Wouldn't it make more sense to buff weak civilizations instead of nerfing strong civilizations?

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
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Wouldn’t it make more sense to buff weak civilizations instead of nerfing strong civilizations?

Instead of nerfing powerful civilizations like Sweden, Inca, United States, it would be better to level other civilizations with these civilizations. Because when powerful civilizations are nerfed, people who like to play with these civilizations no longer play with these civilizations, and there are even people who quit the game. Nerfing civilizations doesn’t balance the game. Causes players to cool off from the game. So don’t nerf powerful civilizations. Restore powerful civilizations you nerfed. Buff weak civilizations and turn them into strong civilizations.

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No. Most of the time its way easier to nerf one unit (e.g. caroleans) , compared to buffing all other units (e.g. all musketeer types). Also players who like OP units/civs like them because of their advantage. I dont care if an ashigaru has 4, 4.5, 5 or even 10 speed as long as it has more speed than the opponent. So buffing all others is just the same as nerfing one, with the only real differnce being, that its way more work for the devs.

(im not talking about mechanics like the carolean charge! only talking about stats)

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Since when is inca a powerful civ lol they’re D tier. US as well is a solid mid tier civ not a powerful civ by any means.

What you should have said was ‘Instead of nerfing powerful civilizations like sweden, china, india’.

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I agree, inca can only play at age 2 and a bit at age 3

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This in theory is fine but usually results in “power creeping” where the most recent civs scale increasingly to the point that meta is simply whoever got update last is objectively better than most, and if your civ is not boosted you are miserable . Nerfing top and buffing bottom usually leads less distance between top and bottom civs so mote balance

See LoL and perfect example is 40k on how this ends

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You can imagine a simple scenario:
For example, carolean overperforms.
If you nerf carolean, that’s one unit.
If you buff all musketeers (eg give all of them +1 damage), that’s already a lot of work. Besides that, how fo you deal with units that they counter and units that counter them? That’s an overhaul level of work.

You only see buffs like that to really underused units like halberdiers or grenadiers, but not those that are part of the existing balance.

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