A few suggestions

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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Just a few suggestions, not to make the game balance perfect but simply a bit fairer or more exciting.

General:

  • Elephant archers: in the PUP they get -10f and +3 cavalry archer armour class. This is a start, and we should see how this would pan out. However, I would argue that given the cost of the unit, it still isn’t good enough. On top of that, I would: increase their accuracy to 80/90%, increase their attack to 7/8, and make parthian tactics affect them as cav archers (Bengalis only, this means +4 against pikemen instead of +2). Of course, this is a lot and should be proceeded incrementally, but my logic is simple: if you have to pay so much for a unit, it should be powerful, especially if slow. And they would still die to skirmishers and mass pikes.

  • Steppe lancers can be occasionally used with the Mongols, but otherwise they remain quite niche. The Tatars can just go for their much, much better Keshiks, and the Cumans’ are simply created faster. More importantly, the elite upgrade is expensive and does only bring +2 attack and +20HP. Whilst not terrible, the elite unit is almost never appealing in Imp, either because there is a better gold unit to go to (Paladin, Keshik, Cavalry Archer, Mangudai), or because gold is too scarce, and all three civs prefer using cheap Hussars for raiding. On top of that, Hussars have almost the same HP, and more pierce armour. So I would propose to give Elite Steppe lancers +1/+1 armour. If you compare it to Keshiks or Winged Hussars, I think this is reasonable.

Civilisations:

  • Bengalis clearly need more, but their team bonus should be at least 25% food on top of the trade gold. Spanish get +25% gold, and when trading, gold is an extremely valuable resource, more so than food 99% of the time. So +25% food would still not be as good as the Spanish team bonus, but would make more sense…

  • Burgundians: on top of other changes (PUP), Cousilliers should be +5f/+5g to 60f/60g. Flemish Revolution should get out of the game entirely, but as this is probably not going to happen, change it to: “All villagers garrisoned become Flemish Militia”.

  • Cumans: Cuman mercenaries also makes Steppe Lancers 20% cheaper.

  • Goths could get the loom instantaneously and free upon reaching Feudal Age, on top of being able to research it in Dark Age. +10 max pop → + 5% max pop. +5 attack against boars → Boars last 25% longer.

  • Gurjaras: A lot has to be done, but +40% bonus damage for mounted units instead of +50% is probably not enough of a nerf. I would try +33%.

  • Hindustanis: same as Gurjaras. Camels attacking +25% faster on top of Imperial Camels is mad: remove this entirely! And this is supported by an amazing economy, and fantastic counters to everything. Shatagani +2 range is probably too much.

  • Huns: rename “Atheism” into something else (like “Tengrism”).

  • Incas: Andean Sling -150g.

  • Khmer: loose access to Hussar. This does not make sense historically, and they received it because the rest of their game plan was considered weak. Since then they became significantly more powerful, and FU light cavalry with better farms is already very good.

  • Poles: non-elite Obuch -1 PA. Obuch +10f.

  • Portuguese: Feitoria are a nightmare to balance: 3 ideas: (I) Make it a building like the caravanserail of Hindustani, which increases the resource content of all resources within a range (e.g. like +50% gold in a mine within 10 tiles, same for trees). Then make it cheaper and smaller, and only cost 5 population. (II) Make it generate only food and one other ressource, which has to be decided from the player. All Feitorias can only generate this one additional resource at the same time. Of course, gather rates of gold, wood and stones would still have to be different. (III) The gather rates of Feitoria are working like now, except that they are based on the initial amount of resources on the map (with Maxima). The way, the Feitoria does not generate too much wood on Islands.

  • Sicilians: reduce the Donjon cost by 25w.

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its high cost is due to it’s survival, and the cav archer armor increase is a huge + for them.

khmer are not overbearing anymore and don’t need another nerf. furthermore they don’t have fully upgraded cav archers.

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Do you mean its hit points? I agree to the cav archer armour, but that only changes something versus skirmishers, and given the cost I doubt it’ll be enough.

Sorry, I meant light cavalry, not cav archer. They aren’t top of S-tier indeed, but loosing Hussar would still be fine, and Khmer should just not be a Hussar civilisation.

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I agree with Matt, balancewise they don’t need a nerf, they sit middle of the pack on most maps. Gameplay>history

I agree. The minor cost change and change Vs skirms isn’t enough, even more so if we consider the civs that field them.

It’s completely different to the SL situation, because the SL civs have other options that fill exactly the same role. Indian civs don’t.

But could at least the accuracy first (mainly affects Bengali) and then possibly buff damage. But not sure about that one

I still think this should be free, again considering the civ. So ill agree on any cost reduction.

