Might also have to do with that more casual players dont account for the nerfs or even check the patchnotes and just keep playing what they are used to. So it takes some games before they even notice that thier usual timeings and pairings is off compared to proplayers who always keep the nerfs in mind.
agree. Even playing standard with say celts and you have too much wood or with brits and still put 6 on sheep. what use is a bulgarian free menatarms upgrade if i dont have the skill to use it lol. so many. however vikings and huns you cannot go wrong
I really love the top content you produce. I also love the way you guest someone AT the end in the community to say something about the balance and the felling they get about it. Thx
My opinion about Aztecs is the reason why they seem to struggle a little more than other messo civilizations like Incas and Mayans is because of the fact that late castle into imperial, Mayans and Incas have access to Halbs upgrades and incas UU is Kamayuks which help both those messo civs dominate vs Heavy Cavalry Civs, personally i think Aztecs need Access to Halbs and they'll be in a better spot than they are now, and i know people are going to say "But Aztecs have great monks and you can just convert the Cavalry" i understand that but its not easy to Convert a 50-60 stack of Paladins with a couple of Monks, and its very oppressing fighting heavy Cavalry Civs with Aztecs because they only get pikemen and not Halbs, and a situation like that is harder to pull off in team games with a bunch of Monks. Plus like Viper said there are just such more stronger and better Civs than Aztecs So why would players bother with playing a civ that requires more brain power and IQ to play but then again this is my opinion
Aztec bonuses are about aggressive play. Part of getting better is learning how to snowball army leads and decision making such as what to do in response to your opponent. If your opponent gives up map control and plays very defensively and boomy, even if they lose more vills they may be at an advantage. Especially late game. Knowing how to boom behind aggression against defensive play while still being aggressive or taking advantage of the initiative (such as forcing opponent into skirms then going knights/eagles) are skills people need to develop before they feel the power of a civ like Aztecs. A lot of people also tunnel vision into strats like mass archers and boom or mass eagles even against long swords. However, the defensive player doesn't have initiative. They can't invest into longswords without aggressive player knowing unless the aggressive player has failed to scout anything properly or deal damage. Early castle age you can make the decision between eagle switch or continued crossbows. A lot of people just continue crossbows or go eagles from feudal and don't plan transition (and you don't just plan the "rock paper scissors", but you have to know how to set up eco effectively for an effective transition, another skill. Otherwise you can make counter units but fail due to timing and numbers. Perhaps a player may plan eagle transition with monks and siege but end up sticking in castle age too long and lose out to imperial age play).
the Aztec bonuses leaves windows where they have a massive power spikes and those same bonuses adds fuel to the fire and snowball. however those power spikes are can get counter picked hard by going up against a bad Civ. the core issue here isn't that Aztecs are amazing it has more to do with that counter picks doesn't have the snowball effect when going up against other civs so it is huge gamble to try and predict Aztec picks and counter it.
They have fast production and the eco to support it, making playing against them awkward no matter the matchup. They should be good starting somewhere around 1300 at least when mechanical skill is sharp enough for that production speed to matter, but they're not, so I wonder if it's the late stage or just the fact that the game is less snowbally at most levels due to all kinds of imperfections in play. My guess is going to be the latter because that's what Viper said. :P
I wonder if tournament winrates can be adjusted by Elo while retaining information on the confidence intervals. As in, if Aztecs lose at a 400 Elo deficit, you could argue that that only deviates from a theoretical 50% Aztec winrate by 1/5 as much as if Aztecs win or lose an even matchup
the best new minigame I play on SOTL videos is trying to find the cool easter-egg jokes...Jaguar warrior "can be spotted" with a random zoom into the unit... I see that 😂genius
a lot of design changes made by the devs are made around what the pro scene is asking for which i understand catering to your most dedicated group but this is throwing off the vast majority of players due to changes to civs that make them far worse to play
Even for the vast majority of players Aztecs is just not that bad. Chinese still dominates fortress, Aztecs dominate arena. Saracens rule hideout. If you keep playing the map pros play all the time you'll have to accept the balance will be tuned for them and not you.
@@satyakisil9711 idk what you mean by "not that bad" they are 7th worst. there's 43 (i think) civs in the game that's a pretty rough result. if there were to be any changes to them now it would make sense to buff them but they've been continually nerfed. chinese got a nerf despite regularly preforming terribly at all but the very highest elos and goths got a buff despite being great lower. it's clear where their focus is. I'm not saying they're wrong to do it as high end play may be what's encouraging people to come back to them game. I just am disappointed that most of us are left behind when they do that.
@@humblehive6502 if you play them wrong they will end up being bad. It's just players not being able to adapt to the change in meta. Just use the civ right. Expect that a single unit will not obliterate everything when spammed enough. There have been no posts on Reddit or anywhere else where lots of people are complaining. And of course the focus will be on the set standards. If you're lower out you can always improve your strategy and awareness to win the game. At the highest level it's almost impossible to improve conistently without big breakthroughs in meta so that's where the balance should be focused.
Aztec is just a "specialist" civ tbh. In low elo the best strats is often... "stall" and "knight spam". The lower you get the more "late game heavy" civs like Franks and Berbers and maybe Magyars too? Irdk basically just spam the best Castle units you get until the game end civs or sth, completely dominate the meta. There is a reason why every pro and their mom heavily praises Chinese, and this civ is constantly on top of the meta tierlist it is either ban or pick every tourney, BUT completely disappears the lower you get on the ladder. Noobs dont have skills, and they dont like games ending too fast either it is what it is I suppose, Aztec is pretty damn good but they will never be popular as monk rush and proxy tower or sth like that aint easy to pull off at all.
Personally I'm not too surprised at the data being provided. For so long as the RTS genre has existed, whatever the pros have often favoured and rated as top tier has often had its win rate tanked as a result of people that see the high tier ranking of a given thing and taken that as gospel to immediately go into their games with, with little to no idea of how to pilot it as effectively and thus brings the win rate down.
Chinese were top tier in Arabia tournaments for a long time. The pay off from the difficult start was too good. In the PUP for June, they tried to tweak Chinese start by adding 50 at the cost of an extra villager. That created an uproar because it now made Chinese easier for noobs.
@@martytu20 Not just arabia but across most maps. IN theory arabia should be a weak point with their fragile early eco being reliant on sheep and such but they were still top 2 (Chinese or Mayans for a long time since WololoKingdoms and arabia map gen making sheep finding easy).
@@martytu20 Dang I didn't expect them to be worse in Arena lol. Makes sense tho because people probably don't micro monks well and Aztecs are lacking in some options late game although their siege onagers are good. Probably goes back to players having trouble closing games and having trouble fighting for relics at which point Aztecs are gonna do bad. Aztecs are very scary on arena tho with those monks and eco bonuses. You tend to float food with Aztecs even when making army because eagles/pikes aren't high on food cost allowing you to afford upgrades and such and making early imp spike powerful. And nothing is scarier than Aztec monks on arena since they can start to win vs light cav lol
Viper play aztec but idont see any jaguar just bunch of archer each game in tournament, many pro use it but just make range unit instead monk or jaguar and lose in tour , confusing
This is only why I don't like current AoE 2 civilization balance JUST take examples from very high top players who are less than 100 people doesn't justify the turn down of fun to the rest of players
@@exeggcutertimur6091 yeah. Top players will always say it should be balanced for the top 1% but I think it's better to balance it around more average players imo.
I do agree with Viper - it might be connected with high-risk high reward strategies, like monks or militia rush, that have to be perfectly executed to give the advantage. Also, if I recall correctly, low-elo games often drags to late-game, in which Aztecs fall short due to lack of most powerful units i.e. paladins and hussars for trash wars
Same There are definitely strategies that scale better the more you play, I remember Survivalist for instance saying that drushing is almost never worth at around 1200 elo, and I would say the same for monks and siege that are very micro intensive. Even archers kinda struggle with this because one mistake and you can lose, so you have to know when to look away and manage your eco for example While on the other hand mass infantry and cavalry aren't as demanding to function, you just do the thing and they work So at a lower elo they are way more powerful
Yup. Low level games rarely end before castle age. Most end up with some power unit ravaging everything(conqs) or a deathball with siege support, sometimes trash wars
Yea I recently started playing and often times my games were really long. I became an aztec main fairly quickly and have been flying up the ladder. Throwing on the aggression at feudal age and closing out mid game in castle It feels like if I ever get to an Imperial age game with a developed enemy I might as well quit. They're gonna dump high power late game units I just LITERALLY can't keep up
Pikes with 4+8 damage? Skirms with +1 range and +1 damage? As far as I see, Aztecs may be doing much better in trash wars, only losing to Malay Two-Handed Swordsmen which only cost food. Besides, the relics generate 33% extra gold for Aztecs, further granting you gold production when there's no more gold on the map. So far Aztecs seem promissing specifically for trash wars.
