AOE-II DE Are vikings' eco a little OP?

[YunaOP]

I think we should wait for the new civs before we think about nerfing Viks.

Personally I love that Chinese Franks Vikings are still great in 2021 compared to newer broken civs

 

[yodan]

I mean that if the civs are balanced to a pro level (I.E. when using 100% of their bonuses and doin very few to no mistakes) then civs are balanced to lower levels (because you can't balance civs taking into account games with mistakes, and civis used uncorrectly )

I disagree strongly on this:
1. You can't expect everyone to strive to be pro and if they don't they aren't allowed to have a balanced game. You mentioned earlier the lower levels look to the pros for ideas/inspiration/etc. so this is even more true then: if the game is only balanced at pro level then noobs trying to imitate pros will inevitably lose and be frustrated.
2. What even is a "mistake?" Is Viper's inability to micro 100 monks perfectly a "mistake?" Well let's say it is, then we should nerf monks to the ground making them entirely useless for everyone (except AI). This is an extreme example but I think it makes the point that "mistake" here is a bit ambiguous.

This being said, I think the game is pretty well balanced at all levels, although I wish towers were a bit stronger...

 

[pete26196]

You are probably right there. But why should the game be balanced around pros who make up such a tiny fraction of the player base?

Because in absolute, balance changes are about moving the limits of the game. What is possible, what you can do at the extreme edges of the bonuses.

The players who make the most use of all the bonuses are the high level players, as they play at the extremes of micro capability with military bonuses, spending the extra resources gathered from civ bonuses etc.

Weaker players simply aren't as capable. It's not to say that they can't have good ideas or opinions, but they're more often just going to be less experienced.

If a weaker player can't deal with a strategy, how can you rule out whether all the counterplay options have been tried, or even recognised? Is it a balance problem, or is it a "git gud" scenario? Are there strategy options that already deal with the problem? With expert play you at least can answer some of those questions as they are more able to recognise how to deal with strats.

To give a very extreme example, to new players (or at the lower end of the ladder), FC knights is OP. I think everyone here can agree that it isn't, but we have the benefit of more game knowledge and experience to get around it. It might be a problem for new players, but it *isn't* a problem for game balance.

 

[SouFire]

Vikings have been a top 5 civ since age of kings, there was a rumor about them getting nerfed in the last big patch but suddenly they cancelled that balance change which was fair, they should get free cart upgrades but they would need to queue those and waste the time than other civs do, otherwise vikings get free villagers and resources at the same time.

Nerfing berzerker? well here is is reality about that unit, when they gave them chieftains, they made the unit multidimensional, killing archer line, infantry line, trash and cavalry line, the unit after chieftains has no weakness other than superior UU's, cause vikings opening with ranged units is one of the strongest civs in that matter without being an archer civ, talking about the berzerker an unit like that has no room in a RTS game, it has to have weakness by some generic unit like most units have.

 

[chacotanlines]

I think a nice way to slightly nerf Vikings is to switch wheelbarrow and handcart research times. Now every other civ only has to idle their TC in feudal for 55 sec instead of 75 sec. You research handcart in castle age, which now takes longer, but are still producing vills from other TCs which doesn’t hurt your eco as much.

Also, why is handcart 55 seconds instead of 50? That would make the upgrade equal to training exactly 2 villagers.

 

[JoshuaR]

Hey everybody! I've been thinking, after seeing endless rounds of vikings in EW arabia, that Vikings eco might be a little OP even for RM.
I mean, free wheelbarrow + free handcart seems to be just to usefull in any given scenario (land map, hybrid, water map, 1 tc full push, 3 tc boom...). It gives 2 huge bust in early feudal and early castle age, too powerfull and to universal to be balanced (for a civ that doesn't need that much food after all)

IMHO, nerfing the bersekers was not a good call, since it's not the main unit vikings go (yeah, in TG or EW we might see them, due to the extra gold available). Arbalest + siege ram seems a little to easy to obtain to vikings.

I was thinking that something similar to Goth's loom could be done to wheelbarrow and handcart. Either free but not immediately or immediatelybut not free. Maybe do that just to handcart and keep wheelbarrow the same.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents on the matter. what's yours?

