However, looking at the recent buffs, I see that the situation got much better for Vietnamese, Khmer, Teutons, Saracens, Lithuanians, Tatars… the good thing is that these civs (except Khmer) are now in a decent position: no top tier, but capable of decent matchups with all the other civs…
This clearly penalizes the weak civs, which are now even weaker (since equal power civs were buffed). Turks, Italians and Portuguese for sure, but I would add also Koreans (I know they got good buff in DE, but I seems not enough).
Overall, it is needed a so small effort to fix these last civs. Then the low level balance will be perfect.
Regarding the high level balance (Aztecs, Mayans, Chinese…) it is more difficult since it affects directly tournaments. Probably to add variety to high level play, it is easier to give a weak civ a Khmer-like buff making it top tier, but this does not affect the majority of the people… I care more about low level balance since I typically go random civ…
These are the most stated reasons for loving burmese, followed by the infantery bonus. However, I havent seen anyone saying a thing about their monastery or relic bonuses
im caught between byz and burmese as my fav low tier… i think burmese or byz are supposed to be mid tier but feel i cant play them well enough to justify even mid tier
porto or italy feel like bottom rung, but never enjoyed playing them, maybe coz their bonuses are so incredibly boring if you arent playing water…
Ultimately and ideally, balance changes aim at putting all civs on the same level. We’re not looking to balance top tier civs between themselves, and low tier civs between themselves.
We’re looking to tone down the top tier civs so that they become mid tier civs, and to buff up low tier civs so that they become mid tier civs as well.
In the end, all the civs should be mid tier civs, without any top tier civs and low tier civs. But that’s an ideal though, it’s hard to get to it.
That is 100% true. However, since this is an ideal condition, in the practice we have different tiers. Clearly even giving a heavy nerf to Chinese, say making ckn equal to genoese crossbowman, Chinese will still be better than italians or Portuguese.
I think the game is still going in a good direction, where we have a reference scenario (1v1 arabia) which is getting close to have just two tiers, a top one (Chinese, Aztecs, Mayans, Khmer…) and an ordinary one.
To get there (2 tiers only) my feeling is that we need only some tweaks to Portuguese, Italians, Turks and , maybe Koreans.
I guess that with just two tiers, we cannot complain at all.
Previously we had 3 tiers, the bottom one included also vietmamese, Khmer, Lithuanians, tatars, goths and teutons. Clearly now, Italians or Portuguese, which were already behind teutons, need to be pushed in a similar way…
I think Italians are a tough case, because they are already a top tier civ on island maps, if not THE top civ there. Anything we add to them to make them better on Arabia, will make them even more broken on islands. Or maybe some buff to their Arabia gameplay while nerfing their islands gameplay?
I agree concerning Portuguese. They clearly need a buff of some sort. Feitorias is fun and originial, but that’s not actually a strong bonus.
I like how they buffed cumans and tatars recently, yeah. They went from low tier to mid tier and viable, which is what we want.
Chinese do not need a “heavy nerf” imo. Just small tweaks here and there to make them lean towards mid tier slowly but surely. A heavy nerf takes the risk of dropping them directly to low tier.
It’s the same with Mayans, Aztecs, Khmer, etc… Small tweaks here and there. Even though 1 small tweak might not put them on mid tier yet, all the small tweaks will add up in the end. A big tweak is risky.
The proposals of free archer armors and reduced training time for genoese crossbowman are very good in this sense, since they fix Italians on land only, leaving untouched the water game. It seems to me that they have the highest consensus in the community
Hopefully they will get a buff. Let us see the community is proposing sever options, but there is not a clear consensus on the strategy.
Agree
this is exactly want we want. So, the proposals for italians (and more or less also the ones for Portuguese)follow this logic
It is also congruent with the civ design, as Italians are a civ whose theme is “getting there first” and out-teching the opponent, but being just average later on.
I do not entirely agree Genoese Crossbowmen need a TT reduction, however, since they already brutally neutralize the best Cavalry units in the game, even Paladins and Mangudai are hard-countered by them, and it is good that Italians have at least one exploitable weakness.
