A list of civ balance/design changes I would like to see in the near future

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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I know the timing is a little bit awkward since a patch it’s going to hit soon, but I have time to spare today and I’m not likely to have in the next weeks and for the most part my changes are not going to overlap with the next changes anyway.

For the most part my changes aren’t something I’ve seen on other threads here or elsewhere, in order to try to give different perspective on how to fix things I think need to be fixed. Of course I might have missed something.

Britons

Archery ranges work 15% faster (previously 20%)

I think this change is needed for teamgames. It kinda breaks the rule of having military buildings working 20% faster as TB, but this one is way stronger than all others since it’s basically guaranteed that 2 players are going to produce archers both in 3v3 and in 4v4s on open maps in the current meta. Archers are also way easier to spam than knights in various stages in the game (expecially if the other flank is Mayans) and Britons are a better civ than Huns of TG aswell. This makes Britons basically a mandatory pick for open maps TGs so I think a slight nerf is well placed.

Burgundians

Flemish revolution effect changed to “infantry get +1/+1 armor, +0,1 speed and +3 damage against buildings”. Cost changed to 600F/400G.

Flemish militia available at TCs starting in the imperial age. Creation speed changed to 12 seconds (previously 14 seconds).

I think flemish revolution current effect needs to go for reasons explained millions of times already.
A possible compensation might be give burgundians better infantry late game, in exchange for the massive power spike lost with FR, expecially as a raiding unit since their hussars aren’t spectacular.
I prefer to have flemish militia already available at TCs since it’s a unit that burgundians quite need to deal with opponent camels/halbs and their production already comes at the disadvantage of villagers production.

Burmese

Siege units have +1/+2 pierce armor in Castle/Imperial age

Walls have +1/+2/+3 pierce armor in Feudal/Castle/Imperial age

This might be rushed, since burmese are already going to get buffed versus archers, but I think that there’s a quite general consensus that imperial UT change won’t help them too much since it comes late into the game and potential ineffectiveness against arbs+halbs and cav archers.
I would be a big fan of simply give burmese 2nd archers armor upgrade, but alternatively these changes could help burmese to somewhat survive until they can make use of imperial UT.

Cumans

Lose access to second TC in feudal

Barracks and Siege Workshops cost -75W too

Get access to Supplies, Heavy Camels and Siege Engineers

This is quite personal but I hate second TC bonus, it’s an extremely polarizing mechanic which does always deliever the same game every time the player decide to go for it.
I also don’t like the fact that interesting bonuses like earlier access to rams/capped rams and cheaper military buildings are partially overshadowed by the second TC bonus, I think they’re a concept that deserve a civ on their own to be more explored and played in an offensive inclined gameplay instead of used to strengthen a campy and booming gameplay.

Mayans

Longer lasting resources bonus don’t affect huntables.

Foot archers (except Skirmishers) are 10%/15%/15% cheaper in the Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age (previously 10%/20%/30%).

Walls are 33% cheaper (previously 50%)

Plumed archers base cost decreased to 50W/50G (previously 55W/55G).

I think Mayans, most of any civ, need a nerf since not only they’re a very strong civ, but also very consistent and without basically any exploitable weakness that could hurt them except few very rare exceptions.
Their dark age is very strong with cheap walls, instantly loomed villagers to secure the base without taking risks, longer lasting early food sources as an eco bonus, eagle scout with improved LOS for better scouting and laming potential, and then the civ gets stronger and stronger with extremely cheap military that gets better and cheaper with ages. Even damaging their eco often don’t work versus Mayans due to how cheap their military is.
I think this needs to change, expecially I would target their dark age to take away some FC potential and leave them a little bit more open to some early aggression. On top of that, I think that 31 gold arbalest + 15% lasting gold sources is definitely too much, the unit is just too good to be so spammable and sustainable over time.
Plumed archers change is meant to keep them at a similar price to the one they already have.

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Extra pierce armour on siege really doesnt matter in castle age. They already one take one damage

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For Burgandian, I agree that flemish revolution effect is kinda stupid and need to be changed. However I’m not so sure about making their generic infantries even stronger is the way to go as they already have good cavalry timing attack.

For Burmese, the PA on siege and buildings is kinda useless because siege units already take 1 damage from arrow in castle age and buildings take for ever to burn down by range units already.

