There is a lot of discussion about adding more civs to represent various peoples in SP missions by civs correctly. But there is also an issue balancing new civs for ranked MP. So, how about this for a solution.
As you probably know, Warcraft 3 Frozen throne has you fight nagas in the campaign. Nagas are a fully functional faction, with peasants, resource gathering and a full (albeit much smaller) unit and building roster. They aren’t included in MP and not balanced accordingly, but work perfectly well as a mission enemy ‘player”.
So, how about something like this for AOE2 DE? A “civ” with limited roster of unique-looking units and buildings to fight against in missions? Something like the “natives” in Vinlandsaga, but much more fully fleshed out. This would (somewhat) satisfy those, who want their favourite people to be represented, but also wouldn’t create any issues with MP balance and readability.
(Yes, I know it will never be done, but wouldn’t it be nice though?)
They tried adding Romans as sort of a mini-civ, but player base forced them to make it available in ranked. I think it is inevitable that if a mini civ gets popular, the player base will again demand it to get added to ranked.
It could be something really small, like some “native civ”, that only has “native town center”, “native mill”, “native resourse drop off point” and “native barracks’“ for building, with “native worker”, “native warrior” and “native shooter” for units. Or something along those line. A fully functioning, albeit small, AI opponent.
Could be a Crusader state, that functions like, say Teutons, but has a different architecture set and builds Crusader Knights and “Crusader longswordmen” instead of regular ones.
Could be, like “Viking raiders”, that only build longboats, transports, Norse Warriors, “Norse archers” and whatnot.
Isnt this already a thing with editor units and triggers?The teutonic order in the dotd dlc campaigns produce crusader knights and not regular knights.
I want a break from yet even more civs. There is a lot that could be added and improved, graphically, that would benefit all games, therefore all civs… rather than just the 1 in 50 chance in seeing a new civs units and architecture. You love the 2D flat boring water and don’t care to see it improved? That’s just one of a billion things that could be improved
Why are we stuck on just making more and more civs for so long? 45 or 50 civs isn’t enough yet to get a pause from that to work on other cool things that could be done to the game, graphically, to benefit everyone at once?
Campaigns and Ranked get all the love. Skirmish random map players get the leftovers… and with so many civs to choose from already (for the past 10 years) and graphical coolness in environments that gets added predominantly for campaigns, the leftovers get a little repetitive and mundane.
It’s a nice idea, but the way you describe it, it sounds like it would have very limited use. If a mini-civ has entirely unique-looking units and buildings, it would probably only work to represent one specific culture and so wouldn’t be much use to people making custom campaigns unless they wanted to represent that culture specifically.
Maybe it would be possible to do something similar but more versatile, e.g. something like an official version the Krakenmeister civ builder, but designed to allow custom bonuses and unique units?
Funnily enough, I thought it was a bit disappointing that Naga weren’t available in multiplayer, and I still think it was a missed opportunity. They also added Blood Elves as a campaign-only faction – they probably made more sense that way due to the overlap with Humans.
Overall though, Warcraft III had great customisation tools in the world editor – it would be good if AoE2 could get something like that, rather than the clunky trigger-based system it has currently.
One idea I have is you pick a standard civi but you dont have access to any of the military units but have one special building with all these custom units to supplement the military. Similar to how you could play the arabs in crusader stronghold campaign.You get the mercenary units and mercenary post as your military.
Id assume having knight xbow scout spearman would be enough.Siege units will obviously have to stay.
One solution would be civs reskins : change the name, icon, architecture… but have the civ remain the same. That’s how you could have the Kingdom of Jerusalem (reskinned Franks) or Teutonic Order (Teutons), without any need of having them in multiplayer as they play the exact same.
In fact you could put them in MP without any effect as they are identical to their parent civ.
Depending on the reskin : the Kingdom of Jerusalem would get middle eastern architecture (but with a new church), the Teutonic Order would get east european architecture and notably the current slavic castle (Malbork Castle), who’d get a new one…
Here’s another idea. In Galactic Battlegrounds Expanding Fronts mod, there is an editor only building - Militia barracks. It can produce regular, sand, snow etc. militiamen. And you presumable enable the one you want in the editor, based on the mission terrain.
So, we could have something like “native barracks” that produces different “native warrios” (like the Iroquois Warrior already in the game) and we just pick warriors from whatever tribe we want in the game.
Well, yes… But I thinking more like barracks replacement for AI players. Like in Vinland saga, where those natives have a regular barracks, that will produce Militia if you let them. So, make it a “native barracks”, that produces more of those Iroquois Warriors instead (and rename them Mi’kmaq too).
So basically Chronicles but with a Medieval Setting?
New Civs that are available in Skirmisher but not in Ranked. Also civs that can share bonuses with existing civilisations.
If they are just supposed to be enemies then it would be pointless to make an actual civ because existing civs can be changed with triggers. Even the appearance of buildings can be changed individually.
Chronicles Alexander the Great did heavily make use of that. The DLC “only” included 3 new civilisations but you fight against a variety of enemies that train a lot of different units, a lot of them being campaign/editor exclusive units or UUs from other civs.
Chronicles Alexander the Great did heavily make use of that. The DLC “only” included 3 new civilisations but you fight against a variety of enemies that train a lot of different units, a lot of them being campaign/editor exclusive units or UUs from other civs.
Oh, really? Now that I have to see. I am short on cast at the moment, but seems like I am getting Alexander asap.
Think this is a good idea. Because we have some civs which are very strictly limited to super ancient times. Like Goths but often larped with Medieval civs. Saracens is basically a fictional civ by design. This could be a way to address it.
Chronicles did it for AI civs. Scythians exist but sad we cant play it. Archaemanids often making Sparabara and other units.
Maybe these SP civis can be similar to policy decisions in Chivalry.In the dark age or some other fitting age you research a tech and the original civi becomes a variation civi with new bonuses uus and other asetts.This only works in SP and can be disabled for scenarios.
Eg base civi is teutons but you can select and become the TO.you dont have knights but crusader knights become the replacemnet.
This would have worked fine with 3k factions if they were something you can select from the main chinese civi in the dark age.
