Breaking News - The New Civs Are Broken

[@McSniffle]

Introducing 60% more civs at once to a game and still win rates being between 40-60 is honestly not bad for an initial patch...

[@thegorn]

Depends on how much people play different civs. If everyone played their favourite civ exclusively, then win rates over time will be 50% across the board as civ strength and skill and Elo balance out. The only giveaway then would be representation of civs at the top level. If every game had a random civ, that would be far more accurate. Win rates at tournaments will be a great indicator of civ strength.

[@jeffsquires1717]

That will always be the case... people just start playing the overtuned civs which results in a lot of mirrors which drags the win rates closer to 50%.

[@tudor_trader]

*That Byzantine win rate is just historically accurate*

[@GothPaoki]

Not even close

[@lfnull]

It should track with the civ difficulty, that would make sense.

[@Thefrabur91]

The Winrate should be 83,4% to be historically accurate, because 6 Fights and only one lose against Mehmet II. And they was undefeated for at least 1000 years. Eddit: Only the stats for Konstantinopel, theire Capital City

[@thracianguy7166]

​@@Thefrabur91that'd the biggest fantasy I've ever heard.

[@peterthesneakybastar]

The western slander of Byzantium largely originates from 2 Germanic historians in an effort to delegitimize their Roman claims. The modern consensus is, “From the 7th to the 12th centuries, the Byzantine army was among the most powerful and effective military forces in the world - neither Middle Ages Europe nor (following its early successes) the fracturing Caliphate could match the strategies and the efficiency of the Byzantine army.”

[@jonathanrothmare3509]

Japanese being 50%. Is actually pretty crazy for a new civ

[@and-for_GoD]

Meaning 50% is good for a new civ or bad? It's 50% lol. Not 60.

[@xuyu40]

actually no, if you look at the graph closely you realize its has good win rate against all the old civs but is loosing to all the new ones(except byzantine) so basically because there are similar amount of new civs vs old civs it all balances out.

[@olegdragora2557]

They have negative win rate starting from Gold and above.

[@jonathanrothmare3509]

@@olegdragora2557 they are new. Good players aren't gonna fall for cheese. Regardless of civ So high ratings require more time for strategy to emerge. And once Joan and Ayyyyyubids. Get nerfed. That 50% changes for the better

[@jonathanrothmare3509]

@@and-for_GoD 50% is good for a week old civ. Means it doesn't really need to be touched too much Joan and Ayyyyyubids get nerfed. Is a buff to Japanese.

[@thescaarbo8652]

Seems pretty good if only 2 of the new civs are "op" . The rest seem to hover around the rates of the old civs. We'll see how it continues to unfold. Jeanne and Ayyubs probably need a little retuning though. And it wouldn't hurt zhu xi either.

[@henrifortier8621]

These stats dont mean shit rn

[@KlassicKelvin]

It definitely does mean something @@henrifortier8621

[@JohnDoe-l4d9h]

zhu xi has a 47% winrate in diamond+

[@henrifortier8621]

@@JohnDoe-l4d9h stats dont mean shit for now gotta wait more

[@thegorn]

Zhu Xi is balanced. JD is broken, as is the Ayyubid casino and fast castle.

[@valentinvelikov3459]

@Aussie_Drongo - What about the lack of synergy in the Byzantines units. Most of them are gold heavy but the civ doesnt have any gold income perks, and they dont really perform that well for the price you pay. :)

[@coreydrew7899]

Getting gold playing as them feels like such a chore that I find myself just spamming horseman and mercenaries and playing a more defensive play style I’ve noticed they have a slower start up by the time you’ve got cataphracts your already getting pummeled by your neighbours

[@brandonjordan4596]

I have mostly played the Byz since the DLC and it has been a struggle. I do not think the complication is why Byz has been played less, it's simply because people enjoy winning.

[@thegorn]

A lot fewer people will play them now after seeing the win rates.

[@johanlassen6448]

@@thegorn I said this before I saw the win rates. Byzantines suck. You can tell from a mile away. Not only are they too complicated, but their eco is easily disrupted, takes too long to set up, and their military is garbage. Catas are population efficient yes but horribly overpriced and lack standard charge attack and Varangians are weak in addition to being overpriced. Besides that Byzantines rely entirely on mercenaries. Lame. Bad. Weak.

