I think it would be great if they give Goths one more usable gold unit that's not inf. for more variety in late game. Personally I'd love if they gave them thumb ring - it would make their cav. arch. a viable option. In return they could even take cavalier away - I wouldn't mind at all.
One unmentioned strong point of the Gurjaras is the Cav Bonus damage for the Siege Elephant. Their castle age eles do the same DPS as a siege ram. Literally insane
@@HeraAgeofEmpires2 they need to because they are a much worse unit. Food is way more expensive than wood in castle. Monks counter them without any upgrades. Pikes massacre them in seconds. They need stable upgrades to have similar stats to the ram. They're awful.
@@forsakenquery monks can't counter them lol, they are treated like rams so monks need to stand next to it to convert them and the siege elephant has attack upgrade, they can just beat up the monk instead. Spear do kill them but not as fast as you think especially against Bengalis elephants
@@forsakenquery You never just send in a seige elephant... by itself. It's like Russia in Ukraine thinking they can send in "the tanks" and finding out actually if you just send tanks, the tanks will get surrounded & die. You need to support the tanks (elephants) with some unit that will kill the units trying to kill the elephant. Just like sending in seige rams by themselves usually fails as well, where half a dozen plucky villagers will usually stop your seige push flat in its track if you didn't bring any supporting units. What is relevant though is that the dmg output is so high, that you need fewer elephants to still kill buildings really fast, which means you have the resources to *make* those supporting units that will keep the elephants alive. Other civs need to wait till imperial age to get such a high damage seige unit!
My point is without their damage they are terrible. As they are with the other 2 civs that have them. Gujaras are insane, no question. But the siege elephants are in a good place - they're different and better than the alternative, like they should be. The siege eles in Bengali's are utter crap.
I think you left out the biggest Britons bonus for Teamgames: 20% faster Archer production. Archers are more sensitive to faster production bc ranged units scale better. and you get that for both Flanks.
I'm glad you mentioned Britons for team games. As someone who plays majority team games they feel like they really hurt. Something you didn't mention about them is their team bonus. Their faster producing ranges is for me the most impactful team bonus in the game (assuming you're playing with two flanks).
Gurjaras: mounted units bonus helps light cav vs monk too. The biggest bonus is the castle tech for -25% food cost is like many civs primary bonus and makes all their units cost effective. Maybe move that to imp instead. I kind of feel like the civ is in the game to punish players that mindlessly go for cav. Many players still go for cav vs Gurjaras.
@@chriswhite702 Dravidians No Siege Engineers, virtually no cavalry upgrades, unique unit has 0 pierce armour, your anti-building ram is classified as cavalry (cursed) and your unique tech is a worse Garland wars in most matchups.
@@chriswhite702 How about giving Rathas "cavalry armour" in melee mode and "cavalry archer armour" in ranged mode? What about "Battle elephants give a food trickle, Elephant archers give a wood trickle and Siege elephants give a gold trickle"? Maybe 10 elephant units generate as much as 1 working villager?
The thing with Gujaras is also that they have a perfect answer to everything, same as hindustanis but maybe even better. They open fast archers with their great early eco, you go skirms or archers yourself, which get destroyed by shrivamshas in early castle age and when you transition to pikes (because knights dont work against the civ) they have the chakrams to destroy your last hopes and dreams 11
@@Gunsbeerfreedom87 I think one of the unique techs need to go and the bonus damage needs to go. Then its a more fair civ. You have heavy camels at full cost with extra armor which makes them still very good or you get cheap heavy camels. Right now Gujara camel beats hindustani imp camel. Its just too much
@@Gunsbeerfreedom87 thats true but less true for Gujaras. That +4 melee armour helps a lot. So you go halbs well their camels survive a but longer than other civs and are cheaper. You def cant go any cav. So like arb is your comp you are forced into. So because you are forced there sometimes the gujaras player doesnt even have to invest in camel line and can go chakram shirvamka which are both strong in their own right. So its like what do you do vs this? I think Bohemian is the best counter to Gujaras. Bonus spear damage, good archer line, monks, and houfnice to help range the chakram ball thay will be used to counter your halb, arb, houfnice ball.
This is actually a BRILLIANT list. All civs ranked have game breaking mechanics that can't be dealt with and should be adressed asap. And on the other hand on the honorable mentions we have civs that are a perfect example of something that's "just strong" but not "broken". Franks, Mayans and Chinese are S-tier, of course, but they are only strong because of numbers, not because they break the game, which is the case for the top 5 mentioned. Personally I wouldn't ever nerf the 3 honorable mentions, instead I'd buff all other civs to be on par with them. However the top 5 need to be nerfed for yesterday. Extremely well-thought list, i wouldn't change a single thing. 7/10 list.
100% on the gold and stone ratio. Just going for stone early gets you a few knights and a castle too. *and* the Folwork means you can definitely afford those knights
Good video as always! The top 3 wasn't difficult to guess, I think those three stand out, the rest feel fine, but as you said, maybe some tweaks to a few of them. Overall I'm really impressed with the balance given the number of civs. Would love to see the top 5 civs that needs a boost video!
If your Hindustani opponent goes for Camels and Gulams you're basicly dead. Halbs, Knights and Archers don't work on my side and until you reach Handcanoneer it's over. Great Video btw. as always. :)
Love these kinds of videos!! And very interesting viewpoints. I'm thinking a smaller cost reductions for eco upgrades for Burgundians. I like that they get access to these one age earlier, rather than only a cost reduction like the Vietnamese. And yeah, the coustillier definitely need some kind of nerf. Also think THE button needs some kind of change, it feels completely broken.
Hera, one impt thing you missed about Gujaras is that their rider bonus also applies to the siege elephants. The original siege elephant is already a free capped ram upgrade. This might not be that stunning in 1v1 but is absolutely massive in tg, especially closed maps.
