Balance Changes to consider for when the DLC goes live

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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since we invariably will get some balance changes when the new DLC goes live.

Bolded words break changes up into Categories
Italicized words are my thoughts on why the change is needed.

General Unit/Tech Changes
Supplies - Cost reduced to 100 food and 75 gold
Longsword - Upgrade Cost reduced to 150 food and 50 gold. Increase Speed to 0.95. upgrade researches 5 seconds faster
THS/Champion - Movement Speed Increased to 1.0. upgrades are 15 seconds faster each.
Also considering adding a new armor type of scouts, spears, and skirms, all of which would take bonus damage from LS/THS/Champion only (Militia and M@A unchanged), though right now its something i would like feedback on.
These changes are all oriented at making the Militia line more efficient and cheaper at forcing engagements

Hand Cannoneer - Projectile speed increased to the same as archer units, Health increased to 45

This should ensure that not only do HCs survive a bit longer, but their attacks are more likely to hit, and their targets die slightly faster too

Civilization Changes
Burgundians
Flemish Revolution - cost greatly reduced - unlocks the ability to train flemish militia at the town center and barracks, and can upgrade existing villagers into flemish militia for the cost of 10 food and 25 gold each.
this nerfs the power of Flemish Revolution by not instantly converting your villagers, you instead have to pay a price to upgrade them, 100 villagers would cost 1,000 food and 2,500 gold to convert

start with 50 less food and 50 less wood - this is to offset the power of their eco bonuses and slow down their ability to boom, doesn’t seem like much, but basically this means after you throw down your 2 houses and a lumber camp you can’t get any upgrades right away, and if you want to build a mill first you’re going to have to chop at least 150 wood before you can research any eco upgrade.

Burmese
Gain Leather Archer Armor upgrade - small buff to the civs archers
Howdah - Effect increased to 2/1.

Byzantines
Town Patrol granted for free - minor and in line with the rest of the civ
Cataphract - Elite Cost reduced to 1000 food and 700 gold - small buff to the unit to make it more affordable
Greek Fire - no longer reduces accuracy

Chinese
Start with only 2 extra villagers but only 150 less food - small eco nerf
CKN - price increased by 5 gold - small CKN nerf

Cumans
Archery Range and Stables are 25% cheaper - small buff to the civ.
Cuman Mercenaries - in addition to current effect, reduces cost of Cav Archers, Scout Cavalry, Steppe Lancers, and Kipchaks by 10% - Currently Cuman Mercenaries has no use in 1v1

Goths
Gain Plate Barding Armor and Thumb Ring - let’s make this civ less of a one trick pony.
Perfusion nerfed to 80% - to offset the two gains above a small barracks nerf.

Incas
Fabric Shields also now affects all barracks units - a little extra love for the civ.

Italians
Gain Siege Engineers - don’t think i need to say too much here.

Lithuanians
Starting food bonus reduced to 100 - small nerf to the eco in the early game means less options
Relic Bonus capped at 3 in Castle Age - small late castle age nerf.
Lose Galleon and ECG - makes them less appealing on Hybrid Maps

Mayans
resources last 10% longer - small eco nerf
El Dorado cost Increased to 900 food and 700 gold. - el dorado nerf.

Saracens
Mameluke - cost reduced to 70 gold - mameluke buff
Start with 100 extra wood - small eco buff to give this civ some more early game life and options

Spanish
start with two houses already built - this is a very small eco buff for the early game.

these are just my ideas (though some have come from other people on these forums and i liked them), these are all rough ideas and i am open to debate on them.

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The difference between this and the current bonus is almost nothing. You have to idle your Town Center and research Loom (25 seconds) which takes 45 seconds total. With the new bonus you don’t idle TC if you research Loom(Villager+Loom) but you start with 1 less villager. Because of no idle TC you can almost catch up on villagers with the 5 vill start.

Loom + Villager = 50 seconds (5 vill start)
Loom + Idle TC = 45 seconds (6 vill start)

Unneccessary

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I will just give my point of view on what I know only.