They could at least take it down to 10% for starters, on top of the bonus damage and eco. It’s still a good unit in castle age.

Agree. Just be aware Tatars end up with 7PA then.(paladin level)

The ESL tech could still do with a discount as well.

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that’s literally the only thing they aren’t tanky against, except spears. and after the cav archer increase they will be much more resilient against the skirms. archers melt against them. knights will take a long time to kill them.

balance is important to maintain. there is no reason to nerf them just because you don’t like how they are played in the late game. you want them to have a different playstyle? propose a compensation buff that will actually work.

but it’s a good start and the unit isn’t going to need 4-5 different buffs to make it better.

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True. If anything it might need a further cost reduction (if increased accuracy/civ buffs aren’t enough) I think that’s preferential over increasing their deathball potential (increasing damage or other stats)

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About Khmer Hussar, I’m quite confident they would be at worst B-tier, probably still better than average, if they were loosing Hussar. Not going to argue too much about that though, because I think you are correct too saying balance is more important, but in this case I simply think that would not be an issue.

As for Elephant Archers, I agree changes should come incrementally. But yeah I would start with the accuracy - mostly for poor Bengalis. And I think they might still need quite a few tweaks after that. I know we must be cautious of the possible snowball potential, mostly in team games, but even after the PUP changes, they would still die quite hard to: skirmishers, mass pikes, knights, and even to some degree to camels. Really, one could ask what they are good against… I suppose archers, swordsmen, and they can hold the line versus light cav, cavalry archers and siege - without countering them, but for such an expansive unit, they should be capable of a bit more. Additionally Dravidians, and to some degree Bengalis need some strong unit which can retain its power, and ironically it is not quite the case of Battle Elephants as they can be destroyed by a sufficient number of pikes. Maybe cost reduction would be a better idea to increase the early defensive potential, but that would also make massing them - and snowballing - easier.

As far Tatar Elite Steppe Lancers, I know, but this is the same as Tatar and Turkish Hussar, and these don’t cost gold.

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Let’s see how new buffs work. If anything instead give them +3 attack bonus vs Spearman like all CA units.

And yes, this one.

I think both non-elite and elite can get +1 MA. And then reduce elite upgrade cost.

Surely they need more. But the need is in 1v1 more than TG. Give them a new civ bonus - PT available in Castle age.

Why? If you buff SL in general, this is unnecessary buff on them.

I like current one more than your proposal.

These seems reasonable.

4th idea - Feitoria doesn’t take pop space but requires villagers to garrison inside to generate resource.

I don’t like such straightforward buff on Donjon. Instead Donjon gives you +5 pop space. Serjeant cost reduced 65f/35g → 50f/30g.

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I think the unit will be OP next patch, particularly Dravidians and Bengalis ones. Yes it’s expensive, 80f 70g if memory serves me right, but you also get like 3x the HP of a Cav Archer. They will lack speed but now that Skirms trade like 1 for 1 with them (and they won’t trade well at all in mass battles), I wonder what counters them. They will be extremely strong vs Knights and vs Pikemen just kite or camp next to a Castle. Hard to get going, a bit like Cav Archers, there will be a window where opponents can punish you, but once you get 15-20, you are good to go and can add whatever units you feel like in the late game.

Already now, arguably Elite Elephant Archers are not terrible in Imp, particularly Bengalis/Dravidians ones.

I think the devs did a double buff, but the reduction in negative armor class alone was enough already.

when you have Camels, Knights, Keshiks, yes one of the units will remain unused. I see no problem with this. It’s not a case of Steppe Lancer being weak, but the civs having too many options. In theory, Steppe Lancers would be a bit lighter on gold than Knights, while being about equally strong, but saving gold in late Castle age is not very important and not important to the point you would tech into a different unit. I’m fine with buffing the Elite cost upgrade, but in my view, Steppe Lancers are a fine unit. Paradoxically Cumans have the worst ones, the other 2 civs have reason enough to go Steppe Lancers already.

Bengalis need a buff in 1v1s first and foremost. I don’t see how buffing their trade would make them better 1v1. Even in Imp, their tech tree is garbage. The myth that “once you boom you have good options” is… a myth. It turns out, Rathas are not a great unit, even when fully upgraded, because they die to Skirms (unlike Knights), and vs heavy cavalry, their 6 attack in Imp holds them back greatly given their hefty price.

They are good at countering Arbalest and mass Cav Archer, but that’s about it. One way to buff the unit would be give it +2 attack which would make it work like a stronger Knight that dies harder to Skirms which is also what Bengalis currently lack.

