Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition - Black Sea Kingdoms (DLC propose)

The DLC I propose would add 3 Black Sea civilizations currently unrepresented in the game. The release of such an add-on could eventually complete the further addition of civs from this region. This expansion would add 3 civs bordering the Black Sea. Additionally, this DLC adds 5 new campaigns and renames the Slavs to Ruthenians.

Civs:


The Romanians

The Romanians are an umbrella civ for the Wallachians, Moldaviand and Transylvanians. Their flag being the shield of Michael the Brave as he was the first ruler to unify the 3 principalities in the Middle Ages, thus being the perfect representation for this umbrella civ.

Unique Units:

Viteji (Castle unit; Light Cavalry) → Literally “Brave Ones” they are soldiers who gained lands and property through bravery in warfare. The viteji are therefore, as expected, among the most resolute and brave warriors a ruler could ask for. Like many elements of Romanian cavalry, the Viteji show influences both from the East and West, and their style of warfare imitates that of Cuman or Tatar armored horse archers.

By their nature they are very versatile cavalry. In battle, the voievod would use these troops to counter the enemy’s cavalry flanks, either by engaging light cavalry in melee or harassing and exhausting heavy cavalry, then providing the decisive charge into the enemy’s flanks.

Portar (unique upgrade to Halberdier) → Literally “Gatekeeper”, the Portars are Moldavian heavily armored pikemen. The Romanian principalities relied mainly on hit and run tactics with cavalry and archer units so the Portar will be a valueable anti-rush unit for defense.

Unique Technologies:

UT1: “Scorched Earth”, gain 25% of the resources used for building when destroying an enemy building.

UT2: “Order of the Dragon” Knight Line Gets: +1 attack, +1 melee armor, 10% cheaper. (Romanians missing the last cavalry armor upgrade, this will make Romanian paladins stronger vs melee units but weaker vs archers)


The Georgians

The Georgians are civilliaziton in the caucas trapped between superpowers. Their flag being the flag of Georgia

Unique Units:

Manaspa (Castle unit; Heavy Cavalry) → Elite cavalry of Georgia with heavy resistance against range units and a bonus for gunpowder units. Weak vs camels and pikemen.

Unique Technologies:

UT1: “Military Reforms” → Stable units have +40 HP

UT2: “Balista Tower” → Castles and towers are affected by balistics and deal increased damage.


The Armenians

The flag of the Armenians would be the flag of the medieval kingdom of Armenia

Unique Units:

Ayruzdi (Castle unit; anti-cavalry and anti-camel cavalry unit) → Strong vs knigts and camels, weak against archers and pikemen.

Unique Technologies:

UT1: “Baptism” → Town Centers and Monasteries slowly heal non-siege units around them.

UT2: “Nakharar” → Increased range for Onagers and Trebuchets.

Campaigns:

Bogdan & Bassarab → Vlach Campaign (3 missions each; in total 6 missions; succesfully revolted against the Kingdom of Hungary and established the Principalities of Wallachia & Moldavia)

Queen Tamar the Great → Georgian Campaign (The Golden Age of Georgia)

Ashot I → Armenian Campaign (Succesfully revolted against the Abbasid Caliphate and established the medieval kingdom of Armenia)

Oleg → Slavic/Ruthenian Campaign (Rurik’s succesor, founder of the Kievan Rus, conquered Kiev)

Harald Hardrada → Viking Campaign (King of Norway, a mercenary who fought many battles in his lifetime, the last mission can be the invasion of England in 1066 when he was defeated by Harold Godwinson who in turn was defeated by William the Conqueror)

8 Likes

Even though I want more civs outside Europe, I do like the ideas from this thread. Just keep them coming civ lovers.

I’d love a DLC like that. Also the post is heavily inspired by MantisAoE, so I think it could work

3 Likes

This belonged to Hungary, not the Romanians.

I want the 2 last ones the most :sweat_smile:

Before passing judgment I would love to see stats and tech trees.

I like the flavor. I also thought of having a “kinda small european nations that resisted great empires (or tried to)” expansion with Vlachs, Serbs and Swiss (namely fighting against the Ottomans and the Habsburgs), considering they are also very frequently suggested, and I believe renaming the Slavs to Rus would fit the fantasy (with them fighting against the Mongols); although I admit my knowledge of whether the actual historical events would back this whole idea or not is largely lacking. Georgians and Armenians would just be added with another expansion focused on the Caucasus.

3 Likes

Need to see unit costs, stats, and tech trees

1 Like

What if change arrows for scorpions’ bolts?

