For me it is very clear - Slavs and Bulgarians.
Someone else pointed this in various threads before and I totally agreed with him. He just compared civ bonuses. I think we can add other elements of civs like architecture and language, and they are also same for these two.
I can already see this thread can turn into a “Redesign Slavs” thread. Other than that, please share your thoughts on which two are most similar in terms of design (not gameplay style).
Tatars and Turks too.
Both have almost the very same stable units, both have focus on durable hussar and heavy cavalry archer with resources saved form certain technologies (light cavalry and hussar, Chemistry, Thumb Ring and Parthian Tactics).
Tbh they also play very diferently, with Tatars not using gunpowder much since they dont have bombard cannons and Turks lacking skirms and an strong early eco and military bobunuses without gunpowder
But yeah the cav aspect is quite similar
Bulgarians and Spanish both lack crossbows or any real serious eco bonus, get discounted blacksmith upgrades, and good trash withs spanish having all upgrades and Bulgarians missing only RRA and having stirrup hussar
Hands down Slavs and Bulgarians, even though they do play a bit differently. Slavs more eco and Bulgarians more military, bonus-wise.
Honorable mention is Franks and Burgundians.
This is true, but they play out differently enough that I don’t think a lot of people notice that (beyond missing Xbow). Bulgarian Smith bonus is just a lot better, and lets you tech switch much faster than Spanish.
Japanese and Dravidians have a lot in common - Top infantry, FU Archers, Wood Bonus, Fishing Bonus. Even Urumi largely performs the role of a Samurai, but much better. Overall though, Japanese come out on top, with their strong infantry bonus being free, and with much more viable cavalry in place of questionable elephant units.
But yeah, don’t think any other pairing comes close to Slavs and Bulgarians as far as similarity.
i want to mention ethiopians, vikings and some meso civs. Strong archers, no or bad stable, flexible eco bonus strong infantry with fast unique unit (zergs, shotel, eagle).
I dunno. I feel like with them it’s a quality thing for Franks cavalry, but Burgundians it’s about budget despite getting a worse product out the end. Plus the latter’s focus on gunpowder is fairly different.
Teutons and Sicilians?
Yeah. I think you can make an argument for them to take #3 spot.
What? They are a lot different in my eyes.
IMO that’s #2.
I think when it comes to siege/Infantry civs, Slavs and Celts come to mind.
Bulgarians have strong cavalry in comparison. Boyar is still rarely an option for slavs despite detinets.
Of the cav civs Persians and Spanish feel qutie similar. Despite having different tech trees, they often play out in a very comparable fashion.
Of the meso civs Aztecs and Mayans play very similar on Arabia at least.
From the archer civs, at least in the beginning, Dravidians and Japanese are quite similar.
The biggest difference between is that Dravidians don’t have Knights…
Cav Archer civs we don’t have too many and most of them are quite different. Even the 3 SL civs often play out completely different. Maybe Berbers and Mongols can be compared as they feature a lot of similar units including the similarity in the UUs.
To me the most similar are Spanish and Bulgarians, never thought about Slavs and Bulgarians before
I think Dravidians are similar to Vikings and Japanese. Also Tatars quite the same to Mongols
And Incas are like nerf Aztecs
As I said in the thread, not in terms of play style, but design.
Ethiopians are more similar than Japanese to Dravidians by design. While Japanese is more similar in terms of play style.
Huns and Magyars usually have same army combo. Although transition is opposite. Huns CA → Cavalry, Magyars Cavalry → CA.
You are considering play style, not design.
imo all civs have kind of different design… only a few civs are really outstanding there
Like Mogols with their super fast start or magars having all three main lines to their disposal.
For me it’s more interesting how they effectively play out, because design is useless if it doesn’t applies to the game playstyle. Like the mentioned magyars. How often do you see them using their Arbs? They are probably even the one single civ that has the least variation in their openers, despite having all power lines to their disposal.
Franks and Sicilians are also pretty similar. Bonuses around dropping castles, tanky cav with a focus on knights over light cav, good infantry, archaic axeman infantry UU that benefits from the castle age UT, cavalry imperial UT, bonuses around longer lastlibg farms
Sure, there are diferences, and in some ways Burgundians are closer to Franks (paladin civs without bloodlines, they also both have gunpowder, bad archery range) but I think Sicilians are closer.
In general LotW is just the DLC adding French civs
Slavs are an slow civ with good cav (particularly good cav on melee and also great hussar spam)and has above average siege, can spam fortificatiobs. That seems a lot more like Bulgarians than Celts
Persians and Spanish to me at least arent very similar because Spanish are all about castle drops and conqs.
Burgundians and Franks are very Similar
And both speak the same language that is langues d’oïl (French)
Burgundians speak the Bourguignon Dialect
Malay, Vikings and Dravidians share the same theme of “can only play infantry + archers with a UU that takes too long to get going” with overall weak Siege. All 3 get a fairly strong eco boost to justify infantry + archers (especially infantry) not being fully meta units.
Italians and Byzantines can feel very similar in how they play in that they are defensive and relying on building the counter unit, with the difference that generally Italians are a weaker version of Byzantines who come out stronger overall because the cheaper counter units is a better bonus than the Italians bonuses combined. Their tech tree in the late game looks similar in that they want to play some cavalry, Pikemen and Bombard Cannons.
Mongols and Lithuanians can feel the same until Castle age, I guess Mongols get Camels but until they get to their desired comp in Imp, they play very similarly on Arabia because they need to do some aggressive opening since these civs don’t have an eco bonus after Dark Age.
the fact that Tatars have Halbs while Turks don’t even get Pikeman means their late game looks very different. In general, if a Turks player is pushed off gold, it’s GG for him. Not necessarily true for Tatars.
Vs Turks it’s generally very safe to open Crossbow on Arabia, which forces them to respond with their own Crossbow, +2 Knights, or Light Cav (generally unviable in early Castle Age unless you went full Scouts in Feudal).
Bulgarians and Slavs cannot be imo
Similarities: Heavy Cav, Hussar, Bad archers, Siege, Defensive buildings, Infantry, No GP
Differences: Blacksmith, CA, Farming, Monks
Compare that to Teutons and Slavs:
Similarities: Heavy Cav, Bad Archers, Siege, Defensive Buildings, Infantry, Monks, Farming
Differences: Hussar, Gunpowder
But ok you also take architecture language and culture into account.
