Obviously, they’re popular among casuals (and I really enjoy the civ personally), but I never see them picked by higher-level players, especially in tourneys. Why is this? What makes them so bad among pros?
Has no dark age bonus. Without that, the free maa upgrade is nearly useless at high levels since they’ll always expect it. No eco bonus, so they need to get smith upgrades very fast and force a fight which is very difficult. Dozen other civs get some form of military bonus or eco bonus for free. No crossbows is a huge downside at top level and there’s nothing substantial to compensate for it. Kreposts are good but Konniks have 1 p.armor and 33% slower rof compared to knights. You’d still have to build 1 castle to get stirrups. No sanctity on monks, no bombard canons, no +4 armor for skirms and CA, no hand canoneers. Lots of drawbacks.
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That’s why I suggested a bonus involving pigs a while back. What if Bulgarians started with 2 pigs?
The civ is just bad on Random Map but on empire Wars they can be good, esp in very agressive maps where you see prolongued feudal wars to fully use their Blacksmith bonus, and on closed maps, at least on TGs, they are OK but mostly see Halb+Siege Onager with their Swordsmen ocasionally used.
But that doesn’t change the fact the civ is just soo slow for the current meta, too predictable, one UU that requieres several techs to shine in the late game, is simply too predictable and they die to Gunpowder civs on arena, without mentioning how poorly do vs mass Cavalry Archers.
By pigs I assume herdables. 2 pigs extra or longer lasting herdables is more of a bonus for feudal age, lets them afford more around 12-14 mins where getting army, upgrades and vills simultaneously is tough. You could use it in dark age by going pre-mill drush but that way you’d lose the free maa benefit. Dark age bonus is something that helps click up faster either through faster food or saved wood which lets player click up faster. -100 wood on barracks will be a dark age bonus, 1 less vill on food instead of wood in dark age itself and click up 1 pop sooner for french drush build.
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The real problem with bulgarians is that they are essentially forced into an MAA Rush that is always expected, and then have nowhere to go with it, since MAA become useless after the early parts of feudal age.
Even so, they can do relatively well in Castle age if they use their kreposts offensively. The problem is, that doesn’t typically allow them to finish off their enemy single-handedly, and when the enemy hits Imperial age, they are able to build trebuchets, effortlessly tear down all of those kreposts, and basically instantly win the game.
Their core issue is that they are forced to lean too heavily into their unique traits, which makes them predictable and one note.
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You can’t steal my topic. I was about to make one. I want refund. 11
Not only can I deduce Gargy’s alts like a real detective, I CAN ALSO READ MINDS! MUAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
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Being predictable is not a problem. The problem is the strategy with m@a is not strong enough. Like Arena Conq, it is predictable but still very strong. M@A at least needs a generic buff and maybe bulgarian one needs more than that.
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what if for their eco bonus, the first mill, lumber camp, and mining camp created will spawn 1 villager, so they have the potential to get 3 extra villager after spending 300 wood in dark age
Bulgarians are meant to be an aggressive civ with no eco bonus, like Magyars. They were about average in everyone’s tier lists before. But lately, devs have been doling out bonuses and buffs to other civs, making Bulgarians weaker by comparison. You can watch Ornlu’s state of the civs. In part 3 of that series, he ends up creating a separate tier for power crept civs like Bulgarians.
The reason pros don’t use them is a combination of no dark age bonus, no eco bonus, general weakness of infantry, restrictive tech tree till mid game and lately power creep of other civs. Any one of these issues can be managed, like Magyars lack eco bonus but still popular among pros. But Magyars have a great tech tree with access to arbs and paladins and cav archers. Bulgarians suffer from all these issues. Bulgarians are barely mid-tier on open maps, bottom tier everywhere else. Most critically, Bulgarians do everything worse than other civs, so Pros never pick them.
Lack of a dark age bonus slows down the opening, free MAA kind of compensates for it. Lack of an eco-bonus virtually guarantees they are going to be slower than the enemy to castle age, unless the enemy makes a mistake that costs vills. Blacksmith bonus doesn’t really work as no one gets many blacksmith upgrades in feudal, so there is not sufficient competitive advantage there. Cheap blacksmith upgrades could have allowed for a lot of damage in Castle Age, but they lack xbow - one of the most common and cheapest aggressive options in the game. This means they cannot really catch up to civs with eco bonuses. Bulgarians also have bad monks, no gunpowder, and bad water tech tree which almost guarantees a loss in non-open land maps. At this point, even Bagains loses to Wootz Steel, Garland Wars and Fereters (I think Bagains 2HS also loses to Druzhina champs, but not sure). Fereters really hurts because Bagains 2HS were supposed to be most durable in melee 1v1 fights, but now it is Fereters Champs. Armenians don’t even have to sacrifice any techs for this durability like Bulgarians and get eco bonus unlike Bulgarians.
I think giving them an eco-bonus goes against their identity. I want them to be aggressive like Magyars. We could buff their existing TC discount since they already have it, but nothing else.
Here are my prefered suggestions:
- Increase TC stone discount to 100%
- Increase blacksmith food discount to 75% or even 100%
- Bulgarians lose access to castles, Krepost replaces castle in the tech tree - this allows for smoother transition into their Stirrups UT which makes their knights the best in the game and early petards.
- Barracks cost -75 wood - this is technically a military bonus (and an infantry bonus) but can function as a dark age eco-bonus since everyone has to build the barracks in dark age. It can also help in pre-mill drush BOs and in late game, you could spam infantry out of more barracks to simulate a Goth-like flood.
Even on EW aggressive maps, they still get outshined by Sicillians’ bonus damage reduction and Incas (including before their food discount buff).
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Then they will always suck.
Magyars should also have an eco bonus.
There are good civs without an eco bonus
Imo they should buff the blacksmith discount to bw better on later ages
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They need some alternative for lacking xbow. Scorpions cost -60% wood and heavy scorpions available in castle age.
All civ Heavy scorpion upgrade become cheaper. (Cost 800F/750W → 600F/400W)
Bulgarian scorp upgrade → 300F/400W
Give it BBC for close maps as well.
Bulgarians isn’t a really bad civi, in very open maps or chaotic is good, because blacksmith upgrades are cheaper and krepost map control.
The so bad civi is the sicilians.
I think no Xbow is bigger problem than obvious MAA rush. Archer is the natural follow up after MAA. Even if it is obvious being viable to play with Archers long time wouldn’t make them this much unpopular.
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