You aren’t wrong. I feel like a small disconnected rump state doesn’t really matter enough to justify giving goths gunpowder, especially after you remove cannon galleon from the and give them dromon, presumably because they are too ancient, but somebody’s gotta draw the line somewhere and there’s intrinsically some subjectivity that’s going to come along with that.
Personally I can let byzantines slide with hand cannoneers. I can believe byzantines are just on the cusp where hand cannons make sense, but they were just a bit too early for cannon galleons. I think the bombard cannon is a bit to far. If only bombard cannon was removed from goths I wouldn’t complain too much. I think it makes less sense with the goths than byzantines having dromon and hand cannoneers, despite the crimean goths lasting a smidge longer, but it wouldn’t be a hill I’d die on.
I wouldn’t be opposed to this. The fact that europe feels vanila don’t bother me that much. Almost nothing. What feels wrong is japanese, koreans, malians, an so on more similar to europe [edit: and to each other] than, for example, the caucasus.
My demand for changes are not arbitrary and definetely not “just for the sake of it”. The point of the whole write up is to justify this demand for changes on the basis of keeping and improving upon “the consistency” I wrote about.
The huns’ house bonus is just a civ-specific bonus as any other. The game has never set itself the logic of steppe nomadic civs having some mechanic related to nomadism, and so, the absence of yurts or smth like that is not an inconsistency to the game’s logic.
It would be different if, for example, all steppe civs except cumans had yurts. Then that would be inconsistent.
But this is not the case. Cilician armenians (which to me is not what the armenians civs exclusively represent) is not sufficiently ancient. What about berbers and franks? They existed in the mediterranean by the early middle ages. I can’t find any logic convicing enough.
Britons, Celts, Vikings and (controversially) goths.
I might be misunderstanding you, but that’s not quite what I’m saying. I mean, yes, we should stop creating more exceptions, but I’m not advocating for making civs without “new breakthruogh mechanics” more prevalent. I’m rather saying, since we’ve make some of these “exceptions” common and grouped by regions (and it does not seem this design direction is going to change in the future), let’s enter a new paradigm of not one
but rather, a set of rules based on historical regions civilizations belonging to that region would follow, and, within each of those rules, specific civs can be more or less unique to each other.
Didn’t know, I did almost the exact same for my campaigns set in late antiquity. Heavy knights (same look as knights) for cavaliers and elite heavy knights for paladins or palatinum for Romans (with the imperial centurion look).
Definitely Goths shouldn’t have gunpowder, what is left of goths after the 9th century is virtually meaningless, even in Crimea. Yeah some dude spoke gothic until the 18th century there it seems but the Theodore’s principality was more of a byzantine thing.
Yes but it doesn’t have to be for the sake of consistency only. It must have a bit of a grip on reality otherwise we commit the same mistake of logical positivism and platonic idealism one again where logic > reality.
For example, I can tell you a lie and be consistent with it in my internal logical framework but it’s still a lie nonetheless if you put it against reality.
Let’s start with the small and simple changes, i.e. the European civilisations that have such a weak version that it would have no impact on the balance if it were removed.
For those who are curious, the best Cavarly Archer of the civilisations listed above are those of the Portuguese. They have the same statistics as the Italians but cost less.
In practice, the case of the CA of the Spanish and Goths is more problematic, since they are useful units in certain situations.
I think you’re overstating how significantly these things deviated from what had come before – and I’m going to guess that therefore maybe you didn’t play AoE1. Tech tree holes in AoE1 tended to be bigger than those in AoK, often including whole unit lines and sometimes including buildings. For example, Persians couldn’t build academies (and therefore the hoplite line), Macedonians couldn’t build temples (and therefore priests), Egyptians and Sumerians couldn’t train cavalry (equivalent of the knight line), Greeks couldn’t train any Bronze or Iron Age archers, many civs lacked the ballista line and some barely got any siege weapons at all.