10:29 A little correction, you were talking about Kshatriyas affecting food units and you listed halbs as one of them, but the Gurjaras don't even get pikes (why would they be allowed to have pikemen?!?!?!?).
Nice video! And you make some solid points, who knows the devs are listening. But to be fair, I only kept watching to see if the militia could bring down the elephant 11
Gurjaras are absolutely insane. On top of all the other bonuses that were mentioned, their castle age siege elephants actually do more dps than siege rams... In case anyone was wondering why their castle on arena just melted to a few Gurjara siege elephants.
Funny how Vikings vanished from every "in need of a nerf" list, the second they got Thumb Ring removed (very good change btw). Heck, it seems pro players seldom pick them in their drafts these days. Have they become this unenjoyable to play, now that they're considered balanced? 🐧
Vikings always use to have a pretty bad late game army comp, now its even worse, maybe thats the reason they arnt picked much cause you dont have a very good plan if it goes late, even the fast imp isnt strong enough anynore. (maybe change beserkergang to somthing more powerful, its really a tech no one ever clicks).
it was actually ALWAYS aboring land civ. But before the fast imp arbs was powerful, now its strong but doesnt scale well at all and other civs can keep up
Thanks, nice insight. I agree with gurjaras, what a nightmare to play against ... I need to buy the poles and burgundian, didnt knew they were that good
I think to elevate this video, you could consider showing the win rates you allude to briefly as a popup on the video itself, especially if you can say what elo range the win rates are relevant for. Would add even more legitimacy to your arguments, even beyond your individual opinion as a pro player.
Suggestion: Civilization pairs where the generally stronger one is losing against the generally weaker one (i.e. where counter-civ-picking in tournaments might help). (I think Spirit of the Law has made a video based on the stats, but maybe you can do that from the player perspective.)
I agree with your picks. I would also consider Mongols as an honorable mention with them having a really solid unique unit, eco bonus, great team bonus, and tech options.
Changes I'd liike to see would be: Gurjaras - reduce the amount of sheep that can generate food. Some maps they are so broken on as can been seen in BOA games. Also reduce the bonus damage to 25% and reduce food discount from their UT and maybe move it to Imp? Hindustanis - ghulam should take a bit of extra damage from infantry similar to eagle warrior, probably need to cost more as well. Take away Halb (they really don't need it) Franks - reduce or remove their berry bonus would be a good start. Maybe just free horse collar rather than all farm techs? Britons - reduce Ranges work speed to 10%, TC discout to 25%? Mayans - someone mentioned the longer lasting res not counting on food which would be good. Also archer discount changed to 10/15/20 % or 5/15/25 % instead? Burgundians - either early eco techs or discounted techs, but not both. Coustillier should have either less PA or only 100HP. why should they have stats similar to a knight! Not sure about the others but poles and chinese certainly could do with a tweak.
I agree with Poles, the gold from stone has always been too strong, and agree with Hindustanis, Gurjaras and Flemish Revolution. I don't think the Folwark needs a Nerf, its still tricky to use in open maps. I don't know about Britons, for me they are fine. I like the Coustiller, but I think nerfing the charge attack or having the pikes deal even more damage against them would balance them fairly. Finally, Hindustanis should have the Halberdier removed, they still have great camels they dont need halbs.
Hey Hera, I am thinking exactly the same about Britons; for 1v1 they are fine but kinda busted in teamgames. Also because of how much their team Bonus helps the other Flank Player. For example Mayans cheaper archers beeing created faster aswell feels pretty OP. Would nerfing their team Bonus from 20% to 10% faster working Ranges be enough? I am not sure what else to change about them. Its such a classic civ, and nerfing their firing range or take away the cheap TCs would imo kill their idientity too much.
Interesting ideas, however (saying this as a noob who only recently started watching some tourneys), I have seen Britons, by and large, usually getting smoked, and it seems to be they'd be one of the civs needing a buff if anything. In any case, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts about which civs need a buff, but also about which are the top 5 civs that are well-balanced in your opinion and why (as kind of a baseline).
Gurjaras have insane eco with mills, insane cav counter with Camels, insane archer counter with Shrivamshas, insane infantry counter with Chakrams and insane siege with Elephantos. They're maybe not the best at anything, but they are super top tier at everything.
@@dragovern The korean towers were good until they made it an archer civ, and have wagons having 5 pierce armor without having to get armor upgrades in blacksmith
It's a pretty consistent theme, when DLC civs come out they are always overtuned. Remember Cumans when they first came out - probably most broken civ in the history of the game. It makes sense too, Microsoft needs to incentivise paying for new civs, but it does wreck balance for a little while until the new civs get tuned down a bit. For the most part, I love how civs are all overpowered in their own unique ways - provided you can play into that. Gives each civ its own flavor. By the way, loving this new content you're creating - you've evolved into something of a Spirit Of The Law for strategy instead of pure mechanics, and your videos have been very helpful in realising and improving some aspects of my game that I hadn't even thought about. (I'm just 900 ELO for context)
For Britons: Change Yeomens effect to +3 LOS instead of +1 range and maybe then increase the range of the Longbowman +1 to compensate while making the Civ more reliant on Castles.
What are some feasible nerfs to address the current issues with Burgundians? Reduce tech/upgrade discount? Remove Husbandry and/or Plate Barding? Increase the cost and/or production time for Coustilliers? Increase their recharge time? Reduce their charge damage? Reduce their base HP and/or armor? Reduce their speed while recharging? Doing all of those things would probably be a bit too much. Just spitballing ideas. What might be the best way to replace Flemish Revolution?