Yes I agree. Coustillier is too cheap but at the same time they are getting a nerf, I suspect the nerf makes them take 4 shots to kill a Pikeman as opposed to current 3, so Pikemen get more attacks in. Maybe that will be enough. As much as we all love to hate Burgundians, let’s remember that their late game isn’t exactly stellar. They have a bad Hussar and their Skirms also don’t rly counter Archer civs, lacking the last armor. One of their supposed power units, Handcannoneers, it turns out isn’t powerful or desirable enough for you to ever want to tech into them. Which basically leaves them with early Paladins and Flemish Revolution as only viable options in Imp (not saying those are bad options but it’s all Burgundians have). And Halbs + BBC I Guess.

Goths have their place in the game, it’s fine for some civs to be bottom tier. For sure we don’t need

to create another Mayans copy where their Feudal age is unpunishable.

Goths are a bit underwhelming yes, but that’s fine. There will always be a bottom tier civ and Goths have their theoretical win condition (unlike Bengalis or Dravidians who have NOTHING to make in late game). It’s not impossible to win with Goths, they are only slightly undertuned. IF we had to buff them, and I’m not sure we do, probably I would buff something like their late game Hussar, maybe something along the lines of Mongols buff, extra HP or extra armor so that they can go Hussar but not Knights late game.

I tend to agree, but let’s remember that Gurjaras design is to DECISIVELY beat cavalry civs. I wouldn’t nerf their Camel because if they start trading evenly vs other Camel civs like say Berbers, it would be unfair that Berbers get Pikeman and a better tech tree than Gurjaras.

I think nerfs to the UU and the Shawarma Rider are the 2 place to hit the civ, their Camels should stay.

probably them losing Halberdier will be enough to make them a top tier but not overpowered civ. You could also experiment with removing the last archer armor (to make their Cav Archers not so viable long-term).

yes agree, long overdue.

Khmer is a weird civ, it’s very flexible and good on basically any map, but their tech tree is less than ideal. No Squires, no last armor, no Champion, no Bombard Cannon, no Thumb Ring… You don’t ACTUALLY have that many options as Khmer as people think. It’s a bit of a civ where you bait the opponent into some transitions but never commit to 1 unit type. The ONE unit that they have going for them long-term is Hussar. I wouldn’t remove it because they can’t do much else in late game, already they have a very bad Halberdier and I don’t consider FU Cavalier a “power unit” given how many civs get it while also getting comparable tech tree to Khmer.

I think Khmer are top tier but work well in the game and take decent skill to play. Wouldn’t touch them.

sure.

are they? They are rarely used and/or impactful on land maps, and water maps are ill-designed anyway. They put a lot of emphasis on getting army out early and the counter unit system doesn’t rly work on water so you end up spamming 1 unit type (Galley-line). Even so, Portuguese and their Feitoria come into play after the 1 hour mark or so. It’s possible to win before that.

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I’ll say food and gold cost shuffle with more speed will make them more viable. And +3 attack bonus vs spearman.
Cost 80f/70g → 70f/80g.
Gain +3 attack bonus vs spearman
Speed 0.9 → 0.95 or 1.00
PT gives +4 attack bonus spearman instead of +2.

I think you’re the only one that thinks the opposite. We’ll see.

What does that suppose to mean? 40 vs 40?

It is a combination of both.

That’s true.

In Imperial with PT researched? I don’t think so.

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Even though FM has been updated and has become less used, some people still hate it, which I don’t understand.

Your suggestion will cause trouble for players. I just want villagers to settle in buildings for avoiding the raid a while, but they turn into military units that cannot gather resources.

My suggestion is simple, let the cost increase or decrease with the converted villagers, and the villagers may be trained faster after the revolution until they return to their original numbers.

Weirder than the current loom bonus.

Personally, I would want villagers to take -50% damage from animals, no matter wolves or boars.
This should be decent enough to replace the loom bonus.

I would try +20% in castle age and +40% in imperial age, or +25% in castle age and +50% in imperial age.

The current effects fit the name of Atheism.
I mean, Tengrism cannot explain why it can slow the efficiency of relics and delay the victory of relics and wonders.

Based on the name of Atheism, I’d even like to make it able to allow Hun melee units kill monks by one shot like how Magyar villagers kill wolves.

I can understand the historical considerations, like I also don’t like that Koreans have the disproportionately bad stable but hussars at the same time. Since the Khmers are fairly balanced at the moment, if you want to take one thing, you should compensate them for another.

If I remember correctly, it’s like the way the trade workshop was designed. In the design at the time, the trade workshop was a building that all civilizations had.