In contrast, AoK civs’ tech trees weren’t that different – but greater differences came from having more bonuses than AoE1 civs, and having unique units. Thus I think to someone who’d played AoE1 (though really I can only speak for myself), none of your examples seemed like a break from the established design logic at the time. The addition of Eagle Warriors was the most unusual thing, but having a unit shared by two new civs isn’t a big step from unique units, and it definitely felt like a natural choice at the time.
(As for Huns, the weirdest thing about their tech tree is not that they don’t build houses, but that they do build universities.)
I think, for me, this is the point where the consistency actually broke – or maybe even a bit earlier with Elephant Archers. Having four civs with Battle Elephants, one civ with War Elephants, and one with Elephant Archers feels quite inconsistent. In all cases, what is being represented is that these civs used war elephants, but War Elephants were a unique unit so Battle Elephants were the work around.
I agree with this, though, although I wouldn’t necessarily have picked the same examples as you. For example, to me, early access upgrades/units feel like they fit in with logic of the existing civs, as do unusual tech tree holes (as I previously mentioned). I also don’t have a problem with regional units that weren’t historically limited to that region, in the same way that I don’t have a problem with, say, only Franks getting Throwing Axemen.
I actually read it more as “New good, old bad”, particularly the line “some regions are too standard compared to others”. It sounds like you want the new mechanics to be implemented throughout the old civs. Which personally I don’t agree with – to explain why, it’s probably best to comment on this:
To me, Madrasa and Stronghold feel like cases of “we don’t know what to do, so let’s stick an aura effect in, we haven’t done many of those yet”. I don’t see how these auras improve either civ – they just serve to emphasise that the tech now has a shiny new effect.
As for the Savar, I like the idea but not the implementation, since the high/late medieval European-looking Knight/Cavalier now upgrade into the early medieval Persian-looking Savar.
Anyway, overall, I can totally see where you’re coming from and understand your opinion. But on the other hand, it feels like you’re complaining that a 25-year-old game that has been added to over the years feels like a 25-year-old game that has been added to over the years.
While the first two along with appropriate balance adjustments to those civs could be a welcoming change, the third change is terrible. CA are a very important generic unit. American civs that lack these units are given a stack of other bonuses to compensate for them but still extremely tricky to balance. And the Indian civs which don’t have these units are already extremely weak. Wouldn’t recommend any other civ losing CA as it would become very difficult to balance them.
As far as battle elephant change goes, its ok to do that for the rest of them but not Burmese.
Lastly I want to add that priority should be given to civ balance and usability more than historical accuracy. Asymmetric civs are extremely difficult to balance and compensatory units or bonuses are always observed as broken because they’re unconventional.
It depends on which CA we are talking about. I believe that by using a cautious approach, something can still be done. Let’s start directly with the extremely poor ones:
Burgundians (No Heavy Cav Archer / Thumb Ring / Parthian Tactis / Bloodline / Ring Archer Amor).
Sicilians (No Heavy Cav Archer / Thumb Ring / Parthian Tactis / Ring Archer Amor).
Teutons (No Heavy Cav Archer / Thumb Ring / Parthian Tactis / Bracer / Husbandry) .
Vikings (No Heavy Cav Archer / Thumb Ring / Parthian Tactis / Bloodline / Husbandry) .
Then we will see if and how to remove others. In practice, it is like making them equal to the Bohemians.
Firstly, the difference between some elephant units are no different to what is already represented in the game.
Archers separate from militia? Plenty of archers were well armed for close combat. The game didn’t have the ability for switching, so there’s good reason to why they are separated out. Also…
It’s accurate.
There’s no evidence that South East Asian armies used mounted archers on elephants. Instead preferring polearms and javelins.
Not to mention the elephants found in South-East Asia are also smaller than Indian Elephants. The thicker jungles make being smaller more necessary for them.
Then there’s the War Elephant, which while it is depicted as the wrong species and lacks the howdah…a Persian War Elephant would have been tougher than even the same kind of elephant in India. As India didn’t actually use howdahs on elephants until the Mughals. All elephant riders simply sat on the back, unprotected (save for the height).