[@thomsom1]

I guess the devs will just stick to the their usual logic and in the next patch they will just nerf China for no reason.

[@CouchTomato87]

My idea for Jeanne is to increase her XP required per level by a certain amount tied to each age. However, aging up gives her XP by that amount. That way aging up becomes a bigger part of her level but she can overlevel if she grinds enough

[@traductus3337]

Just lock out her lvl ups behind the age up entirely, so she cant be lvl 3 without beeing in caslte.

[@CouchTomato87]

@@traductus3337 well that destroys the whole point of experience then

[@kenesawthornley6462]

Especially with how many games have the majority of gameplay happen in the feudal age, locking her upgrades to castle age would take a huge part out of her nuance. If you can engage an enemy enough to keep them from going castle, and then get lvl 3 JohnDark, you get a huge power spike, but it takes some real commitment to stop someone from going castle who wants it bad enough@@CouchTomato87

[@NukeMarine]

@@CouchTomato87 She'll still need the experience. A better idea combined with being locked to ages to encourage early leveling is give each version a veteran status with boosted abilities OR reduced abilities of next level until they age up to match it. LIke level 3 JD can't summon companions until she's in Castle Age, but gets the other bonuses.

[@thegorn]

Keep spitballing ideas gents, because one way or another she has to be reined in or else large chunks of people will stop playing. Myself included.

[@maddisonmad2710]

I really wanted to like Byzantines but playing with Japanese is so much easier and now I actually win games. It's good to see that I'm not the only one who was struggling with them.

[@shadowfax1462]

I’ve been playing Byzantine and wondering why I went from placing into high gold tiers to placing into silver. So sad. They need help

[@fenrissilverfang8419]

Outside of minor adjustments to overperformers you already mentioned to bring them in line with their original civs winrate wise (poor chinese), some need a little something extra. The order of the dragon i was hyped for initially but they have nothing outside of the fewer but stronger units thing to really differentiate em. My idea (posted on aoe4 forums) was to give them the 'Order Armory'. A unique building that contains 2 upgrades for each of their units , specializing them in a different way and you get to pick 1 per age perhaps. (men at arms could be more offensive or defensive, archers reduce armor of a target they hit or focus on lighter targets, knights could lose the charge but brawl better or go all in on charging, landsknechte lose cleave but gain stacking attack speed per kill or get zornhau.). They also reuse the same landmarks and could use a different one here and there. Maybe something to open up cav play which base hre usually avoids. Also byzantines suffer a bit i feel cause their men at arms counterpart is 40 gold instead of 20 per unit, which makes them pretty costly and they lack heavy armor outside of the even more expensive cataphract in early fights.

[@cascade_fury]

fyi, > Conqueror IV is something aoe4world added as >1700 ranked points, this captures roughly the top 150 players. It's completely irrelevant at this stage coz of incredibly small sample size, but in a month or two it's gonna be useful.

[@FatherRabbitt]

I’ve been playing a lot of Byzantines, and while I’m not a pro gamer, they feel super complicated from early game macro, to base layout, unit micro, which mercenary contract to pick, etc. I was stoked for Cataphracts, but they seem really expensive for what they do. No charge attack is very noticeable, and trample is cool and all, but not good enough to warrant the cost increase on the unit. And remembering to always use the triumph and flask abilities and have my hot keys setup to make all of that easy….it’s just a lot. They’re gonna take a TON of practice for me to even feel like I remotely know what I’m doing with them

[@carlossime6572]

That Byzantines win rate are based on 1100 AC to 1453 AC, a new patch could transform Byzantine into the empire we are lookin for 450 AC - 1100 AC we have to wait XD

[@Lu_Kitsuray]

As someone who is japanese main now i have quite high hopes this civ doesn't get ban hammered to death like Chinese (my former main) has gotten considering it's wirate seems overall pretty healthy. Honestly, i think the fact that you don't have keeps in castle age is a big factor in this.

