Alot of people asking about turks. Let me adress them: - free hussar techs and chemistry gives a ton of power spikes and savings through the game. - +1 pierce armor for hussar line is INSANE vs archer civs, basically forces them to go pikes then u can switch to CA or siege in combination with light cav - Late game is insane if u have even a bit of gold or relic access. Not the best civ overall, but definitely not the worst
Turks are fine, it's just similar to what you said about the spanish. They just don't shine in arabia 1v1, but as we saw in TTL, they can do great in arena and other closed maps
Turks still have a weak match up against strong archer civs in open maps. All they need to do is to add some spearmen to their archers. Spearmen are cheaper than light cav, and they are made in just 22 seconds, while the light cav is made in 30s. Not to mention spearmen do much better against light cav than vs knights. And to make things worse, many archer civs have stronger eco bonuses than Turks (Mayans, Chinese, Britons come to mind)
I'd like to see Sipahi affect knights though, just for fun. They'd still have worse stats than a generic Paladin without bloodlines, and historically, the Sipahi were also skilled melee fighters.
I honestly think such things ,by such things i mean changes we made to civs in the past should nt be brought back. There is a reason y such changes were made. Poles farmering is like 11% almost 12% faster than generic its not too far from slavs so imagine 15% And thats EXACTLY y the devs nerfed it. Same with howdah giving+2 p armour.On release of rise of rajas Burmese ele could have 9 p armour and was bonkers and then immediately in the next patch it was nerfed to 8 p armour There is a reason y it happend Burmese with 9 p armour TANK MORE ARBALEST arrows than a fucking seige ram.Just think that😐 As for Persians its the same thing there is a reason 22 yrs ago devs left out 5% faster tc and dock bonus in dark age.The win rate of persians sky rocketed once such a small change was made.Thats how delicate aoe balance is
@@Achilles75 Poles bonus is faster gathering, more efficient gathering, and last but not least, the bonus is all up front. It’s way, way better than just a +10% faster farming bonus. Is it better than a +15% bonus? Debatable, but I’d say so.
@@Paal2005 i never said that it wasnt just not as far ahead as people think but yes i agree that receiving that +10% of food upfront is better in some ways since u get a resource spike Eg: u have 60 pole farms arnd folwark with heavy plow u immediately get 2250 food thats really grt In the end they both collect the food almost arnd the same time (poles and slavs ie) but poles is slightly faster and more versatile for sure
I think whenever a civ needs a buff, the first thing to look at should be making their unique unit more viable. About half the civs ignore or rarely use their unique units, and using this rule of thumb will greatly increase variety and diversity in the game.
Someone in AOE2 reddit had a very highly upvoted and interesting idea and it'd be great to hear your thoughts on this since timings matter way more for pros: What if some civs get techs later instead of earlier? Like, Celt could be able to research bloodlines in Imp (for their paladins) or Burmese get the 2nd archer armor in Imp.
interesting idea but it would require ALOT of thought to balance all the civs around this new concept. It seems too extreme of a mechanic to bring in right now, the balance is very good i dont think we need to introduce this personally
Nice idea in the fifth age everyone can have access to everything 😂😂 What should be the requirement for the 5th age ? Building a wonder maybe but a cheaper wonder 😂😂
I personally like this idea a lot. IMO, Turks should receive elite skirm up in imperial, or at least having access to the elite skirms tech after researching the last archer armor. The idea would also be great for Malay cav armor and Burmese archer armor in imp.
I think it would be a great and fun way to balance civs for experienced players. But let’s not forget that Age 2 is designed so that your grandmas gonna be able to get into it. I would be so confused if one of the techs wasn’t available in castle age for some civs, but suddenly appear in imp. It’s just not user friendly design. What would be fun though is introducing mini Unique Techs for all civs, maybe in the town center. It would be a good way to balance civs without ruining the old nostalgic bonuses, and could address many of these problems regardings civs that need to be limited in castle age but suck ass in imperial cause of it.
AOE2 reddit is shit. They banned me for saying the truth. See my video "ATHEIST PROPAGANDA in Age of Empires." Atheists can't handle the truth. Get triggered, ingrates.
Giving Ratha the Cavalry armor class instead of the Archer/Cav Archer armor class, and giving Bengalis Thumb Ring would be a good start to bring them up to speed.
But heresy costs 1k gold if im not mistaken, and by the late game its hard to go mass monks cause its so micro intensive. The problem really is in Castle age where losing a few units (especially expensive ones like the war elephant) without getting value can turn the game around.
@@dirkauditore8413 Actually had a change of opinion and came up with a better idea. Instead, put elephant conversions behind the Redemption tech, forcing the other players to spend gold on the upgrade to counter elephants.
@@dirkauditore8413 I have another idea, maybe include heresy in the elite war elephant upgrade and (more)faith in the mahouts upgrade? Those elephants are so expensive to get to that I honestly don't mind if they become op and would want to see persians going for them in a competitive 1v1 game....not when they are already miles ahead of their opponent and wanna 105 the opponent.
I would personally include italians too, at least in the honorable mentions. The cheaper age ups is what made me like them in the first place, but for most plebs like us is really hard to make use of such "well timed" bonus on maps that doesn't have water, and I fear it'll be worse with the new archer nerf.
While you are kinda right, this might run into the problem of overbuffing other elephant civs, e.g. the khmer or malay...so it would lead to quite a bit of rebalancing.
give buffs to BE that do make them stronger in castle age, but not OP for lower elo or in post-imp. this could be 1. higher attack at lower rate (maybe +50% attack and reload time), so dps remains equal. so, kiting them becomes less rewarding, since every time you happen to get hit, you get hit harder. at the same time, they would not get any stronger in straight fights 2. give all elephant units +10% speed, instead of being affected by husbandry 3. give all civs BEs some extra conversion resistance to begin with 4. lower pikemen's bonus vs elephants. however, many civs lack halberdier, so this could indeed sometimes make post-imp elephants op 5. faster creation time could also make them more affordable early on, as you can save wood on extra stable. however, this is questionable, since relative to their combat strength elephants are already create very fast 6. buff BE, but leave elite BE unchanged. however, that has already been done so much, that the elite upgrade has become kind of a joke, especially for its huge cost. if this approach should be continued, we would have to consider removing the elite upgrade entirely and instead have have 1 unit for castle age and imp that only gets improved by bs techs
With the exception of #5, all of these civilizations (including the honorable mentions) have very complete Barracks option, but incomplete Archery Range/Stable options. I wonder how much of this is really the civilizations being weak vs the underperformance of Infantry in the current meta.
Just goes to show meta is still dominated by kts and xbows, infantry still doesn't cut it. I'm glad they'll nerf xbows by increasing the cost of the upgrade, but tbh infantry line needs more buffs. Mostly the cost of the units and maybe movement speed-
@@dirkauditore8413 Movement speed and armor would help. Tbh longswords could probably have 2/2 base armor and still suck, they should honestly counter archers by having like 3 pierce armor and move significantly faster than the archer line. AoE 2 is currently a rock paper scissor game where knights counters swordsmen and xbows counters all (if massed). It makes no sense that a long swordsman, who is in heavy armor and has a shield, has barely any pierce armor.
With the Bengalis, I think that the way that the devs should approach buffing them (and the Burmese) is to tweak the battle elephant so that it isnt just a meme in 1v1s. How you go about doing that, IDK, but these civs are based around a unit that isn't viable in 99% of 1v1s and team games
Imo half of the problems with Bengalis, Dravidians or any elephant heavy civ is to make the elephant a faster unit. Atleast like a ratha speed such that they still are outpaces by knights and all but can run away a bit from halbs and monks. That would make them move of a "cav" option imo and a elephant is actually a very fast animal realistically too.
give buffs to BE that do make them stronger in castle age, but not OP for lower elo or in post-imp. this could be 1. higher attack at lower rate (maybe +50% attack and reload time), so dps remains equal. so, kiting them becomes less rewarding, since every time you happen to get hit, you get hit harder. at the same time, they would not get any stronger in straight fights 2. give all elephant units +10% speed, instead of being affected by husbandry 3. give all civs BEs some extra conversion resistance to begin with 4. lower pikemen's bonus vs elephants. however, many civs lack halberdier, so this could indeed sometimes make post-imp elephants op 5. faster creation time could also make them more affordable early on, as you can save wood on extra stable. however, this is questionable, since relative to their combat strength elephants are already create very fast 6. buff BE, but leave elite BE unchanged. however, that has already been done so much, that the elite upgrade has become kind of a joke, especially for its huge cost. if this approach should be continued, we would have to consider removing the elite upgrade entirely and instead have have 1 unit for castle age and imp that only gets improved by bs techs
Thought on Bengali, 1) Add a wired mechanic to replace the +2 villagers on age up. Something like you can que villagers during an age up they will all spawn out simultaneously with the age up. 2) Slight Ratha buff so they aren’t countered so easily. This would allow the Bengali to like not need a bunch of army comp changes and just turn them into the first “eco civ.”
Give ratha a speed bump. If they are as fast as hussars they can hit and run more effectively as cav archer, engage skirms by getting into minimum range faster. Lower creation time to 15 secs.
@@battleforevermore That’s a good idea for buffing Ratha without making it too broken. Instead of limiting its bonus damage make it a raiding unit. That combined with Vil bonus would make it a kinda broken castle age unit.
Celts, Slavs, Dravidians, Malay and Burmese are all civs that are to some extent infantry civs. Buffing the militia-line would certainly help them and give infantry civs a stronger identity (now it's more like good eco + standard archers or knights, like Vikings, Slavs, Japanese etc, rather than actually using the infantry bonuses after 3 m@a).
I advocate giving the infantry some kind of special ability. For example, the ability to steal raw materials from the camps? I find it unimaginative in the long run just to increase the values.
Surprised not to see Goths mentioned, particularly putting civs like Celts, Persians, etc. ahead. I do agree with bengalis of course, and I suppose Dravidians as well. Slavs would have maybe been 5th for me?
goths are actually at 51% winrate and they are picked in high elo tourneys for cheese early game strategies and counter maptchups. Dont get me wrong its not a good civ overall but it has its place in the game, and altho its not consistent it can be powerful in certain situations
@@HeraAgeofEmpires2 Goth may not be bad enough for you to qualify for your Top5, but if you were a developer would you buff the Goth and if so, what would you give them?
@@lizardemperorkorbac4281 Pros opinions also changes. Hera used to say Goth is worst civ in the game 5-6 months ago, now he thought different, game meta changes continually.
some really simple buffs that i thought about for these civs(i play burmese dravidians a lot so..) Dravidians - Just give them bloodlines and husbandry, giving them the (kind of) potential to raid late game, and it also makes their elephant archers really stronk. or maybe give their archers to be inflicted by arson and squires, or just squires, kind of matching with their barrack bonuses which also gives them a fun micro styled play and some mobility. Burmese - Just give them second archer armor. making arambai stronk and skirms somewhat stronk for late game,(you already have manipur cav too)
I play Dravidians mostly. The lack of mobility sucks. It is hard to scout after late castle age. Wish they give some extra line of sight to Ele Archers.
Even better, what I was thinking they should buff up about the Burmese is giving them access to many things like: - Siege Onager - Thumb Ring - Hand Cannoneer
Dravidians! They've converted me to a pachyderm enthusiast. Good news, it seems like in the next patch they will get bombard cannons. I like to work towards ele archers in castle, even if they aren't the best. I think their cost is coming down a little bit though, which will be nice.