I dont really get their niche. “Versatile light cavalry” is too abstract

Seems good, a bit weird to have it with the civ with the melee focused cav but nothing problematic

It couldbe abit better imo

I would prefer making it the mounted huskarl imo, but still good enough

Eh not sure I like this from the Mantis design

Towers and castles already benefit from it, and the increased damage is just Strongholds

Seems like a fun unit

Not a fan of auras. Maybe a monk bonus would be better

Basically the imperial Tatar and Korean UTs. Replace it with something else (maybe extra damage vs buildinfs for siege?)

We dont need another official Vlch campaign. With campaign for Vikings and Slavs you already fill the campaign quota anyway

I also agree with the others. UTs and UUs dont make a civ, the bonuses are the most important paty

2 Likes

It’s difficult to say much since there’s not much gameplay information here, but a couple of things stand out to me.

Castles and Towers are already affected by ballistics, so this is Arrowslits but for Castles as well. I think I’d rather they had an actual Ballista Tower as a unique building.

If it’s an Imperial Age upgrade, it’s not going to be defending against any rushes. I’m not sure there’s space for an upgrade to Halberdier to be honest. What would it do that Halbs don’t do already?

3 Likes

Viteji were light cavalry decent in melee but also good in range. A unit with good damage both melee and range. Will beat light cavalry like hussars in melee but lose to champions or paladins. In those cases, it’s better to go range with them and use them as cavalry archers. Should also lose to cavalry archers 1vs1 for balance reasons.

Perhaps then “Balista Tower” increase the damage and the rate of fire for Georgian Castles, Town Centers and Towers?

Maybe giving Monks the ability to heal in an area of effect? The Armenians were the first christian nation in the world and a unique bonus related to that would be a big nod to the Armenians.

@TommoChocolate not much, if anything, in practice they would just beat other Halberdiers 1vs1 and be more resistant against other infantry units and archers, although still lose. It’s not meant to be the speciality of the Vlach army.

I could hypothesize a few civ bonuses, but I don’t think I can bring balance since that would require actual testing with them in the game. I wanted to give a general idea of the civs rather than going down into specifics.

Sort of. Transylvania was very different from the rest of Hungary. It had a special status within the Kingdom of Hungary and was home to 4 civilizations: Hungarians, Szekely, Saxons and Romanians. Out of which the Romanians were the most numerous.

Romanian nobility, knights and landowners used to be very numerous, second only to the Hungarians, until 1366 when they lost their rights, the main reason for this was religious as the Romanians were Orthodox. Pope Innocent IV even preached a crusade in the name of the Catholic Church against all the inhabitants of Transylvania in 1356, whom he regarded as heretics for having the Orthodox faith.

And in 1438, after the BobĂąlna revolt, the Romanian loss of status became official with the Union of the Three Nations, the 3 nations being: Hungarians, Saxons and Szekely. Still, the majority of the population was made out of Romanian peasants.

Transylvania had a really unique history, in many ways it was like Swizterland but with a lot more conflict:

Doesnt seem to have that diferent of a niche from Rathas then, and they have to be more diferent to be worth adding imo

I think its still too close to Strongholds. Also, that name doesnt make much sense without the ballista effect.

Eh that may work but its a bit weird and hard to code, what about faster faith recovery?

The general idea of civs if anything is their bonuses since thats wgat they use 99% of the times. The UU and UT are the specifics.

I know that its hard to balance stuff, but comparing your civ designs to the generic civs and see how much resources they both save or which military bonuses thry each have

Plus a tech tree gives a more than good idea of projected army composition.

One civi in eastern europe and two in the causus dont really fit in to one geographical area like the earlier dlcs. West east europe south asia eg.

Fair, but currently we have only 1 unit with this style of play, out of 42 civs.

Fair again, I considered adding actual scorpions’ bolts instead of arrows, but I fear it would make them too OP.

I think faster faith recovery wouldn’t worth the effort, the Monk is already a very niche unit as it is. Perhaps lower monks cost while having strong monks like the Aztecs?

Fair point, as @timecloud5713 pointed out, this post is heavily inspired by MantisAoE and I think the bonuses mentioned in those videos could work very well with my suggestion. As for the Armenians. They could have a faster monks healing rate bonus (in addition to their cheaper monks), a food bonus since their kingdom’s economy was centered on agriculture, +1 line of sight for buildings and villagers build faster. The team bonus could be slightly higher HP for walls and castles.

An infantry version or an elephant version could work, but a light version seems a bit too similar to me (maybe you could even have diferent kinds of infantry units that swap attacks)

We can just remove arrowslits if too strong

I think it would br okay

Although idk whats the ideal way to deal with this

Also, I think you could add the bonuses to the post, although its not a massive deal if they arent there