[@zhd7281]

Byzantine is too complex in mechanism, you will macro 5 kinds of resources, build cisterns, take map vision with houses, raiding with horseman, etc. Of course you don't have to do all these staffs to win a game but it is clear that Byzantine players will be really busy with their civ. It is another civ that hard to be mastered, perhaps even harder than Chinese

[@social_ghost]

From my own experience as a new player with OotD my main take-away was "limiting" and "choked". Sure they have stronger units and are easy to play but compared to every other civ I have played it just felt like I was being constantly handicapped by their inability to bring a lot of units to the board.

[@traductus3337]

you should look up Lanchesters Law, that explains why having lesser but stronger units is worst then having weaker but more units. In addition, for OotD they have a much worse eco then other civs. Because ther vills are substantialy worse then normal viallager. You might think, "but they gather 25% faster, so 4 dragon vills are as good as 5 normal vills." but thats not right, gathering 25% faster is NOT unequal to 25% res per minute. 5 normal villagers generate more resources per minute then 4 dragon villagers. Thats because of diminishing returns from faster gather speed. More gather speed = vill have to walk more often in order to drop off res, more walking = more down time in which you dont get res. 25% faster gather speed is more like 15-17% more resources perminute

[@derricksmith8354]

​@@traductus3337I agree with this and would love to have the time to test out the "optimal ratios" for the villagers. For military units the army I think is fine, but the economy that OoTD has just can't keep up with any of the other civs with. Imo they should be good in maps like black forest where you can use their quality and force fights, but the eco can't create those opportunities

[@anonymeoui3248]

@@traductus3337 lets be fair they also have +40% carrying capacity

[@JorenMathews]

Their Landmarks all range from unexciting to bad too. Their units being fewer but stronger is a disadvantage as often as it is an advantage. It requires a lot of micro to pull them out and heal them or the extra health doesn't even matter.

[@chadgrenadier6713]

Hey man ive been playing a lot of thr order too. I find it amazing to have a smaller army that just devastates the enemy holds the line and trade insanely well on combat

[@jaiapenopicante7758]

Out of all the new civs, Japan has been the most fun out of them all for me, it has a bit of everything I enjoy. So if these stats remain more or less the same, it means whatever changes they do to them wont be as drastic and that's all I want.

[@Pyromaniac77777]

Same here. Just feels good, I like everything about them

[@leeh1395]

Japan does need a bit of a buff though. All of their units feel very glass cannon especially early.

[@jaiapenopicante7758]

@leeh1395 That's kinda the point though, can't have those offensive stats + banners and then have them also be tanky.

[@IorekMetal]

I like that there is a big banner saying that the sample is not big and is not wise to share, but still we have a video about it.

[@numka82]

For Ayyubids its not only the villagers. Its also extremely strong units from casino that come out instantly and cost 67.5 resources each without any facilities required, they are really hard to deal with as you have to build production + wait for training to amass any reasonable amount to counter Ayyubids. And one production facility is not enough, as bedouin skirmishers hard counter all infantry (+7 vs infantry) and bedouin swordsmen counter all melee (+3 vs melee). If Ayyubids roll 6-8 units (3-4 tickets) they already have huge tempo advantage and can do whatever they wish.

[@avgchoobafan]

I haven't played the dlc but based on casted games and other gameplay I've seen I think people playing Byzantines are too reliant on the mercenaries in the early stages, this means premature transition into olive gardens and a huge waste of wood that could be used in normal units or defenses instead. I think the best strategy is starting to use mercenaries once the olive garden transition is complete around the time other food sources are depleted and a stable income of wood is reached, so pretty much mid-castle is a good time to start investing in mercenaries. Just my opinion though :P

[@jinz0]

Your opinion is wrong

[@xeroprotagonist]

I think this is one of several noob traps in playing Byzantines, the other big one I've seen is people thinking they need to rush out 5 cisterns asap. People are dumping tons of wood into olive groves AND tons of stone into cisterns before getting unit production going and then they're too far behind on army to survive and then they blame the civ when they lose.

[@Xyvansuba]

Berry gives oil, you dont have to farm early, they will give 750 or 1200 according to landmark, so if u dont spend them on early mer s. You are just playing with less unit

[@reek7518]

Agreed on Order of the Dragon. All the other variation Civs got some fun reworks and OOTD is just not that fun to play. Was hoping for new age up options in the landmarks.

