Recent Civ buff that's flying under the radar: Vietnamese

Vietnamese have gone from bottom tier to top tier for a lot of pros since the last patch. They have a solid tech tree, with a full blacksmith except blast furnace, solid arbalests, solid skirmishers and trash, serviceable cavalry for castle age knights, late game light cav raids, and elephants on arena, solid siege with BBC and Siege engineers, one of the best unique units in the game, and a solid eco bonus.

They've had all of this before the patch, though. In fact, they've been unchanged for several patches now. What's changed?

Their units don't shout anymore. They speak at normal volumes. They can be played much less annoyingly. Playing with Vietnamese used to test the patience of some pros, but no longer.

If you think you knew the power of Vietnamese before, you'll be seeing it a lot more often now.