Civs are more balanced on Black forest than arabia in the expansions (in 4v4)

In AOC its very hard to rush on bf due to the wall hp. The earliest you can rush is with monks or fi, both of which are very all-in. Civ wins are very common. E. G. Sara, Mongol vs. Jap, mayans, huns, viking, brit.

But with the recent balance changes (mainly the nerf to walls), early age rushes are far more effective in Bf . Palisade walls go down super easy and take longer to build, at great cost to your eco. There is still the option to wall tho, so late game civs can choose to boom, but early game civs now have more options to counter this.

Compare this to current Arabia. Eco bonuses rule the roost, and civs without them are bottom tier regardless of whether they are pocket or flank. E.g. I would rahher play as viking than saracen pocket on Arabia, despite viking lacking bloodlines and ±2, because of how important the early age eco bonuses are to scout and knight production. If you are viking vs saracen you can just out produce in castle age and play lots of knights and end the game before the saracen player can get to imp. This isn't as good a balance as current bf.

Tldr; bf currently provides better balance between early game and late game civs than arabia.