After a few months, again my list of balance changes still needed:

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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My personal balance changes still needed:

Note: not all changes suggested have to too rigid, some are just random/broad suggestions to address a problem of a certain civ. In particular, the changes regarding the new civs shouldn’t be taken too seriously, since are most likely subjective to change.

Bohemians:

  • Lose the arbalest upgrade (to balance their early HC, but especially to incentives their use).

Burgundians:

  • Lose access to Squires (small but important nerf to their FM, so that it’ll be a bit slower and less overwhelming).

Burmese:

  • Receive the second archer armor.

Byzantines:

  • Get access to Partian Tactics

Celts:

  • Stronghold UT now affect TCs too.

Chinese:

  • CKN cost 5 gold more (from 35 to 40g).

Franks:

  • Cavalry get +10/20% HP in feudal/castle-imp (from 20% more since feudal).
    So frank scouts in feudal age will have just +4/5HP instead of +9HP.

Goths:

  • New Bonus: All TC techs are researched instantly (not free).

Incas:

  • Kamayuks get +2 bonus damage vs eagles.
  • TB changed in farms built 50% faster and all food, wood, gold and stone eco techs are researched 50% faster (no TC techs).
    They would also need something to compensate the loss of their armor led vills in feudal age.

Indians:

  • Elephant Archers get +1 attack and Elite Elephant Archers get +1 range.

Italians:

  • Get access to Siege Engineers (affected by the 33% uni discount).
    Onestly, after all the strong BBC presents in the game now (like the portos, turks, burgundians and bohemians BBCs) this is a needed change if we want to have a decent Italian gunpowder.
  • Lose onager upgrade.
  • Condos get a +2 bonus damage vs eagles and a +1 against spears line.
  • Maybe a small additional bonus of free infantry armor (no BS required) to help them a bit on the new arabia map.

Magyars:

  • New bonus: Animals (both hunt and herdables) don’t rot.

Malians:

  • 30% longer lasting gold mines reverted back to free first gold mining upgrade (I get it that it overlap a bit with a bonus of the 2 new civs, but still this is a waste of perfectly good bonus on a perfectly already balanced civ).

Mongols:

  • Nomads UT unlock the 200 pop (huns style).

Poles:

  • Obuch costs +5 gold.

Portuguese:

  • Get access to Squires.

Saracens:

  • Mamelukes cost 10 gold less (from 85 to 75).

Sicilians:

  • Get access to Redemption and Atonement (or Block Printing).
  • TB changed into transport ships have +6 LoS and +3 anti-ship armor.
  • Hauberk UT gives just +1MA (not +2PA too, since at that point it was less strong and more balanced to just give them the paladin upgrade) OR it’s switched back again with the scrutage UT.

Slavs:

  • Orthodoxy UT gives +6/6

Spanish:

  • In the blacksmith gold bonus, are included blood and supplies.
  • Sanctity and fervor upgrades are free upon hitting castle age.

Vietnamese:

  • Paper money UT gives a 1:1 trade, so it costs 300w and 500f and gives back 800g (300 gold more).
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this is a bunch of changes that really didn’t get thought through a lot. Some, like Burgundians losing Squires of Bohemians losing Arbalest when they are already very garbage in Castle Age with the proposal to go for handcannons which it turns out even in Castle Age is a subpar unit, show a real detachment from how the game works and is actually played.

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It’s a very small tweak to further reduce the power of flemish revolution. Not all changes need to be big, but slowing down the mass of flemish pikes can help giving a bit more time to the enemy to react.

The civ is already designed that way, to go for HC in castle age. And the arbs is an imp upgrade, so it doesn’t affect too much in castle age.

As for the xbow upgrade, I wrote “maybe” because I’m not sure myself.

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Just make the HW slower. And lose the trash monks. HC in Castle is strong, but they also take a long time to create. E skirm should still do OK.

That is kind of a big nerf though. When you do an FR you want an overwhelming force reach the enemy asap. I dont think FR is OP, some people just dont like it for other reasons, but not balance reasons. (e.g. just simply dont like the mechanic, or dont like to play against it)

The civ will still have an awkward transition out of xbow into other units, and it isn’t even a strong and consistent civ like the Aztecs. I feel like one of their bonuses needs to be converted to bonus dmg vs Archer/CA for light cav.

Ok, sounds reasonably good.

Yes.

The civ would still be garbage. A civ that had all its bonuses geared towards heavy feudal aggro had its heart ripped out. None of these changes would help with it.

Maybe not needed even. HC were kind of trash, but after the buff they might actually be quite an OK unit.

This is a really insignificant bonus, imho not worth to bother. Real problem with this civ now is that the Magyar Huszar is a really really underwhelming unit compared to Poles/Lith Winged Hussar. Units have similar stats, but Magyars need a Castle to make them…

Imho the new bonus is very nice. Malians have a pretty bad late game due to lack of strong options. This can kind of turn that into a zerg rush of gold units to wear the enemy down.

