I think it would be great if they give Goths one more usable gold unit that's not inf. for more variety in late game. Personally I'd love if they gave them thumb ring - it would make their cav. arch. a viable option. In return they could even take cavalier away - I wouldn't mind at all.
One unmentioned strong point of the Gurjaras is the Cav Bonus damage for the Siege Elephant. Their castle age eles do the same DPS as a siege ram. Literally insane
@@HeraAgeofEmpires2 they need to because they are a much worse unit. Food is way more expensive than wood in castle. Monks counter them without any upgrades. Pikes massacre them in seconds. They need stable upgrades to have similar stats to the ram. They're awful.
@@forsakenquery monks can't counter them lol, they are treated like rams so monks need to stand next to it to convert them and the siege elephant has attack upgrade, they can just beat up the monk instead. Spear do kill them but not as fast as you think especially against Bengalis elephants
@@forsakenquery You never just send in a seige elephant... by itself. It's like Russia in Ukraine thinking they can send in "the tanks" and finding out actually if you just send tanks, the tanks will get surrounded & die. You need to support the tanks (elephants) with some unit that will kill the units trying to kill the elephant. Just like sending in seige rams by themselves usually fails as well, where half a dozen plucky villagers will usually stop your seige push flat in its track if you didn't bring any supporting units. What is relevant though is that the dmg output is so high, that you need fewer elephants to still kill buildings really fast, which means you have the resources to *make* those supporting units that will keep the elephants alive. Other civs need to wait till imperial age to get such a high damage seige unit!
My point is without their damage they are terrible. As they are with the other 2 civs that have them. Gujaras are insane, no question. But the siege elephants are in a good place - they're different and better than the alternative, like they should be. The siege eles in Bengali's are utter crap.
Gurjaras: mounted units bonus helps light cav vs monk too. The biggest bonus is the castle tech for -25% food cost is like many civs primary bonus and makes all their units cost effective. Maybe move that to imp instead. I kind of feel like the civ is in the game to punish players that mindlessly go for cav. Many players still go for cav vs Gurjaras.
I think you left out the biggest Britons bonus for Teamgames: 20% faster Archer production. Archers are more sensitive to faster production bc ranged units scale better. and you get that for both Flanks.
I'm glad you mentioned Britons for team games. As someone who plays majority team games they feel like they really hurt. Something you didn't mention about them is their team bonus. Their faster producing ranges is for me the most impactful team bonus in the game (assuming you're playing with two flanks).
You mention these civs need a nerf and yet you've always picked the honorable mentions as your first choice in almost all your drafts. Hera is sneakily saving his tournament favorites from big nerfs xD. And also regarding Franks - its tied for the second highest win rate with Gurjaras (55%) at even 2k+ elo since the DLC release, not just 1400-1600. Also your score as Franks in all tournaments combined since DE is 15 wins to 2 losses.
@@chriswhite702 Dravidians No Siege Engineers, virtually no cavalry upgrades, unique unit has 0 pierce armour, your anti-building ram is classified as cavalry (cursed) and your unique tech is a worse Garland wars in most matchups.
@@chriswhite702 How about giving Rathas "cavalry armour" in melee mode and "cavalry archer armour" in ranged mode? What about "Battle elephants give a food trickle, Elephant archers give a wood trickle and Siege elephants give a gold trickle"? Maybe 10 elephant units generate as much as 1 working villager?
If your Hindustani opponent goes for Camels and Gulams you're basicly dead. Halbs, Knights and Archers don't work on my side and until you reach Handcanoneer it's over. Great Video btw. as always. :)
This is actually a BRILLIANT list. All civs ranked have game breaking mechanics that can't be dealt with and should be adressed asap. And on the other hand on the honorable mentions we have civs that are a perfect example of something that's "just strong" but not "broken". Franks, Mayans and Chinese are S-tier, of course, but they are only strong because of numbers, not because they break the game, which is the case for the top 5 mentioned. Personally I wouldn't ever nerf the 3 honorable mentions, instead I'd buff all other civs to be on par with them. However the top 5 need to be nerfed for yesterday. Extremely well-thought list, i wouldn't change a single thing. 7/10 list.
