All 45 Civilizations Ranked Best To Worst In 2024 | AoE2
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- Опубліковано 25 вер 2024
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Edits by / @k1aoe
#Ageofempires2, #AoE2, #Hera
1:41 Armenians
2:40 Aztecs
3:48 Bengalls
4:44 Berbers
5:33 Bohemians
7:08 Britons
8:12 Bulgarians
10:05 Burgundians
11:05 Burmese
12:35 Byzantines
13:56 Celts
15:24 Chinese
16:48 Cumans
18:40 Dravidians
20:11 Ethiopians
21:11 Franks
22:49 Georgians
24:24 Goths
25:34 Gurjaras
27:06 Hindustanis
27:55 Huns
29:28 Incas
30:21 Italians
21:26 Japanese
32:30 Khmer
33:54 Koreans
35:02 Lithuanians
35:59 Magyars
37:07 Malay
38:20 Malians
38:56 Mayans
40:15 Mongols
41:24 Persians
42:30 Poles
43:40 Portuguese
44:56 Romans
46:03 Saracens
46:23 Sicilians
47:32 Slavs
48:14 Spanish
49:16 Tatars
49:43 Teutons
50:55 Turks
52:30 Vietnamese
53:03 Vikings
Goat
Byzantine's building HP bonus is insane. If you haven't played against them in quite a while, you forget the bonus exists. Then, boom, you get a match against the Byzantine and you're reminded how long it takes to tear down their TCs and Castles mid match.
Byzantines are great defensively and in team play, imo. My personal favorites.
It's easy for beginner also, Byzantines has almost complete tech trees, making it one of the "jack of all trades" civ
1st tier list since Hera joined GL and Dravidians are up there. Coincidence? I think not
Blink twice if Viper bribed you
@@ashley-paul HOW DARE THOU TALK ABOUT GOLDEN BOY!?!?! GOLDEN BOY IS A SAINT! HE DOES NOT SWEAR AND USES PROUNOUNS!!! GOLDY IS NO BAD BOY!!!! (or is heeeeeee????)
34:45 Putting Koreans behind Koreans, we're getting outranked by ourselves now.
Once I heard him say he was putting them behind Koreans I came to check if there were comments about it.
Koeans bros, we lost... or won?
Real "don't trust anyone, not even yourself" meme energy
@@nighteyes360 we failed upwards.
I am laughing way to hard at y'all's comments
Dont stress yourself with the length of the video. I find every information that comes from you on this topic useful and relevant, you dont have to think someone gets bored or something. The more the better here :)
Thx a lot for the upload!
Agreed, rather a longer video with more info, than a rushed video!
Yeah, if he wanted to do a 8 hour long video of a fully comprehensive civ overview I'd watch it
But I wouldn't mind timestamps ;-)
Yep its good quality stuff and your audience don't suffer from the infamously short attention span of TikTok-ers so feel free to make em as lengthy as you wish...
@@grraf1 oh man i wish you were right about the short attention span hahaha but seriously yeah, aoe2's audience in general would like long form content more than other games' audiences
wake up baby, new hera's tierlist just dropped
Nice video. Britons got gambesons in a patch some time ago though, so they have fully upgraded champs.
Mongols are S+ tier if you hunt your trees.
For those who don't know and possible readers in the future, there is a bug right now (April 2024) where you can have hunters treat trees like hunt. They shoot them with bows and collect food from them at the same rate as from deer.
@@ObiwanNekody😂 wait what!? Who, no how did someone figure that out?
@@ObiwanNekody Dave said when casting a day ago it was patched. I haven't seen evidence yet but there is no reason to distrust him.
@@mikelivingood7797 just tried it before out of curiosity and yeah it's patched
@@kremepye3613 that's good to know. Now the community needs a mod so those who missed it can experience the feature.
Byz building hp saved me so many times, won alot of treb wars with it
konniks are just slept on, one day you will all see
knnicks are great units but they kinda get power creeped by letis and monaspa.
konniks should be able to mount/dismount in any time, not just when die...
@@martinalejandroarguelloira7627 And switch between like 40 and 120 hp? 😂
@@Hardcore_Remixer yes, what's the problem?
@@martinalejandroarguelloira7627 If you have no problem with losing 90 hp when switching to infantry and only getting the maximum hp back to 120 when switching to cavalry, then no 😂
Reason: Maintaining the hp percent would make this switching exploitable by healing while in infantry mode and switching to cavalry.