Shouldn't Aztecs be good in ultra late games. Late game starts when the gold on the map runs low. Instead of building up your economy constantly upwards you need to contend with the fact that you have more gold now than you'll ever have for the rest of the match. Trash wars happen. Everyone will likely always have a little bit of gold income from relics. But Aztecs should have the most which means that in the late game trash fights Aztecs should be the last civ to have reliable access to gold costing trash killer units.
I really like the argument saying that the differences arise only in the extremely-high-end of the ladder because these players are playing basically full-time. That makes a lot of sense, because of that the skill level rises dramatically towards the top, rather than more linearly. Otherwise it would have been very enticing to attribute this to random fluctuations caused by the lower sample size, which you naturally get once you go to the extreme top. Nice investigative work!
There is other factor. Its speed and applaing pressure to the opponent. Pros often end games in Castle Age/Early Imperial due to their speed, and this is exactly time when Aztecs are the strongest. Lower the ladder you go, games last longer, and then Aztecs starts to be outcompeted by civs with stronger late game.
This is true. But while some lower level players may know this they may not understand how to close games or their flaws in aggressive play. Knowing when and how to boom behind pressure and how to balance it with aggression, and how to use initiative are all skills players have to develop. Some people may tunnel vision into full aggression or a single strategy without knowing how to adapt to defensive play. On top of that +50 gold is a snowbally eco bonus rather than a flat one like Turks gold mining or Celts lumber which is easier to utilize. The power of +50 gold is lower in lower rated games where there are more opportunities to comeback.
Going off of what the pros think can be deceptive. The sg 553 in csgo was completely neglected for a few years because everyone preferred the ak so the devs reduced the cost to make people play it which made everyone realise that it was actually amazing even after they raised the price to what it was before.
Yeah that's a great point, especially in these older games like AOE and CS that have been around for decades, the pros tend to get pretty stuck in their ways.
I think the difference here is that it's not an omission. If anything, lower rated players are making the omission here by not making good use of monks as part of their toolkit while prefering more straight forward civs like franks
@@heavenlychorus yeah, but the point is they're not playing the other civs if they play aztecs. Just like the csgo pros used to think "i use the ak all the time, I know it's better than the sg"
Aztecs are a very strong proactive civ, but without cav, gunpowder, halbs and ring armor, you really need to snowball your castle age push. It's just too hard to close games with a siege monk push for most players.
Yeah it's player inexperience with Aztecs. You have strong imperial age power spike with eagle warrior civs because you don't need a lot of food for their eagle warriors making transitions from crossbows to eagles easier than crossbows to knights. With the low requirement for food they can get early imperial age eagle warriors and trebs out. Maybe some players think they have to end the game in castle age but a well placed castle will stop something like siege monk push. You gotta know how to manage economy because you should be faster to imp behind pressure and have another snowball in imp.
It's nice that chinese got a new friend to hang out in the odd area of "bad on ladder, good in tournament" 😂 Honestly, my main issue with aztecs is that their bonuses all use weird numbers. I'd rather have them with one less bonus but with nicer looking values XS
It was a wrong number and wording back then, it was used to be 25% or so, they fixed the descriptions but they did not made the effect actually 25% because they were already strong even with bonus less than advertised. Well idk why they nerf it from 18% to 11% though, could just make it 10%.
Don't think there is anything unexpected here. In fact 100% expect this from the elite players. 5/6 civs are the oldest and familiarity, experience with skill has to be factored in. Incas more recent but considering their bonus the pros are no doubt going to play well with them. At pro level Aztecs faster training, Incas/Byz cheap units to counter anything, Vikings having free wheelbarrow & handcart are a huge bonus and then as we know Huns are Huns, Mayans are Mayans.
They seem to just have mostly bonuses that help good players. Arguably the best monks, which are bad or barely useful for lower elos. The extra gold and faster production dont matter at lower elos. And again as a meso civ they play somewhat different. I guss i would like a buff to jaguar warriors, they arguably still are one of the worst uu's in the game. Turn it into a unit that can turn those games against infantry civs into like a 50% win rate for aztecs.
@@krystofcisar469 I believe there is a reason. New civs are sold as DLC and if the civ sucked not many people would buy the DLC and it would get negative user reviews. Surely Microsoft is well aware of this. And i've seen a pretty consistent pattern that new DLC civs are overpowered on release but then get nerfed a few months later after the bulk of the DLC sales have occurred.
Some civs are going to be below 50% winrate and I don't think Aztecs need a buff or a nerf. They just require players to get used to them and Mayans is the easy "meso-civ" that most players gravitate to. However, Aztecs are still very strong it's just that taking advantage of early game snowball bonus like +11% training speed and +50 gold may be harder than flat bonuses which is good in defensive or offensive play. It takes a while to learn aggressive play properly even for 1600+ players.
@@lamegamer4607 True, but personaly i would like it if each uu were atleast playable. Jaguar warriors are bad and realistically you should never go for them. (There are worse uu's but still.)
Once did a custom with a 3v3 but one team had the AI and was the aztecs. Once he ran out of resources he started spamming monks and literally turned the entire game
Viper said something that sparked another thought in me "just get numbers out". Lower level players don't macro as well as higher level, especially if you add in monk micro. Beyond that lower ELO mindset is also different. Higher level players have a better loss/reward analysis, they are confident spamming eagles and losing them because they know they're still going to be ahead. Lower level players tend to be more conscious of losses they make, especially when it comes to gold, this might make them hesitate when executing. And when they do commit to losing and spamming eagles they might not have the best target selection or might have their loss/reward not be as accurate as a top level player.
In high Elo, where production buildings are idled much much less, that 15 percent faster bonus is probably a huge deal. (Not that I know anything about high Elo play)
Yep and think of it like this. +10% lumber bonus for Celts helps towards economy setting for aggressive and defensive play easier and it's an easy advantage to utilize. Meanwhile Aztec +50 gold or monk hp or military production buildings require good aggressive play to snowball the advantage. They have to play aggressive to take advantage of eco bonuses or only 1 bonus really matters (+3 carry capacity which is still a very good bonus).
I think the best way to address the civ is to buff Jaguar Warriors, since they are strugling against other Infantry civs, buffing them would help in that regard without making them even better on other matchups. This way, they are more acessible to lower elo players, and still don't dominate on pro levels. Cause, If a civ is only good in the top 30 of the game, there is something wrong with How the civ is playing, and despite having great Win Rate on pro levels, It doesn't justify the abysmal drop on every single other one.
I disagree. If Aztecs were far and away the worst civ for lower elo players, then I’d agree. But no matter how you balance the game, there will always be civs that are in the bottom third of win %. So there’s really nothing wrong with the variance in win % shown in this video imo
In my opinion, the main problem with the Jaguar warriors is that they feel unfinished. At least, samurais have their faster attack, woad raiders have their speed and berserks have their hp regeneration. Jaguar warriors need something to make them more interesting (something that isn't simply an attack bonus): maybe faster training (since it's one of the civ bonuses), faster speed or a new special feature (like centurions, coustiliers, cataphracts...).
@@n.f.ch.m.ph.67 I think they should get +1 attack per killing blow they make. That means they'll be no more effective to start, so you still need infantry to kill to make them stronger, but then they get strong enough to win vs cavalry. It even fits with the whole Garland Wars, which were a bunch of show battles largely based around a few really great warriors.
@@demiserofd Like the promotion system for European native units in AoE3? Every kill increases LP and attack. Would potentially be too good with the best monks in the game healing them though. On the other hand, if you give it an upper limit it won't get too ridiculous.
I think another big piece is those super top players are able to take advantage of eco bonuses better than lower level players. Low level players like bonuses such as stronger units, free techs to help with timings, and cheaper units they can play toward. Because lower players are going to stick to what they know in terms of build or unit type they end up just floating the res of an eco bonus rather than actually using it. Top tier players arent like that. They know exactly how that extra gold and +3 are going to play out and use it.
Absolutely outstanding video. It‘s almost like you took your best kind of videos into one. Just awesome! It has it all: - quick civ overview - history and civ changes - Data ,Analysis and assumtions - Pro commentary - more data 😍 - awesome visualization - statics (also data 😂) with good/bad match up - kick other civs - pro tournament (stats ❤) - platform for other streamers Would love to see more of thise for a varity of civs. Maybe Goths, as they are kind of the opposite case. How about checking out the win rates anomalises in different skill level and variance in pro tier lists to find intersting constallations. I am very excited to watch and hear more about in depth analysis of civs. Thank you man! Awesome work!