Meso civs could use a fast, low armor obsidian studded clubman that is food only so they have a corollary to the hussar. This would let the dev's get the eagle warrior more in line with the rest since its not the only things meso civs have to replace so many different units. They currently cant seem to get meso civ balance quite right so it would be a way to fix that, in my opinion. Of course my opinion is not fact. A lot of these civs on this list are super-victimized by meso civs.
They should honestly give Bengalis Thumb Ring. The argument of "well, they have the unique tech" doesn't really track with me; yes it improves firing rate but you need a castle and also the problem with accuracy is not a minor one: elephants have pretty bad accuracy and they are supposed to be one of their strongest units. We all know that a civ w/o thumb ring can't go cav archers, but with eles is even worse since they are slower and harder to micro. Also their unique unit literally dies to skirms. No skirms+knights, no skirms+pikes, plain old mass skirms kill them easily. They are supposed to be tanky, and tho i agree with hera that tanky archers is kind of pointless, i thought it was interesting. However they only have "tanky archers", their elephants literally do the same as rathas and also are expensive units that die to skirms. My solution would be: give them thumb ring man, make their expensive units be worth it. Also increase their cav archer armour with rathas the same way it was proposed for elephants in the next patch. And finally, also please make it so that all elephant units (melee and ranged) move at the same speed. This would help other elephant reliant civs that showed up in this same vid (dravidians, burmese, malay). And give dravidians husbandry... why? idk just do it
I think giving them PT in Castle age will somewhat offset their weakness against Skirmishers. Another idea is giving them a strong defensive buff like similar to old Koreans bonus "walls, towers and castles are built 50% faster" so that they can survive in Castle age and reach their imperial army combo a bit easier. BTW, they are getting free Othodoxy in the next patch - Monk +3/+3 armor.
@@mubashirulmoula1798 early parthian tactics would be a bit much i think, since it also applies to elephants. But who knows? maybe that could make them worth the commitment. I totally agree thought, some defensive (or even eco) bonus would be awesome for them to either survive or reach the next age faster, both options being rewarded by the bonus vills in the next age. The monk bonus is interesting, it might help a bit with relic wars in arena since they would take 1 more hit i'm pretty sure.
@@gamingpc5459 Elephant Archer will die to skirmisher even with PT as they will still take almost the same damage. As for the monk bonus, yes they will survive 1 or 2 more hits against scout and LC, knight, camel.
@@mubashirulmoula1798 That buff they did it for Bengalis is the most stupid thing I ever saw in my life. They die to Skimishers, what we gonna do: give to them better monks. You really? F*** this sh**.
Persians need mahouts speed to be inherent to the elephant and another UT in replacement. This way we might see Elephants every now and then and it frees a slot to give them something useful, some tech to improve their late game.
Agree but I suggest this instead. ALL elephants get a micro-speed buff and slightly more resistant to conversion. Then Mahouts is even more speed and should be a cheaper tech since no one can base their whole army on elephants only.
I just want to say that I appreciate that you add bonuses you think they should get to give them the buff they need rather than just saying they are to weak. Keep up the great content.
I think Byzantines need a buff. They first appeared in Age of Kings and the game has evolved in such a way that it nerfs them and while a lot of other Age of Kings civs such as Turks got buffs to compete in the new paradigm the Byzantines never got a significant buff.
For Persians, I think the devs need to take a hard look at monks and how they disproportionately counter elephants. If they even out that hard counter somehow, the War Elephant(and elephant civs generally) will see a bit more play. For Celts, I've seen lots of pros complain about Strongholds, their Castle age tech. What about replacing it with a Claymore tech, and give their swordsman line extra range? For Slavs, I have a hunch that they and a few other Forgotten Expansion civs are going to get split like the Indians. I know AoE 3 and 4 gives the Rus good Cavalry archers, so maybe that's an angle? The Dravidians will probably get Bombards. Other than that, I have yet to play them. I think a general monastery revamp would probably help their elephants. The Bengalis also have good elephants that can't really shine because of monks. Even conversion resistance isn't enough to mitigate that hard counter completely. Their Rathas are decent, but maybe taking off their Cavalry Archer armor class could be good. Technically, a Chariot Archer is a distinct concept from a cavalry archer, so I don't think it's a bad change conceptually. They'll still keep the archer armor class.
Absolutely this. Elephants are countered so hard. Why are they insanely expensive AND easy to counter? Persians need Heresy at a minimum. And from there, maybe a mild cost reduction to their Elite upgrade.
Make Dravidians an Elephant Archer Civ (and naval civ) instead of Infantry civ. We have had many Infantry civs already. Dravidian civ covers peninsular India and Sri Lanka which naturally have more number of elephants than you find elsewhere in India. So, as part of buff, Dravidians shall train elephant units faster and cheaper and get husbandry/bloodlines. Why give them knights when you can buff their elephant units.
A common theme I'm picking up on is it seems like there aren't enough good counters to Light Cavalry lines, and Swordsmen are too weak without some special dujour (like Vikings or Japanese).
The thing that worries me with some of your buff suggestions is that to make up for a weakness in the civ, you just add the generic tools and units, like knights, to make up for it. We should be focusing on making/keeping the civs unique. The problem with balance is if you want it to be perfect in every case, then every civ is a mirror holding a different banner. Eles hard countered by monks? Dont just give them hussar, give them unique techs/unit to deal with then. Or try to rework insane hard counters in general. Since when do elephants practice religion anyways?
is there a way for elephants to be a viable option? What do you think?What do you think? Shouldn't dev fix the unit fundamentally? (in this one vid, there's 3 elephant civs!)
i think a nice bonus for Dravidians could be auto repair of ships when close to a dock. this could make it more of a water civ and could really help in ship wars.
I'm love all of them! Especially the armour for infantry. Those guys are dismounted Knights in full plate armour, arrows irl do not penetrate that! And it's not op either since ranged units can still micro them down
@@ingoseiler Infantry like 2hS and Champions weren’t really dismounted knights. Knights were nobility and pretty much always fought from horseback. Elite infantry would rarely use full plate armor like cavalry did, as it wasn’t good for their stamina and mobility. They were historically pretty weak to archer fire too. If anything, I’d probably lower their food cost slightly. More pierce armor won’t help them early game against feudal and early castle age archers, since they already are slower and suppose to be weak against them. Giving them +1 pierce armor however will likely make them destroy skirmishes, and make them too good against archer line in late game when you don’t micro large battles, especially for civs like Aztecs, Celts and Slavs.
All great ideas, hope you post it on AOE2 main site for devs to see. I only have one thing to add: let's finally get swordsmen line buffed up to proper balance and do it right! 2HS and Champion upgrade time -20 seconds, upgrade cost radically reduced, +1P armor, and squires adds even more speed than it does now. And -5 gold cost on top of it all. And supplies is cheaper too.
I agree about Persians, I was surprised when they eventually rescinded the dark age 5% buff. Small buff for Spanish that only impacts open maps could be something like “res spawn closer to the TC”
Any underperforming civ that needs a buff, should first and foremost look at making the unique unit more viable. As a rule of thumb. There's no need to speculate about other types of buff bonus for a civ whose unique unit is rarely used.
For Celts I would make their speed bonus to start with a 5% from DA, 10% Feudal, 15% Castle and 18% for imperial (this makes them really good and focus in its nice infantry). For Malays I think their special unit should cost twice as much food but half as much gold. Also, something I would change but just as a Malian lover (I think it might be an op change) is to change their gold bonus to "you start with an extra gold source" (similar to the bushes from gurjaras). Silver crown more costly but also makes TC replace their stone cost with wood
I kinda think about the faster working Town Centers as a short term economy boost, since the villager starts working a few seconds earlier even if you can't use the bonus to boost up numbers overall. Kinda like their starting resource bonus, really. Shorter research times on wheelbarrow and hand cart is also handy and probably makes those techs worth getting a bit earlier than usual. Maybe a buff could involve extending the benefit to Loom and Town Watch/Patrol. Maybe even aging up but similar bonuses for other Civs always exclude those.
Dravidians! They are too weak against archer civs and ranged UUs. Hussite Wagons and Korean War Wagons can give you nightmares. And do I need to tell about Organ Guns and rams? BBC is a good addition but this civ could be redesigned without it.
I think a way to improve Bengalis should be give to them Cavalry Armor Upgrade for free. They only have Elephants and Scouts, so it would help their Feudal and early Castle Age composition with Scout open and, of course, help their elephant identity. I don't think this alone could make them viable, but for sure can make them more useful in so many situations (like dealing with skimishers, for example).
It's a good idea but it goes against their identity. An archer civ getting cav armour upgrade sounds wrong, and Devs do give identity alot of importance
@@battleforevermore I don't consider because the player can't hold a entire game with just Light Cavalry. Will force you to go Arbalests or their elephants... but will give to you some time or even a composition to help your army.
For Persians, I feel like if you give them back the 5% workrate in Dark Age, you need to stagger the HP to like 40/60/80/100%, otherwise they just get too strong on hybrid maps again
Erin L 0 seconds ago Any underperforming civ that needs a buff, should first and foremost look at making the unique unit more viable. As a rule of thumb. There's no need to speculate about other types of buff bonus for a civ whose unique unit is rarely used !
@@PartyMusic775 Hardly disagree. Half the civs mentioned in the video already have their unique unit as their only good point (for 1v1s), like Burmese, Bengalis, Spanish. And at the same time a lot of the S-tier civs you almost never see their unique units. Bonuses are more impactful than UUs.
Archer elephants are supposed to be the pocket choice as Bengalis and Dravidians but they suck so much because they are slow, low dps, and easy to convert. It would be interesting if elephant archers were at least more resistant to conversion like light cav or had a bonus against infantry.
For Bengalis, they need to buff the elephant bonus like make their elephants take twice as long to convert, the ratha should not be countered by skirmishers as much as it its, and maybe give them +3 villagers per age up.
I really like this list, I agree that Persians and Celts feel like there is something small missing. I understand the viewpoints about the Dravidians, but do feel they are a little better (maybe outside of the Pro scene) than people have been giving them credit for. In the early game there is good opportunity for MAA play, especially with non-traditional more than 3 unit investment and/or forward barracks or an offensive tower using that extra wood, with good skirm play to follow up with. While they lack mobility and would benefit heavily from BBC, I think that as the meta adjusts to leverage their wood bonus more we might see a bit more appreciation for them from the playerbase. I think it would be an easy civ to over-buff, but given the upcoming xbow nerf they should get something.
Sorry about the amount of posts, maybe you enjoy them maybe you are annoyed by them. But I have a lot of ideas and this is the place to share them. Theoretical idea: Most civs could be fixed by a (realistic) upgrade for imperial age called "Gambeson and riveted chain mail" that replaces plate mail if you dont have it. It just gives +1 pierce armor and is cheap, and helps the civs who miss out on that +2 pierce armor get back into competition while still being at a disadvantage. So they would end up with +2/3 instead of +2/2, but still weaker than the the +3/4 most civs have. IRL chain mail is very weak but when its got rivets that make each link reinforced it becomes incredibly high grade armor since it cant really be broken apart easily at all. Combined with the heavy wool coat underneath called the gambeson for padding from blunt damage, it was incredibly good, cheaper armor. This would help fix things like goth and celt cav without giving them a truly crazy upgrade that tilts the scales too far.
One of the things I think they should buff up about the Burmese is giving them access to many things like: - Siege Onager - Thumb Ring - Hand Cannoneer
Hera, thank you for your videos. It is a pleasure to have you back. What buffs would you propose for Bengali's? I admit im a glutton for punishment. My fav civs are Burmese, Viking and Dravidians. I want to like the Bengali though!