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This is overkill buffing right here.

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I think we can at least all agree that Elephant archers are a bit of a nightmare to balance. And it was the same issue with former Indians, so now with three civilisations… I would say this is partly because their role is not entirely clear. Are they an archer counter? A meat shield? But then for arrows or melee units? Because surely archers aren’t on the frontline. Are they a mostly defensive unit? A jack of all trade, endurable source of DPS? With three civilisations, they can be different things for sure, but without being meta it is hard to tell. [These questions are mostly rhetorical.]
I think they first have to be a good unit across the board (good DPS, easy to preserve, and slowly build to mass, use in defense at least until late Castle). So I would want to see them simply more powerful, and even with the PUP changes, they are still going to be very effectively countered by skirmishers, and to a large level pikemen. And where cavalry archers can run away, elephant archers can’t. I say this is fine as long as they are used in a defensive fashion at least until late Castle.

Bengalis’ team bonus: sure I agree Bengalis need more:

but the team bonus still should be at least alined with the Spanish one.
I also think Rathas are fine, they are just a bit expansive to get going but can be microed in Castle age. One general problem of Bengalis is that everything they make can be countered by a pike/skirms combo, at an absolutely mad cost/effectiveness. If they had a good swordmen bonus, that be fine, but it clearly is not their identity. Also, improving their monks is better than nothing, but not the best against trash units.

True.

About Hindustanis, I think they are absolutely overpowered now, and losing halberdier is very nice, but they should be nerfed much more. The nerf to the Ghulam is nice too, although I might have preferred them gaining the Eagle Warrior armour class, to get hard countered by swordsmen. I suppose nerfing the Camel bonus to +10/+20% in Castle/Imperial would be a start, but combined to Imperial Camel, I don’t think that would be remotely enough. Also, in team games, the Caravanserais are really quite powerful, and this comes on top of Grand Trunk Road and a very solid team bonus already.

Feitorias: yes, Feitorias are rarely used, but they can be complete game winning assets on Islands, but also sometimes on Arena or Black Forest. It is one of the worst concepts in the game to have for a standard civ (not campaigns). And yes, I think it should absolutely be addressed, because sure it only applies to late game, but that’s not an excuse to leave it be and do nothing.

Cuman Steppe Lancers: don’t have anything specific (all right, they are 5% faster in Imperial, and created faster), so they don’t really provide good value when either Hussar or Paladins can be preferred. This could also simply be a civ bonus.

+5 pop space is nice, but when you need to answer a Trush it is not quite enough. Admittedly the stone price is the largest issue, but Sicilians start with more stone for this reason. The Serjeant could be -5f or -5g or both, but the buff you propose is really quite brutal for a quite decent unit.

I understand your point, but really don’t quite think they would fall off too hard from losing Hussar anyway. Plus their Ballista Elephant was recently buffed by +2 attack, which was probably unnecessarily strong, as they were already balanced before.

I suppose, but the Huns were not Atheists. Also, just having the name of a different religion can exhibit that they are not sensible to relics (I don’t know if tengrists worship relics though). Could change the name to “Plunder” or “Heretic horde” or something else.

It’s a nice idea, but I really don’t think Huns need a buff.

Goths: resistance from animals attacks could be nice indeed, but I was thinking of a bit of an additional boost to their early eco.

It makes historical sense to buff the cavalry, but really don’t think the Goths need a late game bonus. Also, all armour/HP bonus for cavalry already have been appointed to other civilisations…

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Additionally – sorry for the double post – a reflexion comparing Gurjaras to Bengalis. When Dynasties of India came out, I was quite concerned for both civs for one main reason: food.

Their good units, or those that were indicated to be immediate go-to were light cavalry, Shrivasmsha riders, camels, elephant archers, armoured elephants and Chakram for the Gurjaras, and battle elephants, elephant archers, armoured elephants and Rathas for the Bengalis. Except for the latter, all food intensive units. And as we know, food is the main bottleneck for units production from Feudal to early Imperial Age. But on launch, we didn’t know how good the economic bonuses of both civs would compare.

For the Bengalis, I agree that buffing the eco would clearly not be good enough, but a good eco in Feudal should a priori let them go for enough agression so that they can sort of survive not having knights and try to get to their more expansive options – let’s say Rathas and armoured elephant pressure, or even crossbows. But to my surprise, the two bonus villagers don’t quite seem to be enough.

As for the Gurjaras, their two eco bonuses centred around food, on top of Kshatrias, lets them switch into the right units.