1400 player here. I used to hate Aztecs but then I realised they were good with high numbers of military, often 1 tc play and also 2 unit compositions early on etc eagles and archers while many civs can be played single unit until imp
As a lover of skirmishers, Im a huge Aztec fan, but once the gold runs out they get steam rolled.. Map control and relics are more important for this civ. maybe why its not as strong at lower levels.
"Just because Faker is good at a champion, it doesn't mean that champion is good." I'd be wary of using the most elite players to determine the relative strength of a civ; it can give misleading results.
Reason behind this might be that hitting the exact timings is the ultimate key to utilize the strenghts. Since the margin of error has decreased over time (nerfs of civ bonuses) this would perfectly explain the drop of win rate at every level - however, it can be anticipated that the few best players will still be able to make them work since they are able to consistently hit those timing (leaving multitasking ability, scouting, experience, etc. aside). As the margin of error appears to be very small, the next best player will by nature already struggle to utilize. If the above holds, it's basically impossible to balance this civ. If you increase the margin of error to a meaningful degree (e.g. to target a win rate of approx. 50%), it improved the win rate at every level but disproportionally leads to a domination of aztecs amongst the best players. So indeed, may be close to impossible to balance for all levels.
That's the thing, you can't balance any game for all skill levels, the best thing any game dev can do is close gaps on wither end of whatever needs balancing, try please the most people and ignore the loud minority that always complains about any balance changes
I agree on most aspects, in particular a loud minority complaining about everything will always exist and has to be ignored. However, for balancing purposes I consider it reasonable to put greater emphasis on the top-level since there is hardly any room for improvements in terms of skill for these players. A broken civ on top-level is just unfair since W/L is determined by civ choice not by skill. On lower levels, there is in theory always room to improve your game play and adapt new strategies until you are one of the top players. Issue with that is mainly that certain civs may be somewhat unplayable for lower levels and casual players which is obviously not desirable. So clearly, the perspective of a casual player has to be reflected to some extend, yet only if it doesn't lead to an unfair situation on top-level. Obviously, this is very hard to achieve in practice.
The fastest decision-makers are able to best utilise aggression. The more consistent then can turn that tempo into a snowball. Sort of like when a gamer stops "making plays" and starts "always playing"
Players until Elo 1600 just bruteforce the strenght of the civ they pick and hope they win that way. Thats why Franks have a high winrate. You fastcastle knights every single time without interacting with the opponent and hope you win (Same with Berbers, Lithuanians, Teutons and such). Archer civs do the same with X-Bows. Its just copying a build order and go. After that 1600 Elo treshold, other civs immediately pop up. Thats why chinese, Mayans, Aztecs, Malians etc. are considered top tier in high elo. Because just after that players start to play a strategy game and not a farming simulator.
If Aztecs were a good civilization and nerfed to mediocre and the playerbase just didn't update their expectations, then you can make an argument for or against tournament evidence. Yes these are the best of the best. But what if their perception is out of date and the 8 wins out of 12 games they were picked is just random chance? Yes the evidence is consistent with Aztecs being a top desert civilization. However, the tournament data is also constant with Aztecs being a 50% civilization. 24 wins out of 32 games, 11 wins out of 12, or 16 wins out of 19 would be more convincing evidence to me.
Simple answer is: The strategies that play to Aztecs' strengths (Drush, Monks, Eagles instead of cavalry) are not conducive to beginners or intermediate players. Archers and cavalry are much easier to use than infantry, monks and siege. Faster military creation also requires good eco management as a foundation, something beginners haven't mastered yet.
For me Aztecs have always been a bottom five civ. I hate their few options. No thumb ring, no imperial archer armor, generic infatry until garland wars, no gun powder, no cav and very weak defensive structures. Besides the monks and the eco bonus i cant find any reason why this civ could be strong.
5:26 I find it funny that statistical studies for politics and economies are often less picky about their sample sizes than SOTL is for a 25 year old video game. But no, let's not discuss that here. SOTL doesn't deserve that.
Maaaaaaaaan is just Chinese all over again. Edit: Every single time SOTL speaks with someone he sounds as if he was THE best new anchor ever alive. How does he even manage to be so professional? Im always amused.
It really just comes down to them having a mediocre castle age. No stable, no thumb ring, leaves little options to face top tier picks. Their reliable strats ergo monk rush or fast imp eagles both require huge economies to setup and execute, mostly likely meaning you must ve a better player than your opponents to successfully pull them out.
Dear spirit, could you please make reviews of nations in Rise of nations extended edition with your knowledge and sweet voice? Top 10 nations for 1v1 random land map? Or one nation per video?
Interesting comment about lower elo players having less experience with meso civs. If this is true we'd expect to see a similar discrepancy for Incas and Mayans. Maybe worth a look? 😁
Britons have one of the best archers in the game but to fully utilize them the player needs good micro while still maintaining their eco/macro. It's just too much multitasking for lower ELO players to handle. Archers are always much better in the hands of high ranked players.
The Aztecs have been treated poorly by developers since version 1.C they've been power creeped ever since. They were really fast, but defensively weak missing masonry, architecture and hoardings. It the hands of pros the speed was powerful and their weak defenses were marginalized. As a result, the Aztecs were never top tier to anyone but the pros. Nerfing the Aztecs speed without adequate compensation did weaken them in the hands of the pros, but made them garbage for everyone else.
I've been a little out of the loop with AOE2 lately; can someone explain what's going on with the Romans? They seem to be some kind of special civilization? Can they be used in tournaments? And from a lore perspective, why were they introduced if we also have Byzantines and Italians? I'm just very puzzled atm.
Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, decided to "sell AoE1 as a AoE2 DLC" (a lot of complaints about what they did were just that). For those who bought it, they are gifted the Roman AoE2 Civilization. It's a Siege + Infantry Civ with a unique ship. Another gimmick is, their unique cavalry unit buffs their infantry. They have a tech or bonus which improves the Scorpion. It's for these reasons Aztecs don't fare well against them.
Franks are good to have strong because you want basic civs like Britons or Franks to be strong and accessible to players. Aztecs are still good it's just that players need to develop proper aggressive skills and man@arms or milita builds and learn how to maintain advantage/snowball.
I am currently subscribed to over 600 youtube channel (none that I don't watch videos of) and you are definately one of my all time favorites! Please keep making these videos, even the shorter ones!
You have to use aoepulse to filter to specific elo ratings and patches. For example: www.aoepulse.com/civ_stats?min_elo=2250&include_ladder_ids=3&include_map_ids=9&include_patch_ids=87863%2C85614%2C85208%2C83607%2C82587%2C81058%2C78757%2C78174%2C75350%2C73855%2C71094%2C66692%2C63581%2C63482%2C62085%2C61591
The nerfs you mentioned have massively affected their main strength which is a fairly fast imp into Eagle spam. There are also so many more good HC civs and Paladin/Heavy cav civs which deal with Eagles much better. I think the Eagle line deserves some tweaking to make them more viable.
@darkdill fair. Maybe their eagles need to be buffed. I think Garland wars is probably too expensive at this point given how strong other civs infantry has gotten.
I disagree, but mostly because it seems like flooding the map with eagles is the main approach for Meso civs, and especially Aztecs, almost as soon as they hit Castle Age. I think they ought to have more than one viable strategy so they become a bit less predictable.
At your skill lv where people play basically no rush 30min maybe. Paladins and HC? LMAO. GL surviving that far vs the most blind spamable unit in game.
@@majungasaurusaaaa I think he means there are lots of civs that can make knights with some bonus, and knights -even in castle age- fare decently well against fast imp eagles. And eagles do give diminishing returns, especially with Aztecs where they only get extra attack (and that, only if you go for a castle and research the unique tech, which is not cheap). If you don't kill your opponent with the eagle rush, eventually the knights get much stronger. Paladin is a real stretch and it's a sign the game was already over, but overall I agree that the Eagle spam was a very strong strategy and that, as it's been toned down significantly, it allows other civilizations that have weapons in their arsenal against that to shine brighter. I just think that it's good that the Eagle spam got nerfed a bit. Aztecs have, or should have anyway, other strengths as well.
I think the two factors Viper identified make a lot of sense. Snowball and cheese. Both of those factors make a civ harder to play, more risky to play, and more one-sided when it works. It also reduces the fun and balance of the game, since one small mistake means you lose, when everything else was going your way. That explains why Aztecs are often banned in tournament play. But it's also interesting how your data made Viper reconsider where to place Aztecs. You're doing awesome work, and literally changing the meta of the game!