What is interesting in this video is? Hera makes a video about Goths and why they need buff and also Hera makes a video about Hoang rush, how Hoang rush uses all Celts bonus and thats why it is hard to stop them. Then Hera makes a new video in which Celts needs buff and Goths are not even mentioned 😂 I guess the civs which do not need buff are, 1)Franks 2)Britons 3)Aztec-Inca-Mayans 4)Chinese 5)Malians Because everyone likes play with them 😂😂 All other civs need buffs 😂😂
I think if the change to elephant archer bonus armour against skirms changes as in the pre patch, the bengalis will end up with a unit that has no cost effective counters (I think age of noob did a video). At least on closed maps that will make them viable, but they will probably feel like goths where they are rubbish until they get to imp and upgrades.
I would like to have either Bengalis or Dravidians get fully upgraded Elephant archers. The new civs get bonuses for them but since they lack crucial upgrades they so rarely come up as an option.
Since fully upgraded Elephant Archers still suck, every civ with Elephant Archers should be able to fully upgrade them. You're so right that you're doubly and triply right in like 9 different ways.
Rathas need a double bonus to work the way they want them to- 1. They need to count as pure melee cav and not archers, that way they actually replace the knight in application but have a cool secondary application. Weakness to skirms without the mobility to micro-war against them makes them excessively weak in all applications.Their ranged attack range, rate and damage is currently so low that the tag of archer cavalry is just a pure downside for them. 2. Their melee damage needs to be buffed a little because they cannot execute a surround as efficiently as most melee units. Alternate solution: Buff movement, attack and fire rate speed by like 50% to make them as dangerous as they need to be with all their negatives Wildcard, makes no sense solution: Take Flemish revolution from the Burgundians who absolutely do not need it and give it to the Bengalis who do. Instant 10% win rate bump. Claim there's a large Flemish population in Bengal idgaf.
I think something could be done by exchanging the bonuses between gurjaras and bengalies, like give the castle UT from gurjaras to bengalies, and make a new gurjaras UT to get the extra bonuses damage. also change the bengalies team bonus and get stone instead of food! and last but not least bengalies should get thumb ring and/or hussars.
Thought burmese would be no.1 on your list. Everytime i picked them or got them at random it was against vietnamese/britons or mayans and it was just disaster. Your skirms die to literally everything, their siege is mediocre and their cavalry UT is so expensive that if you are not well ahead since castle time, by the time you´ll buy it youre already dead :D
Mangonels + monks with cheap redemption and sanctity is really strong against archer civs, if you have 2-3 mangos and manage to convert only one of the opponent's, its often gg. Not against britons with good micros though, but even in that case if you go heavy on skirms its feasible (though hard, i agree).
On Persians. The civ feels quite "boring", and that's not to say they need to be weird like some more recent civs, but that Persians just don't do much that is "interesting". The only things they really have with some flash is Kamandaran & War Elephants, and the latter of those sucks. Their old claim to fame was having a complete stable, and using that tactical variety to have answers. So I personally would give them access to the Steppe Lancer, and trade the Hand Cannoneer for the Elephant Archer. This gives them more variety in general and over a long period of the game, and it also gives their Mahouts tech a reason to exist outside of just being a tax on their War Elephants. If they REALLY need a buff with a bit more oomph. Change Mahouts into a new civ bonus, and then give the civ a new unique tech to boost cavalry archers & steppe lancers. To at least give them a boost in-line with their historical strengths. Also give them their correct architecture...
hmm, sure it doesnt give you too much in the early game, but I always felt like +2 Villagers per age is a pretty good eco Bonus. I was thinking for bengalis about what you suggested for the Dravidians: Give them knights in Castle Age, but no Cavalier. Just a Unit to mix in in Castle Age to snipe Siege in 1v1, or even an all-in knights play with 4 extra villagers does not sound to bad for me. They have the Ratha, Strong Elephants/Ele Archers as decent Options in Imperial Age when they are fully boomed, they just need a Unit to get there. I feel like just having acces to fully upgraded KTS in Castle Age would reduce the akwardness of this civ a lot. Dravidians need BBC to make their archer play with an early IMP push more viable, i think they are pretty decent then. I played them as TG pocket once, went up 20 pop and dropped 2 fwd archery ranges on the opponent pocket, it worked out great! Not every civ needs to be able to play the pocket role meta-style. For Ladder games you need to get more creative, in tournament games you would never pick them as pocket civ anyways. Maybe you should give them Bllodlines or something to make their Light Cav at least usable so you have a Unit that can raid, even though its far from the best.
I think some civs are just good in teamgames/closed maps and that's fine. Celts are top 1-2 on Black Forest, Slavs are very high up there as well. I think Dravidians as pocket have one of the few usable Elephant Archers, ironically. They're glass cannons, but boy do they dish out a lot of damage. Siege Elephants and Elephant Archers (and also halb/SO) are pretty powerful on BF or maybe Arena as well. And I think Ele Archers are getting a buff in the August PUP (less bonus damage, or did I see that in a dream?), so it makes that even stronger. With Bengalis/Dravidians, I think just buffing Ele Archers or Battle Elephants a little bit would make them much better as well. The problem is that balancing them is very hard, as otherwise they would become OP very quickly.
I am going to preface all my disagreement with the statement, I love you Hera and think you help players more than any other pro. The first thing I would change is unique units and unique tech which are not seeing use. Persians-Hera +5% faster docks and TCs.-no (they have too much early bonuses) Me- Increase elephant speed to .75. (This will make mahout much better for an imp tech. With the trashbow Persians get a huge boost in late castle. Instead replace this with lesser faith food 400 gold 200 gives the same bonus as Teutons (maybe even go as high as First Crusade) start with Teutons and see if added with greater speed is too much. Persians also have Faith which could make war elephants an actual playable unique unit. Celts Hera- armor upgrade for archery line-yes Me- Add redemption so you don't have your siege converted and you cannot get it back. (We remember T90's game of 2021 Hera vs MBL) Slav- Hera- increase farm rate to 15% from +10% No (it is too much). Since the monk class lost +3/+3 have monks react as villagers and have the same attack with infantry blacksmith upgrades. No more dying to 1 and 2 hp scouts. Spanish Hera- nothing (MBL likes them not me) Me- Allow villagers to repair +30% Burmese- Hera nothing (even though I chose them last in my Bo21 with Yo) Me- upgrade arambi 0-+1 melee armor, elite hp 65-75 (what elite unit does not go up at least 15 hp) Malay- Hera slight boost Me- they are fine for now Bengalis- Hera remove them (lol) Me- with the expected august civilization upgrades Bengalis will receive two boosts, elephant archers -10 food CA armor -7 to -4. They now come out slightly ahead of skirms (according to age of Noob) with equal resources although skirms do not cost gold. Monks gain +3/+3 armor this is going to be interesting on arena. I cannot wait to see clown legion using this. Against scouts cavalry damage goes from 11 to 8 and it takes 4 hits to kill a monk. If the scout is farther than 6 tiles away the monk should auto convert at the end of the 10th second. If the monk has sanctity it takes 6 hits to kill and the scout can be standing right next to the monk and the monk will survive. Against light cavalry the damage goes from 17 to 14. A monk will die in 3 hits instead of 2. The monk will auto convert if conversion is started at more than 8 times away. If the monk has sanctity it takes 4 hits. If the monk is at least 6 tiles away it can auto convert. Still not enough, give them hussar (maybe Hera will play them) their trash is trash. Since they are a naval civilization, they need more so give them dock upgrades one age earlier. How is their team bonus +10% extra food from trade, when Spanish have +25% gold? Boost it up to +30% food, they need it as their skirms do not have thumb ring and infantry does not have the last armor upgrade.
I agree with Mike on Persians, Celts, Slavs, Spanish. VERY thoughtful analysis behind these ideas, Mike: 👍🏻. Malay- Mike: they are fine for now. Me-don't forget they are about to get a nerf since they're an xbow civ: improve viability of Karambit with small buff.
surprised not 2 see vietnamese! only reason i kinda disagree with celts is bcuz the hoang push is kinda ridic, so maybe a buff that didnt impact the hoang push in any way for their lackluster scaling wobuld e ideal. list was good
Vietnamese has one of lowest win-rates and is about to get slapped with a big nerf since all xbow civs are going to have to pay more for them. The solution: buff to all elephant units for every civ, and some other kinda buff too.
@@PartyMusic775 i can get behind that. it does seem like elephants are kind of an unusable unit sometimes becasue monks are seemingly such a broken unit. i mean who wants to give their an opponent an excuse to make monks?? lmao
Sandy Petersen, game dev who worked on AOEII's balance and core mechanics back at Ensemble, made a statement about dual unit types being too awkward to manage and so they scrapped that idea (it was initially tested on the Samurai who would switch from archer to swordsman like in real life). To no ones surprise, turns out he and the original talented development team was right. They should just change the Ratha to be one or the other or they condemn the Bengali UU to a lifetime of bore. Or just delete Bengalis, that would work too. Too many Indian civs anyway.
What do you think of the proposed Sicilian nerf? The 50% less bonus damage is very strong but it’s not like they are really a problem civ or anything. Putting it down to 33% less bonus damage seems harsh without giving them anything else imo
Are you the one editing the videos or is there someone that does it for you? Either way, fantastic job with the editing, feels so smooth and really professional, keep it up!
I feel like Bulgarians can need some buff too. Yes the krepost is good at map control, but it’s also production building for your most important unit. Also, the 50stone tc is a bad bonus. For a boom game yes it’s good, but you need kreposts to start. For a non boom game, it’s just too small.
I agree that Celts could use the Archer armor for their skirms. But on water they are the only civ without a Imperail age Navy with no Fast Fires and no Bracer, here I wanna trade Galleon for Fast Fires. idk about Persians, they were S-tier for a reason when they had 1 vil more. Dravidians alreay get BBC in the next patch. Bengalis I thought about switching Block Printing (to Castle Age) and Atonement (to imp). This way they get a great (mostly devensive) tool in Castle Age bc shutting down Mangonels and letting your own reign supreme but dont gain anything in lategame where they dont need any help. Hussar would give them pretty good Trash and i think that would be enough.
I like the video and agree with almost everything, with exception the knights for Dravidians, I believe they should be consistent and give them rather camels, for example camels with +2 pierce armor... The Indian civs usually have no knights.
But Dravidians represent southern India, where they never made extensive use of camels. More importantly, the concept of replacing knights with camels has been incredibly hard to balance for years and the current status of Hindustanis and Gurjaras suggests we're still not there yet.
i wonder why you review the +2 vils per age up as a weak eco bonus. Viking eco is considered top tier and bengali +2 vils are 2/3 the viking bonus, no?
TLDW: Persians: Good at the start, but not enough options later on. Let's make the town center work faster even earlier. Celts: Hussars + Cav-Archers can outrun Onagers. So let's give them better Skirmishers (who the Hussars + Cav-Archers also can outrun). Dravidians: Their stable is bad, and their archery range units die to Skirms + Knights. So let's give them Bombard cannon to deal with Onagers. Bengalis: They are just bad overall. So let's just remove them.
Persian: buff the unique unit. Celts: buff the unique unit. Dravidians: buff the unique unit. Bengalis: buff the unique unit AND move some stuff from Gurjaras and Hindustanis over to them.
my suggestion for the rathas is that they should be able to shoot while moving (without needing to stop) if they intend to keep the slower speed. But how the unit 'tasks' in the game work this is not possible. So I don't know.
Can you do a video on ways to counter different aggression - you are probably the GOAT at countering aggression so id love to hear your thoughts. EX opponent tower rushes, you should pull fils to fight tower, or counter tower, etc. if opponent goes mangonel push, go guard tower, redemption etc.
Nice video. Again. Agree with everything. Don't you think the basic units should have some regional skins? European knight and infantry lines for Asian and African civs is annoying.