As a returning player that as missed out on a lot of new civs and updates to other ones, I love that you don't JUST rate them but pretty much explain everything so anyone can understand!
Poor Sicilians and Buglarians being ranked as worst when they have awesome mini forts.
Donjons feel like they are made out of paper. They are expensive but break pretty easily by villagers.
Malay docks feel like better towers to me then most towers.
Been literally waiting for this since the start of 2024, thanks Hera!
Mongols being stupid OP is just lore accurate.
Hera: *releases "why poles suddenly became OP"
Developers: buffs fowarks.
Hera: *C-tier
slavs in B is totally underrated, people are sleeping on them imo
remember how good slaves used to be in hd era? farms went brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
@@AEGISAOE slaves lmao
Papa Hera pls bless us with the tier list for team games next
I love winning a ranked game and feeling really good about it and then checking this video and finding out the civ I picked is just objectively way stronger than theirs and all feeling of accomplishment is shattered.
Poles really feel like a study in "how to overnerf a civilization". I miss how good they were at a release.
They took me from 800 elo to 1400 then back again after the nerfs 😂
And like "How to overbuff a civilization" like Georgians from the 40+th civ to best civ in one patch. Seriously even Persians did not get such a carzy jump (even though it's 100% overbuff for sure)
Obuch + arbalest into winged hussar spam can be good but I do not understand the purpose of Szlatca privileges. Polish cavalier are completely useless in imp and the upgrade is so expensive that you can't get it till late castle age anyways, so the timing window is ridiculously specific.
Not getting halb is also brutal against camel/heavy cav civs.
@@EldritchAugur The final armor isn't as important as you may think when you can outnumber arbalests with your cavaliers as Poles. A 50 arb army against 50 Polish cavaliers will die the moment it fights outside a choke. And it costs 50% more gold than the cavalier army.
@teddyhaines6613 My question is, why would you bother with the Cavalier if Winged Hussar only cost food and get splash damage?
They both have pretty bad pierce armor but winged hussar are faster and can do more damage with a surround.
I just find very little use for Szlatca privileges, I feel like The devs were so nervous about it being too strong that they heavily nerfed other aspects of Poles.
If teutons are not at least A Tier this list is a joke
haha it was a joke i guess D:
@@HeraAgeofEmpires2 grassSad
@@HeraAgeofEmpires2 My Cape Bois are not a joke. =(
i agree . if Teuton is not in A tier list atleast, the person who make this list is lunatic
@@matackhoi2008 You are lunatic - corrrect!
Hera would be so good on a show like The Bachelor because he lets each civ know how beautiful and special they are under the right circumstances.
Hera, we need a team game tier list next please! :) keep the good work going
They should make a civ where the villagers actually walk in a damn straight line and it will be better than all the other civs
"I was going to answer this comment, but accidentally took a walk to Norway instead"
- Villager 361
Teutons with British team mate using, 13 range castles with super helbs, and cannons, + long bows warwolf truebs is a nightmare.
i appreciate when you name the changes that have happened because i usually missed them or forgot
Vietnamese have the single most powerful civ bonus (enemy TC location revealed)
especially if you lose your scout to enemy TC 11
The current meta is going directly to lame the enemy, finding no sheep there, deciding to lame a boar, losing the scout and having to find own sheep with villagers. Completely broken! Nerf pls
@@partlycurrent like it depends. Im on 1300 ELO and half the time my lames go like you desctibed, but other half I manage to steal some sheep, murder a boar, kill enemy scout and 1 or 2 villagers
Italians are a bit underrated imo. You can get to imp faster. Great uu. Fully upgraded hussars. Great unique infantry. Great archers. Fully boomed hard to kill great on hybrid and water maps. Decent on arabia. Probably top 5 lategame composition with genoese hussar or condos. Behind bbc.
They don't feel great to play, for some reason. I'm the average player (1000 elo) and I have a terrible win rate with Italians (25%) and a great win rate against them (70%).
They are my favorite for many reasons, but their problem is that they are weak in every age except imp. In games that are decided in the feudal and castle age, they have a distinct disadvantage 1v1
@@justinayers3589They are not weak in any age, they are just balanced.
Not ridiculous from the get go like 90% of civs nowadays, but they can always keep up and there isn't a single map where Italians are weak or terrible
@Mattroid99 if they're weaker than 90% of civs that means they're weak
@@linvega671 No, they are perfectly fine. They just don't have a ridiculous economy from the get go like many of the A/S tier civs but still are more than fine, it means you have to play smart to take leverage on their savings and the civ has really strong options.