[@ceppatore7483]

Finally a right man saying OotD are flat.....give them a tech to build in monastery or keep Templars or Teutonic or Hospitaliers....units ready cause are in campoaign....dlc will sell 10% more with those guys

[@donkey9113]

Byz at 40% is probably the most concerning one in the chart

[@hatimzeineddine8723]

Well ayyubids will probably take a hit when trade wing is nerfed at least, I'd like to see the numbers with just that changed so we can get a better picture of where they are without a broken mechanic

[@Tombino-nd6px]

I like Byzantines in 4v4. The 10wood cost only ''spearman'' so overpowered. When spam them you get olive oil Elephants ontop of free gold cost units.

[@huberteichson8304]

I dont think they are broken or op, i's just that they are new, and different, so people don't know how to play against them. Give it a couple of months and people will learn how to play them, and against them and then the win rate will fall down.

[@midas-holysmoke7642]

Well, people are not used to them so they should not play them well as well as playing against them... So your argument is a little bit stupid. Of course they are unbalanced. What devs need to do bow is to slightly readjust the new civs and possibly buffing the old ones. Because clearly, I don't see why people will play the non-varient civs again now

[@NightInBh]

Byzantines just seem like the new dheli. Very obscure and if they don’t get reworked they’ll be a one trick pony

[@tavish1658]

It feels like the only change Byzantines need is strong landmarks.

[@derricksmith8354]

I think OTD needs something on the eco and vilager side imo. I'm wondering if reducing the time it takes to produce villagers would help here?

[@leiderhosen7110]

Honestly, they just need stronger units. They cost 2x the resources with two times the population, but they do NOT feel twice as strong at all. Their standard HRE MAA can fight a variety of units, yet the Guided Ones can't because no bonus versus heavy. If anything having a smaller army is a detriment because the enemy can just prepare counter units more easily. More MAA? Crossbow. More Knights? Spears. They will always have a bigger army so they can always prepare two counter units to every one of your normal units. Their units should be worth at least 2.5 regular units instead of two-even to compensate for this. You want a CIV with a small, elite force of units? Play John Dark, they fulfill EXACTLY that fantasy and they are triple the strength as an overall civ.

[@tungtung211]

@@leiderhosen7110 I think OOTD range units are actually really good already. the melee units however are very bland, so maybe devs need to work on that stuff and an eco boost via prelate doesn't hurt.

[@Snapshot.Geo07]

Well 24 sec vs 20 is like dev tell you , you got a limit time to win the game after vil count start to have a difference

[@karentiger5117]

holy roman empire be running on foot with minimal armour improvement. they need to a mechanic like ‘bulk army protection’, the more the column/ bulk of troops are marching the more protection from range and melee they receive.

[@Proos2]

Well, gold player checking in, undefeated with Ayyubids. Haven't won a game with Byzantines. They are they only two new civs I've taken into ranked

[@wilssantos2]

The problem with OotD is that except for the archers, their units have nothing except "double the cost for double the size", which most of the time is actually a HANDICAP, since it's easier for opponents not to overshoot/overkill your units. Archers at least have faster attack speed and longer reach, which is actually a good bonus for the price. Their infantry, however, have nothing except if you reach Castle and go with the landmark that produces them 30% cheaper, but you need to only produce then THERE for that to have any value. If their infantry was double the size and, say, 70% more of the cost, THEN you'd actually have an advantage, which could be further improved by the landmark. That or added bonuses like faster move speed, faster attack speed, etc. As it is right now, Order of the Dragon is really just boring.

[@klob4524]

[@kaden2910]

roblox doesn’t count bud

[@klob4524]

@@kaden2910 crazy, almost like i didnt ask u or dont care about anything you have to say

[@Rift2123]

Ayyubids could get villagers only with the age up instead of through the bazarr on random 2 for fuedal 2 for castle and 2 for imp maybe even 3 for imp but not on the casino rotation

[@Orange_Pith]

japan has a lot more people playing it meaning that the stats should even out a bit more. Maybe that is a reason why it is slap bang on 50%?