I am happy with the current bonuses. The best civs have something that they do great, and in return they are missing something else. Vikings have a great economy boosted by the wheelbarrow and hand cart upgrades. But they are an infantry civilization that is forced to go archers because infantry is mostly non-viable. Their cavalry sucks. They have good pike men, but only after castle upgrades.

Compare this to a civ like the Aztecs, which also have a great economy bonus (+3 carry), are also an infantry civilization forced to go archers... except oh wait they have pseudo cavalry in fantastic eagle warriors.

You're seeing the Viking eco talked up because of Empire Wars settings. They start in feudal age and they start with tons of villagers, so instant wheelbarrow gives a bonus from the first second of the game. The bonus is magnified.
In normal RM, they have to contend with civilizations that get free food, free villagers, free loom, free TC HP, longer lasting resources, longer lasting sheep, faster eating sheep, faster chopping wood, free food/gold when reaching feudal, free military upgrades reaching feudal, free blacksmith upgrades, and other free economy upgrades. Take all that together and they aren't the best civ, just a really good one.

 

[Mighty_Muscle]

Vikings have been a top 5 civ since age of kings, there was a rumor about them getting nerfed in the last big patch but suddenly they cancelled that balance change which was fair, they should get free cart upgrades but they would need to queue those and waste the time than other civs do, otherwise vikings get free villagers and resources at the same time.

Nerfing berzerker? well here is is reality about that unit, when they gave them chieftains, they made the unit multidimensional, killing archer line, infantry line, trash and cavalry line, the unit after chieftains has no weakness other than superior UU's, cause vikings opening with ranged units is one of the strongest civs in that matter without being an archer civ, talking about the berzerker an unit like that has no room in a RTS game, it has to have weakness by some generic unit like most units have.

Vikings need the wheel and cart bonus, otherwise they dont have anything going for them, same thing with their UU. Its a huge investment to go bezerkers anyways and imo its well balanced.

However I think they should get a slight nerf in castle age economy. For axample remove goldmineshaft so it is a bit harder to get to bezerkers and their early imp will be slightly weaker.

Apart from that, there are better civs than Vikings. Its a solid civ but they are not OP

 

[HongeyKong]

I think the devs should implement auto-convert for monks, as most of the players dont have the APM to assign conversion individually, making monks fairly useless.



YES WE CAN, LETS MAKE MONKS GREAT AGAIN!!!!!

 

[lecracheursagacite]

I mean that if the civs are balanced to a pro level (I.E. when using 100% of their bonuses and doin very few to no mistakes) then civs are balanced to lower levels (because you can't balance civs taking into account games with mistakes, and civis used uncorrectly )

This is not true because pro level players are capable of getting value out of features lower level players are not as well as preventing their opponent from getting value of out of features that lower level players are not.

 

[Paint]

Vikings are incredibly boring and the only reason someone would play them on land is there Eco. I think the game would be better if the civ was reworked from the ground up but kept more or less the same on water. But it's not gone happen so just nerf there eco so no one is forced to pick a civ this boring.

 

[lecracheursagacite]

Vikings are incredibly boring and the only reason someone would play them on land is there Eco. I think the game would be better if the civ was reworked from the ground up but kept more or less the same on water. But it's not gone happen so just nerf there eco so no one is forced to pick a civ this boring.

Why do you think they are boring on land? I mean that there are too many reasons for me to easily guess which.

 

[Paint]

They have only 2 units X bow line and Berserkers in late imp.

 

[lecracheursagacite]

They have only 2 units X bow line and Berserkers in late imp.

I guess I really wasn't sure if you were trying to suggest xbow spam is boring in general. I personally think it is.

 

[Paint]

I think civs that only have 1-2 kind of units are boring no mater what they spam.

 

[Tocaraca]

We need to stop obsessing about what the higher elo players think, I think. Of course they should have their input, but they account for so little of the player base; balance changes need to be done for everyone, not just the "pros".