I like buff videos because I always find the idea of adding power to be more fun, even if you need nerfs for the game to function. Something about my 1000 Elo mostly campaign playing player brain prefers keeping all civs with all bonuses as at low level there are no good or bad civs just bad strategies and poor execution
Thank you for this video, as always! I think the fact that Hindustanis + Gurjaras are in such a strong position but get countered by cataphracts is one of the reasons byzantines are an unsung hero civ these days. Gurjaras have no counters to cataphract that I know of and even if they try their darnest with archers the byzantines can always complement them with other units + cannons. They also have the most powerful feudal age TR because of their higher HP towers. I'm not saying byz need a nerf, please no. I just think the increased winrate for byzantines as of late* could be attributed at least partially to these civs being so strong yet countered by our old eastern roman friends. Thoughts?
i like the format of the 2v2 two pools tournament where you pick one civ for yourself and one for your opponent. lets us see more variety of civs. wish we could incorporate that in 1v1. regarding gurjaras, do you think this will matter for redbull wololo, where it is empire wars format and the AI may not take full advantage of the sheep in mills bonus.
HIndustanis are totally op. What I would do with them is: 1. Remove camel bonus. Having acces to imperial camel is good enough. 2. Downgrade HC's range from 9 to 8. 8 is already strong. 9 range HC with halb meatshield has bassicly no counter. Onagers can not even get close enough. Skirms and Arbs are outrange heavly as well. 3. Remove Gulam's bunus demage vs Engle Warriors. UU it self seems strong, but not too strong except matchups vs meso civs.
Its not hat strong vs inafantry - its just the pass thru damage, i think they only got bonus damage to archers.. I would agree with the range nerf but the tech should be lot cheaper then.
@@bensmith426Sorry for the typing error, wanted to say "I would also nerf them by...".I agree with points 1 or 2 . Honestly I think its good for them to have Ghulams as that the only decent counter they have against eagles in castle age. Longswords are slow and are easily countered by xbow. I am more worried about Hindustani and Gujaras camels being OP because that renders many cav civs useless. Going Pikes in castle age is also not ideal.
Also I hate the fact that they are able to get to castle age faster and 3 tc boom under heavy pike seige pressure (maybe I suck at this ) thanks to cheap vills.
Gurjaras : mills can garrison only 6 sheep. So if you wanna have a big passive income of food, you have to spend wood by building new mills. Teutons: lose the armor bonus of infantry and cavalry. Spanish: lose heavy cavalry archers.
I actually think it'd be more fun/cooler if the buffed the lower civs.. it would provide more diversity in the game because you keep the uniqueness of each civ. Adding higher percentages to lower win rate civs makes them more unique while also making the playing field more level.
Hera, you said that you want to play Teutons once in a big tournament. That's the moment of truth. Against Gurjaras, mass halberdiers and siege onagers and take the win.
Finally after 1 and ahalf year does people realize how good burgundian is I think they were strong since release, before the buff Even the buff has gone through a long time ago So underrated till recently
It's always like this with DLC which is why I never buy the DLC until after 3 or 4 months because they're always OP on release (so you buy it) then get nerfed hard then everyone stops playing them because of anchoring bias but actually, even after the hard nerfs, they're usually still better civs. Just that people haven't been playing them for 20 years so they don't know the perfect ways to do it but that's the part I really enjoy, once everyone else has given up on them, I go and see okay what are some cool build orders I can do here. That's the most fun. and then you play them noone expects it anymore they not scared they think they've been nerfed too much to be a threat. For me the best was Cumans. They were so OP with steppe lancers then after the nerfs everyone stopped playing them. I still think steppe lancers are a SUPER underrated unit if you have a lot of practice with micro they produce super quick, they let you make use of all your farms you made to get to castle age, they're almost impossible to quickwall out, they move fast, they poke 10 villis dead quick quick, and they aren't the worst thing ever in a straight fight against knights (obviously they're bad but like, not skirmisher level bad, with good kiting micro can hold their own) but noone plays them now cus they got nerfed so hard. It's just anchoring bias.
You mention these civs need a nerf and yet you've always picked the honorable mentions as your first choice in almost all your drafts. Hera is sneakily saving his tournament favorites from big nerfs xD. And also regarding Franks - its tied for the second highest win rate with Gurjaras (55%) at even 2k+ elo since the DLC release, not just 1400-1600. Also your score as Franks in all tournaments combined since DE is 15 wins to 2 losses.
You forgot to mention that the Gujaras team Bonus applies to other mounted Units aswell. Their Scouts can 2-shot Monks and their freakin armoured/siege elephants melt buildings faster then any other Unit in the game
I actually think..for a lot of these civs, minus maybe the burgundians..the issue isn't that they are badly designed civs per se..it's that they are designed well, in terms of all their bonus working very well together..compared to say...playing the Italians where I love the civ, but most of their bonuses are just not applicable in a lot of situations. The balance issue partly comes in to play because other civs do not function as well internally . My two cents, anyhow.
Interesting point. I've noticed it's a very common lower elo misconception to think that you have to always try to use all your bonuses and never make units that don't have some sort of civ bonus. I like that fact that the other civs often force you to chose one maybe two bonuses to use per game. Greed shouldn't be rewarded.
Nerf Franks! Oh wait, you've already mentioned them. Well, you didn't give a specific suggestion, so, here we go: take that goddamn cheap castle bonus away. That civ don't deserve that bonus anyway. Apart from this, great video and nice picks. I have a crazy idea about Hindustanis actually: take both elite skirm and pike/halb from them. Add Parthian Tactics back. This way, they will heavily rely on gold units to be unstoppable. You're right about Poles but as an average player, that's the civ I'm really comfortable because it is forgiving for your possible eco mistakes. Gurjaras is a broken civ. Maybe instead of Yeomen might be cheaper but won't affect archers, and TC bonus might be less. Don't know about Burgundians, I only go for cheap paladins and strong hand cannons but you may be right about higher levels with Coustilliers. So, that civ is your expertise Hera.