Now of course, give them identical economies, Gurjaras would still be vastly on top on account of the Tech tree and military bonuses, but I feel like Gurjara’s eco should be further nerfed and for Bengalis I would first improve the military options (especially EA), but if not enough, increasing the two bonus villagers to three, as mad as it sounds, might just be the most straightaway option…

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How? I thought you want BE and EA having more spear resistant anyway. is this the speed?

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because the unit doesn’t need 4 buffs on top of the upcoming two.

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Technically the unit is getting 3 as PT is only for Bengalis. I can drop the cost and speed actually.

I had a plan to a bit tweak a bit but got stuck halfway there. For example dropping PA to 1, buffing EA armor clss to -3, and then more speed and cost adjustment.

But they do need more resistance against spearman. Without the bonus attack they are not actually good against spearman line unlike any other archer. You may still have the impression about the old Indians EEA in Rage Forest tournament that had +50 more HP, +70 for Dravidians.

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Man, Obuch both standard an elite need to lose 1 PA, is the only nerf they need, an infantry UU with such great HP, melee armor and cheap cost, plus insane perfomance in melee fights mustn’t have decent PA (In the same way how Ghulam is being nerfed, unit with good speed, PA and the thrust attack vs archers can’t have that good HP).

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But you can’t buff them too much for the same reason.

I don’t think so. They are currently the top 2 worst infantry UU. Their performance doesn’t deserve more cost than what I proposed. The only thing holding back is First Crusade. This one needs to be removed just like FM imo.

If it is both, then 55f/30g, not that different from my.

I strongly believe not just high cost or slow speed, not having a relatively bigger training time leads to this problem. BE and EA both train surprisingly fast and make them a broken unit in Post-imp TG with infinity gold.

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Spanish and Bohemians TBs are the best by far, but there’s no need to for every TB to be nearly that strong. I’m also wary of adding many more stacking trade TBs. A team with both Spanish and Bohemians already has a major advantage once they start to get their trade going. They don’t also need the option of generating 25% bonus food on their trade and effectively having eco units that are 50% more productive than the other team’s.

Buffing Bengali food TB to 15% would probably be fine though.

I’m fine with this bonus remaining strong (40%), but I think Chakrams need a nerf. That plus the incoming bonus reduction and Shriv nerf are certainly enough to justify letting the civ play out and reassessing whether it needs a further nerf. As it is, I don’t think the 40% and Shriv nerf are enough.

Feitorias are kind of annoying, but this is mostly an FFA/Islands thing (where IMO they were already plenty strong before the gold gen buff). In other contexts I don’t think they’re powerful enough to warrant a nerf. I think some of the alternate ideas are interesting, but at that point they might as well be wholly different buildings given to new civs.

Don’t hate it, but it’s pretty weak, and doesn’t really do much to make Serjeants more usable. Put another way, this is pitiful compensation for the damage resistance nerf.

Incas are kind of boring. IMO they should get Andean Civ free as a civ bonus and some new Castle UT.

The buff makes them somewhat easier to mass, and better vs. Skirms. That’s it. Still countered by knights, siege, pikes, and monks in low numbers.

Don’t care for this argument at all. Why not nerf Gurjaras or [Insert your favorite civ here] into the ground, since someone has to come in last? Even lower tier civs should have at least 1 map on which they excel, or several where they’re very strong. Just being weak across the board is not a justifiable niche, and is indicative of poor design. Only thing Goths have going for them ATM is being okay in low elo games where people don’t know how to wall, raid, micro, etc. Even now, pre-buff, Bengalis are better than Goths in TG (especially closed map), and Dravidians certainly will be once they get BBC, if they aren’t already.

Agreed, I’ve long argued for this myself. The concept is fine, the current balancing of it is not.

I sort of agree (assume you’re mainly talking FFAs or 1v1s), but in FFAs a lot of times it comes down to people being dumb and leaving the Porto player(s) alone for 1.5 hours and then wondering why they can’t push a base defended by infinite BBT, Gunpowder & Halbs. Taking out the Porto player with a better early game civ is not that hard when people actually do it.

While I don’t think Khmer necessarily should lose Hussar, I do like the idea of them being pushed more into eles instead of (usually) just playing out like a flexible cav civ. Losing Hussar but gaining a small buff elsewhere might be the way to go, but I haven’t thought about this enough to have a great suggestion on hand.

Battle Eles, perhaps. But I don’t think I’ve seen EAs perform nearly as well in TGs (maybe they will after the buffs). They’re okay as slow push/hold units, but they don’t have nearly the speed to raid an eco, nor the BE’s raw damage that can rush down units and buildings alike. Even with the upcoming buffs, I think Dravidians being the only civ to miss husbandry will still make their EAs quite niche.

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