Ah!, the rus combo of converting all your fishing boats into galleons, a classic!
It’s nice, but hey, I guess it must be annoying in feudal. Technically it is a valid rush, and practically makes the Rus special in marine.
The real problem is that the ship system still needs balancing. At the moment all civs have been made to have almost the same stats on their ships with only differences in certain passive bonuses and unique technology, but it is not enough. The problem with the current system is that just if we want to make fun marine bonuses, like the Rus, other civs can pale because they have no way to counter it if it is too broken.
In Aoe2 they controlled it by making the best Galleon or heavy fireship limited, or certain ranged and armor technologies as well. Here the details are that since you cannot do that, because in AoE IV the ships do not evolve, and there are already civs with unique characteristics (the French have 2 unique marine units and the peculiarity of the Rus) the civs that only have units base, and it does not have this possibility of defending itself in the dark ages, some peculiarity could be enabled, such as:
1.- NEW DARK AGE DEFENSIVE SHIP.- A weak defense ship at first age, which does not improve but serves as protection (Let’s say, a coastal ship, which cannot go far from the dock but serves as protection for your fishing boats and dock).
2.- REGIONAL SHIPS BALANCED BY PRICE.- Do as in Age III when regional ships were established, distribute the stats of the ship types so that they match their cost and construction limit, in this case it would be population. To do this you should then consider making secondary subtypes of Arrow ships or Springald ships (A base version for civs are common bonuses, and a weaker or stronger version for others). This will be necessary if the developers want to later add the Incas and Aztecs; I don’t think they’ll get a springald boat, maybe a canoe with slingers and javaliners, and their arrow boat will probably only take up 1 town and shoot fewer arrows.
3.- BALANCE NAVAL MECHANICS IN FEUDAL.- Reorganize some mechanics or include a 2nd marine balance technology to avoid unwanted effects, such as:
– “the fishing boats of the Delhi Sultanate have been able to attack since the Feudal Age”, or
– “Lodya boats can become fishing boats if you develop the technology (military Lodya fishing boats)”, which would delay by 1 or 2 minutes the response the other player can make to prepare for the Russian marine rush.
); but seriously on hybrid maps where enemy docks can be close delhi/mongol and Rus are strong!