8:55 I actually heard "to make the 200 swordsmen a little bit more viable for them" and then thought. "Don't you mean Karambit warriors? You can get 400 of them." (I guess it's 200 with decent Eco beside it.)
Dravidians have one position in any team game: dedicated slinger. Let a civ with a real military handle the fighting, you just get the resources asap. Give Dravidians 75% cheaper wheelbarrow, hand cart and tier 1-2 eco upgrades. Then you've got a civ on your hands.
Erin L 0 seconds ago Any underperforming civ that needs a buff, should first and foremost look at making the unique unit more viable. As a rule of thumb. There's no need to speculate about other types of buff bonus for a civ whose unique unit is rarely used.
With Dravidians, you were talking about how if you get them in pocket you need to go archers. Do you think that is the problem or fact that Meta is so rigid that infrantry just doesnt work in that state.
I think they could fix Ratha by making them all selectable by double click and making the melee and ranged switch separate buttons instead of a toggle so you can get them all into the mode you want freely. Why make a castle unit, which is already hard to get into an absolute chore to micro especially when the majority of players don't have the APM to spare.
To me I think my idea is awesome and very different revolutionary. I want the Bengalis to be a big brain civ. Not like the Chinese or Aztecs in how you start. But how you micro the game... beyond just basic counters that every civ has. I want this civ to be fun to use and fun to play against because of how much you have to adjust throughout the game. In order for this to happen a few things have to be present : 1. The ratha has to be a very very unique unit. Pun intended. It has to provide a lot more variables to both players. But in general it has to be stronger. Ideally one of the strongest unique units in the game in order for this civ to go. 2. The Bengalis need a slight eco boost. Replace the ship bonus with something else. Maybe mining gold let’s you yield more stone. Kinda like poles but the opposite so you push for a castle unit play. 3. You have to have fully upgraded trash units. This plays into their style of being a chess type civs. You need the ratha to be your main go to with options to go hussar too and fully upgrade halbs. Narrative - on ratha. To me it’s clear that they want the ratha to be something people use because they didn’t give the civ much else. So if that’s the case then do it. Make the ratha a good unit. You can do little things like give it less weakness with armor, give it more attack, make it more tanky, or make it cheaper. Something. But more than anything this is what I would do to make this civ big brain 🧠 give it more bonus damage and more bonus resistance to units based on its stance and what units it’s fighting against. Here’s my suggestion. You can have the ratha benefit from cav archer armor but do the following. If it’s in melee it hits skirms harder and takes no bonus damage from them but takes more damage from gold unit foot archers. However if It’s in ranged mode it take bonus damage from skirms. Now... If it’s in ranged mode it hits trash foot melee units harder IE spear and also takes bonus damage from pikes and skirms and more damage from camels and kts all the time in melee mode. This truly makes the bengalis a big brain type of civ. Hera amd anyone who loves chess would playing with and playing against this type of civ. Meaning it’s easier to kill with gold units but not with trash. Meaning it’s still difficult to kill overall because you can always change what your weakness is based on what mode you fight in so your opponent has a hard time investing into one gold unit. It doesn’t lead to your opponent taking more bonus damage because it only applies to trash units but you can still dish more bonus damage if yoi spend gold. In this case the best way to counter Bengali’s would probably be go double gold compositions. This also means you have to give the bengalis something else. Minor eco bonus or more flexibility so you can counter their double gold compositions. As I mentioned... you get stone while mining gold. So you can afford the unit but still build castles to mass. This probably means you shouldn’t make the ratha cheaper because you’ll be on gold by default. But you should make them tankier so that in order to kill them you have to rely on sealing bonus damage based on their stance. And you get punished as a Bengali’s player by not being in the right stance. The idea of using the unit to kill pikes but also be weak to them in one stance is great. But then be strong vs skirms in melee is great It truly Makes the unit more vulnerable as a cav archer because of the hit and run. So if you want to kill it you probably will have to go skirms and pikes together. Or skirms with archers. But then as the Bengali player you can also mix in your own units too. Like skirms to counter their skirms and pikes. Or skirms with archers.
Wait, you do mention the next patch talking about the nerf to archers but you didn't mention that they already plan to give bombar cannon to dravidians.
My proposed fix for Bengalis: give them a 20% food discount on military units. Might seem extreme, but with a tech tree as bad as theirs, it might actually be balanced in the end.
@@Tocaraca So take it away and give Gurjaras something else. Not like they need to be able to spam cheap hussars on top of everything else they have going for them.
I agree with most of the civs, buy celts and slavs are really ok in my opinion. As celt you can still del with cav with your skirm in Castle Age and you have good eco and exceptional siege. And +2 defence for skirms in Imperial Age Is not that huge problem... You still can kill that cav without that tec. Slavs with Better eco are like Franks with Better siege and infantry. In my opinion they are a civ with good infantry, siege , monks, and stabile unità... Very Well rounded. And their cheap siege Is funny to play in closed map during Castle Age.
Just make the war elephant available at the stable upon reaching Castle Age tbh Maybe increase its movement speed (same as militia line maybe? ) and make it naturally more resistant to conversion
I would like a minor buff for spanish early game, nothing too crazy but a little. May be kill and recolect boars faster? Because pig in Spain are a thing?
Watching this a year later, and most of these civs have had massive buffs and are considered amongst the strongest civs now. The only one I'm not sure about is Celts, and Dravidians is still in a bit of a awkward spot.
How about Koreans? It was given free archers' armor and a little wood- cheaper army, but they gives us only a little resources, I think they aren't good enough. Wagon, tower, onager, they are strong, but I want a little buff for Koreans.
I have suggestion about Dravidians civ. I don't suggest to add knights in stable because all Indian civs don't have acess to knight. It's not good choice. If Dravidians have knights they are situational beacuse no bloodlines, no husbandry and no last cav armour. I say add hussar in late game option. Or bombard Canon is ok for Dravidians civ. Archers - Good Infantry - Strong Cavalry - Terrible needs hussar to complement weekness. Siege - ok but needs bombard canons for counter onager Defence - good Economy - average Monk - average Navy - Strong It's just a opinion
How do you counter Hussite Wagons and Organ Guns in the Castle Age, and their elite versions in the Imperial Age with Dravidians? No husbandry, bloodlines, and siege engineers to those Dravidians units (onagers/mangonels, B Elephants and S/A Elephants) which are the only counters to those UUs.
@@user-iz2tm5ih4e Siege engineers is not a big deal. Only bombard Canon and hussar is enough. Hussar with wootz steel is quite powerful as generic civs. That's enough bro. If the Dev's add both bombard canaon and hussar for siege.
Is free lumber upgrade that good of an eco bonus though? Unlike other free eco upgrade bonuses, the wood upgrade is picked as soon as you age up (except the imp upgrade) so Burmese only get them for free and like 25 secs faster. It's not that good for a civ that has such an expensive army
That would make Persians OP. Persians aren't a bad civ, they are just average now. Their Stables are insanely good with full everything and +damage against archers. They have one of the best trash units in the game with Xbows and their barracks aren't that bad because they have full Halberdiers. Honestly, they are a very solid civ in everyway.
@@IndexInvestingWithCole plenty of civs have bad unique units that barely ever get used, TK are not the worst and have niche units but you dont need to build them, you have great halbs siege and knights
I disagree that the villager gained by Bengalis is bad, it is a solid eco bonus. It is the lack of options that make Bengalis bad if Bengalis had access to thumb ring and knights, they would be a pretty decent civ.
another civ that definitely needs a buff is Koreans. Yet it makes completely sense that a pro like Hera does not feel this need as much. What Koreans do best is archers and countering archers. so, obviously in the pro meta where archers are the most common unit, koreans do a lot better than anywhere else. with this design though, koreans probably need to be made top tier for pro level, in order to be decent for middle and not too bad for low elo. the stats also support that koreans are a bottom tier civ, especially against cavalry. id improve eupsong by letting it give towers some bonus damage to cavalry on top of the +2 range.
Alot of people asking about turks. Let me adress them:
- free hussar techs and chemistry gives a ton of power spikes and savings through the game.
- +1 pierce armor for hussar line is INSANE vs archer civs, basically forces them to go pikes then u can switch to CA or siege in combination with light cav
- Late game is insane if u have even a bit of gold or relic access.
Not the best civ overall, but definitely not the worst
Turks are fine, it's just similar to what you said about the spanish. They just don't shine in arabia 1v1, but as we saw in TTL, they can do great in arena and other closed maps
Turks still have a weak match up against strong archer civs in open maps. All they need to do is to add some spearmen to their archers. Spearmen are cheaper than light cav, and they are made in just 22 seconds, while the light cav is made in 30s. Not to mention spearmen do much better against light cav than vs knights. And to make things worse, many archer civs have stronger eco bonuses than Turks (Mayans, Chinese, Britons come to mind)
I'd like to see Sipahi affect knights though, just for fun. They'd still have worse stats than a generic Paladin without bloodlines, and historically, the Sipahi were also skilled melee fighters.
It is not a gunpower civ anymore. Burgundian has way better gunpowder bonus than the old civs.
Didn't see this until after I posted ❤️
"Just give them the 15% farm bonus back" - Hussar spammer
I honestly think such things ,by such things i mean changes we made to civs in the past should nt be brought back.
There is a reason y such changes were made.
Poles farmering is like 11% almost 12% faster than generic its not too far from slavs so imagine 15%
And thats EXACTLY y the devs nerfed it.
Same with howdah giving+2 p armour.On release of rise of rajas Burmese ele could have 9 p armour and was bonkers and then immediately in the next patch it was nerfed to 8 p armour
There is a reason y it happend
Burmese with 9 p armour TANK MORE ARBALEST arrows than a fucking seige ram.Just think that😐
As for Persians its the same thing there is a reason 22 yrs ago devs left out 5% faster tc and dock bonus in dark age.The win rate of persians sky rocketed once such a small change was made.Thats how delicate aoe balance is
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@@Achilles75 Poles bonus is faster gathering, more efficient gathering, and last but not least, the bonus is all up front. It’s way, way better than just a +10% faster farming bonus. Is it better than a +15% bonus? Debatable, but I’d say so.
@@Paal2005 it IS better than the slavs +10%.
@@Paal2005 i never said that it wasnt just not as far ahead as people think but yes i agree that receiving that +10% of food upfront is better in some ways since u get a resource spike
Eg: u have 60 pole farms arnd folwark with heavy plow u immediately get 2250 food thats really grt
In the end they both collect the food almost arnd the same time (poles and slavs ie) but poles is slightly faster and more versatile for sure
Pretty much agree on all accounts. So good to have Hera back in AOE2.
ma man!
I think whenever a civ needs a buff, the first thing to look at should be making their unique unit more viable. About half the civs ignore or rarely use their unique units, and using this rule of thumb will greatly increase variety and diversity in the game.
@@PartyMusic775 People just love their knigths and crossbows too much
As a Bengali myself the civilization design in aoe2 caused me emotional damage.
(Steven He voice) Emotional Damage!
lmao they disrespected ur entire community bro im so sorry
Same brother... How do Bengalis not even get a fishing bonus 😭😭
At least your country gets a civilisation😔 why aren’t the Dutch still not in the game?😢
@@zamlent2492 I thought they were represented by the Burgundians and the Franks used to live in the Netherlands 1500 years ago.
Me as a Bengali finally being happy to see my civilization in Aoe2.