For Cumans, I’m fine with the removal of 2nd TC but why -75 wood on barrack too? they are cavalry civ, not infantry civ.

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100% agree. Britons are just an auto-pick in every team game right now. This team bonus makes every halfway decent archer civ become S-Tier.
I know they like their “work 20% faster” (Huns, Goths, Celts, Lithuanians) as a team bonus, but I also feel like 15% would be more balanced for Britons.

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Honestly, if you nerf the TB won’t make much difference because Britons already get +1 range as soon they hit castle age, also get another one in Imp, plus yeomen, that alone makes the Britons sooo supreme in TG because their weaknesses are covered with your teammates, on top of that then people will request nerfs for Goths, Celts, and Huns team bonuses tho. better remove free range and rebalance Longbow range to incentive players to use Longbows in imperial as the long ranged archer, not arbalest.

It won’t change much basically, the current change, despite personally being 100% neutral on that, at least can help a lot their weakness against massed arbalester in imperial.
Also those are random buffs without even historical basis.

You can’t really remove Cumans biggest bonus, is the only eco bonus they get, is hard to use on Arabia but on Arena is the only thing they have to not die and get eco advantage, also having early access to ram/capped ram in castle age are unique bonuses they should keep as si.
But giving heavy camels?? I mean, they would have the best heavy camels alone with that absurd speed bonus and then their stable units would just the very best in the game by a massive range and be seriously too oppresive vs cavalry civs (which is one of the ways to go vs Cumans) Cheaper barracks and siege workshop are also wayy overpowered, how you deal with super early drush or nasty capped ram pushes on arena now the siege workshop is sooo accesible??? Cumans infantry isn’t their strenght by design so why supplies?

No, better reduce it to just 10%.

Just make the discount 10%/15%/20% and that’s it.

Could work tho.

Agreed for compensation but honestly I wish if Elite plumes lose 1 range, they have mobility as cavalry archers, they also fire fast and get good HP, plus also decent PA, is too much.

Also, where are the nerfs to Franks, Chinese, and Sicilian cavaliers??

About the Flemish rev change, yes they need one, but no the way you suggest because already overlaps by a lot to Malians and Teutons bonuses and even Bagains.

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Britons I agree, I am tired of Britons Mayans Franks Huns stacks.
Burgundians no, the whole point of Flemish Revolution is to work like a Revolution.
Burmese no. Hussars with 8 pierce armor for free, +5 against archers, Sicilian tier cavalier too. The burmese fix is simple- make the new +5 against archers the castle age tech, nobody uses eles in castle anyway, and burmese won’t die to fast imp arbalest as hard.
Cumans no. If anything, remove the feudal rams. I have had enough of this on arena/hideout/bf. Second TC is fine, there still are better pure boom civs- Celts 4tc, Mongols 4tc, Burgundians 4tc. Also they can’t have paladins and FU siege onager I think, but don’t quote me on that since teutons don’t get husbandry (only 1 civ with this particular tech tree options possible, plus, cumans having hussars, paladins and halb SO will be a bit too much).
Mayans I kinda agree with, altho I’d rather drop the longer lasting resources altogether and not touch them in any other way. See how they perform in the current meta without drush into 1 archery range into 28 vil castle age and without the possibility of MAA without luring deer.

I’m so pissed with Mayans honestly, I have had enough- at this point they do literally everything aztecs and incas do (besides monks, but they are a supportive unit anyway) but better because of their still untouched since AoC economy.
You can’t open scouts against them because maa beats that and they full wall meanwhile, you don’t want to play drush or maa archers because their archers are cheaper and their economy is better, so you end up with some full skirm composition that becomes useless once they add two eagles in feudal, they are much faster to castle age, have the crossbow timing, either boom behind or go fast imp. Oh, you just cleaned the 40 arbs with your knight skirm and you have 5 food in the bank after committing to the castle age all in? Welp I hope you have your longswords teched into because those 30 eagles with 100 HP that trade against cavaliers are already in your eco and the only units that can catch up to them don’t even counter them cost effectively.

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Evwn as a castle age the new Manipur cavalry qould still be pretty bad. You are going to die hard on castle age as well

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Not a huge fan of this, but not really sure.

