Norse are not overpowered in general, it's a collection of the Loki Water BUg and the power of Odin Jarl and RC that does it - the latter may be overpowered, maybe not.
The loki water bug is more myth than reality its not what makes loki overpowering although it makes things even harder. Loki is just as powerfull on land with no water as he is on water maps. And the water bug is only usefull if you go out and give him some boats to gather favor on. I avoid the sea like the plaugue against loki seeing as even without his water bug i still have to deal with kraken and the fact that norse can gather and use wood more efficently wich means that they will always get to classical first get there with more docks and be able to afford more longboats is almost pointless to even try to take the sea away from norse. I hardly ever lose a game to loki because of the water bug though.
Its the fact that loki can walk into my base as i hit classical with 6+ hersirs before i even get a barracks down usually take out a tower before i can upgrade and as soon as i uprade they will undermine the other tower. What i get for fighting back is that instead of dealing with 6 hersirs i end up dealing with 6+ hersirs and the valkyrie that suddnely popped up out of nohere. Plus the eihinajar that strolling in right behind that. Before you can even pop out 4 units out of the one barracks you managed to get down. You have to deal with2 valks a troll and two eihejars. And all you get is one weak hero who who is getting his butt handed to him by a couple hersirs and few TA's.
With odin it can be worse despite the devastation that loki can bring i have an easier time with loki players instead of odin. At least loki players stand and fight if you can get that 3rd archerie down and keep em off your wood gathers you have a chance at hitting critical mass with your toxates. And pushing him back.
Odin player are worse they won't stand and fight they pump out 6-8 RC's and fast heroic. They split those RCs into two groups in early classical. They send the first wave in to take out a tower and undermine the other. They kill a villie or 2 and retreat. Then send in group 2 while group 1 heals and kill another 2 villies. And keep switching back and forth. They hit heroic not to far after what RA hit heroic and before You can even get any kind of econ down you have 4 hillforts around your base. And a mass of tree wreakin havoc.
Even with three barracks we can barely keep up with norse in unit production.
As greeks your always in a corner except poseidon who has an easier time.
How can greeks compete against norse a minute and a half into heroic norse have gobbled up half the settelments and dropped a couple hillforts on your base. We can barley get to heroic let alone get there with enough resources to fend off your attacks, build a castle, and then a ctapult. And then keep that catapult alive long enough to take out your hillforts and settelments. Not to mention that as you are takeing down one hillfort they are building two more
right behind it. I mean hillforts are more cost effective than some greek and norse Heroes and myths.
Now thats not to say that greeks never beat the norse. But it certainly means that in order to do it we have to over come some pretty steep odds.
I think the changes the patch need to make things fair are'nt so much nerf centric as much as they should be about tweaking the norse playstyle all togeather. I can live with the uber jarls and the RC's its the other things that make norse unfair.
Norse house's for instance should only be built by villagers. In fact all norse non military buildings should oly be build by viallgers.
I would include TCs in that. but if not tc's than lock the time it takes to put up tcs for norse. For instance even if the norse player has 15 ta building a tc it will still take a full minute and a half. That way a norse player could'nt knock down my tc and build ther own in under 20 seconds. Thats just not fair. Have you ever seen a norse player stroll right past your entire armie completely ignore them knock down your tc and have there own up before you can even kill a few of them. It's to much. There are plenty of other things i would like to see change. I think greek wood gather rate should be increased slightly. I thihk Egypt needs to go back to prior patch status with the exception of RA's FH and mercs.
Walking woods is to powerfull and should be nerfed for sure. This one of the reasons why its so hard to beat norse. You manage to survive them in classical only to have to deal with JARLS, Huskarls, and walking woods in heroic. Oh and did i mention norse rams wich can walk right threw an armie like its not there.
bronze needs a nerf to for that matter. And the time on frost should be shortened.
Hoplite need to be fatser there useless if they can't catch cav in order to kill them.
Anyway this post seem a little over dramatic perhaps and i'm to tired to edit, but all of is true. NOrse need to be brought down to earth a norse player should at least have to work a little haredr for it.