Hera - This civilization is so bad that the best way to fix it just remove it. 😢 😢
nice
That why I cheer for tatoh or daut more lol 😆
Someone in AOE2 reddit had a very highly upvoted and interesting idea and it'd be great to hear your thoughts on this since timings matter way more for pros:
What if some civs get techs later instead of earlier? Like, Celt could be able to research bloodlines in Imp (for their paladins) or Burmese get the 2nd archer armor in Imp.
interesting idea but it would require ALOT of thought to balance all the civs around this new concept. It seems too extreme of a mechanic to bring in right now, the balance is very good i dont think we need to introduce this personally
Nice idea in the fifth age everyone can have access to everything 😂😂 What should be the requirement for the 5th age ? Building a wonder maybe but a cheaper wonder 😂😂
I personally like this idea a lot. IMO, Turks should receive elite skirm up in imperial, or at least having access to the elite skirms tech after researching the last archer armor. The idea would also be great for Malay cav armor and Burmese archer armor in imp.
I think it would be a great and fun way to balance civs for experienced players. But let’s not forget that Age 2 is designed so that your grandmas gonna be able to get into it. I would be so confused if one of the techs wasn’t available in castle age for some civs, but suddenly appear in imp. It’s just not user friendly design.
What would be fun though is introducing mini Unique Techs for all civs, maybe in the town center. It would be a good way to balance civs without ruining the old nostalgic bonuses, and could address many of these problems regardings civs that need to be limited in castle age but suck ass in imperial cause of it.
AOE2 reddit is shit. They banned me for saying the truth. See my video "ATHEIST PROPAGANDA in Age of Empires." Atheists can't handle the truth. Get triggered, ingrates.
Giving Ratha the Cavalry armor class instead of the Archer/Cav Archer armor class, and giving Bengalis Thumb Ring would be a good start to bring them up to speed.
Give them both armor classes, since who wouldn’t want a +6/+8 armor upgrade ^^
@@Paal2005 You forget they have parthian tactics as well. +7/+10 ??? Teutonic Knight CA???
And maybe give them the camel as well?
Ok but make them lose Arbalesters.
@@rovsea-3761 Much better than TK. Like a mix between TK and Huscarl.
Personally, I'd replace the Burmese Cav Archers with Ele Archers, and make them benefit from Howdah. They'd practically get bigger Skirmishers.
But howdah help? 😉
Sorry
If Persians got heresy they would be a lot stronger. They would actually be able to use their UU.
Iran fell to Islam so heresy would be historically unrealistic.
But heresy costs 1k gold if im not mistaken, and by the late game its hard to go mass monks cause its so micro intensive. The problem really is in Castle age where losing a few units (especially expensive ones like the war elephant) without getting value can turn the game around.
@@dirkauditore8413 Actually had a change of opinion and came up with a better idea.
Instead, put elephant conversions behind the Redemption tech, forcing the other players to spend gold on the upgrade to counter elephants.
@@pax6833 Yeah that would actually be nice 11.
@@dirkauditore8413 I have another idea, maybe include heresy in the elite war elephant upgrade and (more)faith in the mahouts upgrade? Those elephants are so expensive to get to that I honestly don't mind if they become op and would want to see persians going for them in a competitive 1v1 game....not when they are already miles ahead of their opponent and wanna 105 the opponent.
I would personally include italians too, at least in the honorable mentions. The cheaper age ups is what made me like them in the first place, but for most plebs like us is really hard to make use of such "well timed" bonus on maps that doesn't have water, and I fear it'll be worse with the new archer nerf.
All
@@PartyMusic775 The crossbow nerf was long over due
Best way to buff bengali is to buff battle elephant. The Civ is totally designed around elephants, it won’t be good until that unit is halfway decent.
fair point. Besides elephant they have ratha and thats it
While you are kinda right, this might run into the problem of overbuffing other elephant civs, e.g. the khmer or malay...so it would lead to quite a bit of rebalancing.
@@CG-eh6oe the other elephant civs are bad too though. Malay, Vietnamese, Burmese, Dravidians all have a legacy of lowest winrates in the game.
Elephants is the most dificult unit to balance because they have a thin line between being bad or be OP.
give buffs to BE that do make them stronger in castle age, but not OP for lower elo or in post-imp. this could be
1. higher attack at lower rate (maybe +50% attack and reload time), so dps remains equal. so, kiting them becomes less rewarding, since every time you happen to get hit, you get hit harder. at the same time, they would not get any stronger in straight fights
2. give all elephant units +10% speed, instead of being affected by husbandry
3. give all civs BEs some extra conversion resistance to begin with
4. lower pikemen's bonus vs elephants. however, many civs lack halberdier, so this could indeed sometimes make post-imp elephants op
5. faster creation time could also make them more affordable early on, as you can save wood on extra stable. however, this is questionable, since relative to their combat strength elephants are already create very fast
6. buff BE, but leave elite BE unchanged. however, that has already been done so much, that the elite upgrade has become kind of a joke, especially for its huge cost. if this approach should be continued, we would have to consider removing the elite upgrade entirely and instead have have 1 unit for castle age and imp that only gets improved by bs techs
With the exception of #5, all of these civilizations (including the honorable mentions) have very complete Barracks option, but incomplete Archery Range/Stable options.
I wonder how much of this is really the civilizations being weak vs the underperformance of Infantry in the current meta.
Bengalis don't have the last infantry armor or supplies.
Yeah you're right. After all the buffs to swordsmen line, they still need even more.
Just goes to show meta is still dominated by kts and xbows, infantry still doesn't cut it. I'm glad they'll nerf xbows by increasing the cost of the upgrade, but tbh infantry line needs more buffs. Mostly the cost of the units and maybe movement speed-
@@dirkauditore8413 Movement speed and armor would help. Tbh longswords could probably have 2/2 base armor and still suck, they should honestly counter archers by having like 3 pierce armor and move significantly faster than the archer line. AoE 2 is currently a rock paper scissor game where knights counters swordsmen and xbows counters all (if massed). It makes no sense that a long swordsman, who is in heavy armor and has a shield, has barely any pierce armor.
With the Bengalis, I think that the way that the devs should approach buffing them (and the Burmese) is to tweak the battle elephant so that it isnt just a meme in 1v1s. How you go about doing that, IDK, but these civs are based around a unit that isn't viable in 99% of 1v1s and team games
Imo half of the problems with Bengalis, Dravidians or any elephant heavy civ is to make the elephant a faster unit. Atleast like a ratha speed such that they still are outpaces by knights and all but can run away a bit from halbs and monks. That would make them move of a "cav" option imo and a elephant is actually a very fast animal realistically too.
That's right. Battle Elephant AND even more so, the useless Elephant Archer.
@@PartyMusic775 elephant archer / infantry spam usually feels pretty good.
give buffs to BE that do make them stronger in castle age, but not OP for lower elo or in post-imp. this could be
1. higher attack at lower rate (maybe +50% attack and reload time), so dps remains equal. so, kiting them becomes less rewarding, since every time you happen to get hit, you get hit harder. at the same time, they would not get any stronger in straight fights
2. give all elephant units +10% speed, instead of being affected by husbandry
3. give all civs BEs some extra conversion resistance to begin with
4. lower pikemen's bonus vs elephants. however, many civs lack halberdier, so this could indeed sometimes make post-imp elephants op
5. faster creation time could also make them more affordable early on, as you can save wood on extra stable. however, this is questionable, since relative to their combat strength elephants are already create very fast
6. buff BE, but leave elite BE unchanged. however, that has already been done so much, that the elite upgrade has become kind of a joke, especially for its huge cost. if this approach should be continued, we would have to consider removing the elite upgrade entirely and instead have have 1 unit for castle age and imp that only gets improved by bs techs
Make elephants immune to conversion :O
Thought on Bengali,
1) Add a wired mechanic to replace the +2 villagers on age up. Something like you can que villagers during an age up they will all spawn out simultaneously with the age up.
2) Slight Ratha buff so they aren’t countered so easily.
This would allow the Bengali to like not need a bunch of army comp changes and just turn them into the first “eco civ.”
Give ratha a speed bump. If they are as fast as hussars they can hit and run more effectively as cav archer, engage skirms by getting into minimum range faster. Lower creation time to 15 secs.
@@battleforevermore That’s a good idea for buffing Ratha without making it too broken. Instead of limiting its bonus damage make it a raiding unit. That combined with Vil bonus would make it a kinda broken castle age unit.
Celts, Slavs, Dravidians, Malay and Burmese are all civs that are to some extent infantry civs. Buffing the militia-line would certainly help them and give infantry civs a stronger identity (now it's more like good eco + standard archers or knights, like Vikings, Slavs, Japanese etc, rather than actually using the infantry bonuses after 3 m@a).
I advocate giving the infantry some kind of special ability. For example, the ability to steal raw materials from the camps? I find it unimaginative in the long run just to increase the values.
Surprised not to see Goths mentioned, particularly putting civs like Celts, Persians, etc. ahead. I do agree with bengalis of course, and I suppose Dravidians as well. Slavs would have maybe been 5th for me?
goths are actually at 51% winrate and they are picked in high elo tourneys for cheese early game strategies and counter maptchups. Dont get me wrong its not a good civ overall but it has its place in the game, and altho its not consistent it can be powerful in certain situations
Seems to me dravidians actually get picked way more often then Goths in tournaments
@@maxbellec dravidians are so fun to play in the lategame. The "Champions that ignore armor spam" after archer rush in feudal.
@@HeraAgeofEmpires2 Goth may not be bad enough for you to qualify for your Top5, but if you were a developer would you buff the Goth and if so, what would you give them?
@@lizardemperorkorbac4281 Pros opinions also changes. Hera used to say Goth is worst civ in the game 5-6 months ago, now he thought different, game meta changes continually.
some really simple buffs that i thought about for these civs(i play burmese dravidians a lot so..)
Dravidians - Just give them bloodlines and husbandry, giving them the (kind of) potential to raid late game, and it also makes their elephant archers really stronk.
or maybe give their archers to be inflicted by arson and squires, or just squires, kind of matching with their barrack bonuses which also gives them a fun micro styled play and some mobility.
Burmese - Just give them second archer armor. making arambai stronk and skirms somewhat stronk for late game,(you already have manipur cav too)
I play Dravidians mostly. The lack of mobility sucks. It is hard to scout after late castle age. Wish they give some extra line of sight to Ele Archers.
Even better, what I was thinking they should buff up about the Burmese is giving them access to many things like:
- Siege Onager
- Thumb Ring
- Hand Cannoneer
@@TheGore1021 well thumb ring might increase arambai accuracy, and if you have 30 its almost like an onager
Dravidians! They've converted me to a pachyderm enthusiast. Good news, it seems like in the next patch they will get bombard cannons. I like to work towards ele archers in castle, even if they aren't the best. I think their cost is coming down a little bit though, which will be nice.
4:40 you forgot once Poles get raided their eco bonus is gone or they lose vills
Meso civs could use a fast, low armor obsidian studded clubman that is food only so they have a corollary to the hussar. This would let the dev's get the eagle warrior more in line with the rest since its not the only things meso civs have to replace so many different units. They currently cant seem to get meso civ balance quite right so it would be a way to fix that, in my opinion. Of course my opinion is not fact.
A lot of these civs on this list are super-victimized by meso civs.
I think meso are in pretty good shape, incas maybe slightly underpowered but I guess you have to have some underpowered civs in every game
They should honestly give Bengalis Thumb Ring. The argument of "well, they have the unique tech" doesn't really track with me; yes it improves firing rate but you need a castle and also the problem with accuracy is not a minor one: elephants have pretty bad accuracy and they are supposed to be one of their strongest units. We all know that a civ w/o thumb ring can't go cav archers, but with eles is even worse since they are slower and harder to micro. Also their unique unit literally dies to skirms. No skirms+knights, no skirms+pikes, plain old mass skirms kill them easily. They are supposed to be tanky, and tho i agree with hera that tanky archers is kind of pointless, i thought it was interesting. However they only have "tanky archers", their elephants literally do the same as rathas and also are expensive units that die to skirms.
