Hello again!
This would be the second installment on a series of posts related to the very popular mod: the Wars of Liberty, a heavy modification of AOE3 that adds a crapton of civs to the game. Ialready told you guys that as a rather newbie to this mod (I've only been playing it for a few months) I find the amount of options utterly fascinating, and as such want to give a rather detailed opinion on every civilization.
Again, disclaimer: This aims to be a rather objective review, but there are several factors that might have me biased towards some strategy or disregard others are worse, as I am only human. Do consider that I've only played the mod against the AI, so some strategies might also have to be discarded due to inefectiveness against the Ai. I've played in hardest difficulty, in 2vs 2 and 3 vs 3 settings.
Now, lets see what we are taking a look at today: the Bulgarians:
So where are my Konniks? Oh Sh*t wrong game
Remember when I talked the other day about the Austrians, and how their units were consistently stronger than their generic counterparts, and how they were more expensive, making them take quality over quantity by default?
The Bulgarians are an odd civ that plays around that very aspect. Imagine a machine gun and compare it with a bazooka. A machine gun's strenght its on its ammo, the large quantity of disposable single shots, while a bazooka concentrates that strenght into an absolute unit of a shot for a more explosive, devastating effect.
Now picture the bulgarians loading a machine gun with bazooka ammo. This is basically what the civ does. Your units are extremely powerful, not even very expensive and hence spammable. They are also very efficient and prone to snowball, as they do come in groups with their own "captain unit", a special different unit with an aura boost that greatly improves your military performance. Let's take a look at their unique infantry, cavalry and siege:
https://preview.redd.it/snw9kjd99jr51.png?width=689&format=png&auto=webp&s=51f7a5200b72fcdad5dee7da27a4104db2eacf3b
The Opalchenets Pobornik (from now on called OP) is your standard (and only) real infantry unit. It is empowered by the Infantry voivod. OPs are powerful on their own, but they suffer against what a musketeer would, as they are basically one. The thing is, the amount of auras you can stack on them and their spammability later in game makes them really hard to kill without mass siege.
The average OP in Imperial. Tough boy.
OPs can be created:
- In non-stackable groups of 1; 100G, 100F, 2 pop.
- In groups of 5, with a voivod; 500G, 500F, 12 pop.
- In groups of 10, with a voivod; 900G, 900F, 22 pop.
https://preview.redd.it/pw5yrgwj9jr51.jpg?width=685&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3b9f2ac7ec85728a22a13622d4f16405cb76e6b7
In the cavalry department, your standard unit is the Dragoon-like spatisel. Again, they are empowered by the corresponding cavarly voivod. They do well against what a dragoon work, and are extra tanky and very powerful.
Spatisels can be created:
- In groups on 1, non stackable, just like the OP. 150F and 150G, 3 pop.
- In squads of 5, with a voivod: 150F and 150G, 18 pop.
- In armies of 10, with a voivod: 1300F and 1300G, 33 pop.
Lets take a look at their artillery now, shall we?
https://preview.redd.it/7whk2lnl9jr51.jpg?width=684&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a66a652dec1ea65bcb0129d3cc0c4ea97bb8bd8b
- Mule artillery: Cheap, suprisingly cost effective small siege unit. Comparable to a grenadier rather than a real siege unit. Very slow. Cost: 100W, 200G, 3pop.
- Schwarzlose: Looks like a machine gun from Ww1. And basically is. Has a consistent rate of fire, but suffers against cavalry. Cost: 100W, 250G, 3pop.
- Schneider Gun: The supreme Balkan artillery! This bad boy can reach so far and punch so hard! This is your go-to counter against enemy artillery (eveb considering it has no bonus against it) and can be a problem to deal with when massed up, thanks to its massive health pool and lack of negative multipliers. Cost: 600W, 600G, 8pop.
You must be thinking, "These units are good. And they're not even that expensive. Where's the trick, other than lack of diversity?".