[@johnkey9798]

You must consider, there are few anti tactics if any at all. They are new you know.

[@Adribird]

Pick rate is important too.

[@Adribird]

And MU.

[@xShikari]

This statistic would be more useful if it excluded new civ vs new civ scenarios. I'd like to see an old vs new winrate statistic.

[@grishy8203]

order of the dragon needs a redesign honestly. Imagine: if every civ was order of the dragon in a tournament, how lame would that be? That’s a sign of bad design. Full respect to the devs-they tried, but sometimes you don’t quite make it

[@scottkuyawa67]

I'm just playing team quick matches, but Zhu Xi seems broken in those. They age up super fast and pump out zhuge nu very quick.

[@purplekush8553]

it happened to me 3 times now where i'm about to kill Jeanne and in the middle of combat, she gets level 3, jumps on a horse and runs off

[@availablehage]

Seems pretty accurate..as a casual gamer even playing AI on intermediate i find it hard

[@liamwarren7590]

Been playing Ayyubids since release and they are a stong but can still be countered quite easily by aggressive civs. They're basically an anti boom civ haha.

[@ArajZaer]

Just nerf the bazaar and we are good

[@moayadmoqbel1044]

yeah , you are right about order of the dragon

[@chummycho3140]

Honestly I would prefer if they buffed the other Civs rather then nerf the new ones

[@SirJohny5]

All ranked stats. Im lvl 300 and pretty much only play unranked 2v2 and 3v3 been playing since launch

[@Kahutara]

Id like to see Byzantine markets have fixed rates on trade between oil and gold

[@midas-holysmoke7642]

It will never happen, it is too broken by far

[@reeceisgay1]

They need to reduce the stone cost on cisterns imo, maybe just 50/75/100/150/250 stone. Maybe change the tech to +2 damage to all units for horsemen rather than just villagers. That would be a simple start to trying to balance them.

[@Egomotion1]

I don`t think so, give it more time, Byzantines are quite good I started with 0/8 with Byzantines but worked it up to 54% win rate after understanding their strength better

[@Pearlharbor-lq5bp]

Are you drunk? Cisterns are already incredible and thank God they get harder and harder to build

[@reeceisgay1]

@@Pearlharbor-lq5bp evidently not mate lol. You see the win rate right ?

[@kidnapkin1567]

@@reeceisgay1wtf does a win rate have to do with a singular building😂

[@reeceisgay1]

@@kidnapkin1567 dude hold up, firstly it’s just an idea ffs. But it’s about more than just a building. It’s directly correlated with how long you keep your villagers on stone. Whilst ever those villagers are on stone they’re not gathering other resources. From the games I’ve played and seen. Almost every time the Byzantines run into some sort of a food shortage in feudal age. Horsemen are expensive. And I said maybe. More time is clearly needed before any buffs/nerds to civs. So chill the f out. I’ll say it again - It’s just an idea. Don’t get that condescending attitude with me behind a keyboard, just because you don’t agree and/or understand someone else’s point of view. Why don’t you try saying something constructive like a grown up would?

[@davidt02]

Lol Drongo. "Let's not call for nerfs and buffs at this stage", but calls for nerfs at every custard game.

[@kenesawthornley6462]

I've been playing exclusively byz since the expansion came out and the early game I've settled on is something I haven't seen anyone else do yet. If there is someone out there doing this please let me know though, as I'd love to see how they progress it into the mid/late game. Anyway I begin the match with 5 on berries, 1 builds a cistern, aiming for gold, berries, and some wood line, but usually just the berries and wood line. that vil then goes and builds a mining camp at gold. I'll have this single villager getting my gold alone out into the feudal age. I rally my next 3 villagers onto berries for a total of 8 and then put 5 onto wood. the first 3 of which will start with a straggler tree on the TC. as the 4th vil spawns I'll get the wood for a lumber camp, and I'll begin moving them to the Woodline marked by the cistern. The next 2 vils make a stone camp and begin bringing in the stone, followed by 2 more vils onto the berries. At this point I'll have 2 or 3 vils in the queue and take 7 off berries to start my age up. I should have just hit 200 gold assuming my cistern didn't mark the gold. I continue rallying vils onto the first berry patch, but the 7 vils on the Landmark (I always go Hippodrome) will rally to the second berry patch when they are done. As the age up comes through I pull a wood line vil and throw down a merc house and will pick whichever contract fits the situation according to what I've scouted. But by the time it goes up and a contract comes through, I'll always have enough oil for 2 sets of mercs. which makes for some great early defense while my vils have been throwing up the extra cisterns and attempting to rush castle. If it's clear the enemy is going for a second TC I'll make some horseman and raid, trying to get that extra gold from the unique tech. with a starting 30 stacks of triumph its pretty easy to snag 2 or even 3 villagers without losing any horse man. At this point everything starts to diverge. Whether it be I continue massing and raiding in the feudal age with mercs and horses, or if I pocket the resources and pick the Cistern Landmark. I try to have an ourpost or even 2 along the front of my base and 400 stone when I hit castle so I can give them the mangenol implacments. it's definitely not something to be looked down on!!!