My solution would be: give them thumb ring man, make their expensive units be worth it. Also increase their cav archer armour with rathas the same way it was proposed for elephants in the next patch. And finally, also please make it so that all elephant units (melee and ranged) move at the same speed. This would help other elephant reliant civs that showed up in this same vid (dravidians, burmese, malay).
And give dravidians husbandry... why? idk just do it
LOL that ending. Yeah maybe give them thumbring then tweak ratha fire rate a bit (if thats even an issue)
I think giving them PT in Castle age will somewhat offset their weakness against Skirmishers.
Another idea is giving them a strong defensive buff like similar to old Koreans bonus "walls, towers and castles are built 50% faster" so that they can survive in Castle age and reach their imperial army combo a bit easier.
BTW, they are getting free Othodoxy in the next patch - Monk +3/+3 armor.
@@mubashirulmoula1798 early parthian tactics would be a bit much i think, since it also applies to elephants. But who knows? maybe that could make them worth the commitment. I totally agree thought, some defensive (or even eco) bonus would be awesome for them to either survive or reach the next age faster, both options being rewarded by the bonus vills in the next age. The monk bonus is interesting, it might help a bit with relic wars in arena since they would take 1 more hit i'm pretty sure.
@@gamingpc5459 Elephant Archer will die to skirmisher even with PT as they will still take almost the same damage. As for the monk bonus, yes they will survive 1 or 2 more hits against scout and LC, knight, camel.
@@mubashirulmoula1798 That buff they did it for Bengalis is the most stupid thing I ever saw in my life. They die to Skimishers, what we gonna do: give to them better monks. You really? F*** this sh**.
Persians need mahouts speed to be inherent to the elephant and another UT in replacement. This way we might see Elephants every now and then and it frees a slot to give them something useful, some tech to improve their late game.
Agree but I suggest this instead. ALL elephants get a micro-speed buff and slightly more resistant to conversion. Then Mahouts is even more speed and should be a cheaper tech since no one can base their whole army on elephants only.
I just want to say that I appreciate that you add bonuses you think they should get to give them the buff they need rather than just saying they are to weak. Keep up the great content.
I think Byzantines need a buff. They first appeared in Age of Kings and the game has evolved in such a way that it nerfs them and while a lot of other Age of Kings civs such as Turks got buffs to compete in the new paradigm the Byzantines never got a significant buff.
For Persians, I think the devs need to take a hard look at monks and how they disproportionately counter elephants. If they even out that hard counter somehow, the War Elephant(and elephant civs generally) will see a bit more play.
For Celts, I've seen lots of pros complain about Strongholds, their Castle age tech. What about replacing it with a Claymore tech, and give their swordsman line extra range?
For Slavs, I have a hunch that they and a few other Forgotten Expansion civs are going to get split like the Indians. I know AoE 3 and 4 gives the Rus good Cavalry archers, so maybe that's an angle?
The Dravidians will probably get Bombards. Other than that, I have yet to play them. I think a general monastery revamp would probably help their elephants.
The Bengalis also have good elephants that can't really shine because of monks. Even conversion resistance isn't enough to mitigate that hard counter completely. Their Rathas are decent, but maybe taking off their Cavalry Archer armor class could be good. Technically, a Chariot Archer is a distinct concept from a cavalry archer, so I don't think it's a bad change conceptually. They'll still keep the archer armor class.
Absolutely this. Elephants are countered so hard. Why are they insanely expensive AND easy to counter?
Persians need Heresy at a minimum. And from there, maybe a mild cost reduction to their Elite upgrade.
Maybe we shud make elephants a bit more resilient to monks naturally
@@HeraAgeofEmpires2 What do you think about putting converting elephant units behind redemption?
@@HeraAgeofEmpires2 100% a good idea. Elephants being countered by skirm/halb is probably good enough.
@@pax6833 I like this idea. It's a simpler solution than reworking the Monastery completely, but it's a step in the right direction.
Make Dravidians an Elephant Archer Civ (and naval civ) instead of Infantry civ. We have had many Infantry civs already.
Dravidian civ covers peninsular India and Sri Lanka which naturally have more number of elephants than you find elsewhere in India.
So, as part of buff, Dravidians shall train elephant units faster and cheaper and get husbandry/bloodlines. Why give them knights when you can buff their elephant units.
A common theme I'm picking up on is it seems like there aren't enough good counters to Light Cavalry lines, and Swordsmen are too weak without some special dujour (like Vikings or Japanese).
The thing that worries me with some of your buff suggestions is that to make up for a weakness in the civ, you just add the generic tools and units, like knights, to make up for it. We should be focusing on making/keeping the civs unique. The problem with balance is if you want it to be perfect in every case, then every civ is a mirror holding a different banner. Eles hard countered by monks? Dont just give them hussar, give them unique techs/unit to deal with then. Or try to rework insane hard counters in general. Since when do elephants practice religion anyways?
I agree 100%. It makes it fun to learn new unique counters when deciding to try a new civ. And it's what keeps the very core of AOE2 interesting, IMO.
is there a way for elephants to be a viable option? What do you think?What do you think? Shouldn't dev fix the unit fundamentally? (in this one vid, there's 3 elephant civs!)
with malay in castle age :D
Those transitions are so slick. Quality is top notch hera
i think a nice bonus for Dravidians could be auto repair of ships when close to a dock. this could make it more of a water civ and could really help in ship wars.
The changes I think are good, in my opinion, are:
- Battle Elephant: +3% speed (0.88), +2 attack, +2 additional bonus against buildings (+6 total)
- Two handed swordsman and Champion: +1 pierce armor. Upgrade time -15 seconds.
- Rams line: +5% speed
- Knight line: +1 LOS (to match other mounted units)
- Elite Urumi swordsman: +5% speed, +0.20 rate of fire
- Jaguar Warrior & Elite: +5% speed (1.05)
- Hussite Wagon: projectile speed +0.5 (7.5 same as hand cannoneer)
- Genitours: attack delay -0.15 (0.35)
very good changes imo
Very good idea
I'm love all of them!
Especially the armour for infantry. Those guys are dismounted Knights in full plate armour, arrows irl do not penetrate that!
And it's not op either since ranged units can still micro them down
@@ingoseiler Infantry like 2hS and Champions weren’t really dismounted knights. Knights were nobility and pretty much always fought from horseback. Elite infantry would rarely use full plate armor like cavalry did, as it wasn’t good for their stamina and mobility. They were historically pretty weak to archer fire too. If anything, I’d probably lower their food cost slightly. More pierce armor won’t help them early game against feudal and early castle age archers, since they already are slower and suppose to be weak against them. Giving them +1 pierce armor however will likely make them destroy skirmishes, and make them too good against archer line in late game when you don’t micro large battles, especially for civs like Aztecs, Celts and Slavs.
All great ideas, hope you post it on AOE2 main site for devs to see. I only have one thing to add: let's finally get swordsmen line buffed up to proper balance and do it right! 2HS and Champion upgrade time -20 seconds, upgrade cost radically reduced, +1P armor, and squires adds even more speed than it does now. And -5 gold cost on top of it all. And supplies is cheaper too.
I agree about Persians, I was surprised when they eventually rescinded the dark age 5% buff.
Small buff for Spanish that only impacts open maps could be something like “res spawn closer to the TC”
Any underperforming civ that needs a buff, should first and foremost look at making the unique unit more viable. As a rule of thumb. There's no need to speculate about other types of buff bonus for a civ whose unique unit is rarely used.
For Celts I would make their speed bonus to start with a 5% from DA, 10% Feudal, 15% Castle and 18% for imperial (this makes them really good and focus in its nice infantry). For Malays I think their special unit should cost twice as much food but half as much gold.
Also, something I would change but just as a Malian lover (I think it might be an op change) is to change their gold bonus to "you start with an extra gold source" (similar to the bushes from gurjaras). Silver crown more costly but also makes TC replace their stone cost with wood
I kinda think about the faster working Town Centers as a short term economy boost, since the villager starts working a few seconds earlier even if you can't use the bonus to boost up numbers overall. Kinda like their starting resource bonus, really. Shorter research times on wheelbarrow and hand cart is also handy and probably makes those techs worth getting a bit earlier than usual. Maybe a buff could involve extending the benefit to Loom and Town Watch/Patrol. Maybe even aging up but similar bonuses for other Civs always exclude those.
Dravidians!
They are too weak against archer civs and ranged UUs. Hussite Wagons and Korean War Wagons can give you nightmares. And do I need to tell about Organ Guns and rams?
BBC is a good addition but this civ could be redesigned without it.
I think a way to improve Bengalis should be give to them Cavalry Armor Upgrade for free. They only have Elephants and Scouts, so it would help their Feudal and early Castle Age composition with Scout open and, of course, help their elephant identity. I don't think this alone could make them viable, but for sure can make them more useful in so many situations (like dealing with skimishers, for example).
It's a good idea but it goes against their identity. An archer civ getting cav armour upgrade sounds wrong, and Devs do give identity alot of importance
@@battleforevermore I don't consider because the player can't hold a entire game with just Light Cavalry. Will force you to go Arbalests or their elephants... but will give to you some time or even a composition to help your army.
For Persians, I feel like if you give them back the 5% workrate in Dark Age, you need to stagger the HP to like 40/60/80/100%, otherwise they just get too strong on hybrid maps again
Erin L
0 seconds ago
Any underperforming civ that needs a buff, should first and foremost look at making the unique unit more viable. As a rule of thumb. There's no need to speculate about other types of buff bonus for a civ whose unique unit is rarely used !
@@PartyMusic775 Hardly disagree. Half the civs mentioned in the video already have their unique unit as their only good point (for 1v1s), like Burmese, Bengalis, Spanish. And at the same time a lot of the S-tier civs you almost never see their unique units. Bonuses are more impactful than UUs.
Archer elephants are supposed to be the pocket choice as Bengalis and Dravidians but they suck so much because they are slow, low dps, and easy to convert. It would be interesting if elephant archers were at least more resistant to conversion like light cav or had a bonus against infantry.
What is DPS?
@@user-iz2tm5ih4e Demage (output) per second
For Bengalis, they need to buff the elephant bonus like make their elephants take twice as long to convert, the ratha should not be countered by skirmishers as much as it its, and maybe give them +3 villagers per age up.
Or. Maybe.
Each age up.
Vils get cheaper and train quicker.
5% +5% each age up.
I really like this list, I agree that Persians and Celts feel like there is something small missing. I understand the viewpoints about the Dravidians, but do feel they are a little better (maybe outside of the Pro scene) than people have been giving them credit for. In the early game there is good opportunity for MAA play, especially with non-traditional more than 3 unit investment and/or forward barracks or an offensive tower using that extra wood, with good skirm play to follow up with. While they lack mobility and would benefit heavily from BBC, I think that as the meta adjusts to leverage their wood bonus more we might see a bit more appreciation for them from the playerbase. I think it would be an easy civ to over-buff, but given the upcoming xbow nerf they should get something.
Sorry about the amount of posts, maybe you enjoy them maybe you are annoyed by them. But I have a lot of ideas and this is the place to share them.
Theoretical idea:
Most civs could be fixed by a (realistic) upgrade for imperial age called "Gambeson and riveted chain mail" that replaces plate mail if you dont have it. It just gives +1 pierce armor and is cheap, and helps the civs who miss out on that +2 pierce armor get back into competition while still being at a disadvantage. So they would end up with +2/3 instead of +2/2, but still weaker than the the +3/4 most civs have.