The biggest controversy within this video How on earth did Hera place farm in perfect square around the mill at the Burgundians intro part. Must be cheating.
I don't like it at all that developers create broken Civ to weaken Knight-Xbow Meta. Instead of creating a new broken Camel Civ, they should strengthen the Camel and adjust the Xbow. And Elephant is of no use at the moment. Dev needs to give them a clear role. It's not just because of my taste. Some of Civ are designed as Elephant Civ, and because Elephant is completely useless, they automatically become the worst civilization.
In some scenarios, for example open maps, the Persian double HP for the TC can also be OP and the doucheing with it can be very annoying, I think that bonus should start from only the Feudal or Castle Age, to stop that peek Age of Empires tactic.
Aso i wonder what do you think as a top player about civs with no hard counters to specific units, example in my caze paladins or elephants, For example the other day i had the honor to go against burmese as malians and as i won early, our guy transitioned into his 6000000 armor battle elephants and i made the mistake of going all out on pikemen and camels. Little did i know, his elephants EASILY won vs both pikes and heavy camels EVEN WHEN I out numbered him 2 to 1 for the most lart and yet my camels which are weaker vs everything other than cavs cost same gold as his elephants " as i don't have helbs as malian as you know" I know, monks are a solution, as i was once again forced to go monks. but do you think that's a healthy approach ib the game? The majority of the player base hates monks and me included and i hate how i am forced to play with them as some elephants have zero counter play.
That War Elephant is me when I play against even the noobiest Goth player. Except, instead of a War Elephant, I have like 23 Cavalier and the Militia are Huskarls Side note: I love Poles so muchhh. The Obuch are so good haha. Was playing a 4v4 Hideout against Teutons and Hindustanis on my side of the map. I also had a Teutons teammate (I was Poles). My Obuchs wrecked sooo many Teutonic Knights and Camels as we pushed them back.
Actually yesterday I was thinking how incredible Franks needs a Nerf and for example Incas need a buff in my opinion. Hope that Microsoft and fogotten team take a solution to this. Thanks Hera, greetings from Mexico.
I love how each of your scenario shots in the background show the bonuses for each respective civ, but in picture form. Great attention to detail
Nice video! I think having a top 5 civs that need a buff would also be a pretty good video because it's also a very interesting topic
Agreed!
Dravidians: THIS IS WHERE I WILL BE NUMBER 1 YAYYYYYYY
Gurjara: Hey buddy, I don't think that's something to be proud about...
please buff Burmese
I think it would be great if they give Goths one more usable gold unit that's not inf. for more variety in late game. Personally I'd love if they gave them thumb ring - it would make their cav. arch. a viable option. In return they could even take cavalier away - I wouldn't mind at all.
More like top 15 civs that needs a buff 11
Already waiting for top 5 civs that need a buff. At this point, I do not even know what to say to praise how much your content has improved Hera.
That would just be Goths and Bengalis named in conjunction no? Kind of a short video.
@@StRodeNL and saracens and dravidians and celts
Burmese, Dravidian, Persian just to name a few
@@erwinwendler4621 Celts are overpowered if you know how to eat TC
@@erwinwendler4621 saracens tech tree is pretty insane, but without any eco bonus it is hard to match up whatever strategy in early game
One unmentioned strong point of the Gurjaras is the Cav Bonus damage for the Siege Elephant. Their castle age eles do the same DPS as a siege ram. Literally insane
100% agreed
@@HeraAgeofEmpires2 they need to because they are a much worse unit. Food is way more expensive than wood in castle. Monks counter them without any upgrades. Pikes massacre them in seconds. They need stable upgrades to have similar stats to the ram. They're awful.
@@forsakenquery monks can't counter them lol, they are treated like rams so monks need to stand next to it to convert them and the siege elephant has attack upgrade, they can just beat up the monk instead. Spear do kill them but not as fast as you think especially against Bengalis elephants
@@forsakenquery You never just send in a seige elephant... by itself. It's like Russia in Ukraine thinking they can send in "the tanks" and finding out actually if you just send tanks, the tanks will get surrounded & die. You need to support the tanks (elephants) with some unit that will kill the units trying to kill the elephant. Just like sending in seige rams by themselves usually fails as well, where half a dozen plucky villagers will usually stop your seige push flat in its track if you didn't bring any supporting units. What is relevant though is that the dmg output is so high, that you need fewer elephants to still kill buildings really fast, which means you have the resources to *make* those supporting units that will keep the elephants alive. Other civs need to wait till imperial age to get such a high damage seige unit!
My point is without their damage they are terrible. As they are with the other 2 civs that have them. Gujaras are insane, no question. But the siege elephants are in a good place - they're different and better than the alternative, like they should be. The siege eles in Bengali's are utter crap.
I absolutely agree and I like the detail with a war elephant fighting mass militia :D
The new format for the videos is clean and well done. Combined with your analysis, as always, make it great.
Really interesting video, hope to see the Top 5 Civ that need a buff soon. Great work
I think you left out the biggest Britons bonus for Teamgames: 20% faster Archer production. Archers are more sensitive to faster production bc ranged units scale better. and you get that for both Flanks.
I'm glad you mentioned Britons for team games. As someone who plays majority team games they feel like they really hurt.
Something you didn't mention about them is their team bonus. Their faster producing ranges is for me the most impactful team bonus in the game (assuming you're playing with two flanks).
what really blows my mind about burgundians is the coustillier costs only 55 food. Like they don't have enough eco bonus...
And also train relatively fast, at 15 seconds.
