A true "vanilla" euro civ

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
1

We all know the European civ are as basic as can get in AOE3. A base mechanic that is sometimes tied in to a building or unit. All based around the same basic unit roster with some replaced or removed and some specal units sprinkled in. The cards give some more flavour but most tie in with the overal theme of the faction.

It got me thinking, how would a true bog-standard European faction look and play?
Imagine the following civ just for fun:

“Europeans”

Basic Home city capable of representing any European nation.
Generic European general as AI leader head, if needed at all.
No special features.
No special units or buildings.
The full European unit roster, all basic units available.
Only the most basic of revolutions available: United States.

Politicians:

Age II
Governor, Inventor, Naturalist, Quartermaster, Philosopher Prince.
Age III
Bishop, Exiled Prince, Admiral, Marksman, Scout.
Age IV
Engineer, Papal Guard, Tycoon, Logistician, King’s Musketeer.
Age V
Inventor, General, Mercenary Contractor, Knight, El Presidente.
“Age II and V have only 5 basic politicians available so that was easy. III and IV have some more options mostly in unit shipment politicians. I picked the ones that where available to most civ or didnt ship unique units so much. Guess there are still some design choices to be made even with a basic civ.”

All commonly shared European cards available: Crates, settlers, units, trickles, factories etc.
A new set of cards for unit upgrades, for each specific unit a +15% attack, +15% health and a +15%/+15% card. (Or a complete lack of these cards as they would be totally new cards)
No Church card (naturally).
A basic “improved explorer” card +50%/+50% with no further effect. (or no explorer cards at all)
No cards with special effects that give other civs their uniqueness.
No native cards, but many mercenary cards.
“Basically only cards that would be available in multiple civs as filler or base cards.”

When levelling up you could unlock cosmetics to change the explorer to the appearance of any European civ. Perhaps unlock new flags to represent a basic army of any European nation like basic French or Spanish. Perhaps even “minor” nations not ingame. It could start out as Swiss to be neutral (haha).

How would such a civ play realistically? Would it be viable even? It does have some good standard shipments available and many options therein. But it might lack in the early and especially the lategame. At least it would be usefull to modders as a base to work from I guess :>

2

It’s basically what they did when they made a generic China or India civ. Hell, most of the non-European civs they make are literally this - a horribly generic civ that references a bunch of unrelated things that happened to happen within a geographic location.

3 Likes
3

It would do quite well actually, having access to two factories, up to 3 forts, all 3 resources trickles, all main eco upgrades, +15% HP/Attack bonus for all unit types would be very solid. With access to all generic units, your army wouldn’t really have a particular weakness to be exploited.

4

eh, not sure i follow how China is particularly generic.

1 Like
5

its hard to say, but i doubt they be as strong as France or Spain who have all standard units+ some add ons like Lancers and Gendarme, not to mention missionaries or the huge amount of upgrades france has.

other European Civs basically are only good because they give something those 2 factions dont give, like good musk or good eco etc. a faction that doesn’t provide anything unique would likely always just be seen as a worse france because france can do what they can + more.

1 Like
6

The euro civs are just the victim of outdated civ design. If the devs wanted to they could make them just as unique as the non euro civs. As with Sweden if we do get any more Euro civs I don’t expect them to stray too much from the others.

I think they’re pretty fun but they do lack flare nowadays.