Why are the Slavs Considered the Most Unspectacular Civilization?
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I played them on arena for the first time last week and it was a lot of fun!!!
Went halb and SO and my castles were free to pump out trebs
What about Persians?
In 1v1 they are just mostly vanilla cavalry and some trash bows
Boom with siege defense into boyar + castle spam is fun
Italians
Just played a random civ game and got Slavs for the first time.
Decided to go heavy on Boyars but it was pretty expensive and ruined my decent boom run.
So in the end I just realized I’m unable to breach a Viking&Briton alliance because they’re just firing catapults guarded from long range with longbowman and even the berserker is a head on matchup once you consider resources.
So I didn’t see any specific “strong against infantry” bonus of boyars, would have preferred a Cataphract or Conquistador instead, because man isn’t 80 gold really expensive.
One civ has to be the most unspectacular, and if the least spectacular civ still has splash damage halbs and champions – we are fine in terms of specularity.
What’s so boring about a siege pike push?
If you’re not shitting out cheap castles all over the map, you’re playing Slavs wrong.
Persians also come to mind, but here’s why I think Slavs are perceived as boring.
Infantry: Use of the militia line is highly situational, so free supplies doesn’t help very much.
Pikes are also an iffy choice as gold units tend to be preferred in castle age.
Slav infantry is pretty generic until Druzhina, which is an expensive Imp tech.
So although they’re nominally an infantry civ, and Druzhina is truly terrifying, in practice their infantry feels pretty generic.
Cavalry: They do get FU cavalier and boyar, and both are helped by the 10% farming bonus.
In fact in the 2020 2v2 World Cup, Slavs were a pretty popular pick along with Berbers for flooding castle age knights.
All the same, lots of civs can flood castle age knights and many (like Berbers) can probably do it as well or better for various reasons.
So while they’re good at knight/cavalier play, they don’t stand out.
And Boyars, while excellent, are very good expensive and locked behind castles.
Siege: In contrast to their infantry which only becomes uniquely strong in the late game, Slav cheaper siege is useful and gives advantage in the midgame.
On a military level, this might be their best bonus to stand out from the crowd.
But what are you making with your siege?
Xbows are a questionable choice due to scaling issues.
Pikes are fine, but slow and generic.
Monks are fine too, but aren’t better than generic either.
And your farm bonus isn’t as helpful as you’d like while going for wood/gold units.
Honestly I think your question answers itself in a way.
They’re unspectacular because…
they’re unspectacular.
There’s more civs than ever that combine three of the four emphases of infantry/cavalry/siege/monks.
Think Bulgarians, Teutons, Lithuanians…
It’s harder for the Slavs to stand out when they lack some of the options that these civs have like gunpowder, specific monk bonuses, bracer, and infantry that are better than generic in castle age.
As they are now, I wonder if low eco siege/monk/pike pushes could be combined with the farm bonus to leverage a faster imperial timing into a castle drop and trebs.
As for possible changes, I think a lot of ideas could work.
Maybe their farming could be bumped to 12/13%, giving them a stronger eco to back infantry, cavalry, or a faster imp timing.
Maybe something could be done to make their infantry stronger in the early and mid game.
Maybe their siege discount could be increased.
Maybe they could gain gunpowder.
Maybe there’s a monk bonus that could make them better than generic.
I think ultimately if there is a problem, it’s that there’s no clear reason or situation where you should pick Slavs over other infantry/cavalry/siege/monk civs.
Druzhina halbs and SO, what’s not to love?
Edit: you all need to play more than one map if you want to see the potential of Slavs appear.
Every week.
I sign on to defend Slavs.
Slavs are hecking fun.
The extra 10 pop to start Feudal is nice (Barracks + Range/Stable).
Needing 1 less farm to produce from TCs and Stables is also pretty nice.
that 120 wood for walls plus the 50 for the unneeded houses.
I always feel the wood crunch early Feudal so I find these bonuses nice.
Smush is a fun strategy people don’t play enough.
Cheaper siege means you can afford the next one that much faster and you need less farms.
Monks have everything you need too.
If you do yee olde Yo strategy aka 3 TC then forward seige you need 15 farms too keep the TCs pumping and siege is easier to come by.
Your opponent needs 18 farms and any 1 for 1 trades is an L for them.
Castle Spam + Boyars is another very nice option.
Boyars are the dominate melee unit.
They are so strong in fact the retain the Castlage Age Knights vs Camels in Imp when its Elite Boyar vs Heavy Camel.
Paladins get smoked Boyars just lose close.
You can basically always win a trash war because you can raid and your opponent cannot.
Just Spam Castles and use FU Hussars.
Could we stop complaining about Slavs being “boring”?
They’re my favorite civ, incredibly effective at what they do, and I worry the devs are going to change them.
You know what’s boring?
Gurjaras!
You play at 60% of your abilities and still win.
Boring!
Cheap castles are pretty spectacular.
It’s like being franks or incas but you can make teutonic knights on horses.
I love incas, but I’m gonna have to say incas.
The only spectacular thing about them is kamayuks slaughtering everything in melee, but it can be difficult to get there and is easily countered by going ranged or siege.
They have no real eco bonus and specialized unique units, to include their eagles (compared to Aztec and Mayan they suck at doing everything but tanking arbalest), which means every game will be slow and calculated.
They’re extremely rewarding to play, imo, but you will rarely get excited playing incas.
It kinda comes with the territory of being the most Jack of all trades civ of the jack of all trades civ.
Japanese have great infantry, fish, and trebs.
Chinese have two interesting eco bonuses and a very powerful UU, Spanish have the typical power units like BBC and paladin as well as a very powerful UU, Saracens can make wild plays with the market and Mamalukes are great when you get to them.
There’s 42 civs.
They’re all along the lines of the same design.
There’s bound to be a few that are more bland than others.
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