Aztecs are not that frail tho and eagle warriors are a strong threat for Mayans and Aztecs that can help them come back in a game with faster imp spike. People aren't used to planning transitions as well in lower levels, which is more than just knowing counters but planning economy to set up situations. Otherwise you may have something like castle age skirms vs imperial age arbalests and get destroyed. Basically the threat of eagle warriors gives them great comeback potential as well as their farming and eco in general.
By filtering aoepulse for just 2000+ elo, we see with 95% confidence that Aztecs used to have a winrate above 50.0% (from April 2022 to June 2023). Of course, there is _some_ p-hacking going on there, so it's not the most reliable datapoint, but the observed winrate _does_ rise quite consistently as you go up in Elo. That said, even trusting the 2000+ Aztec winrate at face value, they were only 13th best, at 51.64% winrate compared to 5 other civs' 55%+. In comparison, the highest winrate I could find from April 2023 to now (i.e. after the Eagle nerf) was 48.79% at 1800+ Elo. Higher elos can show a larger winrate, but the sample size is so small that a winrate of 48.79% is still within even a 90% confidence interval, let alone 95%. So it does really look like Aztecs became weaker over the last few patches.
Strange, saw a random video about Rise of Legends just the other day and thought I haven't plat AoE 2 in over a year at least, I want to install and had intention to play Aztecs, then this video pops up, lol.
I'm just a 1600 ELO player, but I can say aztecs are top tier for sure and that's not due to their bonus but because of eagle warriors. If pick Aztecs, mayans or incas exclusively I can jump +200 ELO in 20-30 games.
It’s official, Persians are now the worst on 1900+ Arabia. I believe they need to give Bracer, nerf Kamandaran so it’s makes crossbows cost 70 wood (so it’s mathematically correct and still somewhat balanced, but still a small buff to Persians). Or maybe do something like the Roman’s where Cav armour does double (would make it somewhat historically accurate)
I'm a low ELO player. For me Eagle Warrior was the ONLY thing making Aztecs good. But after recent balance changes buffing infantry from other civs, Eagles no longer feel unique or strong- they are just average now. Aztecs were a one-trick pony and their best trick got buried by melee power creep.
Its pretty clear though. You don't see monks used in any serious manner (besides collecting relics and leftovers remembering they can convert knights) until 1400 or 1500. Its not even till 1800 or 1900 that you see people pull off 6+ monks converting 6 different units in a second or two. Unless someone is a heavy all in monk/siege type of person it never shows up and if it does its not as good as it could be. So that's honestly why I think monk civs have bad stats overall. Yet you will see Aztecs, Bengalis and even civs like Burmese with terrible win rates at low to mid elo. Monks just aren't a unit most people feel comfortable with because they require so much apm to keep alive and get use out of and if you do invest apm in them something else usually slips. If you've ever watched custom AI tournaments once monks get involved it gets crazy, it shows their amazing potential if you had inhuman micro/apm. Just like when they start with skirm/archer balls that always use exactly the amount of projectiles to kill units and never overkill. The true skill ceiling for some units is just incredible and will likely never be reached given the limits of human input. Monks, unlike range units have such a high skill floor for effective use in fights that I really doubt it will ever change. In most cases it requires a complete change up of your control groups to get great use of them. So good luck with it if you've spent 200+ hours with a learned set of control groups and suddenly have to clear them up so you can 1-9 monks for quick conversions.
How are the Aztecs so bad against Malay? They're basically an elephant and cheap infantry civ with weak defenses. I would think that a civ with a strong rush potential, powerful monks and an anti-infantry UU would shred them.
Pretty sure Bourgignons is the best civ and that is the correct way to spell it because they are french. I put Bohemian and Malien and Teutons and Silicians as the other top 5 for low elo players. I dont know what the win rates are but teutons have the best castles, Silicians have strong infantry that can tower rush, Malian have tc that shoots without garison and have the best scouts, bohemians has the best pikeman and Bourgignons have earlier eco upgrades, get gold from farms, food from relics, the best cavalry in the game (i mean the ones made from their castles) decent building and army upgrades and if you are in trouble you can always turn your villagers into super militias, the cue in 50+ more villagers from tc with automatic economy and then just keep making them at barracks because they cheaper then militias, faster then militia and dont need upgrades and are almost stronger then militia. Used to get paladin in castle but that got nerfed and despite that they still best civ. Eagle warriors suck because they cost too much gold for how good they are. Mayans Eagles are borderline ok because of the plus 40 hp upgrade but they still lose to mass scout a troush unit. Couliettes only costs 5 more gold and have way more damage and hp then eagles. Eagles are just trash that wastes your gold. Very weak damage: Fully upgraded eagle warriors only do 13 damage. Couliette does 40 on first hit then 18 for the rest and have 155 hp vs 100 hp mayan eagle or low 60 hp for any other eagles. Only reason a pro can win with eagles is because you get to make them in feudal. If they were to become castle age units and made only in castles, Aztecs would be worst civ automatically.
It was an interesting choice to give the meso civs things they didn’t have (crossbows, any units requiring advanced metallurgy) but keeping them away from cavalry and gunpowder.
To be fair, I dont't think Aztecs are bad, but underrated rn. I feel like Aztecs are on the same situations as Incas back in the day, were Incas had every tool that meso civs had, but the other do it better. Right now, the Eagle play works better with Incas cause of the newest food discount. I don't know if Mayans also fell on the latter, but if they do, maybe that's why, but thats uust my theory.
Thanks for introducing this viper guy to the community. He seems somewhat knowledgeable.
He seems to have potential. If he trained hard he might beat MbL and Hera one day
I think he could be good if he learned how to quick wall
Yes, exciting young player. Will be interesting to see how he performs in upcoming tournaments if he qualifies!
I think if he gets all golds on Art of War, maybe he could be ready to play online
just a random 7/10 pkayer, idk why sotl introduced this player to the channel.
nice to hear TheViper, talking with you about the game. What a lovely video, thanks for that! :)
Might also have to do with that more casual players dont account for the nerfs or even check the patchnotes and just keep playing what they are used to.
So it takes some games before they even notice that thier usual timeings and pairings is off compared to proplayers who always keep the nerfs in mind.
agree. Even playing standard with say celts and you have too much wood or with brits and still put 6 on sheep. what use is a bulgarian free menatarms upgrade if i dont have the skill to use it lol. so many. however vikings and huns you cannot go wrong
@@MartiEvertonabsolutely true, some bonuses lend themselves to being noob friendly more than others.
I really love the top content you produce. I also love the way you guest someone AT the end in the community to say something about the balance and the felling they get about it. Thx
Here I am again, not playing aoe2 since years but super into knowing if aztecs are competitive or not in the current meta
My opinion about Aztecs is the reason why they seem to struggle a little more than other messo civilizations like Incas and Mayans is because of the fact that late castle into imperial, Mayans and Incas have access to Halbs upgrades and incas UU is Kamayuks which help both those messo civs dominate vs Heavy Cavalry Civs, personally i think Aztecs need Access to Halbs and they'll be in a better spot than they are now, and i know people are going to say "But Aztecs have great monks and you can just convert the Cavalry" i understand that but its not easy to Convert a 50-60 stack of Paladins with a couple of Monks, and its very oppressing fighting heavy Cavalry Civs with Aztecs because they only get pikemen and not Halbs, and a situation like that is harder to pull off in team games with a bunch of Monks. Plus like Viper said there are just such more stronger and better Civs than Aztecs So why would players bother with playing a civ that requires more brain power and IQ to play but then again this is my opinion
Aztec bonuses are about aggressive play. Part of getting better is learning how to snowball army leads and decision making such as what to do in response to your opponent. If your opponent gives up map control and plays very defensively and boomy, even if they lose more vills they may be at an advantage. Especially late game. Knowing how to boom behind aggression against defensive play while still being aggressive or taking advantage of the initiative (such as forcing opponent into skirms then going knights/eagles) are skills people need to develop before they feel the power of a civ like Aztecs. A lot of people also tunnel vision into strats like mass archers and boom or mass eagles even against long swords. However, the defensive player doesn't have initiative. They can't invest into longswords without aggressive player knowing unless the aggressive player has failed to scout anything properly or deal damage. Early castle age you can make the decision between eagle switch or continued crossbows. A lot of people just continue crossbows or go eagles from feudal and don't plan transition (and you don't just plan the "rock paper scissors", but you have to know how to set up eco effectively for an effective transition, another skill. Otherwise you can make counter units but fail due to timing and numbers. Perhaps a player may plan eagle transition with monks and siege but end up sticking in castle age too long and lose out to imperial age play).
the Aztec bonuses leaves windows where they have a massive power spikes and those same bonuses adds fuel to the fire and snowball. however those power spikes are can get counter picked hard by going up against a bad Civ.
the core issue here isn't that Aztecs are amazing it has more to do with that counter picks doesn't have the snowball effect when going up against other civs so it is huge gamble to try and predict Aztec picks and counter it.
