0 voters
Indians makes zero sense as an entity during the Middle Ages. They lack a lot of graphic assets too.
Byzantines are kinda boring to play. Same with Saracens. Their boni are kinda everywhere.
The Feitoria of the Portuguese still hasn’t really found its role after all those years.
Vietnamese are the poor man’s Maya or Britons. Paper Money is just bad as tech. Give it a permanent effect on top.
This is just the opinion of a casual player, take it with a grain of salt.
Huns are just not fit in the Aoe2 timeframe. They should not be included as civ in the first place. Their building set is central European and they speak Mongolians, which makes zero sense. Other nomadic civ like Tatars or Cumans/Kipchaks should be included earlier.
Their bonus of not need to build house was stupidly OP and they were totally broken for many years.
Italians are just too generic civ that their only Bonus is just DISCOUNT. They are underwhelming on the land and nearly Broken on water. They don’t have any military bonus. That civ need total redesign.
Magyars are kind of similar to Italians. Their tech tree is too broad and their scout is too powerful in super-open map. However, they don’t have any eco bonus. They are broken in the super open map like Haboob and their post-imp army of Magyar Hussar and HCA are really unstoppable when they get it. But they are underwhelming in normal game mode like Arabia or Arena.
I just think that New DLC civs are Okay after latest patch. Burgundians lack BL, Sicilians lack many upgrade but both civ can compensate by their bonus and UT, which is ideal civ design. Techs should be limited but more bonus or UT can be given to characterize each civs.
Cumans, Sicilians, Burgundians and Burmese feels like the civ in the worst spot right now from a design perspective.
Burgundians and Cumans simply feel to me like the most unfun civs both to play and to play against right now.
Sicilians I hate both UTs, and the serjeant-donjon mechanic still feels kinda pointless honestly. Mediocre and uninspired civ IMHO.
Burmese need some kind of identity, they should be an elephant civ but they’re probably the worst Rise of the Rajas civ to go elephant with since they don’t fit in their composition at all. They need something vs archers aswell.
Then, on a minor note, I add Lithuanians since I’m not a fan neither of the relic bonus nor of the +150 food (which is overpowered for hybrid maps) and the civ is basically all about those 2 bonuses.
Honorable mention: Spanish, quite pointless civ right now except on nomad maps.
Civs I would have put in top 5 few months ago but I’ve been positively surprised by:
Indians, since the CA buff I think they’re a legit civ and they’ve been figured out a lot in the last 6 months.
Italians, which i genuinely tought they were hopeless for land maps, but in the end, expecially after the latest buffs, they’re pretty solid on arena and still decent on arabia.
Turks, If tomorrow they randomly remove turks out of the game i think no one will notice it. Ultra generic light calvary civ.
Sicilians, their bonuses and gameplay are boring and stupid.
Indians, i don’t think they are really bad, but since the first time they appeared, they have become the most difficult civ to balance in 3v3.
Well, if you only have 5 civs to choose, you must constrain yourself to the dumbest designs out there.
So, this ofc includes Burgundians and Sicilians by nature due to their disruptive design that makes basically little sense in the aoe2 environment as long as First Crusade and Flemish Rev exist.
Then the classic failure being present since aok, goths. A civ that is all about spamming infantry is rather stupid and covering their weaknesses with more spamming even more. One-trick pony civ that is designed just around one gimmick that is rather doubled down on than fundamentally changed when seen its barely balancable.
Same story different expansion: Indians - Crucially missed in ES times, however bending the whole civ around an ahistorical gimmick of having no knight but a paladin like upgrade for camels is just bad idea by itself. heavy camel is good enough to compete with paladins so no need for something on top just for techtree aesthetic reasons. Especially since that extra upgrade isnt enough to balance out the lack of knights so you need to give Indians on top 2 camel bonuses…
And finally, Cumans. Also a civ that is totally designed around making feudal tc work somehow. But its hardly balanceable, because their only eco bonus is the most unflexible out there but adding flexibility is a core property of eco bonuses. So if the feudal tc has been adjusted to not be op, it suddenly is underwhelmingly situationaly and depending on the map. On top, feudal siege workshop to defend against tower agressions when you went for feudal tc is also barely affordable and hence not really cool design.