And in maps where there is water they are fantastic
Finally some vindication on opinion of Britons from a pro. I've said on Steam forums and official forums whenever balance discussions or the like happens that Britons just feel lacking these days. Their gimmick is very one note. The other thing is all the other archer civs apart from maybe Koreans have better tempo early game, they get their bonuses in feudal, Britons do not. The +1 range is not all that crazy either, it helps but it's not broken. When they finally get to +3 bonus in late imp sure it's annoying but even then, many civs have solutions. I think they need a redesign or rework like what the Persians got. Especially the Yeoman tech, it's historically inaccurate naming and makes little sense. Give me something else, my archers already shoot far enough.
i really only play against ai but i like how Sicilians play, i like to stock up on stone and do this sudo goth flood/ tower rush with sergeants. its not very good but kinda fun.
I think saracens are a very misunderstood civ. If you use the market and buy a ton of food, you can advance to the next age really fast. And then, because the food price is so high, you can sell all the food late game and have gold way longer. Plus you can fully upgrade pretty much any unit, strong camels, archers break walls, mamelukes, bbc, and Hussar. I think it's at least a tier for me. If you use the market perfectly then it's pretty much the number 1 civ. But i think they are an a tier civ overall. I agree with the rest of the tierlist, i like how the tiers are balanced. (No 10 civs in s tier)
the purpose of balancing your eco is not using the market, if you use it, it is not good, it doesn't matter which civ you are.
They still have a small deficit and you generally speaking dont want to be buying food even with Saracens, not without a good reasons and only for a short while
No You ALWAYS want to buy food as saracens. It gives you one of the best food per minute rates in the game. Watch sotl saracens review@@zachariastsampasidis8880
@@doguhanaktas1262that's completely wrong. Mining gold as saracens to buy food gets you food faster than farming for it. Mining stone and selling it is faster than mining gold. You can abuse the market to get insane gathering rates. Watch spirit of the law saracens overview.
@@ns-islandsroblox Thank you! I will, bec. I am abusing stone while playing on Arena 11
I agree in general. But for me (and the snek aswell hehe) Portugese is overall the best civ.
Hera I played Hun Wars against you back on Voobly, give them some love bro! they have a high win rate and are so smooth to play still, faster stables is useful too, but I do think they've gotten power crept over the years
This feels like ranking civilisations by what effectively amounts to draft capital in a mixed map event.
At least some AoE2 content I can watch until my game stops crashing with an upcoming patch
Thanks for the tier list, appreciated! It would also be nice to have tier list for other maps as well, for example by following the maps like in Warlords 3: Open, Semiopen, Hybrid, Water, Closed, Nomad, Chaotic... ;)
cat meow at 4:55
A list like this would be great for each most played map: Arabia, BF, Amazon Tunnel, Arena and LN.
I looked this up hoping Hera would have a video on this and what do ya know it came out 4 days ago. What a legend. Infinite content
40:00 no redemption puts mayans juuuust below incas imo
Agree here. Mayans are really strong at archer eagle play, but don't seem to offer much more than that. I find both Incas and Aztecs more versatile.
@Dragoull Also, mayans are hard countered by some civilizations like Goths and Roman's, while Aztec and Inca don't. Mayans are also weak in closed maps when compared to other Meso. I feel it should be placed a couple of spots below.
Thanks!!! I also saw all your gameplay against other pro players to become stronger in this game. I've been waiting for this video for a long time👑
The fact that the best player in the game has put the most civilisations in the game in B tier means that the game is actually really truly well balanced. Look at that distribution! Perfection. What a game to play
It's not perfect balance but it's perhaps the best you could feasibly get from a fairly complex game with an enormous number of playable nations all with their own unique playstyles and focuses.