They have fast production and the eco to support it, making playing against them awkward no matter the matchup. They should be good starting somewhere around 1300 at least when mechanical skill is sharp enough for that production speed to matter, but they're not, so I wonder if it's the late stage or just the fact that the game is less snowbally at most levels due to all kinds of imperfections in play. My guess is going to be the latter because that's what Viper said. :P
I was having a bad day, until this video comes out. Thanks a lot. Spirit of the Love!
I wonder if tournament winrates can be adjusted by Elo while retaining information on the confidence intervals. As in, if Aztecs lose at a 400 Elo deficit, you could argue that that only deviates from a theoretical 50% Aztec winrate by 1/5 as much as if Aztecs win or lose an even matchup
Good to give smaller UA-cam channels like Viper a platform to shine :p
the best new minigame I play on SOTL videos is trying to find the cool easter-egg jokes...Jaguar warrior "can be spotted" with a random zoom into the unit... I see that 😂genius
a lot of design changes made by the devs are made around what the pro scene is asking for which i understand catering to your most dedicated group but this is throwing off the vast majority of players due to changes to civs that make them far worse to play
Even for the vast majority of players Aztecs is just not that bad. Chinese still dominates fortress, Aztecs dominate arena. Saracens rule hideout. If you keep playing the map pros play all the time you'll have to accept the balance will be tuned for them and not you.
@@satyakisil9711 idk what you mean by "not that bad" they are 7th worst. there's 43 (i think) civs in the game that's a pretty rough result. if there were to be any changes to them now it would make sense to buff them but they've been continually nerfed. chinese got a nerf despite regularly preforming terribly at all but the very highest elos and goths got a buff despite being great lower. it's clear where their focus is. I'm not saying they're wrong to do it as high end play may be what's encouraging people to come back to them game. I just am disappointed that most of us are left behind when they do that.
@@humblehive6502 if you play them wrong they will end up being bad. It's just players not being able to adapt to the change in meta. Just use the civ right. Expect that a single unit will not obliterate everything when spammed enough. There have been no posts on Reddit or anywhere else where lots of people are complaining. And of course the focus will be on the set standards. If you're lower out you can always improve your strategy and awareness to win the game. At the highest level it's almost impossible to improve conistently without big breakthroughs in meta so that's where the balance should be focused.
Me: Aztec is now low win rate?
Spaceman with gun: _Always has been..._
Aztec is just a "specialist" civ tbh.
In low elo the best strats is often... "stall" and "knight spam". The lower you get the more "late game heavy" civs like Franks and Berbers and maybe Magyars too? Irdk basically just spam the best Castle units you get until the game end civs or sth, completely dominate the meta.
There is a reason why every pro and their mom heavily praises Chinese, and this civ is constantly on top of the meta tierlist it is either ban or pick every tourney, BUT completely disappears the lower you get on the ladder. Noobs dont have skills, and they dont like games ending too fast either it is what it is I suppose, Aztec is pretty damn good but they will never be popular as monk rush and proxy tower or sth like that aint easy to pull off at all.
Personally I'm not too surprised at the data being provided. For so long as the RTS genre has existed, whatever the pros have often favoured and rated as top tier has often had its win rate tanked as a result of people that see the high tier ranking of a given thing and taken that as gospel to immediately go into their games with, with little to no idea of how to pilot it as effectively and thus brings the win rate down.
good job ^^
Some Civs got a harsh nerf, mainly pointing out Chinese. Don’t know why
Chinese were top tier in Arabia tournaments for a long time. The pay off from the difficult start was too good.
In the PUP for June, they tried to tweak Chinese start by adding 50 at the cost of an extra villager. That created an uproar because it now made Chinese easier for noobs.
@@martytu20 Not just arabia but across most maps. IN theory arabia should be a weak point with their fragile early eco being reliant on sheep and such but they were still top 2 (Chinese or Mayans for a long time since WololoKingdoms and arabia map gen making sheep finding easy).
@@lamegamer4607 Apparently, they’re worse on Arena than in Arabia. The ideal Chinese opening usually involve scouts.
@@martytu20 Dang I didn't expect them to be worse in Arena lol. Makes sense tho because people probably don't micro monks well and Aztecs are lacking in some options late game although their siege onagers are good. Probably goes back to players having trouble closing games and having trouble fighting for relics at which point Aztecs are gonna do bad. Aztecs are very scary on arena tho with those monks and eco bonuses. You tend to float food with Aztecs even when making army because eagles/pikes aren't high on food cost allowing you to afford upgrades and such and making early imp spike powerful. And nothing is scarier than Aztec monks on arena since they can start to win vs light cav lol
Oh woops you were talking about Chinese my bad. That's also very weird wow. Must be newer players not using Chinese start well
Viper play aztec but idont see any jaguar just bunch of archer each game in tournament, many pro use it but just make range unit instead monk or jaguar and lose in tour , confusing
This is only why I don't like current AoE 2 civilization balance
JUST take examples from very high top players who are less than 100 people doesn't justify the turn down of fun to the rest of players
Lol. 11:08 Feels bad.
I really like these episodes where you get Pro players in to talk about how they see a certain aspect
I noticed SOTL did NOT agree with viper that it should be balanced towards top level play.
@@exeggcutertimur6091 yeah. Top players will always say it should be balanced for the top 1% but I think it's better to balance it around more average players imo.
I like how siege monk push is considered simple and straightforward by theViper
Yeah, pure cheese strat. Anyone could do it! Then cut to me losing the whole push to three enemy scouts.
I mean, it is. As long as you actually fight in feudal.
@@satyakisil9711 it works best in dark age, they won't see it coming
I do agree with Viper - it might be connected with high-risk high reward strategies, like monks or militia rush, that have to be perfectly executed to give the advantage. Also, if I recall correctly, low-elo games often drags to late-game, in which Aztecs fall short due to lack of most powerful units i.e. paladins and hussars for trash wars
Same
There are definitely strategies that scale better the more you play, I remember Survivalist for instance saying that drushing is almost never worth at around 1200 elo, and I would say the same for monks and siege that are very micro intensive. Even archers kinda struggle with this because one mistake and you can lose, so you have to know when to look away and manage your eco for example
While on the other hand mass infantry and cavalry aren't as demanding to function, you just do the thing and they work
So at a lower elo they are way more powerful
Yup. Low level games rarely end before castle age.
Most end up with some power unit ravaging everything(conqs) or a deathball with siege support, sometimes trash wars
Yea I recently started playing and often times my games were really long. I became an aztec main fairly quickly and have been flying up the ladder.
Throwing on the aggression at feudal age and closing out mid game in castle
It feels like if I ever get to an Imperial age game with a developed enemy I might as well quit. They're gonna dump high power late game units I just LITERALLY can't keep up
Pikes with 4+8 damage? Skirms with +1 range and +1 damage?
As far as I see, Aztecs may be doing much better in trash wars, only losing to Malay Two-Handed Swordsmen which only cost food.
Besides, the relics generate 33% extra gold for Aztecs, further granting you gold production when there's no more gold on the map.
So far Aztecs seem promissing specifically for trash wars.
Shouldn't Aztecs be good in ultra late games. Late game starts when the gold on the map runs low. Instead of building up your economy constantly upwards you need to contend with the fact that you have more gold now than you'll ever have for the rest of the match. Trash wars happen. Everyone will likely always have a little bit of gold income from relics. But Aztecs should have the most which means that in the late game trash fights Aztecs should be the last civ to have reliable access to gold costing trash killer units.
The collaboration we didn't deserve but desperately needed. Thanks a lot SOTL and TheViper.
I really like the argument saying that the differences arise only in the extremely-high-end of the ladder because these players are playing basically full-time. That makes a lot of sense, because of that the skill level rises dramatically towards the top, rather than more linearly. Otherwise it would have been very enticing to attribute this to random fluctuations caused by the lower sample size, which you naturally get once you go to the extreme top.
Nice investigative work!
There is other factor. Its speed and applaing pressure to the opponent. Pros often end games in Castle Age/Early Imperial due to their speed, and this is exactly time when Aztecs are the strongest. Lower the ladder you go, games last longer, and then Aztecs starts to be outcompeted by civs with stronger late game.
