just an Idea that popped into my head whilst I was reading up on Mongol sieges.
I don’t really ecspect nor want that to be added.
Although I would love a plague event.
Vikings have been needing a nerf ages ago, they have been a solid top 5 civ since aoc days, the other old top 4 civs have been nerfed several times on their eco bonuses, while vikings just got a nerf in the chieftains which was an unnecessary buff back then, their ship discount is still too strong with the eco free upgrades they get.
Their big problem is that they are a top ranged civ being an infantry/water civ design.
They need two nerfs, they can keep the free eco bonuses to keep their identity, so losing thumbring could be the nerf they need and longboats losing one range so they aren’t as dominant as they are in any water battle.
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