For supplies + infantry Line, I don’t know for sure but I think it’s fine, since Infantry is a bit underpowered. Hand cannoneer projectile being faster sounds okay too, but not sure about the HP changes.

I know that tech is controversial and you’ve found a nice alternative, but I would make them trainable into Houses instead of Barracks.

Why not, but I think there is maybe a better way to do it : Food discount 50% cheaper => 33% cheaper sounds great enough. But even if that stays untouched, I think it competes fine with other economy bonuses.

I would rather reduce the gold cost of each Cataphract than reducing the Elite Cost, and also rework Greek Fire than keeping it. The civ could be way more interesting with a new whole unique tech.

I don’t like the villager changes, it makes it too close to other civs and Mayans. It’s okay for the civ to be “strong”.

I don’t think Goths needs to be touched, it’s fine to have a few civs that are - One Trick pony -.

I don’t like the resource nerf : 10% is so low, it’s a 50% nerf from what is already a nice bonus. It would make it unflavored, just like what the Aztecs got in the past (+5 carry capacity => +3 carry capacity

I can’t tell about the wood start bonus, but I think the Mameluke should cost even slightly less gold. (-15 is already great tho).

Overall nice ideas, I think there is some that can be taken into considerations

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It’s also 1 less villager gathering resources for that time though. you’re absolutely right - its a small nerf, but i’d rather not be the beating stuff over the head with nerfs type.

being one trick pony is fine - but goths flat out stink though.

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Oh that is a really good idea. Tho I do wonder might that have some troubles with map generations

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None of these seem to break anything individually but there’s a few interactions that could be problematic.

  • all 3 militia line buffs: the last one probably shouldn’t be implemented the same time as the others. The first two could lead to many more infantry numbers than we are used to seeing which on its own needs to be checked out.
  • Burmese + militia line buff: probably should be tested alone before changing Burmese more.
  • Inca Fabric shields. Idk if this is prudent. It basically is like Malians buff and Inca late game is pretty good
  • Saracens: their market bonus is underused and while I don’t think your changes would break the civ, people like Viper who will test the market interaction could make it a problem.
  • Chinese: it’s hard to currently identify if the chu ko nu is too cheap or the Chinese eco is too strong. I’d say nerf the eco. Wait on the CKN.

Goths: this is a little abstract. If people get used to strategies that use longswords because of the change to militia line (e.g. LS + pike) that will bleed over into goths. Also heavy cav archer would counter hand cannons so I’m a little skeptical.

This is just food for thought.

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it gives the civ more of its counter flavor. i was trying to find a small way to give them love without breaking them. a way to give them distinction from the other two meso civs. having more resilient units (on top of their villagers) is a good way to go about it.

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I still don’t think that Liths need nerf, reducing the bonus to 100 food was essentially planned and even prepared for the 2019 December pacth but was scrapped, maybe because is too similar to the Persian bonus still don’t changes much.
Limiting the relic bonus at castle age is also unneccesary, the damage output won’t change that much and you know that you manually need to achieve that, and relic control is also something to be rewarded, in addtion, Lithuanians just need 2 relics to beat camels at castle and isn’t even guaranteed unlike Burgundians with the castle age cavalier or Bulgarians with Stirrups technology, both beat camels very handily.
Removing dock techs could be an option as Lithuanians weren’t known for their navy.

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i know, and while i do think lithuanians are fine on arabia, on hybrid maps they are a bit much. even nerfing their navy won’t change that, so giving them a little less starting food just slows them down a bit. the overall power of the civ isn’t hit too much.

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Another one of those lets change everything threads… sigh
(to be fair, this is definitely the better of the bunch that I’ve seen lately)

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i think 33% really hurts the civ more then necessary and what they need to do is just be slowed down a touch. think about it this way. at 33% you are setting them back probably around an additional 100-200 food just in dark and feudal.

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I dont think 5/7 armor Champs is small though, especially if you buff their speed. Same thing with 4/6 halbs.

I mean kamayuk kind of emulates champ+halb and they cost 40-60% more. So it seems like there’s an inconsistency there.