Gurjaras: mounted units bonus helps light cav vs monk too. The biggest bonus is the castle tech for -25% food cost is like many civs primary bonus and makes all their units cost effective. Maybe move that to imp instead.
I kind of feel like the civ is in the game to punish players that mindlessly go for cav. Many players still go for cav vs Gurjaras.
Love this content. Please do civs that need buffs, and maybe include how you might consider buffing them. Keep it up
Bengalis...
@@chriswhite702 Dravidians
No Siege Engineers, virtually no cavalry upgrades, unique unit has 0 pierce armour, your anti-building ram is classified as cavalry (cursed) and your unique tech is a worse Garland wars in most matchups.
Goths
@@dirkauditore8413 Yeah Goth bonuses are too military centric... How about making their mills and farms cost 10% lesser wood?
@@chriswhite702 How about giving Rathas "cavalry armour" in melee mode and "cavalry archer armour" in ranged mode?
What about "Battle elephants give a food trickle, Elephant archers give a wood trickle and Siege elephants give a gold trickle"?
Maybe 10 elephant units generate as much as 1 working villager?
The thing with Gujaras is also that they have a perfect answer to everything, same as hindustanis but maybe even better. They open fast archers with their great early eco, you go skirms or archers yourself, which get destroyed by shrivamshas in early castle age and when you transition to pikes (because knights dont work against the civ) they have the chakrams to destroy your last hopes and dreams 11
I don't think the civ itself needs a nerf, just Chakram throwers.
@@Gunsbeerfreedom87 I think one of the unique techs need to go and the bonus damage needs to go. Then its a more fair civ. You have heavy camels at full cost with extra armor which makes them still very good or you get cheap heavy camels. Right now Gujara camel beats hindustani imp camel. Its just too much
I think the Chakram is the one unit that needs a nerf.
@@SirFunkyton Yeah but having great camels doesn't inherently make the civ OP because camels themselves still have plenty of weaknesses.
@@Gunsbeerfreedom87 thats true but less true for Gujaras. That +4 melee armour helps a lot. So you go halbs well their camels survive a but longer than other civs and are cheaper. You def cant go any cav. So like arb is your comp you are forced into. So because you are forced there sometimes the gujaras player doesnt even have to invest in camel line and can go chakram shirvamka which are both strong in their own right. So its like what do you do vs this?
I think Bohemian is the best counter to Gujaras. Bonus spear damage, good archer line, monks, and houfnice to help range the chakram ball thay will be used to counter your halb, arb, houfnice ball.
This is actually a BRILLIANT list. All civs ranked have game breaking mechanics that can't be dealt with and should be adressed asap. And on the other hand on the honorable mentions we have civs that are a perfect example of something that's "just strong" but not "broken". Franks, Mayans and Chinese are S-tier, of course, but they are only strong because of numbers, not because they break the game, which is the case for the top 5 mentioned.
Personally I wouldn't ever nerf the 3 honorable mentions, instead I'd buff all other civs to be on par with them. However the top 5 need to be nerfed for yesterday. Extremely well-thought list, i wouldn't change a single thing. 7/10 list.
7/10 comment thanks alot bro
@@HeraAgeofEmpires2 7/10 Like
100% on the gold and stone ratio.
Just going for stone early gets you a few knights and a castle too.
*and* the Folwork means you can definitely afford those knights
Hera's back! I was depressed when you switched for aoe4 content. Glad to have you covering aoe2 again
Good video as always! The top 3 wasn't difficult to guess, I think those three stand out, the rest feel fine, but as you said, maybe some tweaks to a few of them. Overall I'm really impressed with the balance given the number of civs.
Would love to see the top 5 civs that needs a boost video!
Your editor is setting the meta for aoe2 videos. Nice one!
Loved this video, and Top 5 civs that need a buff sounds great. Hope you decide to do it, great content!
If your Hindustani opponent goes for Camels and Gulams you're basicly dead.
Halbs, Knights and Archers don't work on my side and until you reach Handcanoneer it's over.
Great Video btw. as always. :)
Have you tried playing swordsmen? Works pretty well in my experience.
Love these kinds of videos!!
And very interesting viewpoints. I'm thinking a smaller cost reductions for eco upgrades for Burgundians. I like that they get access to these one age earlier, rather than only a cost reduction like the Vietnamese. And yeah, the coustillier definitely need some kind of nerf. Also think THE button needs some kind of change, it feels completely broken.
- Make the Coutillier a foot unit.
- Flemish Revolution only transforms non-farming villagers to Flemish Militia.
Hera, one impt thing you missed about Gujaras is that their rider bonus also applies to the siege elephants. The original siege elephant is already a free capped ram upgrade. This might not be that stunning in 1v1 but is absolutely massive in tg, especially closed maps.
Love when you go into professor mode Hera, you are really good at speaking calmly and explaining finer details of the game :)
Poles is absolutely broken on "No very open maps". In Arena is insane. The last series I watched on RMS cup show how broken they are
next please add 5 civs that might need a buff!
Amazing video Hera!
And Claps in chat for K1👏👏
Nice video !
What's your opinion on taking away the elite skirm upgrade from the Hindustani ?
I would love to see a top 5 factions that need a buff. Great video too.
10:29 A little correction, you were talking about Kshatriyas affecting food units and you listed halbs as one of them, but the Gurjaras don't even get pikes (why would they be allowed to have pikemen?!?!?!?).
Very nice video. We are waiting "Top 5 Civs That Need a Buff" video, too.
I greatly enjoyed this video and the accompanying discussions
Nice video! And you make some solid points, who knows the devs are listening.
But to be fair, I only kept watching to see if the militia could bring down the elephant 11
Add Franks to the list and I agree. I honestly think they should buff weak civs first because it would shake up meta more.
Buff before nerf, agree 100%.
Franks mill techs should cost wood, not to be completely free.
