What would you suggest? The thing is, Portuguese are more of a late game civ (at least as much as Goths, and probably more so), so it’s sort of a delicate balance if they were to be given any major early bonus.
Agreed. I love the farms becoming a little cheaper, and the +1 armor is interesting, but it really just sidelined the Teutonic Knight even further.
A new unique technology: Tartar Sauce: Fish Provide 2X food.
Edit:
You may be right that they need it, I don’t know for sure, I just think some civs were not given certain units/techs for a reason, and can still be good without them. I guess what I’m saying is that being the only civ to lack a unit/upgrade isn’t necessarily a compelling enough argument to give it to them, and I’ve seen a lot of people do that with a lot of units/techs, regardless of the civ in question already being fine. But for Turks this may be worth considering more.
And it turns out that the Teutons’ new armor bonus is only melee armor and not also pierce armor (and it’s the pierce armor that Teutons lack!). DauT tested it. Their melee units need a further buffing.
I’d say that the Teutons have just escaped the bottom tier now. (if we’re defining bottom tier as “worst 5 civs in the game”).
Would the Teutons be overpowered if they were given the light cavalry upgrade? Because I think that light cav, like E skirm is, perhaps, one of those essential units that all civs should get.
And, again, that is NOT the same as making all civs get the same upgrades and units. What I’m suggesting is lightyears away from that. There’s a huge difference between (a) accepting that a small selection units and techs may be essential for all civs (b) giving all civs the same units and techs.
I agree, and I think that my idea of giving the Turks elite skirm is not necessarily a good one but not necessarily a bad one either and is, therefore, worth considering.
Wow, I didn’t realize the Tatars and Cumans dropped so rapidly into bottom-tier status after being so OP originally. The Cumans at least have Kipchaks, right?
It’s hard to predict how buffs or nerfs truly affect performance on paper. The only real way is to see how they do in multiple games over a variety of maps unfortunately. This is the hard part of balancing because it’s much more trial and error since there are so many variables that come into play.
They have so many more good points. Like being cheaper goldwise than foot archers while being way more bulkier. They cost no gold to become elite and instead of being countered by rams they counter them, and are more effective at it than Mangudai.
The Tatar one, I still don’t get it, but looks like they are bad, but Cuman are far from bottom tier. The Kipchak is fine,they still get Paladins, good infantry, Siege Rams and Siege Onagers, insta spawn Hussars/HCA for their late game, and they can actually get there because of their booming potential and early pressure options.
Maybe to buff the Tatars, their sheep bonus should be improved a bit more? If they can hold off from being forced towards farms just a little longer, it could help their early game quite a bit.
Burmese is an interesting pick and I almost picked them myself because I reckon that Burmese have gone from very strong to very weak ever since their Arambi was nerfed and then nerfed once again. In the end I decided that the Byzantines were weaker because although they have a strong tech tree and are great at defense and coutnering … that’s all they’ve really got going for them and they just aren’t able to be aggressive or economically powerful. They’re TOO defensive. They could be far worse and they have plenty of strengths but when so many other civs are even stronger and a lot of the other weak civs have been buffed and they haven’t … they don’t seem so great anymore.
I disagree with your Malay pick, though. They can be a powerhouse on hybrid maps and there’s a reason why they’re picked quite a lot on some maps by pro players in tournaments.
I reckon that we’ll get to the point that the absolute worst, the 35th best, civ in the game seems pretty darn powerful when viewed in isolation, and that all the arguments to their weakness will seem silly, but when you compare them to the other 34 civs you will realize they’re all better so they must be the worst, the 35th best, after all. That is the direction that I foresee that we’re heading in. And I don’t think it’s a bad one. I think it’s what near-perfect civ balance will look like (and I say “near perfect” because it will be impossible to perfectly balance 35 civs but that doesn’t mean that the devs aren’t competent to get very close to that. That may seem absurd but the reason why I believe it’s possible now, but certainly wasn’t in the past, is because we’re getting monthly updates and the devs are, in my opinion, doing even better work than they did on HD (which makes sense–as it afirms what I read in an interview with the devs … that they’ve learned a lot. Which is a good thing, by the way, and doesn’t mean that the devs are students in any sort of bad way. It’s a good thing as the wise saying goes: that the wise person learns more from their student than the student learns from their master).
Welp, besides the Arambai nerf and the Howdah rework (because an elephant able to eat 320 arrows was a bit much) Burmese still have a good eco bonus, quite a lot of versatility (heck, they can even do an archer rush and be just fine with crossbows for a good while), god tier infantry and monks being the best part. Imo Goths still belong in this top 5 because while not useless, you’ve got 1 trick to use 100% of the time if you don’t want to remain the same ol’ bad Goth, and it makes you super predictable.
I’m aware that they don’t sound bad in isolation but what 5 civs would you say are weaker than them (factoring in both land and water maps)?
I agree with you, as I think they’re the 6th worst civ in the game, overall, right now. But I’d say the 5th worst civ is pretty close between Byz and Bur.
By the way, I’m glad I created this thread. I’m (a) enjoying this discussion and, more importantly, I (b) think this thread is productive and constructive
I would say Korean deserve more to be in that spot than Burmese then. The Korean cavalry is even less usable than the Burmese archers and they got overall more weaknesses in their tech tree (like bad monks, meh infantry and less versatility in siege, even if I have to admit the SO is enough for them.)
Welp, I actually think that Koreans are very strong nowadays, though! Their wood eco bonus and warwagons PLUS their defenses, altogether combined, make them pretty darn good, in my opinion. I’d say they’re mid-tier … and nowadays I think only half of their awesomeness is their trushing.
Yep. And their FC is out of this world if you adjust your build for their bonus, and they have the most viable elephant rush.
This one seems a little odd to me. Burmese have a solid eco/lumber bonus, get super infantry for free (basically 3/4ths of Garland Wars over the ages, and without the penalty of losing halb like the Aztecs), have siege-level battle elephants, and even the Arambai is still decent. Not quite as good as conqs in Castle, but close, and easier to mass. I agree that they’ve kind of been lost in the shuffle amidst all the new civs and new buffs, but I’d still put them solidly at mid tier at lowest. Like quite a few other civs, they do infantry almost as well as Goths, but Goths have nothing else going for them. Time will tell, but I’m not totally convinced that Goths have broken out of the bottom 5.
I tend to agree. I like the idea of buffing more civs in more ways in order to bring as many as possible up to a similar power level, rather than nerfing anything that might be too good. That way, players will choose based on “which strong option do I want to go for,” instead of “which civ sucks the least?”
Edit:
I mostly agree, although not necessarily because of being 1 dimensional. They were one-dimensional in AoC, but were probably mid-tierish back then, so it’s definitely workable to make them good while being still reliant on infantry, I just don’t think the latest buff went far enough to rectify the nerf of Supplies and all the power creep since AoC.
Have the pros figured that out yet? I mean, I know plenty of pros are really good at Malay but I am yet to see a clear Malay build order and how it differs from non-Malay build orders. DauT has said many times that he reckons that Malay aren’t truly figured out yet, and that he thinks they will be even stronger once they are figured out (and he, more recently, suggested the same thing with regards to the Cumans’ Feudal TC bonus (and, don’t forget, DauT is ALWAYS right because he is the most experienced top player still playing (and, because he’s DauT, but I digress))) …
… e.g. do you think Hera will someday publish a YouTube video that is a build order that is EXPLICTLY for Malay?