IRL chain mail is very weak but when its got rivets that make each link reinforced it becomes incredibly high grade armor since it cant really be broken apart easily at all. Combined with the heavy wool coat underneath called the gambeson for padding from blunt damage, it was incredibly good, cheaper armor.
This would help fix things like goth and celt cav without giving them a truly crazy upgrade that tilts the scales too far.
One of the things I think they should buff up about the Burmese is giving them access to many things like:
- Siege Onager
- Thumb Ring
- Hand Cannoneer
Hera, thank you for your videos. It is a pleasure to have you back. What buffs would you propose for Bengali's? I admit im a glutton for punishment. My fav civs are Burmese, Viking and Dravidians. I want to like the Bengali though!
Interesting. Yeah I can see civs without Knights/Eagles/Shrivamsha or really good Camels/Lightcav being weak to Skirms
What is interesting in this video is? Hera makes a video about Goths and why they need buff and also Hera makes a video about Hoang rush, how Hoang rush uses all Celts bonus and thats why it is hard to stop them. Then Hera makes a new video in which Celts needs buff and Goths are not even mentioned 😂
I guess the civs which do not need buff are,
1)Franks
2)Britons
3)Aztec-Inca-Mayans
4)Chinese
5)Malians
Because everyone likes play with them 😂😂 All other civs need buffs 😂😂
Sure lets buff burgundians...
...not.
I think if the change to elephant archer bonus armour against skirms changes as in the pre patch, the bengalis will end up with a unit that has no cost effective counters (I think age of noob did a video). At least on closed maps that will make them viable, but they will probably feel like goths where they are rubbish until they get to imp and upgrades.
I would like to have either Bengalis or Dravidians get fully upgraded Elephant archers. The new civs get bonuses for them but since they lack crucial upgrades they so rarely come up as an option.
Continue to be nothing because Elephants Archers are bad even with full upgrades.
Since fully upgraded Elephant Archers still suck, every civ with Elephant Archers should be able to fully upgrade them. You're so right that you're doubly and triply right in like 9 different ways.
Rathas need a double bonus to work the way they want them to-
1. They need to count as pure melee cav and not archers, that way they actually replace the knight in application but have a cool secondary application. Weakness to skirms without the mobility to micro-war against them makes them excessively weak in all applications.Their ranged attack range, rate and damage is currently so low that the tag of archer cavalry is just a pure downside for them.
2. Their melee damage needs to be buffed a little because they cannot execute a surround as efficiently as most melee units.
Alternate solution:
Buff movement, attack and fire rate speed by like 50% to make them as dangerous as they need to be with all their negatives
Wildcard, makes no sense solution:
Take Flemish revolution from the Burgundians who absolutely do not need it and give it to the Bengalis who do. Instant 10% win rate bump. Claim there's a large Flemish population in Bengal idgaf.
I think something could be done by exchanging the bonuses between gurjaras and bengalies, like give the castle UT from gurjaras to bengalies, and make a new gurjaras UT to get the extra bonuses damage. also change the bengalies team bonus and get stone instead of food! and last but not least bengalies should get thumb ring and/or hussars.
Thought burmese would be no.1 on your list. Everytime i picked them or got them at random it was against vietnamese/britons or mayans and it was just disaster. Your skirms die to literally everything, their siege is mediocre and their cavalry UT is so expensive that if you are not well ahead since castle time, by the time you´ll buy it youre already dead :D
Mangonels + monks with cheap redemption and sanctity is really strong against archer civs, if you have 2-3 mangos and manage to convert only one of the opponent's, its often gg. Not against britons with good micros though, but even in that case if you go heavy on skirms its feasible (though hard, i agree).
On Persians. The civ feels quite "boring", and that's not to say they need to be weird like some more recent civs, but that Persians just don't do much that is "interesting". The only things they really have with some flash is Kamandaran & War Elephants, and the latter of those sucks.
Their old claim to fame was having a complete stable, and using that tactical variety to have answers. So I personally would give them access to the Steppe Lancer, and trade the Hand Cannoneer for the Elephant Archer. This gives them more variety in general and over a long period of the game, and it also gives their Mahouts tech a reason to exist outside of just being a tax on their War Elephants.
If they REALLY need a buff with a bit more oomph. Change Mahouts into a new civ bonus, and then give the civ a new unique tech to boost cavalry archers & steppe lancers. To at least give them a boost in-line with their historical strengths.
Also give them their correct architecture...
hmm, sure it doesnt give you too much in the early game, but I always felt like +2 Villagers per age is a pretty good eco Bonus. I was thinking for bengalis about what you suggested for the Dravidians: Give them knights in Castle Age, but no Cavalier. Just a Unit to mix in in Castle Age to snipe Siege in 1v1, or even an all-in knights play with 4 extra villagers does not sound to bad for me. They have the Ratha, Strong Elephants/Ele Archers as decent Options in Imperial Age when they are fully boomed, they just need a Unit to get there. I feel like just having acces to fully upgraded KTS in Castle Age would reduce the akwardness of this civ a lot.
Dravidians need BBC to make their archer play with an early IMP push more viable, i think they are pretty decent then. I played them as TG pocket once, went up 20 pop and dropped 2 fwd archery ranges on the opponent pocket, it worked out great! Not every civ needs to be able to play the pocket role meta-style. For Ladder games you need to get more creative, in tournament games you would never pick them as pocket civ anyways. Maybe you should give them Bllodlines or something to make their Light Cav at least usable so you have a Unit that can raid, even though its far from the best.
I think some civs are just good in teamgames/closed maps and that's fine. Celts are top 1-2 on Black Forest, Slavs are very high up there as well.
I think Dravidians as pocket have one of the few usable Elephant Archers, ironically. They're glass cannons, but boy do they dish out a lot of damage. Siege Elephants and Elephant Archers (and also halb/SO) are pretty powerful on BF or maybe Arena as well. And I think Ele Archers are getting a buff in the August PUP (less bonus damage, or did I see that in a dream?), so it makes that even stronger.
With Bengalis/Dravidians, I think just buffing Ele Archers or Battle Elephants a little bit would make them much better as well. The problem is that balancing them is very hard, as otherwise they would become OP very quickly.
I am going to preface all my disagreement with the statement, I love you Hera and think you help players more than any other pro. The first thing I would change is unique units and unique tech which are not seeing use.
Persians-Hera +5% faster docks and TCs.-no (they have too much early bonuses) Me- Increase elephant speed to .75. (This will make mahout much better for an imp tech. With the trashbow Persians get a huge boost in late castle. Instead replace this with lesser faith food 400 gold 200 gives the same bonus as Teutons (maybe even go as high as First Crusade) start with Teutons and see if added with greater speed is too much. Persians also have Faith which could make war elephants an actual playable unique unit.
Celts Hera- armor upgrade for archery line-yes Me- Add redemption so you don't have your siege converted and you cannot get it back. (We remember T90's game of 2021 Hera vs MBL)
Slav- Hera- increase farm rate to 15% from +10% No (it is too much). Since the monk class lost +3/+3 have monks react as villagers and have the same attack with infantry blacksmith upgrades. No more dying to 1 and 2 hp scouts.
Spanish Hera- nothing (MBL likes them not me) Me- Allow villagers to repair +30%
Burmese- Hera nothing (even though I chose them last in my Bo21 with Yo) Me- upgrade arambi 0-+1 melee armor, elite hp 65-75 (what elite unit does not go up at least 15 hp)
Malay- Hera slight boost Me- they are fine for now
Bengalis- Hera remove them (lol) Me- with the expected august civilization upgrades Bengalis will receive two boosts, elephant archers -10 food CA armor -7 to -4. They now come out slightly ahead of skirms (according to age of Noob) with equal resources although skirms do not cost gold. Monks gain +3/+3 armor this is going to be interesting on arena. I cannot wait to see clown legion using this. Against scouts cavalry damage goes from 11 to 8 and it takes 4 hits to kill a monk. If the scout is farther than 6 tiles away the monk should auto convert at the end of the 10th second. If the monk has sanctity it takes 6 hits to kill and the scout can be standing right next to the monk and the monk will survive. Against light cavalry the damage goes from 17 to 14. A monk will die in 3 hits instead of 2. The monk will auto convert if conversion is started at more than 8 times away. If the monk has sanctity it takes 4 hits. If the monk is at least 6 tiles away it can auto convert.
Still not enough, give them hussar (maybe Hera will play them) their trash is trash. Since they are a naval civilization, they need more so give them dock upgrades one age earlier. How is their team bonus +10% extra food from trade, when Spanish have +25% gold? Boost it up to +30% food, they need it as their skirms do not have thumb ring and infantry does not have the last armor upgrade.
I agree with Mike on Persians, Celts, Slavs, Spanish. VERY thoughtful analysis behind these ideas, Mike: 👍🏻. Malay- Mike: they are fine for now. Me-don't forget they are about to get a nerf since they're an xbow civ: improve viability of Karambit with small buff.
@@PartyMusic775 Fair enough.
surprised not 2 see vietnamese! only reason i kinda disagree with celts is bcuz the hoang push is kinda ridic, so maybe a buff that didnt impact the hoang push in any way for their lackluster scaling wobuld e ideal. list was good
Vietnamese has one of lowest win-rates and is about to get slapped with a big nerf since all xbow civs are going to have to pay more for them. The solution: buff to all elephant units for every civ, and some other kinda buff too.
@@PartyMusic775 i can get behind that. it does seem like elephants are kind of an unusable unit sometimes becasue monks are seemingly such a broken unit. i mean who wants to give their an opponent an excuse to make monks?? lmao
Sandy Petersen, game dev who worked on AOEII's balance and core mechanics back at Ensemble, made a statement about dual unit types being too awkward to manage and so they scrapped that idea (it was initially tested on the Samurai who would switch from archer to swordsman like in real life). To no ones surprise, turns out he and the original talented development team was right. They should just change the Ratha to be one or the other or they condemn the Bengali UU to a lifetime of bore.
Or just delete Bengalis, that would work too. Too many Indian civs anyway.
I like Bengalis, but I think Ratha should be one unit alone indeed.
Yeah Hera!!
What do you think of the proposed Sicilian nerf? The 50% less bonus damage is very strong but it’s not like they are really a problem civ or anything. Putting it down to 33% less bonus damage seems harsh without giving them anything else imo
Your thoughts are exactly mine in this video. Now we just need devs to follow up!
Are you the one editing the videos or is there someone that does it for you? Either way, fantastic job with the editing, feels so smooth and really professional, keep it up!
I feel like Bulgarians can need some buff too. Yes the krepost is good at map control, but it’s also production building for your most important unit.
Also, the 50stone tc is a bad bonus. For a boom game yes it’s good, but you need kreposts to start. For a non boom game, it’s just too small.
Excellent video, as always! What do you think of byzantines? I see them picked a lot in pro play. Buff them? Nerf? Don't touch them?
I agree that Celts could use the Archer armor for their skirms. But on water they are the only civ without a Imperail age Navy with no Fast Fires and no Bracer, here I wanna trade Galleon for Fast Fires.
idk about Persians, they were S-tier for a reason when they had 1 vil more.
Dravidians alreay get BBC in the next patch.
Bengalis I thought about switching Block Printing (to Castle Age) and Atonement (to imp). This way they get a great (mostly devensive) tool in Castle Age bc shutting down Mangonels and letting your own reign supreme but dont gain anything in lategame where they dont need any help. Hussar would give them pretty good Trash and i think that would be enough.
I like the video and agree with almost everything, with exception the knights for Dravidians, I believe they should be consistent and give them rather camels, for example camels with +2 pierce armor... The Indian civs usually have no knights.