This is true. But while some lower level players may know this they may not understand how to close games or their flaws in aggressive play. Knowing when and how to boom behind pressure and how to balance it with aggression, and how to use initiative are all skills players have to develop. Some people may tunnel vision into full aggression or a single strategy without knowing how to adapt to defensive play. On top of that +50 gold is a snowbally eco bonus rather than a flat one like Turks gold mining or Celts lumber which is easier to utilize. The power of +50 gold is lower in lower rated games where there are more opportunities to comeback.
Going off of what the pros think can be deceptive. The sg 553 in csgo was completely neglected for a few years because everyone preferred the ak so the devs reduced the cost to make people play it which made everyone realise that it was actually amazing even after they raised the price to what it was before.
Yeah that's a great point, especially in these older games like AOE and CS that have been around for decades, the pros tend to get pretty stuck in their ways.
pros do play aztecs all the time unlike the untouched krieg
I think the difference here is that it's not an omission. If anything, lower rated players are making the omission here by not making good use of monks as part of their toolkit while prefering more straight forward civs like franks
@@heavenlychorus yeah, but the point is they're not playing the other civs if they play aztecs. Just like the csgo pros used to think "i use the ak all the time, I know it's better than the sg"
True but I think we can go off with what pros are saying here as it is a different situation.
Aztecs are a very strong proactive civ, but without cav, gunpowder, halbs and ring armor, you really need to snowball your castle age push. It's just too hard to close games with a siege monk push for most players.
Yeah it's player inexperience with Aztecs. You have strong imperial age power spike with eagle warrior civs because you don't need a lot of food for their eagle warriors making transitions from crossbows to eagles easier than crossbows to knights. With the low requirement for food they can get early imperial age eagle warriors and trebs out. Maybe some players think they have to end the game in castle age but a well placed castle will stop something like siege monk push. You gotta know how to manage economy because you should be faster to imp behind pressure and have another snowball in imp.
It's nice that chinese got a new friend to hang out in the odd area of "bad on ladder, good in tournament" 😂
Honestly, my main issue with aztecs is that their bonuses all use weird numbers. I'd rather have them with one less bonus but with nicer looking values XS
Yeah 18% to 11%? How was 20, 15, or 10 not the first choice?
probably due to rounding factoring in how they store and use the numbers.
Maybe those are breaking points.
It was a wrong number and wording back then, it was used to be 25% or so, they fixed the descriptions but they did not made the effect actually 25% because they were already strong even with bonus less than advertised.
Well idk why they nerf it from 18% to 11% though, could just make it 10%.
Don't think there is anything unexpected here. In fact 100% expect this from the elite players. 5/6 civs are the oldest and familiarity, experience with skill has to be factored in. Incas more recent but considering their bonus the pros are no doubt going to play well with them. At pro level Aztecs faster training, Incas/Byz cheap units to counter anything, Vikings having free wheelbarrow & handcart are a huge bonus and then as we know Huns are Huns, Mayans are Mayans.
look at this lober boi professional, Hans are Hans, Mayans are Mayans and for a good reason :D
They seem to just have mostly bonuses that help good players. Arguably the best monks, which are bad or barely useful for lower elos. The extra gold and faster production dont matter at lower elos. And again as a meso civ they play somewhat different. I guss i would like a buff to jaguar warriors, they arguably still are one of the worst uu's in the game. Turn it into a unit that can turn those games against infantry civs into like a 50% win rate for aztecs.
or new civs are just stupidly busted for no reason and aytecs keep getting nerfed...
I honestly don't see why a naked Ghulam would have more pierce armor than a Jaguar-skin-clothed Warrior 11
@@krystofcisar469 I believe there is a reason. New civs are sold as DLC and if the civ sucked not many people would buy the DLC and it would get negative user reviews. Surely Microsoft is well aware of this. And i've seen a pretty consistent pattern that new DLC civs are overpowered on release but then get nerfed a few months later after the bulk of the DLC sales have occurred.
Some civs are going to be below 50% winrate and I don't think Aztecs need a buff or a nerf. They just require players to get used to them and Mayans is the easy "meso-civ" that most players gravitate to. However, Aztecs are still very strong it's just that taking advantage of early game snowball bonus like +11% training speed and +50 gold may be harder than flat bonuses which is good in defensive or offensive play. It takes a while to learn aggressive play properly even for 1600+ players.
@@lamegamer4607 True, but personaly i would like it if each uu were atleast playable. Jaguar warriors are bad and realistically you should never go for them. (There are worse uu's but still.)
Civs like the Aztecs or the Bohemians would be monstruous in the hands of an AI that is highly focused on microing monks.
Once did a custom with a 3v3 but one team had the AI and was the aztecs. Once he ran out of resources he started spamming monks and literally turned the entire game
Try playing 1v1 deathmatch as a Heresy-less civ against a hard+ difficulty Aztecs AI. :)
For god's grace that's an nightmarish experiencedude@@MrAbgeBrandt
Viper said something that sparked another thought in me "just get numbers out". Lower level players don't macro as well as higher level, especially if you add in monk micro. Beyond that lower ELO mindset is also different.
Higher level players have a better loss/reward analysis, they are confident spamming eagles and losing them because they know they're still going to be ahead. Lower level players tend to be more conscious of losses they make, especially when it comes to gold, this might make them hesitate when executing. And when they do commit to losing and spamming eagles they might not have the best target selection or might have their loss/reward not be as accurate as a top level player.
In high Elo, where production buildings are idled much much less, that 15 percent faster bonus is probably a huge deal. (Not that I know anything about high Elo play)
Yep and think of it like this. +10% lumber bonus for Celts helps towards economy setting for aggressive and defensive play easier and it's an easy advantage to utilize. Meanwhile Aztec +50 gold or monk hp or military production buildings require good aggressive play to snowball the advantage. They have to play aggressive to take advantage of eco bonuses or only 1 bonus really matters (+3 carry capacity which is still a very good bonus).
Can you make a video about all the hidden stuff that changes from age to age? Like scouts buff upon feudal , eagles producing faster in castle, etc?
I think the best way to address the civ is to buff Jaguar Warriors, since they are strugling against other Infantry civs, buffing them would help in that regard without making them even better on other matchups. This way, they are more acessible to lower elo players, and still don't dominate on pro levels.
Cause, If a civ is only good in the top 30 of the game, there is something wrong with How the civ is playing, and despite having great Win Rate on pro levels, It doesn't justify the abysmal drop on every single other one.
I disagree. If Aztecs were far and away the worst civ for lower elo players, then I’d agree. But no matter how you balance the game, there will always be civs that are in the bottom third of win %. So there’s really nothing wrong with the variance in win % shown in this video imo
Jaguars already counter inf heavily. Its just that anti inf inf is not really a good way to counter inf in most matchups. Too many weaknesses.
In my opinion, the main problem with the Jaguar warriors is that they feel unfinished. At least, samurais have their faster attack, woad raiders have their speed and berserks have their hp regeneration. Jaguar warriors need something to make them more interesting (something that isn't simply an attack bonus): maybe faster training (since it's one of the civ bonuses), faster speed or a new special feature (like centurions, coustiliers, cataphracts...).
@@n.f.ch.m.ph.67 I think they should get +1 attack per killing blow they make. That means they'll be no more effective to start, so you still need infantry to kill to make them stronger, but then they get strong enough to win vs cavalry.
It even fits with the whole Garland Wars, which were a bunch of show battles largely based around a few really great warriors.
@@demiserofd
Like the promotion system for European native units in AoE3? Every kill increases LP and attack. Would potentially be too good with the best monks in the game healing them though. On the other hand, if you give it an upper limit it won't get too ridiculous.
Well, if we're following the logic of Chinese with the recent patch, I guess they need to nerf them into oblivion.
I think another big piece is those super top players are able to take advantage of eco bonuses better than lower level players. Low level players like bonuses such as stronger units, free techs to help with timings, and cheaper units they can play toward. Because lower players are going to stick to what they know in terms of build or unit type they end up just floating the res of an eco bonus rather than actually using it. Top tier players arent like that. They know exactly how that extra gold and +3 are going to play out and use it.
Absolutely outstanding video.
It‘s almost like you took your best kind of videos into one. Just awesome!
It has it all:
- quick civ overview
- history and civ changes
- Data ,Analysis and assumtions
- Pro commentary
- more data 😍
- awesome visualization
- statics (also data 😂) with good/bad match up
- kick other civs
- pro tournament (stats ❤)
- platform for other streamers
Would love to see more of thise for a varity of civs. Maybe Goths, as they are kind of the opposite case. How about checking out the win rates anomalises in different skill level and variance in pro tier lists to find intersting constallations.