Currently GC does not do his job because of the TT. You can even unlock the reduction behind Pavise (so the tech will have a reason to be so expensive). It makes sense that Italians counter cavalry. Still the civ is quite weak to archers, having just skirms/ cavaliers and missing paladins, siege rams, siege onagers, siege engineers…
They do have FU Arbalest with Pavise, and FU Hussars aswell.
I still do not know why they took Pavise from the Skirmisher line. It was a nice bonus to have for lategame Trash, and Italians already miss the Halberdier.
Meh, pavise it’s not that big of a deal, yes it’s worth grabbing, but any other civs with some eco bonus and FU arbs are better.
Yes it’s a pity, and it was a big blow for Italians when they remove it. Maybe they did it because they had too many good options from range, or maybe because they want to give it to another civ (lithuanians).
But it’s so hard to mass them, aven in the late game I think I never saw more than 15/20 GC at the same time, while for sure I saw more than 30 paladins. 22s it’s a lot for a foot unit trained at a castle.
People overestimate economic bonii. Specially on Archer line units.
Unless it affects Gold or Wood directly, it does nothing for Archers. Portuguese and Koreans have FU Arbs with discounts to the pertinent resources, and still are not top Archer civs.
Mayans are because of their large discount and Obsidian Arrows, and Britons are too because of the extra Range.
Economic bonii do not push Archers so much as as stats bonii do, as Archers are already easy to mass as it is.
No but in general it allows you to have either more archers or more support units. However my point was that for being an archer civ, pavise is pretty mediocre and it’s their only archer bonus.
I was talking more of japs, chinese, vikings, which aren’t archers civs but they have FU arbs backed by good eco bonus, even aztecs who lack TR are preferable thank to their eco.
Well, of course those are the best, but pavise still isn’t that big of a deal, it’s not britons, viets, or etiopians bonus, so an eco lead it better in my opinion.
EDIT: Sorry, chinese are actually classified as an archer civ.
Well, the whole point of Italians is that they get to Imp armies faster, not that their Imp armies are actually good (though they are decent).
Pavise, as a minor UT, that just pushes their Archers a little bit, which is what Italians really need.
Skirmishers should benefit from it again, specially because they are the only Archery Range unit that uses a shield.
Aztecs have the Training time reduction, which is better than eco bonii, for Archers.
Yet Ports and Koreans are not top notch Archer civs, even though their entire Tech Trees and bonii say: Archers.
Vikings and Japanese have great Infantry that actually combines well with Archer + their good Economies.
Chinese have a good Archer UU (Chinese Arbs are almost never seen, they just go for CKNs), and a huige Tech discount, coupled with a wide Tech Tree.
None of these are really Archer civs (debatable on Chinese, as they are more of a UU + everything civ), but they do have not only great Archers, but also the units to back them up, which is wy they tend to see a lot of play, and tend to go for Archers a lot.
I still think that Eco bonii are nort so important for Archers,as stats bonii are.
They also have cheap HCs, which if they got +15HP across the board, would actually be a great unit.
Well, when pavise affected ES their late game combo were pretty good. ES + BBC + another range unit depending on the enemy civs (arbs, GC, HC), though this was achievable only in team games or maybe arena.
But it’s always late game options, most of the games are decided in feudal, castle, having something not too powerful but that help them a bit on survive and/or do some damage to the enemy is what they need in my opinion.
The point of Italians is to get to lategame faster anyway.
I also am in favour of Free Archer Armour techs, which would benefit Archer and Crossbow Rushes in Feudal and Castle.
Yeah that could work. I would also like +1/1 for free on their arbs stackable, or that pavise would give +2/2, but not everyone like that so…
It would be also good that pavise would affect ES again, but since they first added for remove it soon after I think we won’t probably see it again.
I think they should just make Pavise also affect Skirmsihers, which would be a great bonus alongside free armour techs.
It would essentially cement Italians as a Tanky Archer civ, and give them some boosted Trash too, which would just be a bit more resilient against Hussars.