But Dravidians represent southern India, where they never made extensive use of camels. More importantly, the concept of replacing knights with camels has been incredibly hard to balance for years and the current status of Hindustanis and Gurjaras suggests we're still not there yet.
Why unrealistically make them just like every other civ with knights, instead of making their elephants more unique, special, and usable?
i wonder why you review the +2 vils per age up as a weak eco bonus. Viking eco is considered top tier and bengali +2 vils are 2/3 the viking bonus, no?
If I'm not mistaken, the next patch is supposed to give bombard cannons to Dravidians
I saw that as well. Age of Noob posted a video about that patch and he said that.
TLDW:
Persians: Good at the start, but not enough options later on. Let's make the town center work faster even earlier.
Celts: Hussars + Cav-Archers can outrun Onagers. So let's give them better Skirmishers (who the Hussars + Cav-Archers also can outrun).
Dravidians: Their stable is bad, and their archery range units die to Skirms + Knights. So let's give them Bombard cannon to deal with Onagers.
Bengalis: They are just bad overall. So let's just remove them.
Persian: buff the unique unit. Celts: buff the unique unit. Dravidians: buff the unique unit. Bengalis: buff the unique unit AND move some stuff from Gurjaras and Hindustanis over to them.
my suggestion for the rathas is that they should be able to shoot while moving (without needing to stop) if they intend to keep the slower speed. But how the unit 'tasks' in the game work this is not possible. So I don't know.
Can you do a video on ways to counter different aggression - you are probably the GOAT at countering aggression so id love to hear your thoughts. EX opponent tower rushes, you should pull fils to fight tower, or counter tower, etc. if opponent goes mangonel push, go guard tower, redemption etc.
Nice video. Again. Agree with everything. Don't you think the basic units should have some regional skins? European knight and infantry lines for Asian and African civs is annoying.
8:55 I actually heard "to make the 200 swordsmen a little bit more viable for them" and then thought. "Don't you mean Karambit warriors? You can get 400 of them." (I guess it's 200 with decent Eco beside it.)
Lol. Karambit gold cost going down to 5 each would make them really fun and viable imo.
@@booradley6832 That's a great idea. Plus civ-wide buff to elephants, and Malay are looking great and fun !
Hera nice to see you Back. I was sad that you made for a time LoL only Content. I Love your AoEII Content. Is there a reason why you come back?
I was always coming back its just a break for other things
Dravidians have one position in any team game: dedicated slinger. Let a civ with a real military handle the fighting, you just get the resources asap.
Give Dravidians 75% cheaper wheelbarrow, hand cart and tier 1-2 eco upgrades. Then you've got a civ on your hands.
Erin L
0 seconds ago
Any underperforming civ that needs a buff, should first and foremost look at making the unique unit more viable. As a rule of thumb. There's no need to speculate about other types of buff bonus for a civ whose unique unit is rarely used.
IMO, It’s not that the Bengali eco bonus is terrible. It just isn’t enough for a sole eco bonus.
With Dravidians, you were talking about how if you get them in pocket you need to go archers. Do you think that is the problem or fact that Meta is so rigid that infrantry just doesnt work in that state.
Now Hera have to make video about 5 most well balanced civs!!
Bengali are like Franks if knights were categorically awful units. Of course the Civ sucks, it’s based around a unit that doesn’t work.
Franks still will have cheaper castles and throwing axeman
Slavs could get fams bonus per age like 5% in feudal, 10% in castle and 15% in imperial age…
I think they could fix Ratha by making them all selectable by double click and making the melee and ranged switch separate buttons instead of a toggle so you can get them all into the mode you want freely. Why make a castle unit, which is already hard to get into an absolute chore to micro especially when the majority of players don't have the APM to spare.
To me I think my idea is awesome and very different revolutionary.
I want the Bengalis to be a big brain civ. Not like the Chinese or Aztecs in how you start. But how you micro the game... beyond just basic counters that every civ has. I want this civ to be fun to use and fun to play against because of how much you have to adjust throughout the game.
In order for this to happen a few things have to be present :
1. The ratha has to be a very very unique unit. Pun intended. It has to provide a lot more variables to both players. But in general it has to be stronger. Ideally one of the strongest unique units in the game in order for this civ to go.
2. The Bengalis need a slight eco boost. Replace the ship bonus with something else. Maybe mining gold let’s you yield more stone. Kinda like poles but the opposite so you push for a castle unit play.
3. You have to have fully upgraded trash units. This plays into their style of being a chess type civs. You need the ratha to be your main go to with options to go hussar too and fully upgrade halbs.
Narrative - on ratha.
To me it’s clear that they want the ratha to be something people use because they didn’t give the civ much else.
So if that’s the case then do it. Make the ratha a good unit.
You can do little things like give it less weakness with armor, give it more attack, make it more tanky, or make it cheaper. Something.
But more than anything this is what I would do to make this civ big brain 🧠
give it more bonus damage and more bonus resistance to units based on its stance and what units it’s fighting against. Here’s my suggestion.
You can have the ratha benefit from cav archer armor but do the following.
If it’s in melee it hits skirms harder and takes no bonus damage from them but takes more damage from gold unit foot archers. However if
It’s in ranged mode it take bonus damage from skirms.
Now...
If it’s in ranged mode it hits trash foot melee units harder IE spear and also takes bonus damage from pikes and skirms and more damage from camels and kts all the time in melee mode.
This truly makes the bengalis a big brain type of civ. Hera amd anyone who loves chess would playing with and playing against this type of civ.
Meaning it’s easier to kill with gold units but not with trash. Meaning it’s still difficult to kill overall because you can always change what your weakness is based on what mode you fight in so your opponent has a hard time investing into one gold unit. It doesn’t lead to your opponent taking more bonus damage because it only applies to trash units but you can still dish more bonus damage if yoi spend gold.
In this case the best way to counter Bengali’s would probably be go double gold compositions.
This also means you have to give the bengalis something else.
Minor eco bonus or more flexibility so you can counter their double gold compositions. As I mentioned... you get stone while mining gold. So you can afford the unit but still build castles to mass.
This probably means you shouldn’t make the ratha cheaper because you’ll be on gold by default. But you should make them tankier so that in order to kill them you have to rely on sealing bonus damage based on their stance.
And you get punished as a Bengali’s player by not being in the right stance.
The idea of using the unit to kill pikes but also be weak to them in one stance is great.
But then be strong vs skirms in melee is great
It truly Makes the unit more vulnerable as a cav archer because of the hit and run.
So if you want to kill it you probably will have to go skirms and pikes together. Or skirms with archers.
But then as the Bengali player you can also mix in your own units too. Like skirms to counter their skirms and pikes. Or skirms with archers.
Wait, you do mention the next patch talking about the nerf to archers but you didn't mention that they already plan to give bombar cannon to dravidians.
My proposed fix for Bengalis: give them a 20% food discount on military units. Might seem extreme, but with a tech tree as bad as theirs, it might actually be balanced in the end.
Gurjaras already have this in the form of a unique tech
@@Tocaraca So take it away and give Gurjaras something else. Not like they need to be able to spam cheap hussars on top of everything else they have going for them.
@@teddyhaines6613 Fair enough
Hera: Buff CELTS pls
Hoang: 1
Me: Grabs popcorn 11
2 days later after matching hoand on ladder: nerf celts
I agree with most of the civs, buy celts and slavs are really ok in my opinion.
As celt you can still del with cav with your skirm in Castle Age and you have good eco and exceptional siege. And +2 defence for skirms in Imperial Age Is not that huge problem... You still can kill that cav without that tec.
Slavs with Better eco are like Franks with Better siege and infantry. In my opinion they are a civ with good infantry, siege , monks, and stabile unità... Very Well rounded. And their cheap siege Is funny to play in closed map during Castle Age.
I would mention Teutons in late game cuz they lack last archer attack and they don’t have light cav. I think light cav would help them a little bit
Teutons already have very strong late Game
Just make the war elephant available at the stable upon reaching Castle Age tbh
Maybe increase its movement speed (same as militia line maybe? ) and make it naturally more resistant to conversion
Cries in Dravidians
I would like a minor buff for spanish early game, nothing too crazy but a little. May be kill and recolect boars faster? Because pig in Spain are a thing?
Watching this a year later, and most of these civs have had massive buffs and are considered amongst the strongest civs now. The only one I'm not sure about is Celts, and Dravidians is still in a bit of a awkward spot.
I feel like free and instant Loom for Goths is well-deserved for the civ...
Most great weakeness of bengalis: they dont have hussar! 11 Great content !
How about Koreans? It was given free archers' armor and a little wood- cheaper army, but they gives us only a little resources, I think they aren't good enough. Wagon, tower, onager, they are strong, but I want a little buff for Koreans.
I have suggestion about Dravidians civ. I don't suggest to add knights in stable because all Indian civs don't have acess to knight. It's not good choice. If Dravidians have knights they are situational beacuse no bloodlines, no husbandry and no last cav armour. I say add hussar in late game option. Or bombard Canon is ok for Dravidians civ.
Archers - Good
Infantry - Strong
Cavalry - Terrible needs hussar to complement weekness.
Siege - ok but needs bombard canons for counter onager
Defence - good
Economy - average
Monk - average
Navy - Strong
It's just a opinion
How do you counter Hussite Wagons and Organ Guns in the Castle Age, and their elite versions in the Imperial Age with Dravidians? No husbandry, bloodlines, and siege engineers to those Dravidians units (onagers/mangonels, B Elephants and S/A Elephants) which are the only counters to those UUs.
@@user-iz2tm5ih4e Siege engineers is not a big deal. Only bombard Canon and hussar is enough. Hussar with wootz steel is quite powerful as generic civs. That's enough bro. If the Dev's add both bombard canaon and hussar for siege.
Is free lumber upgrade that good of an eco bonus though? Unlike other free eco upgrade bonuses, the wood upgrade is picked as soon as you age up (except the imp upgrade) so Burmese only get them for free and like 25 secs faster. It's not that good for a civ that has such an expensive army
Persians with Bracer would be nice 😀
Gives them a bit more options late game
It could make trashbows bit OP but i´d love it :D
That would make Persians OP. Persians aren't a bad civ, they are just average now. Their Stables are insanely good with full everything and +damage against archers. They have one of the best trash units in the game with Xbows and their barracks aren't that bad because they have full Halberdiers. Honestly, they are a very solid civ in everyway.
If you don’t say Teutons…
Well if we get archer nerf they will get indirect buff.
Teutons are powerhouse on close maps.
teutons are underrated imo
@@HeraAgeofEmpires2 prove it in the next pro tourney then 🤔 you have to make and use at least 10 Teutonic Knights
@@IndexInvestingWithCole plenty of civs have bad unique units that barely ever get used, TK are not the worst and have niche units but you dont need to build them, you have great halbs siege and knights
I disagree that the villager gained by Bengalis is bad, it is a solid eco bonus. It is the lack of options that make Bengalis bad if Bengalis had access to thumb ring and knights, they would be a pretty decent civ.
Hera: Celts obviously have some "decent stable units"
11
Malians need a small buff too. Let's hope the devs see this video.
another civ that definitely needs a buff is Koreans. Yet it makes completely sense that a pro like Hera does not feel this need as much. What Koreans do best is archers and countering archers. so, obviously in the pro meta where archers are the most common unit, koreans do a lot better than anywhere else. with this design though, koreans probably need to be made top tier for pro level, in order to be decent for middle and not too bad for low elo.
the stats also support that koreans are a bottom tier civ, especially against cavalry. id improve eupsong by letting it give towers some bonus damage to cavalry on top of the +2 range.