I am very excited to watch and hear more about in depth analysis of civs.
Thank you man! Awesome work!
1400 player here. I used to hate Aztecs but then I realised they were good with high numbers of military, often 1 tc play and also 2 unit compositions early on etc eagles and archers while many civs can be played single unit until imp
As a lover of skirmishers, Im a huge Aztec fan, but once the gold runs out they get steam rolled.. Map control and relics are more important for this civ. maybe why its not as strong at lower levels.
I full on groaned aloud at 1:42
"Just because Faker is good at a champion, it doesn't mean that champion is good."
I'd be wary of using the most elite players to determine the relative strength of a civ; it can give misleading results.
Really guys? No one commenting on the "Spotted" Jaguar Warrior?! I'm disappointed with this community...
Aztecs have always been notoriously difficult for players outside the top 10% to leverage in full.
I think the dev's general direction of incentivising longsword play which counters eagles quite a bit might be one of the reasons
THIS yes
^ can't believe this got missed in the discussion. It's because of SUPPLIES! (and other stuff. But we know it's about #s)
@@sam4secretary He did imply supplies when he mentioned the buffs that have been given to the militia line (like supplies and gambesons).
Well I can tell you why I suck at aztecs. I almost never use keybinds or unit grouping. 1k elo for life bb. Monk micro 2 hard with just the mouse.
Reason behind this might be that hitting the exact timings is the ultimate key to utilize the strenghts. Since the margin of error has decreased over time (nerfs of civ bonuses) this would perfectly explain the drop of win rate at every level - however, it can be anticipated that the few best players will still be able to make them work since they are able to consistently hit those timing (leaving multitasking ability, scouting, experience, etc. aside). As the margin of error appears to be very small, the next best player will by nature already struggle to utilize.
If the above holds, it's basically impossible to balance this civ. If you increase the margin of error to a meaningful degree (e.g. to target a win rate of approx. 50%), it improved the win rate at every level but disproportionally leads to a domination of aztecs amongst the best players. So indeed, may be close to impossible to balance for all levels.
That's the thing, you can't balance any game for all skill levels, the best thing any game dev can do is close gaps on wither end of whatever needs balancing, try please the most people and ignore the loud minority that always complains about any balance changes
I agree on most aspects, in particular a loud minority complaining about everything will always exist and has to be ignored.
However, for balancing purposes I consider it reasonable to put greater emphasis on the top-level since there is hardly any room for improvements in terms of skill for these players. A broken civ on top-level is just unfair since W/L is determined by civ choice not by skill.
On lower levels, there is in theory always room to improve your game play and adapt new strategies until you are one of the top players.
Issue with that is mainly that certain civs may be somewhat unplayable for lower levels and casual players which is obviously not desirable. So clearly, the perspective of a casual player has to be reflected to some extend, yet only if it doesn't lead to an unfair situation on top-level.
Obviously, this is very hard to achieve in practice.
"They have Jaguar Warriors , which can be spotted now and then ..." 😆
The fastest decision-makers are able to best utilise aggression. The more consistent then can turn that tempo into a snowball. Sort of like when a gamer stops "making plays" and starts "always playing"
You said it perfectly
Players until Elo 1600 just bruteforce the strenght of the civ they pick and hope they win that way. Thats why Franks have a high winrate. You fastcastle knights every single time without interacting with the opponent and hope you win (Same with Berbers, Lithuanians, Teutons and such). Archer civs do the same with X-Bows. Its just copying a build order and go.
After that 1600 Elo treshold, other civs immediately pop up. Thats why chinese, Mayans, Aztecs, Malians etc. are considered top tier in high elo. Because just after that players start to play a strategy game and not a farming simulator.
If Aztecs were a good civilization and nerfed to mediocre and the playerbase just didn't update their expectations, then you can make an argument for or against tournament evidence. Yes these are the best of the best. But what if their perception is out of date and the 8 wins out of 12 games they were picked is just random chance? Yes the evidence is consistent with Aztecs being a top desert civilization. However, the tournament data is also constant with Aztecs being a 50% civilization. 24 wins out of 32 games, 11 wins out of 12, or 16 wins out of 19 would be more convincing evidence to me.
Simple answer is: The strategies that play to Aztecs' strengths (Drush, Monks, Eagles instead of cavalry) are not conducive to beginners or intermediate players. Archers and cavalry are much easier to use than infantry, monks and siege. Faster military creation also requires good eco management as a foundation, something beginners haven't mastered yet.
For me Aztecs have always been a bottom five civ.
I hate their few options.
No thumb ring, no imperial archer armor, generic infatry until garland wars, no gun powder, no cav and very weak defensive structures.
Besides the monks and the eco bonus i cant find any reason why this civ could be strong.
5:26 I find it funny that statistical studies for politics and economies are often less picky about their sample sizes than SOTL is for a 25 year old video game.
But no, let's not discuss that here. SOTL doesn't deserve that.
I see that Astecs is the koreans in terms of being banned from tournaments. With that being said, who's the top three banned civs currently?
Maaaaaaaaan is just Chinese all over again.
Edit: Every single time SOTL speaks with someone he sounds as if he was THE best new anchor ever alive. How does he even manage to be so professional? Im always amused.
It really just comes down to them having a mediocre castle age. No stable, no thumb ring, leaves little options to face top tier picks.
Their reliable strats ergo monk rush or fast imp eagles both require huge economies to setup and execute, mostly likely meaning you must ve a better player than your opponents to successfully pull them out.
0:23 chinese
*Look at how they massacred my boy*
Dear spirit, could you please make reviews of nations in Rise of nations extended edition with your knowledge and sweet voice? Top 10 nations for 1v1 random land map? Or one nation per video?
Interesting comment about lower elo players having less experience with meso civs. If this is true we'd expect to see a similar discrepancy for Incas and Mayans. Maybe worth a look? 😁
Bring back the old +5 carrying capacity
At least should be +4
You could do the same with britons, often get s or a tier yet they bottom 5??
Britons have one of the best archers in the game but to fully utilize them the player needs good micro while still maintaining their eco/macro. It's just too much multitasking for lower ELO players to handle. Archers are always much better in the hands of high ranked players.
So many new HC civs and Cavalry civs, no cavalry for aztecs, bad UU, nerf eagles.
It became an average civ… It was my faovorite civ before…
The clip with the Aftermath tierlist is misleading: they ultimately put Aztecs in A tier.
It's monks. Anyone outside the top pro players can't use monks to their full potential.
Jaguar warriors can be "spotted" now and then. Pun intended, Spirit?
The Aztecs have been treated poorly by developers since version 1.C they've been power creeped ever since.
They were really fast, but defensively weak missing masonry, architecture and hoardings.
It the hands of pros the speed was powerful and their weak defenses were marginalized. As a result, the Aztecs were never top tier to anyone but the pros.
Nerfing the Aztecs speed without adequate compensation did weaken them in the hands of the pros, but made them garbage for everyone else.
Man I miss the pre-de graphics, so much nostalgia
Full nunmber oriented observation, with pro player interview on an interesting enough topic. Perfect.
I just want Aztecs to get their classical loom back and a gimmicky buff to Jaguar warriors so they give food for each kill
The second idea could be really good ...
I've been a little out of the loop with AOE2 lately; can someone explain what's going on with the Romans? They seem to be some kind of special civilization? Can they be used in tournaments? And from a lore perspective, why were they introduced if we also have Byzantines and Italians? I'm just very puzzled atm.
Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, decided to "sell AoE1 as a AoE2 DLC" (a lot of complaints about what they did were just that). For those who bought it, they are gifted the Roman AoE2 Civilization. It's a Siege + Infantry Civ with a unique ship. Another gimmick is, their unique cavalry unit buffs their infantry. They have a tech or bonus which improves the Scorpion. It's for these reasons Aztecs don't fare well against them.
If the kt hypothesis is true, something similar should apply to Mayans and Incas
Seeems like the devs hate aztecs and love franks. Also, jaguar needs a buff.
How about generating food from kills ?
Franks are good to have strong because you want basic civs like Britons or Franks to be strong and accessible to players. Aztecs are still good it's just that players need to develop proper aggressive skills and man@arms or milita builds and learn how to maintain advantage/snowball.
I am currently subscribed to over 600 youtube channel (none that I don't watch videos of) and you are definately one of my all time favorites! Please keep making these videos, even the shorter ones!