How is it possible to place the farms like this in a square pattern without a gap next to the mill at 5:30?
There’s something so satisfying watching that war elephant go to town on those militias in the intro 11
When a civ is getting tourney sniped just so you don't have to see it on closed maps because it's an auto-loss, you know it's a bit crazy
Loved it Hera, hope to see more vids like this one
Gurjaras are absolutely insane. On top of all the other bonuses that were mentioned, their castle age siege elephants actually do more dps than siege rams... In case anyone was wondering why their castle on arena just melted to a few Gurjara siege elephants.
Funny how Vikings vanished from every "in need of a nerf" list, the second they got Thumb Ring removed (very good change btw).
Heck, it seems pro players seldom pick them in their drafts these days. Have they become this unenjoyable to play, now that they're considered balanced? 🐧
Give vikings halb, pleeeease. They have really bad trash.
Vikings always use to have a pretty bad late game army comp, now its even worse, maybe thats the reason they arnt picked much cause you dont have a very good plan if it goes late, even the fast imp isnt strong enough anynore.
(maybe change beserkergang to somthing more powerful, its really a tech no one ever clicks).
it was actually ALWAYS aboring land civ. But before the fast imp arbs was powerful, now its strong but doesnt scale well at all and other civs can keep up
Honestly I would have preferred Vikings to keep thumb ring but only get free wheelbarrow, not Heavy Plow.
@@HeraAgeofEmpires2 Maybe make their techs for Zerks more affordable so the transition into zerks is smoother
Very satisfying what you did with the Burgundian farms around the mill.
Thanks, nice insight. I agree with gurjaras, what a nightmare to play against ...
I need to buy the poles and burgundian, didnt knew they were that good
I think to elevate this video, you could consider showing the win rates you allude to briefly as a popup on the video itself, especially if you can say what elo range the win rates are relevant for. Would add even more legitimacy to your arguments, even beyond your individual opinion as a pro player.
Thank your awesome video Hera.
I want to see
"Bottom 5 Civilizations That Need A Buff."
as well.
10:12 "You just simply cannot even show your face with any cavalry units".
*Laughs in Cataphract*
Suggestion: Civilization pairs where the generally stronger one is losing against the generally weaker one (i.e. where counter-civ-picking in tournaments might help). (I think Spirit of the Law has made a video based on the stats, but maybe you can do that from the player perspective.)
I agree with your picks. I would also consider Mongols as an honorable mention with them having a really solid unique unit, eco bonus, great team bonus, and tech options.
Changes I'd liike to see would be:
Gurjaras - reduce the amount of sheep that can generate food. Some maps they are so broken on as can been seen in BOA games. Also reduce the bonus damage to 25% and reduce food discount from their UT and maybe move it to Imp?
Hindustanis - ghulam should take a bit of extra damage from infantry similar to eagle warrior, probably need to cost more as well. Take away Halb (they really don't need it)
Franks - reduce or remove their berry bonus would be a good start. Maybe just free horse collar rather than all farm techs?
Britons - reduce Ranges work speed to 10%, TC discout to 25%?
Mayans - someone mentioned the longer lasting res not counting on food which would be good. Also archer discount changed to 10/15/20 % or 5/15/25 % instead?
Burgundians - either early eco techs or discounted techs, but not both. Coustillier should have either less PA or only 100HP. why should they have stats similar to a knight!
Not sure about the others but poles and chinese certainly could do with a tweak.
Hindustanis need halb to keep pace with gurjaras etc :D
I agree with Poles, the gold from stone has always been too strong, and agree with Hindustanis, Gurjaras and Flemish Revolution. I don't think the Folwark needs a Nerf, its still tricky to use in open maps. I don't know about Britons, for me they are fine. I like the Coustiller, but I think nerfing the charge attack or having the pikes deal even more damage against them would balance them fairly.
Finally, Hindustanis should have the Halberdier removed, they still have great camels they dont need halbs.
Poles seem weak when raided though, you instantly lose the food eco bonus. No proper late game option vs strong Archer civs either
9:47 LMAO. From now on, I'll be calling them Shawarma Riders.
How many kills did the elephant get in the end?
I mean great video and all but that question will keep me up all night.
Please do the top 5 civilisations that need a buff!
Hey Hera, I am thinking exactly the same about Britons; for 1v1 they are fine but kinda busted in teamgames. Also because of how much their team Bonus helps the other Flank Player. For example Mayans cheaper archers beeing created faster aswell feels pretty OP. Would nerfing their team Bonus from 20% to 10% faster working Ranges be enough? I am not sure what else to change about them. Its such a classic civ, and nerfing their firing range or take away the cheap TCs would imo kill their idientity too much.
Interesting ideas, however (saying this as a noob who only recently started watching some tourneys), I have seen Britons, by and large, usually getting smoked, and it seems to be they'd be one of the civs needing a buff if anything. In any case, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts about which civs need a buff, but also about which are the top 5 civs that are well-balanced in your opinion and why (as kind of a baseline).
This could be renamed as: Civs to intensively play while they are still over powered.
Gurjaras have insane eco with mills, insane cav counter with Camels, insane archer counter with Shrivamshas, insane infantry counter with Chakrams and insane siege with Elephantos. They're maybe not the best at anything, but they are super top tier at everything.
This is what I think. Britons: Yeomen (+2 foot archer range+2 tower attack) so the automatic extra range can disappear. Hindustanis: No halberdier.
Hindu nerf wont do much, they already have top tier camels
The extra range bonus is fine. It becomes powerful only in late game. Britons is fine.
I like the idea, that's what they did to korean towers.