??? Balance doesn't matter at the low level, you can win with literally any civ matchup because the skill level isn't high enough to properly capitalize on civ advantages

 

[Degaussed]

??? Balance doesn't matter at the low level, you can win with literally any civ matchup because the skill level isn't high enough to properly capitalize on civ advantages

the game should be balanced for everyone.

 

[Tocaraca]

the game should be balanced for everyone.

With that logic, Teutonic Knights and War Elephants need nerfs because they are dominant in low level games.

 

[Degaussed]

With that logic, Teutonic Knights and War Elephants need nerfs because they are dominant in low level games.

No they're not.

 

[huntskiki]

We need to stop obsessing about what the higher elo players think, I think. Of course they should have their input, but they account for so little of the player base; balance changes need to be done for everyone, not just the "pros".

That said, I think Vikings are fine. If you wanted to nerf, maybe you could make Hand Cart free but still needs to be researched or something.

Balancing has to be done from the pro-level because balance changes have a minimal impact at lower levels, but can completely break the game at the top. If you balance things for the average player you end up with a game like overwatch.

 

[lecracheursagacite]

Balancing has to be done from the pro-level because balance changes have a minimal impact at lower levels, but can completely break the game at the top. If you balance things for the average player you end up with a game like overwatch.

If you balance things for pros you end up with League of Legends. It is nonsense to suggest that balance changes have minimal impact at lower levels. Numbers still matter even if players are not perfect.

 

[huntskiki]

If you balance things for pros you end up with League of Legends. It is nonsense to suggest that balance changes have minimal impact at lower levels. Numbers still matter even if players are not perfect.

I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean exactly. Riot actively forces balance changes to shift the meta. Even with that nonsense, League is much better balanced than overwatch.

Balances changes do have a minimal impact at lower levels because the players are not skilled enough to take advantage of the bonuses. Yes, occasionally they can still luck into a bonus, or come civs will be easier to use because their bonuses are simpler, but that does not mean we should nerf Goths because 1k elo players find them too hard to deal with.

 

[aoeplayer]

This is probably because at lower levels (99% of the players basically), the skill differences are so big that free wheelbarrow and hand cart makes less difference, while having better army makes all the difference. At higher levels, free wheelbarrow/hand cart is really much stronger.

That's true, but noob players are also more likely to get WB and HC at the wrong time (too early or late), this bonus prevents that.

Looking at the data, they actually appear to have the lowest WR (or close to it), ~50%, at the highest ELO bracket, and are consistently above average at <1000.

Vikings

Detailed data and statistics, including win rate and play rate, on the Vikings civilization in Age of Empires II in the 1v1 Random Map ladder across 1650+ Elo. Current win rate: 52.43%

aoestats.io

 

[Tocaraca]

Oops, just realized that I said exactly the same thing as Pete26196 but less elegantly. My apologies, I didn't see that this thread had a Page 2 when I replied to it

 

[lecracheursagacite]

I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean exactly. Riot actively forces balance changes to shift the meta. Even with that nonsense, League is much better balanced than overwatch.

I mean things like how Riot balanced the availability of vision around coordinated professional teams rather than the conditions 99% of their playerbase experience in solo queue. Removing jungle item wards and pushing the role more towards ganking through reducing camp xp were both changes made to promote what they viewed as more excitement in esports, and while they may have done this, they also left jungle a miserably unfun role for the average player. Whether or not this is worse than Overwatch, it is still very bad design.

Balances changes do have a minimal impact at lower levels because the players are not skilled enough to take advantage of the bonuses. Yes, occasionally they can still luck into a bonus, or come civs will be easier to use because their bonuses are simpler, but that does not mean we should nerf Goths because 1k elo players find them too hard to deal with.

According to your logic, if 1k players find Goths too hard to deal with, then clearly Goths have one of those special bonuses that even scrubs can use. Since the majority of bonuses can only be used by "high" level players, then surely it would be fairly easy to tone down the bonus making them broken for 1k while restoring their lost power at higher levels with something else.

 

[Biz]

i voted for option 3

they're too good on water, but i would not mind some changes to them for land maps

i don't like the idea of certain civs being forced picks. the team bonus puts them over the line