Hard disagree with all of that. New TB is really good fun for water maps, landings are now a very attractive strategy with Sicilians/teams including Sicilians. So it means we have one new viable water civ, which is neat. The extra LOS would be kind of garbage compared to the current TB.

Reddit did the math on Hauberk, it’s very strong against Camels, but it’s not OP. In effect you get something slightly worse than a Paladin, but at a cheaper cost.

First Crusade would be pretty useless if they were tied to donjons. When was the last time you had 5 donjons ready in Castle Age?

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Do not destroy its archer line since the hand cannoneer is not such useful most of the time.

Its skirmisher actually needs 2nd archer armor to help it struggle, nerfing the arambai’s armor a little for balance maybe.
In the other hand, the attack bonus for infantry may be only for gold units, or keep it benefit the pikemen but remove the halberdier. This may be feasible for balance since Burmese halberdier is too powerful for me.

Worth trying. But I think that is still hard to make it more possible to be researched.

Agree but it should cost more gold for this effect.

No help to its problem. UTs which only for the monks is useless on most occasions.

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Mmm maybe the speed bonus could be transformed into a lower TT bonus…

Anyway if the idea was to incentive the use of HC by allowing to train them into castle age, giving them arbs goes into the exactly opposite way.

Yeah but a lot of people complain about how unstoppable FR is. This way, at least you give the adversary a bit more time to react. You will still have a incredible strong army, backed by strong BBC.

This is more for their skirms, but also xbows. To be more flexible at least in the castle age. Also, after the change to the arambai, they could use a bit more PA.

No doubt on that. But those 2 are still necessary.

The first is to fix a thing that was forgotten, the second is because they have the worst TB.

For their main problem though, I don’t have ideas…

It doesn’t have to be good or consistent. It’s a small help to a solid civ that lack a eco bonus.

This is a bit more food in the dark age, and an easier time if you don’t always have the right number of vills on an animal. Also, you could easily hunt deers.

As for the magyars hussars, they are fine. It’s a solid unit and works in perfect synchrony with the magyars CA.

Their late game wasn’t bad, just unconventional. You need a castle to a good transition in imp, or to switch into rare units like champs.

The new bonus isn’t bad, just not necessarily. Their strong early game compensate for their late game, which again wasn’t that bad.

A landing civ isn’t a water civ. And the new TB is kind of broken, it makes a landing too easy, exactly like the old bonus. It takes no skills. Then it was because you can’t oppose the landing with water units, now because you can make in zero time, whenever you decide to, without the need to planning ahead.

A TS with +6 LoS would have more LoS than a galley. You can see enemy ships before they see you, you can better explore the coastline in search of landings or weak spots. It a powerful bonus, but more importantly a bonus that requires you to actually think on how to use it, that it requires some action and focus from the player.

It otherwise they could add the +5 transport capacity, an half cost, an half TT, but not like this, free and immediate.

Yeah but at the same time you almost beat most camels, you have double the conversion resistance, more resistance against archers and take half of the bonus damage from every units. And you have a decent eco bonus with a cheaper tech then paladin.

I thought of TCs at first, but then you may want those free for vill production.

The xbow can stay, to easier the transition from feudal, but the arb is too much in my opinion.

Otherwise it doesn’t make sense to give them HC into castle age with a lot of bonuses. Right now, I prefer using the xbow line, with a cheaper uni and early chemistry.

I would give the armor first, and then see. The arambai isn’t the same powerhouse as before.

It would make it a bit more worth in the late game against raids.

I know, but at least on arena or fortress kind of maps would be a bit more worthwhile to research. Another option is to increase the standard armor.

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It is the problem of the hand cannoneer, not the archer line. Nerfing the archer line is definitely helpless.
What you have to try is buffing the strategy of using the hand cannoneer if you want to encourage players to use the hand cannoneer.
A is good and B is bad, you destroy A without buffing B, then people would use neither A nor B.

Still only for monks, still useless, to be honest.
Maybe make the units resist converse +XX%, that has more value of strategies than just make monks tougher, especially Slavs has no Faith.

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The unit itself might be fine, but it is definitely not a good unit in light of the easy to spam stable unit: the winged hussar, which have very similar stats to it.

Just being able to land units is one thing. You still need to actually make sure your landing isn’t spotted too early, still need to actually make sure your forward vills dont get killed, your forward buildings actually go up, and then you still actually need to be able to apply enough pressure and do enough damage for the whole thing to be worth it. So I’d say, you still need skills, it’s just that you can get there a little bit earlier thanks to saving 125 wood and some training time. I mean your LoS bonus idea is roughly on par with the Inca TB on usefulness.

So it’s gonna be pretty strong, a bit like Burg Paladin, but nothing that is outright unbeatable. In TG it’s objectively worse than Paladin for the most part, and in 1v1 they still do not want to trade directly against halbs. Only civs that might struggle are those who don’t get Halbs… but there are worse matchups in the game than this.

So better leave it as it is. I think it’s a good tech for organizing a quick defense against an opportunistic sneak raid.