@@dragovern The korean towers were good until they made it an archer civ, and have wagons having 5 pierce armor without having to get armor upgrades in blacksmith
It's a pretty consistent theme, when DLC civs come out they are always overtuned. Remember Cumans when they first came out - probably most broken civ in the history of the game. It makes sense too, Microsoft needs to incentivise paying for new civs, but it does wreck balance for a little while until the new civs get tuned down a bit.
For the most part, I love how civs are all overpowered in their own unique ways - provided you can play into that. Gives each civ its own flavor. By the way, loving this new content you're creating - you've evolved into something of a Spirit Of The Law for strategy instead of pure mechanics, and your videos have been very helpful in realising and improving some aspects of my game that I hadn't even thought about. (I'm just 900 ELO for context)
For Britons:
Change Yeomens effect to +3 LOS instead of +1 range and maybe then increase the range of the Longbowman +1 to compensate while making the Civ more reliant on Castles.
What are some feasible nerfs to address the current issues with Burgundians?
Reduce tech/upgrade discount? Remove Husbandry and/or Plate Barding? Increase the cost and/or production time for Coustilliers? Increase their recharge time? Reduce their charge damage? Reduce their base HP and/or armor? Reduce their speed while recharging?
Doing all of those things would probably be a bit too much. Just spitballing ideas.
What might be the best way to replace Flemish Revolution?
I'm glad as a Lithuanian player that they weren't mentioned. Hands off my 16+6 Leitis
I like buff videos because I always find the idea of adding power to be more fun, even if you need nerfs for the game to function. Something about my 1000 Elo mostly campaign playing player brain prefers keeping all civs with all bonuses as at low level there are no good or bad civs just bad strategies and poor execution
so glad you appreciate the balance of Sicily
Can you do a video on top 5 civs you'd want to add still for next year's DLC or like top 5 civs they can take from Age3/4 and add to 2
Agree 100%. The civs, the rank of severity, the reasons. My feelings exactly.
I thought bohemians would be here, how can you counter their unit composition?
Thank you for this video, as always!
I think the fact that Hindustanis + Gurjaras are in such a strong position but get countered by cataphracts is one of the reasons byzantines are an unsung hero civ these days. Gurjaras have no counters to cataphract that I know of and even if they try their darnest with archers the byzantines can always complement them with other units + cannons. They also have the most powerful feudal age TR because of their higher HP towers.
I'm not saying byz need a nerf, please no. I just think the increased winrate for byzantines as of late* could be attributed at least partially to these civs being so strong yet countered by our old eastern roman friends. Thoughts?
Yea but cataphracts are damn expensive to tech into, plus you n eed a castle lol
@@dirkauditore8413 Yeah, and both Hindustani and Gurjara camels are still strong enough to deal with Cataphracts' armor bonus
Gurjaras fully upgraded camels can absolutely destroy elite cataphracts
Great vid. Malitia mosh pit was definitely a great addition
interesting as always... but I hope I'm not alone in thinking, poor elephant!
Good job. Yes, top 5 who need a buff please!
Thanks for this great content Hera. Keep it up!
i like the format of the 2v2 two pools tournament where you pick one civ for yourself and one for your opponent. lets us see more variety of civs.
wish we could incorporate that in 1v1.
regarding gurjaras, do you think this will matter for redbull wololo, where it is empire wars format and the AI may not take full advantage of the sheep in mills bonus.
Update august 23 - ALL civs mentioned have been nerfed, most in the exact manner Hera suggested.
Nice video man, ill be waiting for the civs that need buff video
HIndustanis are totally op. What I would do with them is:
1. Remove camel bonus. Having acces to imperial camel is good enough.
2. Downgrade HC's range from 9 to 8. 8 is already strong. 9 range HC with halb meatshield has bassicly no counter. Onagers can not even get close enough. Skirms and Arbs are outrange heavly as well.
3. Remove Gulam's bunus demage vs Engle Warriors. UU it self seems strong, but not too strong except matchups vs meso civs.
I would nerf them by removing the villager bonus at least for dark and feudal age.. that way they will probably be more vulnerable in early game
@@sourathghosh5170 It doesn't fix the issues. They would still be op against meso civs and in general in imperial age.
Its not hat strong vs inafantry - its just the pass thru damage, i think they only got bonus damage to archers.. I would agree with the range nerf but the tech should be lot cheaper then.
@@bensmith426Sorry for the typing error, wanted to say "I would also nerf them by...".I agree with points 1 or 2 . Honestly I think its good for them to have Ghulams as that the only decent counter they have against eagles in castle age. Longswords are slow and are easily countered by xbow. I am more worried about Hindustani and Gujaras camels being OP because that renders many cav civs useless. Going Pikes in castle age is also not ideal.
Also I hate the fact that they are able to get to castle age faster and 3 tc boom under heavy pike seige pressure (maybe I suck at this ) thanks to cheap vills.
Hey Hera, are Chinese better on arabia than Hindustanis? I find this dubious.
Gurjaras : mills can garrison only 6 sheep. So if you wanna have a big passive income of food, you have to spend wood by building new mills.
Teutons: lose the armor bonus of infantry and cavalry.
Spanish: lose heavy cavalry archers.
I actually think it'd be more fun/cooler if the buffed the lower civs.. it would provide more diversity in the game because you keep the uniqueness of each civ. Adding higher percentages to lower win rate civs makes them more unique while also making the playing field more level.
Hera, you said that you want to play Teutons once in a big tournament. That's the moment of truth. Against Gurjaras, mass halberdiers and siege onagers and take the win.
