A few ideas for an expansion

Age of Empires: DE I - Discussion
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Hey everyone. I am rather new here so bear with me.
I played the original AoE and Rise of Rome when was a kid. And a year ago i got the Definitive Edition.
Considering that AoE2:DE is getting more campaigns and factions, techs and units, i feel the first deserve some love. So, i will leave some odeas here.
First, as expected, will do more with barbarian invasions. The fall of Rome, the end of the Shang Dynasty and the chinese civil war, and so on.

Altough i had no special ideas for new units per se, i tought about something interesting: pick units that got outdated and create a promotion, or upgrade to them. That means all tool age units, and 3 from the bronze age. The tool age units only get a pseudo-legendary upgrade on the iron age, no different than go from longswordman to legion, for instance.

First, tool age to bronze age.
Axeman–> Raider (+15 health, +1 atk, +15% speed, +3 against buildings)
Slinger–> Balearic Slinger (+10 health, 1 unchangable armor, +1 shield, +1 base damage, +2 damage against foot archers, +4 against mounted archers)
Bowman–> (+10 health, +1 range, no extra damage but ignores shields)
Scout–> Podromos (attacks enemies on sight, +40 health, +4 damage against cavalry)

And from bronze age to iron
Composite bowman–> elite bowman ( may change the name. +2 range, +1 damage, 1 armor, +2 damage against Infantry)
Camel rider–> camelry (+60 health, +1 armor, 1 shield, +2 damage, +8 damage against cavalry)
Chariot Archer–> royal chariot archer (+40 health, +1 range, +1 attack, bonus damage against priests. Know is a deleted ability, but bear with me).

As techs…
Tool age:
-wicker baskets (civilians can carry +2 food)

Bronze age:
-perservation methods: civilians gather +1 from all food source, faster, and hunted animals do not decay as long as a civilian is gathering meat.
-conscription: barracks units train faster.
-mercenaries: clubman, bowman, slinger and scout lines recieve 10% more health.
-Arson: clubman, shortswordman and hoplite lines cause 50% more damage to buildings (except towers).

Iron age:
-dry silos: farmers work faster, and carry a total of 15 food.
-auxiliaries: clubman, slinger, bowman and scout lines recieve a 20% health bonus.
-berserk (only for barbarian civilizations): increase the clubman line damage by 2, and attacks 33% faster.
-pillaging: barracks units steal the resources from enemy civilians they kill.
-tracking (barbarian civ only) clubman and bowman lines can detect enemy units 2 range beyond their line of sight.

Well…that’s it. If you have other ideas or suggestions, i would gladly read. For now, enjoy, and have a great day.

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The ideas of providing promotion for units is interesting, as it diversifies gameplay in the later parts of the games, with millions of choices to consider (Scouts for raiding, since they are so cheap and have high vision, Slingers to counter archers, Composite for easy snowballing, etc).

Regarding early gameplay, I propose Tool balance being heavily adjusted. Since Villagers have way less HP and armour than the AoE2 counterpart, and there is no garrison mechanism, early raids have been proved to be too effective. Furthermore, Slingers counter everything in Tool. Often when seeing a solo game of top players, the pressure is hyper from early Tool and the game often ends in early Bronze, which renders 1v1 gameplay to be too less interesting with players create tonnes of Slingers. A possible approach would be to give villagers more HP and some armour, make Slingers being countered by Scouts, which, in turns, get rekted by Axes and Bowmen. The power circle would make Tool play to be much more interesting with mind games and considerations.

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Hmm… That is a good idea. Maybe also have something equivalent to loom, that could give some protection to the villagers.

Villagers should automatically get a +5 or +10 health per age. Think buildings themselves have a slight health improvement per age, too. Or maybe thats only on AoE2.

Weaving (tool age tech): better, more resilient clothes. Villagers recieve +1 physical and pierce armor.
The idea of the clubman line be a counter to cavalry isn’t too bad, in my opinion. Ulsarks on AoM are the staple infantry for norse and they have bonus against cavalry. Though a spear infantry would do better, i believe.
Clubman can keep as basic as it is. Axeman might get a +1 against mounted forces (with tool age tech, that will be 8 damage, minus armor), and the raider get a +2 ( with bronze age upgrades, 12 damage total, being 6 base, +4 from the storage pit, and +2 against cav). Maybe do a iron age upgrade, though the berserk might compensate for it. I wonder though if shouldn’t convert it to a full fledged unit upgrade.

Now the scout. Was thinking, what if it comes with a baseline +1 shield (pierce defense). Even if the town center does not shoot arrows, it is the most basic horseman, and comes on the age towers and bowmen appear. Maybe can be the only cavalry with shield upgrades.

Tree upgrades came into mind:
-Quarry (bronze age), that improve stone mining and slinger damage. Found in the market;
-wood shield (tool age, requires some wood), that gives a +1 to pierce damage, found on the storage pit;
-military drills (bronze age) +10% movement and attack speed to the short swordsman line (yet still below the roman civ bonus). Found on the barracks.
Was also thinking about put a civ upgrade on the academy for each civ. But might be hard to cover all civilizations.

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