Suggestion on civ balance changes

The following are only about civ-specific changes. General changes like Steppe Lancers are not included because that's too much for one post.

Chinese

• Lose Redemption
  • With the level of players gradually improving over the years, people finally realize how strong Chinese can be despite their bonus have very little changes throughout the years. And then developers decided to give them Block Printing when Chinese is at its all time peak.
  • I don’t think the developers are going to revert their changes on “block printing”, and, controversial opinion incoming, I actually support that after some thoughts. There is a lot of people play this game over other RTS game because of the historical aspect. And I’m not just talking about money for MS, but as a player, why do you want to call them Chinese if the civilization don’t feel like it?
  • Of course game balance is important, don’t get me wrong, but I believe we can achieve both side of arguments. So my suggestion here is to take away redemption to make them more vulnerable to bombard cannon and siege onagers. It can also be a nerf on Chinese in Castle age, although the effect will not be significant. They never struggled against a smush anyway.

Goths

• Infantry cost 35% less starting from feudal age
  • Infinite drush with Goths can get boring easily, but I think there is a bigger problem behind this. Not that it is broken or OP, but player should earn the Goth spam. In the past, you have to work hard for the spam, either defend your base well or give high pressure on your enemy, and if you play well and get to the late castle age with good eco, the infantry spam will be your reward. Right now, the whole thing just come too easily, which takes away a big part of the game where you build up your economy for a big push. It is not fun to play, and it also further decreases the skill cap for this civ, so I suggest it to revoke back to the original bonus.
• Hunters carry +15 food no longer requires mill or Town Centre to drop off food
  • Just a very slight boost to their early game to make them stay afloat in the game. You still want to lure your boar to your TC for less idle time of villagers and for safety reason, so the bonus is more about the deer and extra boars in maps like Black Forest. Not needing a mill on deer can mean 100W saved, and can be very good on certain maps like Steppe, but their bad defence means the hunters are very vulnerable to be raided. As the Goth player, you should go aggressive and gain map control if you want to safely take the deer far away from your TC.

Incas

• Villagers are now only affected by infantry defence upgrade
  • The bonus are supposed to make your villagers harder to be raid, but it seems like Noboru rush have brought the Incan trush into the next level. One of the reason why it is so hard to deal with, is how the villagers break through walls quickly, so you have very little time to prepare for the trush. Removing the attack upgrade on villagers can retain their ability to fend off raiding while nerfing their trush.

Khmer

• Lose arbalest
  • I thought they are elephant and scorpions civ, but right now they are functionally an archer civ with elephants, which reminds me a lot when Indians had arbalest. I just feel sad that the developers didn’t think of giving them T90 farms before giving them arbalest, and now they are just a bit too strong with that. I would like to see Khmer being a civ with strong eco but limited to expensive units, rather than just an overall strong civ. We want more scorpions.

Persians

• Kamandaran cost increases from 400F 300G to 600F 600G
  • For some context, here are the cost to upgrade trash units in imperial age (excluding blacksmith/university upgrade):
    • Pikeman + Halberdier + squires 615F 690G
    • Light cavs + Hussar + bloodlines + husbandry 850F 750G
    • E. Skirms + Imp. Skirms 500W 550G
    • Magyars: E. Magyars Huszars + Mercenaries + bloodlines + husbandry 1300F 1000G
    • Malay: TH-swordsman (from militia) + Forced Levy + supplies + squires 1850F 905G
  • Crossbowman + Thumb ring only cost 425F 325G, the total cost would be 1425F 925G, fits between Magyars Huszars and Malay TH-trashman and is, I think, where the unit strength lies in. Given how strong Persians economy is I think it is certainly justified.

Tatars

• Lose “Free Parthian Tactics” bonus
• New bonus: “Archery range upgrades cost 50% less”
• Silk Armour changes to “Cavalry units +1 pierce armour”
  • I don’t have much to say for this one. Until we find a good place for Steppe Lancer, Tatars will just be another weaker/stronger Huns regardless of the civ bonus.

Spanish

• Elite Conquistador upgrade cost reduced from 1200F 600G to 800F 600G
  • Conqs in imperial are not that good in general. They always overkill and in late game there is little room for micro, and the expensive upgrade cost is just asking people to transition their gameplay into other units. While they are quite bad in current meta, I think Spanish is still a good choice in team game with that trade bonus and paladin. All they need is a cheaper upgrade on conqs for 1v1 game.