The thing with Gujaras is also that they have a perfect answer to everything, same as hindustanis but maybe even better. They open fast archers with their great early eco, you go skirms or archers yourself, which get destroyed by shrivamshas in early castle age and when you transition to pikes (because knights dont work against the civ) they have the chakrams to destroy your last hopes and dreams 11
@@Gunsbeerfreedom87 I think one of the unique techs need to go and the bonus damage needs to go. Then its a more fair civ. You have heavy camels at full cost with extra armor which makes them still very good or you get cheap heavy camels. Right now Gujara camel beats hindustani imp camel. Its just too much
@@Gunsbeerfreedom87 thats true but less true for Gujaras. That +4 melee armour helps a lot. So you go halbs well their camels survive a but longer than other civs and are cheaper. You def cant go any cav. So like arb is your comp you are forced into. So because you are forced there sometimes the gujaras player doesnt even have to invest in camel line and can go chakram shirvamka which are both strong in their own right. So its like what do you do vs this? I think Bohemian is the best counter to Gujaras. Bonus spear damage, good archer line, monks, and houfnice to help range the chakram ball thay will be used to counter your halb, arb, houfnice ball.
Good video as always! The top 3 wasn't difficult to guess, I think those three stand out, the rest feel fine, but as you said, maybe some tweaks to a few of them. Overall I'm really impressed with the balance given the number of civs. Would love to see the top 5 civs that needs a boost video!
100% on the gold and stone ratio. Just going for stone early gets you a few knights and a castle too. *and* the Folwork means you can definitely afford those knights
Love these kinds of videos!! And very interesting viewpoints. I'm thinking a smaller cost reductions for eco upgrades for Burgundians. I like that they get access to these one age earlier, rather than only a cost reduction like the Vietnamese. And yeah, the coustillier definitely need some kind of nerf. Also think THE button needs some kind of change, it feels completely broken.
Funny how Vikings vanished from every "in need of a nerf" list, the second they got Thumb Ring removed (very good change btw). Heck, it seems pro players seldom pick them in their drafts these days. Have they become this unenjoyable to play, now that they're considered balanced? 🐧
Vikings always use to have a pretty bad late game army comp, now its even worse, maybe thats the reason they arnt picked much cause you dont have a very good plan if it goes late, even the fast imp isnt strong enough anynore. (maybe change beserkergang to somthing more powerful, its really a tech no one ever clicks).
it was actually ALWAYS aboring land civ. But before the fast imp arbs was powerful, now its strong but doesnt scale well at all and other civs can keep up
Hera, one impt thing you missed about Gujaras is that their rider bonus also applies to the siege elephants. The original siege elephant is already a free capped ram upgrade. This might not be that stunning in 1v1 but is absolutely massive in tg, especially closed maps.
I don't like it at all that developers create broken Civ to weaken Knight-Xbow Meta. Instead of creating a new broken Camel Civ, they should strengthen the Camel and adjust the Xbow. And Elephant is of no use at the moment. Dev needs to give them a clear role. It's not just because of my taste. Some of Civ are designed as Elephant Civ, and because Elephant is completely useless, they automatically become the worst civilization.
I agree with your picks. I would also consider Mongols as an honorable mention with them having a really solid unique unit, eco bonus, great team bonus, and tech options.
I think to elevate this video, you could consider showing the win rates you allude to briefly as a popup on the video itself, especially if you can say what elo range the win rates are relevant for. Would add even more legitimacy to your arguments, even beyond your individual opinion as a pro player.
The biggest controversy within this video How on earth did Hera place farm in perfect square around the mill at the Burgundians intro part. Must be cheating.
@@dragovern The korean towers were good until they made it an archer civ, and have wagons having 5 pierce armor without having to get armor upgrades in blacksmith
Changes I'd liike to see would be: Gurjaras - reduce the amount of sheep that can generate food. Some maps they are so broken on as can been seen in BOA games. Also reduce the bonus damage to 25% and reduce food discount from their UT and maybe move it to Imp? Hindustanis - ghulam should take a bit of extra damage from infantry similar to eagle warrior, probably need to cost more as well. Take away Halb (they really don't need it) Franks - reduce or remove their berry bonus would be a good start. Maybe just free horse collar rather than all farm techs? Britons - reduce Ranges work speed to 10%, TC discout to 25%? Mayans - someone mentioned the longer lasting res not counting on food which would be good. Also archer discount changed to 10/15/20 % or 5/15/25 % instead? Burgundians - either early eco techs or discounted techs, but not both. Coustillier should have either less PA or only 100HP. why should they have stats similar to a knight! Not sure about the others but poles and chinese certainly could do with a tweak.