@@IAmTheStig32 I think because at core, most of the civs have fairly similar units and strategies. Certainly it’s far less drastically different than CandC Tiberius wars. I’d also say perhaps StarCraft but I’m not too familiar with that game
Yeoman needs to be buffed. It's too expensive for what it actually provides, on top of the +1 range and 2 attack for towers it should give all infantry extra melee armour or attack. Yeomen literally refers to freeholding commoners who made up the army
Now what would be cool is to make shorts yt for each civs: more content for free
Agreed, enough content for the year until it is time to make a 2025 tier list 😂
Love these tierlists, can we get a team game version
47:22 my problem with sicilians cavalier is how they not only lose to helbs relatively easily. but they also lose to every knight-line based civ in a knights vs knights fight. it's like you can beat sicilians cavaliers even if you just mirror what they are doing.
itheir cavalier used to play a role better than most other knight-lines and then new civs and changed made their cavalier not even in the top 3 in what they are supposed to be good at. i mean it in the sense that their castle tech and civ bonus are supposed to make them beat archers/helbs. but they are actually as good as paladins vs helbs and slightly better than paladins vs archers. and then you have new archers with high base damage or even ignoring their armor.
to me, building hp is the defining bonus of byz, and why i hate playing against them
When looking at winrates only the results are quite different.
"There is no reason to play Poles as Georgians exist"
- Hera, 2024, stating the powercreep
You gotta love it when your day 1 civ is in the S tier. Mongols ride or die 💯
-40% farmcs cost and teutons are c? Damn didnt expect this, I thought it helps early/midgame a lot
As a general rule of thumb, 'weak' Civ's are held back by either a tiny Tech Tree and a lack of options, or a lack of 'military focus'.
Britons just don't have the bonuses to compete. Shepherd's is small and brief, TC's save like 600 Wood, and all they have other than those are _really long-ranged_ Archers and a blast-damage Trebuchet's UT. All other units are just generic.
Bulgarians have bonuses split between Infantry and Cavalry, but neither is strong enough to support an entire Civ vs counter-units. Compare them to Burgundians: their extreme focus means they can still be countered, but have a more *consistent* playstyle.
Burmese, again, have their bonuses split between economy, Infantry, Battle Elephants, Monks, and their UU is a Cav Archer. Which is weird, but without Arambai, the rest of their units are slow and either melee or Coverters, which are vulnerable to micro'd range.
Celts UU is fast Infantry, bonuses are faster Infantry... and slower-but-stronger Siege, and Castles that heal nearby Infantry. So you get caught in a loop of fast Infantry that have to stop to get their full benefit, and Siege that are powerful but take time to do anything.
Ethiopians are split between Archers, UU Infantry, Siege and Cavalry-counters. Unless you're up against Cav, they're meh.
Goths are hyper-focused on Infantry and have a good economy bonus, but Infantry are weak now and they have no 'counter-Infantry option' (Champions could be classified as such, but that's a stretch). They crush Cavalry and Archers, but lose to Cav Archers and Siege.
Huns, other than 'no houses', have very few bonuses: Stables, Tarkans, Cavalry Archers and Trebuchets each get _one_, which is 'meh' and fits the theme of the Civ, but doesn't give them much variety or a stand-out advantage.
Magyars are held back by the fact that their bonuses only apply to Hussars, a Hussar Trash UU (redundant), and Cavalry Archers.
Polish have good economy-focused bonuses, but only a few, and they're Cavalry-focused which is countered by Halberdiers and Camels.
Sicilians are extremely-defensive, but in AoE2 the best defense is a good offense, turtling is hard, and they have almost no military focus.
Teutons are also defense-focused, but they once again lean too far into turtling and their 'best' Unit, their UU, is hard-countered by range.
Turks bonuses are even later-game than Spanish/Portuguese, and their only non-Gunpowder is Hussars and crappy Cav Archers.
Me, a fool who just plays casual Team Matches, seeing Magyars and Poles down near the bottom
"Now, it's time to wait for the Team Match tier list"
I don't even play the game but I've watched the whole video and was mumbling "Yeah, that's a good point" occasionally.
I am a single player gamer and never do online so this might impact how I view the game. But I’d expect Spanish and Slavs to be higher. Vietnamese too.
Spanish is underrated on water maps. The ballistic cannon galleon crazy
I will be honest I still think Mayans being S tier is valid at least lowest S. Anytime the game goes into the later game I feel you have more stone, gold, everything comes easier. I feel that combined with the cheaper archers makes for massive deathballs and the ability to tech switch to eagle warriors with all the gold and all that HP with unique tech. Its still my highest winrate over my persians. I think the meta might be shifting but that civ bonuses are out of this world.
Mayans are really not impressive when it comes to closed maps thugh. They really hard die to Champion (Or HC) + Onagers and they really enjoy open maps so that they can make use of their mobile units
@@Mattroid99yeah, Aztecs and incas have very similar infantry monk siege theme while mayans are very lacking in those, specialising in archers.
