Opinion: The Teuton buff is bad.

Not because the Teutons are good, or don't need a buff; they're objectively bad, and are only able to consistently beat the worst statistically worst civs in the game.

But because it basically just doubles down on their existing problems. Teutons do two things well; castle booming, and melee fights. Giving them slightly cheaper farms and bonus melee armor does absolutely nothing to change the civ for the better because it just makes them better where they're already good.

Think about it; when would you ever take a fight between Halbs and Paladins? Or between Champs and Halbs?

Those are already strong counters that don't particularly need help. This buff only makes Teutons strong where they were already strong, while ignoring their weaknesses(that cripple them) entirely.

Even worse, by giving standard infantry extra melee armor, you indirectly weaken their unique unit; the Teutonic Knight's only real redeeming value is in its heavy armor, but over the past few DLCs and patches, the Champion has gone from 60 food and 20 gold for 1/0 armor, to 45 food and 20 gold for 2/1 armor, and have gotten +2 against Eagle Warriors and +1 against buildings. In the meantime, the only buff the ETK has gotten is a 0.05 increase in movement speed. Plus Arson; since Champions cost half as much and attack at the same rate, Arson effectively benefits them twice as much.

TK's already were very nearly not worth the investment. Now they're weaker - by comparison - than ever. In my testing, ETK's are only about 10-15% more effective per cost than Champions, and that comes at the cost of being much slower and being made at a Castle.

I agree that Teutons need some tweaking to make them stand out and truly be an infantry civ, but I really don't think this is the right way to go about it.