[@JohnDoe-l4d9h]

what rank are you, post your link

[@andreashannon3928]

I think Byzantines need either a defensive landmark like English or Chinese, to help them survive into the mid - late game. Or perhaps a unique walls that shoot arrows or use boiling oil (maybe at the cost of olive oil idk) something to help them survive they feel like they want to turtle and be strong in the late game but they just die before they get there.

[@PatG-xd8qn]

The Byzantines are actually super good in the late game because all the olive oil allows to get tons of Strelsty and artillery without using gold It's in the early game that it sucks, but by using some towers with the mangonel upgrade it's generally fine, it's actually my favorite civ now

[@johanlassen6448]

Byzantines need buffs to catas, buffs to varangians, buff to gold, buff to their non-mercenary landmarks. Overall need buffs.

[@jonathanfiore]

​​@@PatG-xd8qnironic given that the Byzantines were at their height in the early middle ages and fell off in the late: and were knocked out beginning of the Renaissance

[@PatG-xd8qn]

@@jonathanfiore It remains a game, not an historical textbook...

[@Chertograad]

Sushi's legacy needs a bit of wasabi and soy sauce to reach their full potential. Byzantine Olive Oil won't cut it.

[@Bizzair1990]

Bruh I called this on like one of ur videos 5 months ago. I said all these civs are going to blow the game apart with way to many niche things and bonuses - especially at upper levels. Order of the Dragon is booty

[@XP-Share]

Give it a few weeks and wait. Can`t jump to conclusions yet. In LoL new op champs usually start with ~35% wr and then go to overpowered after a few weeks of people figuring them out.

[@qFamop]

Briar incident cough cough but mostly yes the 40% roughly is the usual

[@ShadowStrum42]

What are all of your opinions on Tower if the Sultan

[@sleepysleepy9913]

I lost my whole army to 4 gilded nights yesterday. So I typed this in

[@Gyvenotjas]

That's what playing a new civ looks like, wait a few months, they'll break into top 3's if not nerfed.

[@jinz0]

Let's all play ayuubids

[@abrameleh5865]

Byzantine should be able to create normal rams too

[@justinlan7940]

early melee camels go hard

[@pedrobrandaod]

Drongo, I am here to tell you that I have a PhD and also cannot play the Byzantines well. Cheers

[@Vocu]

i feel like the "variant" civs was just lazy, copy paste an existing civ make a tiny change and boom "new content give us money"

[@jasonyun1158]

Byz is too slow. It’s not like there is a defining style like the Delhi and how they force the opponent to contest sacred site or basically fall behind massively. Byz doesn’t have something to force the opponent, their olive oil gathering rate early game without winery is just trash and even so you need to gather wood to build groves. The civ is too wood and stone heavy in the beginning and too slow without a decent pay off.

[@thegorn]

People who have never been platinum after 5 seasons are using Jeanne d’Arc to get platinum or diamond because she’s just so broken. I fear Ranked is going to devolve into a JD fest until devs sort this out.

[@dragomirdanut2451]

Im still learning the game and the factions,but i realy enjoy the game:D,tnx you for these stats!

[@vimukthijayakody]

OOTD sucks in solos, but in team games Imperial OOTD Military so OP...