This was a good one, I hope to see what civs you think need a buff. Don’t nerf Britons
Finally after 1 and ahalf year does people realize how good burgundian is
I think they were strong since release, before the buff
Even the buff has gone through a long time ago
So underrated till recently
It's always like this with DLC which is why I never buy the DLC until after 3 or 4 months because they're always OP on release (so you buy it) then get nerfed hard then everyone stops playing them because of anchoring bias but actually, even after the hard nerfs, they're usually still better civs. Just that people haven't been playing them for 20 years so they don't know the perfect ways to do it but that's the part I really enjoy, once everyone else has given up on them, I go and see okay what are some cool build orders I can do here. That's the most fun. and then you play them noone expects it anymore they not scared they think they've been nerfed too much to be a threat. For me the best was Cumans. They were so OP with steppe lancers then after the nerfs everyone stopped playing them. I still think steppe lancers are a SUPER underrated unit if you have a lot of practice with micro they produce super quick, they let you make use of all your farms you made to get to castle age, they're almost impossible to quickwall out, they move fast, they poke 10 villis dead quick quick, and they aren't the worst thing ever in a straight fight against knights (obviously they're bad but like, not skirmisher level bad, with good kiting micro can hold their own) but noone plays them now cus they got nerfed so hard. It's just anchoring bias.
You mention these civs need a nerf and yet you've always picked the honorable mentions as your first choice in almost all your drafts. Hera is sneakily saving his tournament favorites from big nerfs xD. And also regarding Franks - its tied for the second highest win rate with Gurjaras (55%) at even 2k+ elo since the DLC release, not just 1400-1600. Also your score as Franks in all tournaments combined since DE is 15 wins to 2 losses.
Personal preference for me but the list is pretty accurate i think
Damn
You forgot to mention that the Gujaras team Bonus applies to other mounted Units aswell. Their Scouts can 2-shot Monks and their freakin armoured/siege elephants melt buildings faster then any other Unit in the game
Thank you for a professional player like you to comment on this controversial topic.
How do Aztecs miss the list?
I actually think..for a lot of these civs, minus maybe the burgundians..the issue isn't that they are badly designed civs per se..it's that they are designed well, in terms of all their bonus working very well together..compared to say...playing the Italians where I love the civ, but most of their bonuses are just not applicable in a lot of situations. The balance issue partly comes in to play because other civs do not function as well internally . My two cents, anyhow.
Interesting point. I've noticed it's a very common lower elo misconception to think that you have to always try to use all your bonuses and never make units that don't have some sort of civ bonus. I like that fact that the other civs often force you to chose one maybe two bonuses to use per game. Greed shouldn't be rewarded.
Unit comps are a wonky business at low elo, to be sure.
Nerf Franks! Oh wait, you've already mentioned them. Well, you didn't give a specific suggestion, so, here we go: take that goddamn cheap castle bonus away. That civ don't deserve that bonus anyway. Apart from this, great video and nice picks. I have a crazy idea about Hindustanis actually: take both elite skirm and pike/halb from them. Add Parthian Tactics back. This way, they will heavily rely on gold units to be unstoppable. You're right about Poles but as an average player, that's the civ I'm really comfortable because it is forgiving for your possible eco mistakes. Gurjaras is a broken civ. Maybe instead of Yeomen might be cheaper but won't affect archers, and TC bonus might be less. Don't know about Burgundians, I only go for cheap paladins and strong hand cannons but you may be right about higher levels with Coustilliers. So, that civ is your expertise Hera.
The biggest controversy within this video
How on earth did Hera place farm in perfect square around the mill at the Burgundians intro part. Must be cheating.
👀
love the elephant as a length indicator!
I don't like it at all that developers create broken Civ to weaken Knight-Xbow Meta. Instead of creating a new broken Camel Civ, they should strengthen the Camel and adjust the Xbow.
And Elephant is of no use at the moment. Dev needs to give them a clear role. It's not just because of my taste. Some of Civ are designed as Elephant Civ, and because Elephant is completely useless, they automatically become the worst civilization.
I think it's ridiculously overpowered how the folwark are symmetrical with the farms.
In some scenarios, for example open maps, the Persian double HP for the TC can also be OP and the doucheing with it can be very annoying, I think that bonus should start from only the Feudal or Castle Age, to stop that peek Age of Empires tactic.
surprised Poles/Britons made it on the list but not Top tier Arabia civs like Mayans/Aztecs
100% agree. Especially Britons and Mayans, Devs have been too scared to touch them, but it's honestly dumb.
Aso i wonder what do you think as a top player about civs with no hard counters to specific units, example in my caze paladins or elephants, For example the other day i had the honor to go against burmese as malians and as i won early, our guy transitioned into his 6000000 armor battle elephants and i made the mistake of going all out on pikemen and camels. Little did i know, his elephants EASILY won vs both pikes and heavy camels EVEN WHEN I out numbered him 2 to 1 for the most lart and yet my camels which are weaker vs everything other than cavs cost same gold as his elephants " as i don't have helbs as malian as you know"
I know, monks are a solution, as i was once again forced to go monks. but do you think that's a healthy approach ib the game? The majority of the player base hates monks and me included and i hate how i am forced to play with them as some elephants have zero counter play.
Amazing hera and great edits!!
Ghulams are broken, and El Dorado as well. Ending with the Flemish Revolution is a must at this point
Can nerfs be based on elo, nerf>2000?
Top 5 (or even 10?) civs to get buffed would be fantastic =)
That War Elephant is me when I play against even the noobiest Goth player. Except, instead of a War Elephant, I have like 23 Cavalier and the Militia are Huskarls
Side note: I love Poles so muchhh. The Obuch are so good haha. Was playing a 4v4 Hideout against Teutons and Hindustanis on my side of the map. I also had a Teutons teammate (I was Poles). My Obuchs wrecked sooo many Teutonic Knights and Camels as we pushed them back.
Actually yesterday I was thinking how incredible Franks needs a Nerf and for example Incas need a buff in my opinion. Hope that Microsoft and fogotten team take a solution to this. Thanks Hera, greetings from Mexico.