It's a pretty consistent theme, when DLC civs come out they are always overtuned. Remember Cumans when they first came out - probably most broken civ in the history of the game. It makes sense too, Microsoft needs to incentivise paying for new civs, but it does wreck balance for a little while until the new civs get tuned down a bit. For the most part, I love how civs are all overpowered in their own unique ways - provided you can play into that. Gives each civ its own flavor. By the way, loving this new content you're creating - you've evolved into something of a Spirit Of The Law for strategy instead of pure mechanics, and your videos have been very helpful in realising and improving some aspects of my game that I hadn't even thought about. (I'm just 900 ELO for context)
Suggestion: Civilization pairs where the generally stronger one is losing against the generally weaker one (i.e. where counter-civ-picking in tournaments might help). (I think Spirit of the Law has made a video based on the stats, but maybe you can do that from the player perspective.)
I like buff videos because I always find the idea of adding power to be more fun, even if you need nerfs for the game to function. Something about my 1000 Elo mostly campaign playing player brain prefers keeping all civs with all bonuses as at low level there are no good or bad civs just bad strategies and poor execution
HIndustanis are totally op. What I would do with them is: 1. Remove camel bonus. Having acces to imperial camel is good enough. 2. Downgrade HC's range from 9 to 8. 8 is already strong. 9 range HC with halb meatshield has bassicly no counter. Onagers can not even get close enough. Skirms and Arbs are outrange heavly as well. 3. Remove Gulam's bunus demage vs Engle Warriors. UU it self seems strong, but not too strong except matchups vs meso civs.
Its not hat strong vs inafantry - its just the pass thru damage, i think they only got bonus damage to archers.. I would agree with the range nerf but the tech should be lot cheaper then.
@@bensmith426Sorry for the typing error, wanted to say "I would also nerf them by...".I agree with points 1 or 2 . Honestly I think its good for them to have Ghulams as that the only decent counter they have against eagles in castle age. Longswords are slow and are easily countered by xbow. I am more worried about Hindustani and Gujaras camels being OP because that renders many cav civs useless. Going Pikes in castle age is also not ideal.
Also I hate the fact that they are able to get to castle age faster and 3 tc boom under heavy pike seige pressure (maybe I suck at this ) thanks to cheap vills.
I actually think..for a lot of these civs, minus maybe the burgundians..the issue isn't that they are badly designed civs per se..it's that they are designed well, in terms of all their bonus working very well together..compared to say...playing the Italians where I love the civ, but most of their bonuses are just not applicable in a lot of situations. The balance issue partly comes in to play because other civs do not function as well internally . My two cents, anyhow.
Interesting point. I've noticed it's a very common lower elo misconception to think that you have to always try to use all your bonuses and never make units that don't have some sort of civ bonus. I like that fact that the other civs often force you to chose one maybe two bonuses to use per game. Greed shouldn't be rewarded.
I agree with Poles, the gold from stone has always been too strong, and agree with Hindustanis, Gurjaras and Flemish Revolution. I don't think the Folwark needs a Nerf, its still tricky to use in open maps. I don't know about Britons, for me they are fine. I like the Coustiller, but I think nerfing the charge attack or having the pikes deal even more damage against them would balance them fairly. Finally, Hindustanis should have the Halberdier removed, they still have great camels they dont need halbs.
Nice video! And you make some solid points, who knows the devs are listening. But to be fair, I only kept watching to see if the militia could bring down the elephant 11
Thanks, nice insight. I agree with gurjaras, what a nightmare to play against ... I need to buy the poles and burgundian, didnt knew they were that good
I sorta disagree but not with your list per se... I just think that would be better with fewer nerfs and instead more buffing weaker units and civs to bring them up to the same level. I think it's good when every civ has one or two strategies that are really strong. Britons too strong? Buff rams (for example). Coustillier too strong? Give one of the base units bonus damage vs them so that other civs have a counter option (for example). Fewer nerfs more buffs. Obviously up to a point though. Gajaras need a nerf no doubt I don't think you can buff other civs to deal with them. (note, reason I say "for example" is because I don't intend to defend these specific suggestions. I don't know enough to make actually good specific suggestions.)
Xbows too strong? Make the fucking pathing for melee units better. Make skirms better (maybe make them prioritize targeting archery units over melee units). Make the crossbow tech a bit more expensive and slower to research. Make the militia line better. Reduce the number of units that can stack up together so 50 archers cant fit in a tight space. Make it easier for some civs to tech into their anti archer units (Like Huskarls).
Gurjaras are absolutely insane. On top of all the other bonuses that were mentioned, their castle age siege elephants actually do more dps than siege rams... In case anyone was wondering why their castle on arena just melted to a few Gurjara siege elephants.