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I agree with you, the HC could use some more buffs, like I said, a TT bonus could help.

Still, the nerf on the xbow line is necessary to incentives the use of the HC, along with a buff on the HC, but I’m not sure though on how exactly buff it, that’s why I waited to post any ideas on that.

A bit less thought… and a conversion resistance isn’t that original…

But the WH doesn’t have a bonus damage vs siege, and isn’t backed by magyars CA.

In the dark feudal age, when everything is super tight, saving both the wood and the TT is strong. You can go for a landing when other players have to choose between a landing, adding more fishing, or more galleys. Sicilians have only to choose between the latter 2.

Make them 50% cheaper and trained in half the time, it would be already better.

It would help exactly for the things you listed above, like making sure you landing isn’t spotted, or scouting weak points. Most TB aren’t that strong.

Nothing is completely unbeatable, but sicilians cavaliers are near to it.

FU cavaliers with more melee and pierce armor than a paladin. Takes less bonus damage, like a cataprhact, and it’s resistant to conversion too.

If they would lack a blacksmith tech, or a stable tech it could be fine, but I can’t stand seeing people that say that the new WH is strong when you have such cavaliers.

It’s almost never used for that.

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Producing a sufficient number of Magyar Huszar and getting to FU CA… is unlikely at any point in game.

I like this suggestion more, in case the current TB turns out to be OP

True, but at least a TB should be marginally useful.

Imo WH is fine. HW on the other hand…

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And it would be, it would be the equivalent of the mongols TB for the water maps.

Not necessarily true, but exactly for that reason I suggested a small buff for the magyars.

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Scouts have a bigger utility than fishing ships, so it’s a much worse TB.

Getting a Castle, getting the Huszar UT, getting all the upgrades for CA, and then actually producing those units… that’s a lot of investment… especially on a civ with no eco bonus

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Bohemians re fine with arbalest and the Flemish revolution is the whole problem, it needs to be changes somehow, as well the OP Burgundian eco needs nerf (Eco one age earlier need to go).

It just destroy their identity as civ with bad archers, better make arambia affected by Parthian Tactics and change the Sicilian Hauberk technology so the +1PA is given to Manipuri cavalry to help vs archers.

Fine with those.

Chinese need more nerfs lol, and Chu Ko nu also needs lesser attack in castle age so the elite upgrade is more important,

Goths already have a lot of bonuses, maybe could be good to replace that insta Loom

Poles only need Halbs and the Szalat Privilegies nerfed.

Habuerk needs to be removed and changed to other tech again because is OP as hell, as well the TB changed as is toxic for Islands.

Still largely useless, needs much bigger and importnat effect to make it worth.

This is OP, OP as hell, and don’t help Spanish at their weaknesses in early game.

Paper money just needs an effect that’s permanent for the player in 1v1.

Where are the nerfs to Franks (cmon Chivalry has to go), Mayans (Archer and longer lasting reosurces nerfed, El Dorado more expensive), Vikings, especially on water maps, and even Britons (Move one range to Yeomen so it gives +2 range). Also the Burmese Howdah tech is OP and needs to be reverted.
As a side note, Portuguese Feitoria needs rework and revision, and Koreans needs a true eco bonus and War Wagon in castle age nerfed somehow because of that double castle ww.

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Hauberk by itself isn’t bad. But when you throw in first crusade conversion resistance and 50% bonus damage resistance…

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I didn’t listed changes where I didn’t have solid suggestions on how resolve it, like I already stated with the incas case before.

But personally, chivalry has already been nerfed, and I don’t want even start talking about mayans El Dorado onestly…

It does improve their castle age.

I personally didn’t see the problem with scutage, but nerfing the new UT it would be better than nothing…

Another solution could be to remove their last cav armor, or the attack upgrade.

Yeah sorry, I didn’t write it but I meant it.

The armor was more for their skirms and xbows in castle age.

But a bit less than before.

Having a better trade in gold is useful for 1v1.

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No arbalester, no thumb ring.
Even if Burmese get the 2nd archer armor, it is still a civ with bad archers.

The low accuracy of the arambai still let it be countered by archers easily, so the skirmisher must be useful at least in the castle age, or the player would be hard to struggle while facing the good archer civs, then dying before hitting the imperial age.

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In my opinion, how good or bad Habuerk is needs more time to be proved.
Some useless things still exist there, I think those are really worth discussing than the new thing.

Madrasah, Missionary, Inquisition, Orthodoxy, Cuman Mercenaries, Flaming Camel, etc.
Having any idea about these?

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From a seemingly cost effective stand point they seem to do well enough vs Teutonic Knights barred heals from garrison or monks / from a consistent heal hit’n run they seem to be at a disadvantage/ depends tho

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And still Franks a top tier pick for team games… isn’t even funny

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what’ In castle age they are fine vs archers, skirms without armor still work, Knights, Mangonels… they aren’t fucked up here.
In Imperial is another story, massed arbalests just wreck them.