The bulgarians have one of the most unique and utterly devastating penalties in the game. Yeah, those military units we have? They are not available in your production buildings until age IV. This renders you virtually defenseless until such age, since the only military you might have is the ones you send from your home city, and your villagers. Even then, the amount of available troops from cards is really scarce until age IV, or just too slow to mass up.
To offset this drawback, in order to be able to reach the industrial age, they were given two major bonuses:
https://preview.redd.it/449qkz9n9jr51.jpg?width=681&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2052f4a0b9d0e2118cc6e4292970d4eb5d7030cb
- Their unique villager. Hybrid between what would seem like a pikeman and a villager. They don't actually work faster (just like the average villager) but can be created from every building the bulgarians have but the market. This makes them a no-no civ to raid with cavalry, since you're effectively attacking what would be your own counter. They are also upgraded by infantry research, and can become rather difficult to raid later on, but most importantly can be created in every building but the market. This gives the civ a powerful booming tool since age 1, provided you're defended by an ally. They cost 150 food.
https://preview.redd.it/w3pebu5o9jr51.jpg?width=684&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=501afb767876211505b3320119d9c497054829a8
- The bulgarians have an utterly unique shipment management, as most of their unique unit cards can be sent without the liability of having to spent one. As long as you have a shipment available, you can send any of the cards surrounded by an orange marking any number of times, because they also happen to be infinite.
Now, talking about general aspects of this civ, Bulgarians are one of the Nation States in Wol, but since you might not know about their unique traits, I might aswell list them to you in a hurry:
Their explorer is the Cartographer, which has small line-of-sight, can plant markers that reveal provide LOS over time, and gathers treasures faster than a regular Explorer. Their unique gatherer, the Peasant, has no special attributes.
The most noticeable difference is how Nation-States age up; instead of choosing politicians in the Town Center, the Nation-States research the age-up technology directly in one of their buildings: Casern, Stable, Hunter's Lodge, Market and Artillery Foundry. This also grants the unusual bonus of having all military buildings enabled right in Discovery Age.
Moreover they are the only culture that builds the infamous Star Fort.
The Nation-States also feature a very distinct late-game food source: crops. You need to plant Wheat, Beets, Cabbages and Strawberries. Their late-game source of coin is honey from the Beehive.
(Explanation outta the Wol page)
Star fort stats for your information
The crops function as a unit you need to build, let grow and then kill and harvest, basically as immobile cattle. As you age up, better and more expensive crops become available. List of crops:
- Beetroot. Cost: 25 Wood. Grows 1.61 f/s up to 700 food.
- Wheat. Cost 10 Wood. Grows 1,75 f/s up to 900 food.
- Cabbage. Cost 35 Wood. Grows 1,61 f/s up to 1000 food.
- Strawberries. Cost 40 Wood. Grows 3,25 f/s up to 1300 food
Note that the balkan civs do not need to build specialized buildings to upgrade their troops, and a veteran upgrade would mean all the units of such building are upgraded at once. Therefore, all the trainable units (save the voivods) are fully upgradable.
Now into the political options:
https://preview.redd.it/ytonn1ru9jr51.png?width=680&format=png&auto=webp&s=c016828fd0e42116151e6981e584c30c3fdaceb7
https://preview.redd.it/lgvw7yiv9jr51.png?width=656&format=png&auto=webp&s=856aefa9f6644160a8cf7be89ed483e2d682b007
https://preview.redd.it/8cfwfxvz9jr51.png?width=683&format=png&auto=webp&s=b43239f9024f1ef66dba65f2e6450c9342b12cf5
https://preview.redd.it/0bmbrpp0ajr51.png?width=678&format=png&auto=webp&s=0dbd6f439d47b2de2514822b57addeaf08745058
(Sorry for the clunky screenshots- I just thought It was interesting if you could see the availability on certain units)
Lets talk now about could you play this civ:
As we discussed before, they're an oddity even among the new civs from the mod. Having no military until age IV really pushes you forward into advancing or dying behind. I have noted 3 different possible playstyles during my time with the civ:
- Taking full advantage of your free units shipment (in this case, spam villagers in age 1) and strike your enemies down before they even know whats happening. Strong peasants are somewhat able to kill enemy villagers (they have a heavy negative multiplier) but are much more resilient than the regular villagers. This allows a quick negation of resources. However, you will fall back a lot if you aren't supported by an ally with actual military, since you don't have outposts to hold the gained ground early and your caserns need an expensive upgrade to be able to attack.
