AoC is loved for its diversity of unique civs, units, strategies and maps.
Now, we do have a huge variety of maps. However what about the rest?
I'm not good in explaining, hope you bear with me through the post though.
Let's take a look at which civs are good on which maps. Most maps can be grouped into categories.
Speaking about land maps, there are open ones (Arabia-like), walled-open maps (Arena and Fortress-like) and closed maps (BF, Michi, Homeland,..).
For water-maps we have full water maps (Islands, Carribean, Baltic,..), and water-land maps in different degrees (with potential fight for water, but fishboom for some).
Some maps feature a LN/Nomad start, which can be seen as another category.
Usually when the civ-balance discussion is brought up, the standard answer is: "Depends on the map, some are stronger here, some there". While I agree that it's not a good idea to bring every civ on the same level for every map - that would mean destroying the variety - this can not be used as a knockout argument prohibiting any change in balance! Don't reject a direction because of the extremum.
Think about the mayans. They are top-pick on open maps, walled-open maps, full water maps, LN/Nomad, and probably any water-land map. That means more than 90% of the teamgames already feature a must-pick-mayans. Compare with Koreans - a never-pick on all but the closed maps. Japanese - rarely on full-water maps. Byzantines - hardly good enough for Arena, forget the rest. Britons, Franks, Goths - do not come close to a top civ on any of these. Most maps completely define a top-tier of 6 or less civilisations. How awesome would AoC become if we had at least 8 of the 18 civilisations viable for a map? If you could actually discuss about a team strategy including the civs? Perhaps even counter-civs for the enemy strategy.
Next, speaking about diversity of units. Let's start with the mayans. What do they offer in imperial? Eagles, Plumes, perhaps Halbs, Skirms you'll never use. I think they have the narrowest army composition of all civilisations. Franks are seen as a one-trick pony, but they actually have a really broad spectrum of units compared to mayans. What about huns, another must-pick on most maps? Paladins, cav archers, trash. Mongols? Mangudai, Arbalests, Champs, hardly any trash. Notice a pattern? The three most important land civs have really few options to go for. In AoC, quality beats diversity. A small amount of units dominate the game. Of course if you give a civ a smaller choice compared to others, you need to strengthen those options. But not to the point of destroying the use of the other units!
The best example for my point is the elite eagle warrior flood. There would be so many more strategies viable if we didn't have to react on those eagles. Think about late-castle-age forwards with pikes and siege - optimal for civilisations like celts, japanese or koreans who are else really weak in pocket position. Think about early-imp pushes with arbalests and siege rams, later adding camels - byzantine and saracen flanks would love it. As it is now though, these civilisations have nothing to offer. How do you counter the eagles? Archers are useless, longsword-line too slow to protect anything, can't wait for hand canoneers as chemistry takes too long. Any castle age push will be removed by either eagle warriors or knights. If a civ doesn't have good access to either of them, their only chance is to wall up and hope nothing gets in until they cached up eco-wise.
I hope you understand what I mean. One unit is so strong that a list of other strategies and entire civs are not viable anymore. Don't even get started on water unit variety...
Are you happy with the current balance situation in Teamgames?
I'm not happy. I want to have more strategies viable and more civilisations useful. I don't have any suggestion how to achieve this - but I think the first step is to see if other players agree with me.
Now, we do have a huge variety of maps. However what about the rest?
I'm not good in explaining, hope you bear with me through the post though.
Let's take a look at which civs are good on which maps. Most maps can be grouped into categories.
Speaking about land maps, there are open ones (Arabia-like), walled-open maps (Arena and Fortress-like) and closed maps (BF, Michi, Homeland,..).
For water-maps we have full water maps (Islands, Carribean, Baltic,..), and water-land maps in different degrees (with potential fight for water, but fishboom for some).
Some maps feature a LN/Nomad start, which can be seen as another category.
Usually when the civ-balance discussion is brought up, the standard answer is: "Depends on the map, some are stronger here, some there". While I agree that it's not a good idea to bring every civ on the same level for every map - that would mean destroying the variety - this can not be used as a knockout argument prohibiting any change in balance! Don't reject a direction because of the extremum.
Think about the mayans. They are top-pick on open maps, walled-open maps, full water maps, LN/Nomad, and probably any water-land map. That means more than 90% of the teamgames already feature a must-pick-mayans. Compare with Koreans - a never-pick on all but the closed maps. Japanese - rarely on full-water maps. Byzantines - hardly good enough for Arena, forget the rest. Britons, Franks, Goths - do not come close to a top civ on any of these. Most maps completely define a top-tier of 6 or less civilisations. How awesome would AoC become if we had at least 8 of the 18 civilisations viable for a map? If you could actually discuss about a team strategy including the civs? Perhaps even counter-civs for the enemy strategy.
Next, speaking about diversity of units. Let's start with the mayans. What do they offer in imperial? Eagles, Plumes, perhaps Halbs, Skirms you'll never use. I think they have the narrowest army composition of all civilisations. Franks are seen as a one-trick pony, but they actually have a really broad spectrum of units compared to mayans. What about huns, another must-pick on most maps? Paladins, cav archers, trash. Mongols? Mangudai, Arbalests, Champs, hardly any trash. Notice a pattern? The three most important land civs have really few options to go for. In AoC, quality beats diversity. A small amount of units dominate the game. Of course if you give a civ a smaller choice compared to others, you need to strengthen those options. But not to the point of destroying the use of the other units!
The best example for my point is the elite eagle warrior flood. There would be so many more strategies viable if we didn't have to react on those eagles. Think about late-castle-age forwards with pikes and siege - optimal for civilisations like celts, japanese or koreans who are else really weak in pocket position. Think about early-imp pushes with arbalests and siege rams, later adding camels - byzantine and saracen flanks would love it. As it is now though, these civilisations have nothing to offer. How do you counter the eagles? Archers are useless, longsword-line too slow to protect anything, can't wait for hand canoneers as chemistry takes too long. Any castle age push will be removed by either eagle warriors or knights. If a civ doesn't have good access to either of them, their only chance is to wall up and hope nothing gets in until they cached up eco-wise.
I hope you understand what I mean. One unit is so strong that a list of other strategies and entire civs are not viable anymore. Don't even get started on water unit variety...
Are you happy with the current balance situation in Teamgames?
I'm not happy. I want to have more strategies viable and more civilisations useful. I don't have any suggestion how to achieve this - but I think the first step is to see if other players agree with me.