That being said, I am not entirely sure fully open maps favor them over something like arena
@@zachariastsampasidis8880 Between eagles and plumed they have excellent mobility to raid and can close the game very fast with double gold unit in ealry/mid imp in open maps
In Arena they are a lot more limited and very often can't really push after their great boom because they lack good siege and their composition is always eagles + archers which is very limited on Arena (No redemption either), and raiding comes into play in post imp usually
@@Mattroid99 Still my highest winrate on every map. Just so good in every area of the game. Will always be my personal best.
Hope they buff Sicilians and Bulgarians because Krepost and Donjons are fun buildings.
For buffing the Bulgarians what about " players can make one Krepost in Feudal age" and " Krepost can train petards"? , that will improve their defense in feudal age and will make them more dangerous at the " krepost Drop". For Sicilians i am not sure but i Think the Serjeant needs some kind of buff at Castle and Imperial Age.
15:18, man celts paladin remind me of your match every single time
Huns need steppe lancer..Not that it would help them but it would be cool and make some sense :D
People think it's a mic on the right but as a gun expert it's obvious it's a hand Canon held point blank by Viper
I dont understand how you manage to not bring up HCIV finals whenever you mention Celt Paladin. I cant not remember that game and I bet neither can you 11
How can you do my Ethiopians dirty like this, also I think it's another time for a low elo Civ tier list so I don't run out of any Hera Content
dont worry, ethiopians r great in teams games due to torsion engines :D
After Georgians the list followed a nice normal distribution, that's how you know someone understands how tier lists work.
Boah and again after he moved Cumans down, lovely stuff.
Always love your vids. Hope Teutons get at least A teir considiering how amazing their paladin monk combo is.
Boy you are in for a disappointment xD
@@longbow857 😅 I know right. Still I don't see why the Teutons are rated so low.
@@tylerrobbins8311 Cheaper farms is a strong eco bonus, but with a late pay-off time. Unit deathball can be good, but otherwise you will be going full knight-line spam wich is counterable. All in all I think their power is too little too late.
@@longbow857 really? I use the farm bonus to spam skirms in feudal to harass the enemy eco. Given I am trash so probably it's easy to counter?
@@tylerrobbins8311 Your strategy is from another world. No need to mention you don't get far with it xD Nothing in that comment makes any sense. Thx for the laugh though.
Bulgarians are one of my favorites 😢
Awesome video, as always, Godhera.
To be fair, the Byzantines being reactive is actually very fitting given that they spent most of the middle ages on the defensive.
MY LOVELY BRITONS IN C TIER 😪 I miss Longbow Men and Britons being Top Tier 😔
I've played so many Magyar games and a well executed scout and spearman followup has ended games pretty fast
I think Magyars are slept on a little bit with their light cavs. They are slightly worse than knights when facing knights but superior to them when facing camels or ranged units. If you consider 2 LC = 1 knight their hp pool is 40 more and they are faster units. Against pikemen if they are anything they are consistently equal to knights. This game plan does two things, first is your growing your food economy much faster than usual as your not going on gold nearly as much. Second this plan saves your gold which If you have been trading food for gold the whole game your opponent is on an extra timer to lose against by default. I was about to say that you must change into cavalier before you hit imp but I just tested it and 2 hussar are closer to beating a cavalier than 2 light cav are at a knight. They have no shot against paladins of course but even vs cavalier they still perform better against camels & ranged units due to their hp pool. [I forgot to mention earlier is their speed lets you have the final say in any fights. There is also no longer a worry about monks converting your knights while the opposite will not be true. ] Back to the gold thing, you have been spending almost zero gold in castle but you afforded eco techs earlier and have a far more robust farmer pop.
This plan plays into both strenghts of magyars with free attack upgrades, constantly using cheap light cav then in a gold attrition war they are by default ahead.
Dravidian is crazy op asf
Now we just need tier lists for the most popular maps!
Pretty sure Mayans are widely regarded as the best civ by a longshot but i haven’t played in a while
This is really interesting to me. I almost exclusively play Poles. I didn't like the Georgian start before the buff, and have not yet tried them since the buff. Seems I need to give them a go.
Hell yeah, love a comprehensive video.
When you are past 1st of April. and Teutons still aren't S+ tier
PePesadface
I love playing the poles. I would love to see a guide on it because you say they’re hard to play. Now I wanna be the best pole player 😂
Nice to see a list that covers not only arabia.