Interesting ideas, however (saying this as a noob who only recently started watching some tourneys), I have seen Britons, by and large, usually getting smoked, and it seems to be they'd be one of the civs needing a buff if anything. In any case, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts about which civs need a buff, but also about which are the top 5 civs that are well-balanced in your opinion and why (as kind of a baseline).
What are some feasible nerfs to address the current issues with Burgundians? Reduce tech/upgrade discount? Remove Husbandry and/or Plate Barding? Increase the cost and/or production time for Coustilliers? Increase their recharge time? Reduce their charge damage? Reduce their base HP and/or armor? Reduce their speed while recharging? Doing all of those things would probably be a bit too much. Just spitballing ideas. What might be the best way to replace Flemish Revolution?
Gurjaras : mills can garrison only 6 sheep. So if you wanna have a big passive income of food, you have to spend wood by building new mills. Teutons: lose the armor bonus of infantry and cavalry. Spanish: lose heavy cavalry archers.
For Britons: Change Yeomens effect to +3 LOS instead of +1 range and maybe then increase the range of the Longbowman +1 to compensate while making the Civ more reliant on Castles.
Hera, you said that you want to play Teutons once in a big tournament. That's the moment of truth. Against Gurjaras, mass halberdiers and siege onagers and take the win.
Nerf Suggestions (in case devs read this) 5. Poles: Remove gold bonus for stone mining or reduce it 4. Britons: Remove extra range crossbows in castle age, but still get plus 2 in Imp. Longbows still get extra range in castle age and imp like before however. 3. Reduce HP and increase cost for Ghulams 2. Burgundians: Slight cost increase for eco techs, reduce Hp and charge attack for coustillier. 1. Reduce bonus damage from camels. Reduce sheep in mill bonus (I.e early feudal food eco should be weaker if sheeps are stored in mill)
I would be really unhappy if they nerf any of the classic civs, including britons. They might be strong, but all have weaknesses. On the other hand, to me it's INSANE that they haven't nerfed Hindustanis and Gurjaras yet. Burgundians also feel very strong but at my elo ~1400 at least they don't seem unbeatable.
@@user-iz2tm5ih4e I don't know enough about Dravidians, but even if that's true, it's okey to have a couple unbalanced matchups (berbers vs. magyars, goths vs. mayans, etc.). But overall Britons still have enough weaknesses where you can beat them. Not the case for Gurjaras or Hindustanis
I actually think it'd be more fun/cooler if the buffed the lower civs.. it would provide more diversity in the game because you keep the uniqueness of each civ. Adding higher percentages to lower win rate civs makes them more unique while also making the playing field more level.
Nerf Franks! Oh wait, you've already mentioned them. Well, you didn't give a specific suggestion, so, here we go: take that goddamn cheap castle bonus away. That civ don't deserve that bonus anyway. Apart from this, great video and nice picks. I have a crazy idea about Hindustanis actually: take both elite skirm and pike/halb from them. Add Parthian Tactics back. This way, they will heavily rely on gold units to be unstoppable. You're right about Poles but as an average player, that's the civ I'm really comfortable because it is forgiving for your possible eco mistakes. Gurjaras is a broken civ. Maybe instead of Yeomen might be cheaper but won't affect archers, and TC bonus might be less. Don't know about Burgundians, I only go for cheap paladins and strong hand cannons but you may be right about higher levels with Coustilliers. So, that civ is your expertise Hera.
Gurjaras have insane eco with mills, insane cav counter with Camels, insane archer counter with Shrivamshas, insane infantry counter with Chakrams and insane siege with Elephantos. They're maybe not the best at anything, but they are super top tier at everything.
i like the format of the 2v2 two pools tournament where you pick one civ for yourself and one for your opponent. lets us see more variety of civs. wish we could incorporate that in 1v1. regarding gurjaras, do you think this will matter for redbull wololo, where it is empire wars format and the AI may not take full advantage of the sheep in mills bonus.
Thank you for this video, as always! I think the fact that Hindustanis + Gurjaras are in such a strong position but get countered by cataphracts is one of the reasons byzantines are an unsung hero civ these days. Gurjaras have no counters to cataphract that I know of and even if they try their darnest with archers the byzantines can always complement them with other units + cannons. They also have the most powerful feudal age TR because of their higher HP towers. I'm not saying byz need a nerf, please no. I just think the increased winrate for byzantines as of late* could be attributed at least partially to these civs being so strong yet countered by our old eastern roman friends. Thoughts?
10:29 A little correction, you were talking about Kshatriyas affecting food units and you listed halbs as one of them, but the Gurjaras don't even get pikes (why would they be allowed to have pikemen?!?!?!?).