Long story short - if you force too much to disrupt the game with singular civs it often will be like you cant make them fit in the environment anymore because they are too different (and you have achieved what you wanted if you worship disruptive designs too much)
Cumans: if you want to have an eco bonus, you have to make your second TC in feudal, otherwise you have no eco benefits at all. i also don’t like the UT cuman mercanaries, but it is way better than first crusade and flemish revolution because you actually have to TRAIN the units 
Lithuanians: I like the civ a lot, but i really don’t like the relic bonus. It makes the games with a Lithuanian player involved so weird and frustrating. Especially in team games; with the help from your team you basically always get the bonus attack.
Sicilians: Can do everything but nothing well enough. I think they should receive Thumbring to make their archer plays more viable. Also i despise both of their unique techs.
Burgundians: Flemish revolution is the most stupid thing in the game and should be replaced with something permanent (which fits the games philosophy). Castle age cavaliers are strange, but i get used to see it.
Tatars: don’t like free techs too much (Thumb ring, parthian tactics). besides that i really enjoy the civ.
Koreans: free armor is needed, but war wagons need some tweaks to rebalance that buff.
Khmer: i don’t like the team bonus. It can make scorpions super viable in closed TG maps like arena, black forest or amazon tunnel. this team bonus in combination with Celts, Slavs, Ethiopians and Chinese is ridiculous. They should change it somehow like they did with the old mangonel team bonus from Koreans
Vietnamese: make player locations the team bonus and imperial skirm a civ bonus for vietnamese.
thats it, that are my thoughts
agreed.
yes please.
on the other hand, it’s literally all they got going for them in the long run, and they would not be a good civ without it. on one hand i like the design. on the other i don’t.
i don’t think they need to be redesigned, but they need something.
i would notice and hate it - i love turks, and i would love to see them get some more love.
The Slavic and Magyar bonuses makes it look like the devs were running out of ideas and so they just made whatever they could cheaper and just stuck with it.
I think those two points are interesting, because I feel like depending on the arguments both could be fine, both could be a bad idea or one could be good, the other bad.
I think the relic bonus by itself can work:
For a civ that doesnt also have faster working monasteries as tb,
For a civ that has alternatives for not getting any relic so there is still some diversity in gameplay
For a civ that has weakness on their knights which make the game still open even with all relics gathered.
And despite none of these Lithuanians aren’t exactly OP. strong? absolutely. but OP? nope.
They are in tgs and are very very reliant on getting relics otherwise they have nothing really. This poll is about design not balance. And every game with lith participation is pushed by them to be about relics. Lith are like byz on steriods, a civ without weakness but very strong bonuses on top that make them good on any map (-> hera gave them S tier in his best civ tier list on all maps). And I dont see any real connection to medieval Lithuania that makes sense flavour wise.
the thing is that Burgundian Paladin are nowhere near to the power level of the Lithuanian ones. Burgundian Paladin are worse than a generic fully upgraded Paladin. Lithuanian Paladin with 4 relics on the other hand are super busted.
not really, pros rank them as A tier. which is not overpowered.
that’s because its literally the only thing they have going for them in team games.
without weakness? how about a crap mid game - and a lack of a good long term economy.
but on arabia and team games he made them only A tier.
so how would you change Lithuanians then?
Frankish Paladins don’t reach Lithuanian levels either - but what is the prefered civ for team games - Franks. why? because they have a better economy.
Burgundian Paladins don’t have quite the staying power but they have an absolutely awesome economy to spam out units with and can reach paladin faster then Lithuanians can.
Total redesign, make something with feudal monks to reflect paganism idk. Also doesnt matter cause they would be Single Player civ only since Poles would represent them in MP well enough. No need for twice the same civ just with different name and one mounted and unmounted version of the same UU 
Huns have Eastern European architecture because they didn’t have towns but they DID subject Eastern European towns to their domination. I think it’s a nifty way of making them work, although admittedly they sit pretty far outside the timeframe having dealt with the Roman Empire who are in AOE1.
Maybe I’m getting used to it but in my opinion, the Cumans are well designed (on paper at least); I like their gimmick bonuses. I just think they need a slight buff somewhere but not sure where
For me the worst civilizations (in terms of design) are those that come from the DLC The Forgotten and Rise of Rajas (saved perhaps the Slavs, the Incas, the Magyars and the Malays)
I’m not entirely sure with the Burgundians as they are balanced, but UT and UU: the Flemish militia feel weird TBH
The Huns share a time period with the Goths and Byzantine so it seems fine to me for them to be in AoE2
Shred everything? have you played any single TG? Lith paladins with 4 relics still need 4 hits to kill halbs and 3 to kill arbalests, the attack is mostly felt vs other Paladins (which is the whole point of the bonus).