No. This is just bad. Even if current Revolution isn’t great, at least it feels like a Revolution. Also, why would people really want to play infantry as Burgundians when you have the really good cav, as well as decent gunpowder.

Why? They already have lot’s of pierce armor on these things. Just give second archer armor and nerf Arambai base armor.

No. Please no. The second Feudal TC is what helps make Cumans really unique compared to everyone else. If anything, remove Feudal rams and give them Capped Ram for free in Castle Age. No point in giving them supplies, because they have good cav, so no one would really want to play infantry anyway. Barracks and siege workshop cost decreasing both don’t really fit their identity, and make it way too easy to spam military production buildings everywhere. I do agree with them getting Heavy Camel and possibly SE though.

The resources one I think I’m fine with. Change the cost discount to 10%/15%/20%. If they do this, then they can change the Plumed Archer cost as well. Don’t nerf the walls thing. They have been hard nerfing the wall meta recently, so there isn’t really much point.

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Well if your cavalry gets countered or you are low on gold, then you need an infantry transition. Here is where flemish militia is very useful and having it locked behind a tech that turns all villagers into military is a design I don’t like, I would prefer to have it available in a less traumatic way and give a tech that compensate the loss of the power spike and improves burgundians late game overall.

I didn’t meant to give additional PA to hussars, it’s already an overused bonus into the game. The additional PA is for siege and walls in my suggestion.
By the way moving manipur to castle age can be an idea, the issue us that the tech don’t really help if pikes/halbs are mixed in or even against CA, and it delays imp time by quite a margin, so I don’t really think that it would work.

Ok I respect the opinion about the second TC. My suggestion was based on personal experience since I have never had really fun games where that bonus was involved, neither when I played it nor when I played against it regardless of if I won or loss the game.

The ratio behind the barrack discount is that it would help the early game on open maps since you almost always go for a barrack early, helping their already existing stable and archery range discount and pushing through an heavy military identity.

Yeah as I said that would be a good choice aswell, but actually developers are kinda deaf from this ear… Just like taking away basic stuff from a civ without basically nothing in compensation is good design.

My personal opinion is that mesos are so reliant on gold that I’m fine with them having major bonus for longer lasting gold income (aztecs have relic bonus and incas should potentially get something similar, I would like for example to revert malians change and give them 30% longer lasting gold for example). So I would prefer to change them in another way.

I didn’t think about early drush possibilities, but comparing the -75W discount on barracks with similar bonuses (lithuanians +150F, persians +50F +50W) I don’t think it would hit better timings that are already possible.
About close maps pushes with capped rams, I think they’re way scarier now when backed up by a feudal boom since it’s certainly better to have 15-20 more vills than a 75W discount on buildings. Plus if you remove the boom possibility, if cuman player goes fast feudal on closed map you basically already know what’s coming towards you, while in the current state you have to guess if he’s booming or if he’s going aggressive and you can’t really scout what’s coming due to feudal scout advantage.
About camels, I don’t think that a 5% speed advantage in imp would be that big of a deal, camels are already faster than heavy cav.
About infantry and tech tree general improvement, again it’s a personal idea on an alternative design of the civ, I would like to push further the heavy military identity of the civ and feudal/castle early ram techs even on open maps giving them more option to support.

Yeah I admitt I have no idea about burmese history, but a lot of stuff in this game has no historical base so whatever (mayans for example never used archers in their classical period)

Yeah but removing free range would completely kill the civ. And I don’t think that is needed, I won’t pretend that my suggestion would make them drop from S tier but I think it’s the best thing to do to tweak their TG strenght without too much impact on 1v1 performance

Well mangonels take 2 damage from CA which is a unit that burmese struggle a lot against, you then have to take into account situations where opponent gets to imp before burmese player and situations involving hills advantage.

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About chinese, I have no real opinion since I’m not really able to play them properly and neither my opponents are.

About franks I read a suggestion somewhere on this forum to make their 20% HP bonus starting in castle age or something like this. I think this is a good suggestion but since it’s already been discussed somewhere else I didn’t add it here.

About sicilians, I’ve already voiced my opinion and I think they’re currently the worst designed civ in the game. Bonus damage reduction and first crusade should be completely removed in my opinion since I don’t see them as an healthy addition to the game, but I have no formed opinion on how to redesign the civ yet. Once you remove those techs, sicilians cavaliers should not be an issue anymore.