You forgot to mention that the Gujaras team Bonus applies to other mounted Units aswell. Their Scouts can 2-shot Monks and their freakin armoured/siege elephants melt buildings faster then any other Unit in the game
1) I agree concerning the Poles: their eco is broken. More food with Falwarks, gold from mining stone, what else? In Arena, they Castle drop you, spam units, get to Imp much faster than you and spam fully upgraded Cavaliers and Trebs, that kill your defensive Castles, while you struggle to make some Pikes (not even halbs). They should be on top 2 or top 3 of the civs that need nerf. 2) Maybe Britons, because of their eco. Not sure. 3) I don't agree with the Hindustani camels. It is a good thing to have strong camels to counter the Frankish, Magyar and Spanish cavalry. Maybe the cheaper villagers should be nerfed. 4) Burgundians. Definitively. Earlier and cheaper eco techs, OP unique Unit. 'Nuff said. The Chinese a bit and the Franks as well. Not sure why the Chinese, maybe because of their cheaper techs, but as for the Franks, they have eco bonuses from Dark Age way up to Imp, stronger Stables units and cheaper castles. 5) Gurjaras. Yes. Not sure if they have to be in top 1, but the plus 50% bonus damage is too much. The Shrivamsa Rider is strong, but I think that it can be dealt with melee units. The thing is their eco: I have noticed that the Gurjara players tend to make a double gold unit composition quite easily.
I think they are not gonna nerf anything. I think they are waiting for the next dlc, for that brand new civ with fantomatic assassin infantry that pass through the woods and the buildings. They may come to the point that it cant be alowed to walk under water ponds. But then, they are not gonna nerf. They are gonna buff everything to super deep op. Exactly as they did in LOL. And they may talk about a relative balance, when 500 elo players will stabilise at 50% WR in 1500 elo. You've seen it coming firt with cumans. That is not gonna stop until fishing ships be able to 1v1 cobra car. Sorry bro. No safe place for gamers.
In some scenarios, for example open maps, the Persian double HP for the TC can also be OP and the doucheing with it can be very annoying, I think that bonus should start from only the Feudal or Castle Age, to stop that peek Age of Empires tactic.
The problem I have is you just know that Hindus and Gurjaras will get nerfed since they're new civs and generally speaking the devs will address new civ concerns. But the fact that they refuse to address old OP civs like Britions and Franks is a bit disheartening. I actually feel that Franks are OP for similar reasons that you cited for Poles. Franks can spam castles everywhere similar to Poles. This is because Frank castles cost less which frees up some villagers to put on gold. So different bonuses but similar outcome. So while I think it's possible to hold against Frank knight spam, it's hard to do when they drop a castle on your face and then take away map control. I think it's more than an honourable mention, it really needs to be in the top 3 after Gurj and Hindus.
Hey Hera, I am thinking exactly the same about Britons; for 1v1 they are fine but kinda busted in teamgames. Also because of how much their team Bonus helps the other Flank Player. For example Mayans cheaper archers beeing created faster aswell feels pretty OP. Would nerfing their team Bonus from 20% to 10% faster working Ranges be enough? I am not sure what else to change about them. Its such a classic civ, and nerfing their firing range or take away the cheap TCs would imo kill their idientity too much.
Finally after 1 and ahalf year does people realize how good burgundian is I think they were strong since release, before the buff Even the buff has gone through a long time ago So underrated till recently
It's always like this with DLC which is why I never buy the DLC until after 3 or 4 months because they're always OP on release (so you buy it) then get nerfed hard then everyone stops playing them because of anchoring bias but actually, even after the hard nerfs, they're usually still better civs. Just that people haven't been playing them for 20 years so they don't know the perfect ways to do it but that's the part I really enjoy, once everyone else has given up on them, I go and see okay what are some cool build orders I can do here. That's the most fun. and then you play them noone expects it anymore they not scared they think they've been nerfed too much to be a threat. For me the best was Cumans. They were so OP with steppe lancers then after the nerfs everyone stopped playing them. I still think steppe lancers are a SUPER underrated unit if you have a lot of practice with micro they produce super quick, they let you make use of all your farms you made to get to castle age, they're almost impossible to quickwall out, they move fast, they poke 10 villis dead quick quick, and they aren't the worst thing ever in a straight fight against knights (obviously they're bad but like, not skirmisher level bad, with good kiting micro can hold their own) but noone plays them now cus they got nerfed so hard. It's just anchoring bias.