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honestly i’m really fine with not making the militia line faster - i think just stream lining the upgrades and making LS upgrade cheaper is a good buff alone. (along with the supplies buff).

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I agree with all changes except Mayans nerf (which looks arbitrary) and some of your militia buffs:

LS suck for sure, but not due to weakness to trash, so the 2nd change is unneeded. I would rather see buffs to the tech cost and nerfs to their building damage (which is obnoxious).

Imo champions don’t need a buff at all (except the upgrade time). They are already very strong in the situations where we see them.

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the point of the second change was to make them do even better against trash - which is kind of their niche, along with eagles.

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Well tbf I don’t know how LS fare against trash currently, but I don’t like this kind of buffs, it doesn’t address the unit’s main problems, while probably making it more obnoxious in certain situations. Against trash, champions are already great and I can tell for sure this change is not needed.

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I didnt read all your changes but I Will give You done opiniones.

General changes, I like them all

Burgundians

FR needs a change IMO, but what You propose it’s a little Messy and I don’t like the idea of having idle vills in your TC waiting to be FP. Maybe if the TT was 0 it could work and would not be too broken since You need to train vills first. IDK, never liked AoE3 revolutions

The -50 resources it’s a Big nerf, they already have to pay to get a eco bonus and the value it’s meant for an age up

Chinese

They need a nerf for higher ELOs and your changes may work there, but it also would destroy them at lower ELOs since they have a harder start. Maybe reduce the start food to somewhere like -100f or -125f

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you don’t have to train them, you just click the units and click an upgrade and it consumes the resources and upgrades them on the spot.

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I am ok with supplies and LS tech change, I am not sure about speed movement buff. In which situation should militia line benefit from the increased ability of forcing engagement? The way of forcing the enemy to deal with infantry is tearing down buildings and coupling it with siege. Same for trash armor class, militia line is already very efficient at dealing with them.

I don’t think health increase it’s needed, it would be useful mostly against archers and I think HC should lose quite hard against them.

I agree with flemish revolution nerf. About start nerf, looks a bit messy and speaking as a random civ player would make them a pretty hard and confusing civ to play. While I agree they need a nerf to their eco, I think a reduction on the discount should be better.

I agree but in conjunction to a nerf to arambai base armor. I don’t think howdah buff is gonna be relevant, bonus to elephants tend to be useful only when they patch their weaknesses (malay cost reduction and khmer speed increase for example).

I’m ok with town patrol and greek fire, they’re pretty minor. I don’t agree with Elite cost reduction at all. Elite cataphract is a very strong unit, with great sinergy with discounted byzantines options, and some civs have troubles dealing with it. Byzantines are already a strong civ aswell on most maps.

Have you tested how the change plays out? I think having 2 vills lead vs generic civs at the end of dark age, as is rn, is too much. 1 (such as mayans or goths) should be enough.

I don’t think the civ should ever have any eco bonus other than 2TC, which is already broken on some settings.

Not needed/bad IMO. Goths certainly don’t need FU hussars or FU cav archer in exchange of an irrelevant nerf to be annoying as hell. Incas fabric shield would gave them champions better than malians, too strong.

I like the starting food nerf and I’m ok with the relic bonus cap. I don’t get how losing galleon and ECG should impact their hybrid maps play though, water fight in hybrid maps often end in feudal.

Good

Very bad. Saracens are a strong civ already, expecially in feudal. It would allow them insane builds on close maps aswell, in conjunction with market abuse. I would be very very careful with mamelukes buffs aswell.

This is not very small, it would allow villagers to immediatly gather recources instead of building houses. Potentially it can enable some specific early drush BO, it would need to be tested. I’m not sure if this is what a civ already landed towards YOLO strategies need.

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I agree on the militia line buffand the HC burgundians, I think reducing the discount to 33% should balance them.

I believe burmese need a buff in some other way. Arambai shouldn’t be touched, and the reality is that stronger elephants wouldn’t help them that much.

I think the cumans should get something for their SL. that way they will be buffed in 1v1while remain the same in tg.

Last, I believe italians shouldn’t get SE, since getting cheaper cannons with SE wouldbe too much.

1 Like