I got so giddy hearing Sotl uttering The Viper
if biper softened his voice a bit it would seem like SOTL of the law was talking to himself
One of the greatest confusion finally solved.
Hi, @spiritofthelaw hwo did you check stats by only 2250 elo or more ? I don't see such option on aoestats, thanks in advance
You have to use aoepulse to filter to specific elo ratings and patches. For example: www.aoepulse.com/civ_stats?min_elo=2250&include_ladder_ids=3&include_map_ids=9&include_patch_ids=87863%2C85614%2C85208%2C83607%2C82587%2C81058%2C78757%2C78174%2C75350%2C73855%2C71094%2C66692%2C63581%2C63482%2C62085%2C61591
The nerfs you mentioned have massively affected their main strength which is a fairly fast imp into Eagle spam. There are also so many more good HC civs and Paladin/Heavy cav civs which deal with Eagles much better.
I think the Eagle line deserves some tweaking to make them more viable.
They can't do that because directly buffing Eagles also buffs Mayans and Incas. You'd have to do something specific to Aztecs.
@darkdill fair. Maybe their eagles need to be buffed. I think Garland wars is probably too expensive at this point given how strong other civs infantry has gotten.
I disagree, but mostly because it seems like flooding the map with eagles is the main approach for Meso civs, and especially Aztecs, almost as soon as they hit Castle Age. I think they ought to have more than one viable strategy so they become a bit less predictable.
At your skill lv where people play basically no rush 30min maybe. Paladins and HC? LMAO. GL surviving that far vs the most blind spamable unit in game.
@@majungasaurusaaaa I think he means there are lots of civs that can make knights with some bonus, and knights -even in castle age- fare decently well against fast imp eagles. And eagles do give diminishing returns, especially with Aztecs where they only get extra attack (and that, only if you go for a castle and research the unique tech, which is not cheap). If you don't kill your opponent with the eagle rush, eventually the knights get much stronger. Paladin is a real stretch and it's a sign the game was already over, but overall I agree that the Eagle spam was a very strong strategy and that, as it's been toned down significantly, it allows other civilizations that have weapons in their arsenal against that to shine brighter.
I just think that it's good that the Eagle spam got nerfed a bit. Aztecs have, or should have anyway, other strengths as well.
I think the two factors Viper identified make a lot of sense. Snowball and cheese. Both of those factors make a civ harder to play, more risky to play, and more one-sided when it works. It also reduces the fun and balance of the game, since one small mistake means you lose, when everything else was going your way. That explains why Aztecs are often banned in tournament play. But it's also interesting how your data made Viper reconsider where to place Aztecs. You're doing awesome work, and literally changing the meta of the game!
Aztecs are not that frail tho and eagle warriors are a strong threat for Mayans and Aztecs that can help them come back in a game with faster imp spike. People aren't used to planning transitions as well in lower levels, which is more than just knowing counters but planning economy to set up situations. Otherwise you may have something like castle age skirms vs imperial age arbalests and get destroyed. Basically the threat of eagle warriors gives them great comeback potential as well as their farming and eco in general.
Id appreciate a new series "Spirit of The Raw"...perhaps on a different platform
0 chill
"You have to mostly balance for the top while also keeping it fun for the bottom." 🤔
Me on Friday nights
Simple, they buffed Tlaxcala
Fantastic content as always! Great analysis and really liked the idea to bring in a pro player, given the scenario!
WOW!! Memb AND The Viper in a Spirit of the Law video!!?? AMAZING!! I feel like this might be the beginning of a new era!
By filtering aoepulse for just 2000+ elo, we see with 95% confidence that Aztecs used to have a winrate above 50.0% (from April 2022 to June 2023). Of course, there is _some_ p-hacking going on there, so it's not the most reliable datapoint, but the observed winrate _does_ rise quite consistently as you go up in Elo.
That said, even trusting the 2000+ Aztec winrate at face value, they were only 13th best, at 51.64% winrate compared to 5 other civs' 55%+.
In comparison, the highest winrate I could find from April 2023 to now (i.e. after the Eagle nerf) was 48.79% at 1800+ Elo. Higher elos can show a larger winrate, but the sample size is so small that a winrate of 48.79% is still within even a 90% confidence interval, let alone 95%. So it does really look like Aztecs became weaker over the last few patches.
Shame, I really like Aztecs
5:26 elite player when not holding Alcatraz WR?? Idk man 😅😜
Strange, saw a random video about Rise of Legends just the other day and thought I haven't plat AoE 2 in over a year at least, I want to install and had intention to play Aztecs, then this video pops up, lol.
I'm just a 1600 ELO player, but I can say aztecs are top tier for sure and that's not due to their bonus but because of eagle warriors. If pick Aztecs, mayans or incas exclusively I can jump +200 ELO in 20-30 games.
It’s official, Persians are now the worst on 1900+ Arabia. I believe they need to give Bracer, nerf Kamandaran so it’s makes crossbows cost 70 wood (so it’s mathematically correct and still somewhat balanced, but still a small buff to Persians). Or maybe do something like the Roman’s where Cav armour does double (would make it somewhat historically accurate)
I'm a low ELO player. For me Eagle Warrior was the ONLY thing making Aztecs good. But after recent balance changes buffing infantry from other civs, Eagles no longer feel unique or strong- they are just average now. Aztecs were a one-trick pony and their best trick got buried by melee power creep.
Its pretty clear though. You don't see monks used in any serious manner (besides collecting relics and leftovers remembering they can convert knights) until 1400 or 1500. Its not even till 1800 or 1900 that you see people pull off 6+ monks converting 6 different units in a second or two. Unless someone is a heavy all in monk/siege type of person it never shows up and if it does its not as good as it could be.
So that's honestly why I think monk civs have bad stats overall. Yet you will see Aztecs, Bengalis and even civs like Burmese with terrible win rates at low to mid elo.
Monks just aren't a unit most people feel comfortable with because they require so much apm to keep alive and get use out of and if you do invest apm in them something else usually slips.
If you've ever watched custom AI tournaments once monks get involved it gets crazy, it shows their amazing potential if you had inhuman micro/apm. Just like when they start with skirm/archer balls that always use exactly the amount of projectiles to kill units and never overkill. The true skill ceiling for some units is just incredible and will likely never be reached given the limits of human input.
Monks, unlike range units have such a high skill floor for effective use in fights that I really doubt it will ever change. In most cases it requires a complete change up of your control groups to get great use of them. So good luck with it if you've spent 200+ hours with a learned set of control groups and suddenly have to clear them up so you can 1-9 monks for quick conversions.
How are the Aztecs so bad against Malay? They're basically an elephant and cheap infantry civ with weak defenses. I would think that a civ with a strong rush potential, powerful monks and an anti-infantry UU would shred them.
Make Aztecs Great Again
Pretty sure Bourgignons is the best civ and that is the correct way to spell it because they are french.
I put Bohemian and Malien and Teutons and Silicians as the other top 5 for low elo players. I dont know what the win rates are but teutons have the best castles, Silicians have strong infantry that can tower rush, Malian have tc that shoots without garison and have the best scouts, bohemians has the best pikeman and Bourgignons have earlier eco upgrades, get gold from farms, food from relics, the best cavalry in the game (i mean the ones made from their castles) decent building and army upgrades and if you are in trouble you can always turn your villagers into super militias, the cue in 50+ more villagers from tc with automatic economy and then just keep making them at barracks because they cheaper then militias, faster then militia and dont need upgrades and are almost stronger then militia. Used to get paladin in castle but that got nerfed and despite that they still best civ.
Eagle warriors suck because they cost too much gold for how good they are. Mayans Eagles are borderline ok because of the plus 40 hp upgrade but they still lose to mass scout a troush unit. Couliettes only costs 5 more gold and have way more damage and hp then eagles. Eagles are just trash that wastes your gold. Very weak damage: Fully upgraded eagle warriors only do 13 damage. Couliette does 40 on first hit then 18 for the rest and have 155 hp vs 100 hp mayan eagle or low 60 hp for any other eagles. Only reason a pro can win with eagles is because you get to make them in feudal. If they were to become castle age units and made only in castles, Aztecs would be worst civ automatically.
It was an interesting choice to give the meso civs things they didn’t have (crossbows, any units requiring advanced metallurgy) but keeping them away from cavalry and gunpowder.
To be fair, I dont't think Aztecs are bad, but underrated rn. I feel like Aztecs are on the same situations as Incas back in the day, were Incas had every tool that meso civs had, but the other do it better. Right now, the Eagle play works better with Incas cause of the newest food discount. I don't know if Mayans also fell on the latter, but if they do, maybe that's why, but thats uust my theory.