Balance/design suggestions for the TLC UUs

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

After now having some experience with them I would like to talk about the TLC UUs and how I would balance them better / adjust them slighty to get them in the right spot.

Guecha Warrior.

  • Cost Changed to 50 w / 50 G. Range Changed to 4/5. Attack Changed to 7/8. Elite HP from 50 to 60. LOS changed to 6. The unit is jsut too weak in it’s current stage. A few Buffs across the board. Should bring them in a usable spot.
  • Gimmick changed to: Whenerver a Guecha dies, one other random Guecha “collects” it’s mummy and power. It gets +2 Attack (stackable) permanently. This is actually a way better balancable gimmick, as it is a more consistant one - not a short-timed effect, not on multiple units in a range, but a single buff to a single unit. It’s not really worth sacrificing to just get +2 attack on a single Guecha, but it is a notable effect that makes losing guecha “less bad” for a skirmisher that costs gold. It’s also intentionally chosen that this effect makes the matchup with other Skirms and Siege specifically and distinctably better - because of the associated gold cost.

Kona:

  • Get 2 Shrivamsha Shield in Castle age, 3 in Imp - Make them finally an anti-gunpowder unit!
  • Effect of extra attack doubled for non-elite Kona, tripled for elite Kona. Currently it’s hardly recognizable. If you think about fighting Teutonic Knights on FU elite, the Konas in the end go up to 21 - 13 = 8 damage. Also, this is STILL 6 below that of the cheaper Jaguars who do that amount of damage output just on a basic level, not only to already damaged units. With the change the Konas will get up to 33-13 = 20 Damage against a Teutonic Knight with below 10 % HP. But on half helath it will still be just something like 24-13 = 11 Damage, still 3 below what a jag would already do before facturing in the bonus damage. But it would actually have a recognizable impact.
  • Cost and training time slightly adjusted to 65 F / 45 G and 15 s.

Blackwood Archer

  • Cost increased to 50 W / 50 G
  • Now return 40 % of their cost when killed - playing more into that gimmick. This is also because I think in general this bonus needs to be tuned down generally for tupi to 10 % or even below that. So I specifically design the Blackwood Archers to be designed around that gimmick, increasing the base cost accordingly. Which is also a nerf the unit needs anyways. The poison damage is actually fine as it is imo.
2

Guecha warriors do need a small buff.

Kona might need the first tier of cavalry upgrades at the blacksmith. The Bolas riders get archer upgrades.

3

Another unit that takes a cannonball to the face but takes zero damage because of magic?

No thanks.

1 Like
4

Reduce the amount of gimmicks the Bolas Rider has.

Cavalry that can apply a slowdown effect (to a reasonable extent) would be unique enough. WHY does it have two additional gimmicks?

1 Like
5

The problems I see with the Guecha are these: they’re expensive, they have a short range and minimum range, they’re not fast (but are slightly more mobile than slow units), and they have a slow attack. Their main advantages are they have a high attack, they have high pierce armor, and they have a tiny health regen when another dies. Overall, they seem to fill the role of a tanky, slow, cavalry archer.

If we want to stick with that identity, I’d increase their armor, remove the minimum range, and increase their speed a little bit. So here’s the changes I’d make to them:

Option 1:

  • (Elite) Guecha Warrior:
    • Movement speed increased: 1.15 → 1.2 (1.15 → 1.2)
    • Armor increased: 0 → 2 (0 → 3)
    • Minimum range removed (Elite also)

Alternatively, we could lean into their anti-archer role, which, at the present time, is somewhat lacking, due in large part to the short range and low pierce armor. Although doing this would start to step on the toes of the Rattan Archer.

Option 2:

  • (Elite) Guecha Warrior:
    • Pierce armor increased: 3 → 4 (5 → 6)
    • Bonus vs archers increased: 3 → 5 (4 → 8)
    • Attack adjusted: 6 → 5 (8 → 6)
    • Cost adjusted: 50 wood, 60 gold → 50 wood, 40 gold (Elite also)

However, their health regen is, in my opinion, negligible. And I’m not exactly sure how to fix it, so here’s a few ideas:

Option 1: Increase the amount healed.
Option 2: Rework it to apply and stack over a longer period.
Option 3: Allow it to “overcharge” their health.
Option 4: Make it permanently increase the maximum health of the nearby units.
Option 5: Make it apply to all Guechas, and stack at a logarithmic rate (for diminishing returns).
Option 6: Make it effect a different stat. For instance attack rate or movement speed.

