With the Champi Warrior replacing the Militia line, I started wondering whether future American civilizations could receive similar treatment in order to avoid steel weapons.
For example, I’m fairly sure that in a future Mesoamerican DLC, the Eagle Warrior line could also replace the Militia line for the Aztecs, Maya, and other potential new civs (such as the Chontales, K’iches, Zapotecs, or Tlaxcaltecs) or having their own Champi-like line armed with macuahuitl.
However, since the archer line also includes crossbows, I was thinking that this line could be split into two separate branches:
Archer (Feudal) → Heavy Archer (Castle) → Imperial Archer (Imperial)
Crossbowman (Castle) → Arbalester (Imperial)
This way, certain civilizations could have an archer-only line instead of the traditional archer → crossbow progression, each with its own strengths and weaknesses, and with better historical accuracy.
I know this might sound a bit crazy, but in my opinion it’s better to introduce new generic unit lines rather than adding a large number of regional units. In the end, balance will decide.
Edit 1: typos
Edit 2: Also I think the Slinger could eventually be turned into a more generic unit line and shared by other civilizations such as the Romans, Celts, Aztecs, Ethiopians, or Saracens. For now, however, it fits especially well with South American civilizations.
Current units can be reskinned and renamed into an Archer-line without crossbows, this is fine.
The real question is: what would be the role of the Crossbowman?
And are you proposing the addition of a new unit-line (with crossbows) for almost every civ in the game?
You see, changing some graphics so that they fit better each civ is a cosmetic change. In the worst case scenario it would have to be optional to not impact gameplay, but in the best case it would improve visual distinction between civs/regions. Imagine being able to instantly know, in a team game, which Paladin is from Franks, Spanish or Teutons, or which Halberdier is from Slavs or Dravidians for example. Feels good, right?
In the other hand, it’s too big of a change to add a new unit-line to so many civs.
The best I could take from your suggestions (if I were a developer for AoE2) would be:
Every region (architecture-set) would have specific graphics for every unit-line, and the weapons could vary more than just a reskin (heavy bow instead of bow, for example).
To accommodate this, give the option to the player to have regional names for each unit:
A: show only generic name. Ex: Archer, Crossbowman, Arbalester
B: show only region-specific name. Ex: Bowman, Heavy Bowman, Imperial Bowman. (You could go even further and go the 0 A.D. route of using the name in the respective language of the civ.)
C: show both names: Bowman (Archer), Heavy Bowman (Crossbowman), Imperial Bowman (Arbalester).
Given the power of crossbows, the crossbowman line could be designed as an anti-armored ranged unit. In this sense, crossbowmen would act as a more expensive alternative to archers, but with the ability to counter units that benefit heavily from blacksmith armor upgrades.
Of course, not all civilizations would have access to both lines. Balance would be key, with each civilization receiving partial or complete access in order to compensate strengths and weaknesses between the two branches.
I would argue that they still can make the concept right. European civs get xbows with more anti-armor aspect while other civs get recurve bows. Chronicles got this one done right.
But I see a balance argument for it to NOT be just a visual change, which is that by making the castle age ranged power units not be upgraded from feudal age units you could balance it to be more in line with knights. Rn it seems that the disadvantage of the cavalry feidal age armies becoming vestigial by castle age is too big
You mean that the contrast beetwen archers bwing directly upgraded into crossbows and knights and cav archers being a new unit you need to transition into is what makes aoe2 interesting? I get that argument, and I would normally fully agree. But a feudal age army of archers and skirms being a powerful force in castle age aftervupgrades while scouts become situational is imo part of thecreason as why the meta is stale rn
Because what Im proposing is that this change could add another transition, to weaken ranged armies. I dont think its a needed change (and not even a good idea, just a hypothetical) but a change is needed and this could be a way to achieve that
I think a better change, that would be cause less upheaval is, would be to simply increase the cost of upgrades for skirms. I don’t think it’s good to introduce completely new generic unit lines in a 25 year old game
While I agree that its a better idea to nerf skirms, Im kinda sick of youe only argument being “the game has always been like this”. The conquerors is the best expansion we ever had BECAUSE it changed the game massively
The way AoC completely revamped so many unit lines saying that its less “disruptive” than making feudal archers not scale into castle age is genuinely silly
Sure, okay, we need a new “classic” data file. However good luck convincing “purists” that HD civs are classic civs
I’m not a purist but do we really need such radical changes? It’s one thing to rework a boring aspect (naval gameplay) and another to meddle with something that’s mostly fun (land battles).
Sort of. In a leaked alpha version of The Age of Kings from July 1998, the archery range foot archer units were as follows:
Archer: Available in Feudal Age. 50 food, 20 wood. 5 attack, 0 armour, 5 range, 45 HP.
Composite bowman: Available in Castle Age. 40 food, 20 gold. 7 attack, 0 armour, 6 range, 55 HP.
Crossbowman: Available in Castle Age. 60 food, 40 gold. 8 attack, 0 armour, 7 range, 50 HP.
Heavy Crossbowman: Upgrade of Crossbowman in Imperial Age. 10 attack, 1 armour, 7 range, 55 HP.
Archers and Composite Bowmen had a faster rate of fire than Crossbowmen and Heavy Crossbowmen – not quite twice as fast, maybe about 1.5 times. The main benefit of the Crossbowmen was their longer range. Even though they have higher attack, I think their higher cost and slower fire rate would make them worse in most situations.
I think it would be possible to tweak the numbers so that crossbows with a slower rate of fire and higher damage were better against high-armoured targets but worse against low-armoured targets – and maybe that was the Ensemble devs’ intention, but it doesn’t seem like they achieved it.
In a later leaked alpha version (February 1999), the Archer → Crossbowman → Arbalest line is present, and the archery range is approximately the same as what we have now.
No, the Ensemble devs tried it out and rejected it, i.e. they made an active decision not to include it in the game. They evidently didn’t want it, and instead preferred to have Crossbowmen as an upgrade for Archers.