I agree with a lot of your other points. But I don’t see the elephant distinctions as a problem.
These civs still have the option to play CA in castle age before they switch. Like Sicilians can do CA with bloodlines that also take -2 damage from skirms. Can be very useful in certain matchups. And your suggestion is to remove it from a lot of civs which will deprive them of a very important option in castle age. Civs that get this unit will be way stronger than the ones that don’t. You’d have to come up with 25+ different strong bonuses and alternatives for each of that civ. Breaking that symmetry can be extremely dangerous to the game. And its not even a question of whether it can be done, its completely unnecessary to force such a change just for historical accuracy purpose. We already have a terrible civ like Dravidians as a consequence of such motives.
I think a good way to make Europe more unique is to make Cavalier/Paladin unique to Europe. Give everyone else something that’s more expensive than Cavalier and less powerful than Paladin instead, balanced so that it’s weaker most of the time.
I’d also like to see nations like Spain get pikes with +1 range, as a ‘regional’ upgrade to the spear line.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear enough. Cavalier feel like they belong Paladin-light. I think it’d do a lot for the uniqueness of Europe if non-Europe nations got (for example) an upgrade Heavy Knight that costs 600 food 600 gold to get 130 hp and 13 attack, instead of getting Cavelier in their tech tree.
I think Hera used CA with Sicilians yesterday in his stream. You can check his VOD for 16th September 2024. There was also a game from the famous redbull 5 set between Hera and Mbl where Mbl won with Franks CA. Sometimes you might laugh at certain units but having such units as an option has an impact on the game and how opponents play. Every unit is not meant to be the main army and scale well till post imp. And units that lack several upgrades for a civ shouldn’t be completely removed.
Anyways your suggestion is not restricted to these 4 civs. More than a dozen civs have heavy CA with bracer. Removing it will be extremely harmful even the way you see it, only as a main army in imperial age.
That would be the idealistic and a bit of naive goal, but it is an impractical path, which is why I said to start with only four civilisations. And specifically those are the four civilisations with the weakest CA in the game.
Anyways, I am sorry but I cannot find the match you are talking about. I checked Hera’s matches with the Sicilians:
Against repard’s Mongol: Donjon & Serjeant rush, 0 CA
Against DOOMSTER’s Georgians: Donjon & Serjeant rush, 0 CA
Against Lucho’s Vikings: no save file
Against TheMbl’s Japanese: no save file
Against MrYo’s Turks: Donjon & Serjeant rush, 0 CA
First of all the elephants found in SE Asia and India belong to the same species (Asiatic elephants) and are roughly the same size.
Secondly there’re depictions in Angkor Wat of Cham and Khmer soldiers using crossbows on the back of elephants. And there’s also a Tang record about Lam Ap or Champa which mentioned that the Champa soldiers wore rattan armors used bamboo bows and rode on elephants.
Of course I agree with you that they likely used polearms and javelins more often, however it’s not the case that they never used mounted archers or crossbowmen on elephants.
Not quite. The ones found in South East Asia are a different sub-species than the ones found in India, and are a little smaller. It’s not a massive difference, but they are consistently smaller.
The African Forest Elephants though are much smaller than any Asian Elephants though. Tiny little things.
Oh I’m aware of the crossbows on the back. I’m more pointing out that the kind of style of fighting seen on the Elephant Archer model isn’t common outside of India and Persia.
Both are Asiatic elephants and are the same species. SE Asian elephants aren’t considerably smaller than the Indian ones.
I get what you mean, but it’s wrong to say that medieval SE Asia never had elephant-mounted archers or crossbowmen. And don’t forget that medieval SE Asia had a lot of cultural exchanges with India.
I know, that’s what I said. The ones from parts of South East Asia though tend to be a little smaller. I’ve done studies on Asian Elephants for university, there are size differences across populations.
Sure, which is why I have pushed for Burmese to get the Elephant Archer, to bridge that gap.