Regardless, whatever happens Guecha Warriors need a buff in Castle Age especially.

6

I see huge issues with any kind of healing as gimmick.
The issue is that it easily can make it completley dominant in a lot of ranged matchups. And if the effect is too low, as it is currently, it seems to do nothing. It’s basically impossible to get it tweaked to a degree where it is recognizable, but not broken.
We need to see: if the healing effects effectively excel the amount of damage output a single enemy unit can deal to a guecha, stop micro ain’t gonna work. Guechas then can be extremely snowbally and unfun to play against. But on the other end, if it doesn’t - it will often then feel as useless, because it doesn’t really seem to do anything, especially not against other ranged units with higher damage output. It’s a balance nightmare.

That’s why I think a single unit attack boost is ideal. It’s also reflecting their mummy praxis better, getting “power” from the ancestor you carry with you. But more importantly, whilst it is buffing the unit, it doesn’t make it more tanky. It’s still a comparably fragile one that can be taken out by the opponent - and will at some point. It’s a nice effect that helps the unit to scale “passively” during the course of the game, something recognizable against units with high pierce armor. But nothing that can break the game, just a nice little gimmick that makes the “gold skirmisher” become slowly a solid backline damage dealer over the course of the game.

7

There are a few problems with the boost only applying to a single unit that could make it even harder to balance than aura healing.

  • The first is that nothing else works that way; a minor concern, I’m sure.
  • The second is how to choose which unit gets the boost? On one extreme you lose half your units and the other half are all boosted, on the other extreme you always lose the unit with the boost so none of them have it.
  • Third, what happens when the boosted unit dies? Does the boost just evaporate or does it stick around in some fashion?
8

All the TLC civs need a general buff. IMO, the Guecha Warrior needs to be a better UU, now it feels like a gold cost Skirmisher (so, what’s the point?).

9

ofc I just hope the implementation will not be an issue

A randomly chosen Guecha will get the boost and they get lost when a Guecha dies. Makes sense no? They just do “their thing” and collect the mummys from their dead companions.
It’s also ofc also part of the conceptional design. With this you can’t really exploit the gimmick. Ofc you can let one Guecha sit in your base whilst you send one after another to their death. But that would take a lot of time and attention for just stacking up one single unit that would be quite fragile. When it dies all that work was for nothing.

The way I designed it practically leads to a state where you have like 40 or 50 guechas with on average 1 mummy on them. Whenever one dies one other will get a mummy, you train a guecha and you will have on average 1 mummy on every guecha again. That makes the effect in a balanced game state quite predictable.

Ofc when you at some point stop making guechas, the average amount of mummys on the remainings will rise, at some point they can then get to 3 or even more Mummys on each. But at that point you will also have only just 5 or less of them left, making it a nice damage boost to them remaining, but because of the low amount not something that would be undealable with.
But the idea is clear. Guechas are an investment in the lategame. You start making them, they just are a minimally better Skirmisher. Then slowly they become a solid damage dealer with the gimmick. And even when you run out of gold the few remaining Guechas will be a nice force of a few “elite units”,
And with the concept chosen it would be fairly easy to balance, as the 2 stages that really matter and need balancing are the one without a mummy and with one mummy on average.Ofc they will have very different results in balancing tests, but when the other stats of the units fit it should be possible to get it to a state where without a mummy it still counters archer type units and with the mummy it still can’t kill cav and siege cost efficiently on it’s own.

I made a concept for a rework of the Champi on another thread already. I think the nerf they done was just not thought through.

So I made the design for the Runner with negative melee Armor. Was actually quite simple.

Champi Scout
Attack 3
HP 35
Melee Armor -1
Bonus v Cav 2
Bonus v Camel 2
Bonus v Shock 2

All other values can be turned back to the original version before the last patch.

Muisca and Mapuche civ specific Bonusses can be extended to Dark Age. So Muisca get +1 Melee Armor, negating the negative one and Mapuche just flat 5 HP.

(Note that I deliberately reduced the Bonus v Shock also, because I want to restore the original Speed. Meso civs in the early game also have no real answer to the Champis, so at least the unupgraded variant would be not as strong against Eagles (just slightly losing without bonusses, muisca actually win and mapuche are even).

(except the outpost construction time changes, i think they are actually fine as they are now)