[@jerome6383]

Admit it. You only poke at Jeanne d'Arc's level 3, because her level up made you lose the game against mesotron. :p

[@OptimusCrime4444]

My takeaway from the stats is that Jeanne is overpowered: one of the most played new civ, all good Abbasid players switched to Ayyubids: one of the least played new civs but very high winrate and the byzantines havent been fully developed yet (Hippodrome - a high aggression/raid heavy option - into playing basebuilding sim for your 5 cisterns, into golden horn tower with eastern contract so that half of the time you get units that don't do well with your unit comp. Yeah...)

[@EmperorSigismund]

Yeah the first thing they could do is let us pick what unit we get from the Golden Horn, training time can be based on the olive price. It's no fun when it throws units at you that you have no use for.

[@OptimusCrime4444]

@@EmperorSigismund the funny thing is that is only an issue for the eastern mercenary contract. With the Western you get longbows and landsknechts. So you either have a huge infantary+siege composition where this gives your perfect support units or you go kataphract + longbow and your landsknechts counter at least spears. You would go silk road contract + landmark only into cavalry civs anyway and so your free units are the perfect counter to the enemy knight + archer/crossbows.

[@EmperorSigismund]

That's assuming you can survive till castle. I'd like to say that camels are the go to but I feel like you need the keshiks just to survive till castle age unless you have a very defensible base. I wonder what would happen if they replaced the javelin thrower with something like musofadi warriors?

[@x710xTitan]

Honestly I usually win against JD as Japanese in diamond

[@xmillusx5041]

I thought the Byzantins are op, but good for me than i can say that is just skill😂

[@MikefromBB7]

*And im still sticking with byzantines*

[@MrAsmil]

i dont think joan is going to be all that strong once people get better at the matchup, im guessing the Byzantines is going to be that one civ a lot of competitive games have where they cant get buffed because they smash the pro level but they are awful at gold and below? maybe

[@johanlassen6448]

Why not? They do terribly in Conqueror as well.

[@MrAsmil]

@@johanlassen6448 well yeah, but thats now that the civ is new

[@johanlassen6448]

@@MrAsmil As opposed to Jean d'Arc that is ancient?

[@MrAsmil]

@@johanlassen6448 joan is literally just French tho, not the same as a completely new civ, and like shes not anywhere near as hard as Byzantines and that was the main point, new+very hard civ = low win rates

[@johanlassen6448]

@@MrAsmil Zhu Xis legacy is also a difficult civ and has better win rates. It simply does not hold water that its "new". Being new means your opponent has not figured out the weaknesses of that civ either. It goes both ways. Byzantines are simply an exceptionally weak faction. Their economic bonus scales slowly, requires constant attention to expand, and gets easily disrupted. Their military is either totally vanilla (missile units) or weak and too expensive (Varangians cost twice the gold of normal MAA while overall not being an improvement and weaker than English+HRE+Abbasid+Chinese MAA, while Cataphracts do not have the damage output to be cost-effective even against knights, all the while being gold intensive without having an extra source for gold). Instead you are forced to rely on your olive oil nonsense, with slow training times for mercenaries that end up making up 50% or more of your total units because the Byzantines own roster is shit garbage. Massing horsemen and using Triumph a single time is not a strategy. Its a gimmick, and relies entirely on the opponent making tactical mistakes. For that matter if you notice, most of the (rather few) Byzantine wins in Conqueror is when you have 1800-2100 ELO guys (Byz) play against 1400-1600 ELO guys. The moment the ELO difference is smaller the number of Byz wins shrinks to almost nothing. Because the civ is shit garbage weak. And I knew it was going to be weak. The moment I saw the mercenary crap I knew it.

[@Xcvb4321]

It's always like this.

[@cohiba1982]

They need to take the double population for each soldier off the hre and that will make a big difference.

[@RyanMoreau]

Byzantines are weak because of their feudal play - no armored units in feudal.

[@cloverfawkes]

Byz cisterns need a buff the first two ranks are useless 5% and 10% are worthless probably doesn’t even cover the cost the build hre gets 40% for free from their prelate

[@cloverfawkes]

Also hre and golden order need the old cathedral back or a better archon chapel for golden order the current chapel is basically useless 10% on 32 farms only comes out to about 3 vils and the unique techs for men at arms and crossbow useless

[@liamwarren7590]

Possible nerf the villages to 1 and keep everything else the same.

