Comparison of the new Vietnamese and other civilizations

TLDR: Vietnamese is now a mid-tier civs with overall strength comparable to Japanese and Burmese.

Vietnamese just got a new bonus "Economic techs do not cost wood", and recently there is this post which calculated the total wood Vietnamese can save over the course of the game, and SoTL also made a video and claims that the total wood saving from all eco techs can be more than the wood saved by Huns not building houses. However, some people (me) are still skeptical about all these numbers, since in a typical game you don't research every eco tech at the same time, especially for the mining techs and hand carts which usually come in pretty late. So I decided to compare Vietnamese with some other civilizations in the following two situations, and just to have a grasp on how good they actually are.

Early feudal age aggression on Arabia

In early feudal age, Vietnamese can save a total of 125 wood by researching double bit axe and horse collar, which we can safely assume they will do it. Since the military bonus for Vietnamese is "+20%HP for archery range units", the go-to strategy for them would probably be Man-at-arm followed by skirms/archers, and here are some civs that can do the similar thing:

• Ethiopians gains 200 resources upon reaching feudal age. They have +15% faster firing archers.
• Japanese saves 200 wood with 2 lumberjacks, a mill and a mining camp. Infantry attack +33% faster.
• Burmese saves 150 resources from free double bit axe. Infantry +1 attack.
• Byzantines saves 150 resources after 10 spears/skirms. The number can be larger with more units.
• Bulgarians saves 135 resources from free man-at-arm upgrade.

So we can see, Vietnamese still have a slightly worse eco discount over a lot of the mid-tier civs, and keep in mind that food is probably more valuable than wood in the early game, so the gap could be even wider. It is not saying that they are still a bad civ though, and they definitely outperform the following civs in early feudal age.

• Koreans saves 60 wood from 16 spears/archers.
• Italians saves 75 food from researching feudal age.
• Portuguese saves 90 gold from 3 man-at-arms and 12 archers (which will be pretty late).

The bonus is not strategy-dependent though, so as long as you go for feudal age aggression, you are always going to save 125 wood regardless of the strategy. Since Vietnamese get husbandry now, it is perfectly fine for them to go scout rush, especially in team game if they are in the pocket, and they can follow that up into knights+boom in castle age, and battle elephants in imperial age. Speaking of boom,

27+2 Fast castle into booming

This is a little bit tricky to compare, but I will try my best. In this scenario, we can assume that Vietnamese can save 400 wood for researching bow saw, heavy plow and wheelbarrow right after they reach castle age. I'm not going to assume that they can research hand cart earlier than standard civs, since by that time food is the limiting factor, and 300 food is still quite an investment. So how good is that?

• Franks finishes the 6 berry bushes around 2 minutes faster with 4 villagers harvesting, which can be transferred into around 190 more wood. They also get free farming upgrade which saves another 400 resources.
• Britons saves 275 wood for 2 TCs. They also finishes herdables around 8 villager-minutes faster, which again can be transferred into around 190 more wood.
• Khmer saves 325 wood for not building a blacksmith and a market. They also get 2 more villagers working for 130 seconds more if they go 29+0 Fast castle, which is around 100 wood. Before they got T90 farms unlocked that was all they had, and they were considered to be very strong in boom game like this.
• Burmese saves 400 resources for free lumber camps upgrade.

There are also a few points to note: 1) All civs above except Burmese have the option to go up to castle age faster and build their TCs earlier, while Vietnamese will find it harder to do so; 2) Heavy plow are sometimes not researched so early on, so Vietnamese can also save more wood from farms like Franks.

So the above result shows that while Vietnamese might not be as good as the top tier booming civs, they definitely don't have a problem on starting a boom. This is actually quite important for Vietnamese, since they have a bonus called "Free conscription" but had one of the worst imperial age time for higher rated players. It is even worse when you find out how other civs with slow imperial age time is actually being very strong in castle age (notably Spanish, Huns and Burmese) while they have this time just because they sucked.

Discussion and Conclusion

All of the above estimation are quite conservative since we have completely ignore the mining techs and hand carts, and all the wood saved from farms by researching farm techs early on is not accounted at all, but it still shows that Vietnamese are at least a mid-tier civs in terms of economy. Of course, they still have a problem in terms of military strength, since HP boost is not the best bonus you want on archers and their cavalry is sub-par on 1v1 games.

On 1v1 Arabia game, they are very similar to Japanese, having a slower start in the game but an overall better army throughout the game, with better archers/skirms and the access to bombard cannon being the most notable difference. It is good that they are still not above average though, since they are probably one of the best civs in trash fight with imp skirms+BBC.

On team game though it is another story, and I would say they are now very similar to Burmese, or even better. As mentioned above, they both saved 400 resources upon hitting castle age, and while Vietnamese could have more discount on other eco techs, Burmese got nothing else unless they go for monks. Being pocket they are most likely to perform equally if they go for scouts -> knights+boom -> battle elephants, but Vietnamese is probably a better flank player than Burmese now, with access to a better archery range, and it could be harder to build a castle in team game if you are under massive pressure from more than one enemy.

Overall, it is a good change to Vietnamese, and for me I will not be upset if I random into Vietnamese in any maps now.