- The bulgarians receive a powerful power spike in age IV, when their military is unlocked. The age 4 politician delivers a bunch of them, and if rushed quickly, can make an effective strategy. The age IV cards that sends 5 OPs and the one that sends 4 spatisels, with their corresponding voivods, are also extremely strong and only take about 11 seconds to arrive, unlike training them, that takes about 4 times the time and also costs a lot of resources.
https://preview.redd.it/795b3xpgajr51.jpg?width=365&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=02e652c302fb15dbe81c5df7663d3116378537bc
- Reach age 4 quickly and then turtle your way up to age V via spamming the aforementioned card. It is so powerful you will not have to waste resources in anything but upgrades and maybe artillery if you are struggling against artillery or skirms on your own.
When a bulgarian player reaches industrial age, is pretty much already out of risk of dying. It would not be the first time I've been able to trade thousands upon thousands of resources with my free opalchenets. Focus on having enough pop space-delete villagers or send them to fight if neccesary!. These card sis so extremely good that the most empty pop space you have, the better, making it very counter intuitive to play. Very few civs will be able to put a fight against the absolute wall of almost 1 shot kill muskets you have, and if they do, you have the according artillery to face them.
Now, what to do when playing against Bulgarians?
Bulgarians are one, if not the most raidable civs in the game. Not only they don't have any form of military in the early ages, but they don't have minutemen either. Yes, the villagers are pikemen, but pikes are not exactly super strong to be fair (cries in spanish tercio). Muskets, other pikes, basically anything but hand cavalry will do fine at raiding. They also have a distinctive lack of outposts, as they have to purchase an expensive upgrade for their caserns to be able to shoot, resources they would rather be using to age up.
Final scores:
Cavalry: 0/10 until age IV, for obvious reasons. Then they become an 8, and turn into a clean 9 into imperial. Mass spatisel are no joke.
Infantry: 1/10, not a 0 as I'm considering their villager. They become a solid 9 on industrial continue being a 9 in imperial due to lack of diversity. However, they got quantity and quality. The best of both worlds.
Siege: 0/10 early, what a surprise. Derives into a 6, mediocre but manageable. Turns into a 9 with their upgraded massive schneider guns.
Buildings: 3/10 on early, no outpost, but you can make extra military buildings if that counts. Caserns are though but not particularly powerful, turns into a mediocre 6, only saved by the star fort they have as Balkan civ.
Economy: Now this is gonna be controversial, but the massive bonus of being able to make villagers out of every building since early, plus extra infinite villagers from the homecity, makes them have an impressive start, even outbooming britons, and that's something to not take lightly. 8/10 on early, falls behind later due to lack of mill (crops aren't infinite) and the slow gold income from easy to destroy and hard to manage beehives (they only take 1 villager each and you have to manually task them to it), so it becomes a mediocre 5. But this shouldn't bother you on the slightest since you already reached industrial by that point and are spamming free OPs.
Verdict: One of the most fucking annoying civs to finish off if they reach industrial. They like to play harsh with argentinian horse-villagers. Late game military powerhouse and early game economic one, with quantity and quality. A walking contradiction of civ, and very fun to play. And one of the best civs on post imperial.
![[link]](https://i.redd.it/b46djbzevhr51.jpg){kind=link}
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