Vikings B tier naurrr 😢
Now bear with me, the reason I think this civ is the best is because of many factors but I would say economy is a strong factor, now the soldiers are weak but you could literally spam them and they have a good trade cart upgrade so what civ you might think I mean is actually the troll civ, yes trolls are best.
I think u completely discarded closed maps which is what most of aoe2 fans (being amature) love
he mentioned its 1v1 all maps, you need an entirely different tier list for closed maps, diplo maps, team games, etc.
As always, these tier lists should have times tamps for civs :/
Otherwise, great content!
It's wild how some civs you rated as S-tier on previous patches have fallen to C-tier.
Well, I was playing a lot by these tier lists of Hera, but now I start to look a little bit with criticism:) I always defeat Romans when I play with Dravidians just send forward fully upgraded champs and unique unit combo and you will clear up legioners and scorpions you will counter with cheaper mangonels of Dravidians
I liked the respect shown to aztecs but huns and teutons are all time favorite and at least a tier.
"Burmese are really solid, I really like Burmese"
*puts them in the tier below Solid*
Georgians 1st S tier? 😲 I’m 14xx rank, would love to play them properly but far away for my preference. Thanks for the video 🫡👏
I actually agree with 90% of this (I'm a tough critic) but putting Goths anywhere that isn't D is annoying. I know what they're good at, but it's a one trick pony, and once you can't win with it, I just see myself banging my head against the wall. I also just don't understand people's love for the Mongols....I know why they're good, but I just don't find them fun to play. Byzantines should be A tier (maybe even low S for me) but that's a preference thing. I'm not a pro, but I love spamming trash. When in doubt, Camel halb....sooooo nice.
maybe put best counter civs for every civilization
22k views only 1k likes? Cmon guys just press the button this kind of content is really useful
Happy to see Hindustanis and Gurjaras bumped up!
yoo im georgian, we are crazy good in this game
Now I start to play with slavs it take time but with slavs you can mass siege and defend siege with strong infantry
I was curious about why Chinese winrate skyrocketed in mid-elo. I guess the drop-off hotkey helps a lot.
yeah for sure, its huge!
Mongols are my favorite Civ but I've always had a soft spot for Koreans hence my Profile name being MasterYi referencing AdmiralYiSinSun of Korea!
Please! Make a tier list of civ in 3v3 4v4 and combination!!!
britons going down from S tier to C tier over the years is definitely crazy
they are still S imo, their 25% faster working shepherds is a huge early eco boost that easily puts you above most civs by one or two villagers,
I think Huns are a pretty solid civ.
i would chance Arambai for the The Myinsi, cavalry unit which is similar rank to european knights. Or in Burmese they were called cavalry prince.
The thing about sicilians is that they really lack tempo or a power unit, sure whenever I played them 1v1 I don't feel happy about it because you are likely having to adapt a bit and do something about it cause you expect a sweaty off-meta play and you have to be ready to react or play with an eye on your base. But on equal player levels I find them very underwhelming and I think I literally always won except maybe one time I did a crazy douche and lost the tc?
I think it could be vs spanish now that I think about it buy anyways, it should be an annoying game but easy win. It feels like a disrespect pick even. Their economy has nothing, their donjon play even if you sub barracks with a key location first donjon is very clunky, you just counterattack them or distract, some walls and get ahead on economy and you are golden, you get overrun one side pivot to another, under no circumstances you are getting less resources than a silician player unless you totally messed up, went for aggression lost everything to tc arrow or play overly passive and don't even wall kind of messing up.
Monks hard counter them, get to castle before them and just crossbow, archers even, vill rush the first forward donjon on sight, you can skip spears for the most part, if they play a meta game and maybe a castle drop what is that even going to do? They still have a losing eco! They go forward, need two mining camps, farms? They will be behind. Horse collar upgrade is midgame and they mostly can't afford them so it feels like a trap the extra food bonus. They can't build two lumbercamps or fullwalls without wasting their window for winning moves, so just counterattack them and they lack the mobility to answer. Sure their sergeants have armor but micro archers and they are not a threat. Keep your mental and any matchup against them you are winning. Even playing normal and reacting late, what are those guys going to do?
I feel like they need a bonus that kicks early and helps them being smooth. There is one thing about Sicily and it's famous for his vines. I feel giving them a 0.25 trickle of gold from berries would help them field those first sergeants and mining camp stone first then gold later without falling too much behind. Portuguese set the kind of bonus that maybe Sicilians crave about. Why not?