[@ryderrr08]

Jeanne level 2 is pure garbage so nerfing level 3 feels like pure civ destroying if you don’t buff her at level 2. lvl 2 is a random MAA/archer (at cost of -1 villager) (250 gold if you lose her + every skill on CD) Most civ can easily kill her at level 2 (or ignoring her). If you lose her, you fall really behind. But the fact that Jeanne becomes bulky (-50% from range) , fast and can summon units at level 3 is really too much.

[@tavish1658]

I think Jeanne needs a level between level 2 and 3. Getting level 3 is just too big of a jump.

[@wurzelbert84wucher5]

It's so typical, I wanted to play Byzantines so badly and then they are the weakest civ by far... MAN what a bummer!

[@bnjmndrf1055]

In ranked team my byzantins winrate is 20%, in ranked solo 80%

[@-Amnie-]

So buff the old ones?

[@michaeldamato5504]

DRONGO WE NEED A OO2 MAP THAT WORKS WITH THE NEW PATHC AND CIVS.... PLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@MoeTheMonk]

Main problem with Order of the Dragon is that it's based on the HRE and is thus boring and half-baked, just the like the HRE has been since the game came out. Order of the Dragon has effectively no unique units and very few unique techs. Just like the HRE.

[@HandicappedMind]

way too early.............. WAY...... awhile back people said ottoman were not very good... well turns out... They have 2 broken units in the jens and Great Bombards.. and turns out free units are pretty good: ) I also things are still very far from being "meta" figured out. Plus all the changes to walls/tc defenses ect... I think come back to this in a month or 2 and things are more evened out

[@Nevermore1990]

i dont care, i will play Byzantines anyway, love them

[@matman8341]

Byzantines balanced, buff council hall

[@henrifortier8621]

Lmao

[@MoDeLi370]

they gotta nerf Jeanne's horseman they perform better than knights there isnt really a point to having knights for them

[@connormccabe6038]

Remove variant civs

[@connormccabe6038]

@@AaronRohan I’ll say what I want

[@amadeusbender3417]

Common man, what a silly video titel. Yeah the new civs are way op...NOT look at the stats. You see that only Jean D'arc is op may be aybis are strong. But the rest quite balanced or underperfoming concerning especially OotD

[@tars48979]

holy hell, leave Ayyubids alone, i'm finally enjoying the game

[@ondrejczechaczek6822]

HRE is not performing that well… and I couldn’t give less shit. Best civ! The theme… 😍

[@williamstrong3146]

I thought this was a Beastyqt video lol

[@SoftNoize]

New civs aside, when will they address the ottomans? They have been cracked for seasons, always sailing well above 50% even when looking at >conqueror. Annoying civ to play against as they can lose vills and map control and still kill you eventually.

[@NN-dl1gh]

Yeh they pretty much just have better stuff than the older civs not that they have different stuff its just better

[@usuhbi]

Jd and ayubids need nerfs asap

[@dr38]

Byzantine win rate against Ottoman absoluetly true historically 😂

[@sorooshusa]

It grinds my gears so much when aussie calls the french variant civ "Jone". Its not fucking Jone. Where do you get that idea from? might as well call her Ashley. Its not any more wrong. it takes 3 seconds to google the term and learn how to say it. literally 3 seconds. If you know what gendarme is, then replace the second half with the word dark. Jeanne d'Arc becomes gendarke )think gendarme)

[@FreshlyBakedLePain]

The English version of her name is Joan of Arc.

[@lucaxtshotting2378]

alright sherlock relax

[@lucaxtshotting2378]

french WAS overpowered. And it was not comparing to civs people had practice on.

[@mrsaeedali]

Order of the dragon is just boring... It is no doubt a powerful civ. I love their machinegunners aka archers so easy to micro. But in the end it is just micro ing... nothing else.

[@NiklasGrebe-jk3bm]

Buff HRE

[@lemstryZ]

I have a 57.8 with Byzantines and im gold 2