Balance suggestions for upcoming update

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

Here are my suggestions for balance changes:
I compiled these from my own impressions and suggestions from these forums and youtube videos/comments.
My main theme is to buff currently underpowered civs, which are Turks, Koreans, Italians, Portuguese, Byzantines also Ethiopians and Burmese are on the edge.
Also I think that in General Hand Cannons and Camels need some buffs. They are good against what they counter, but at such high cost I like them to be ever so slightly more viable in general.
Contructive Criticism appreacheated.

All Civs:

  • Heavy Camel: +1 Attack
  • Pike/Halb: Bonus damage vs. Camels from 18/26 down to 15/20
  • Steppe Lancer/E-Steppe Lancer + 15/30HP ; -15F/-10G
  • Elite Steppe Lancer Upgrade -300F/-150G
  • Hand Cannon +10% Accuracy ; +5HP ; reload time down to 3.0
  • CavArcher/HCavArcher + 25% Accuracy
  • Petards, Demo Ships now classed as Gunpowder
  • Atonement -75G
  • Herbal Medicine -150G
  • Siege Tower -100G

Aztecs:

  • Jaguar Warrior +5HP

Ethiopians:

  • Shotel Warrior -10F/-5G
  • Royal Heirs -100F/-100G
  • recieve 100/100 ; 150/150 ; 200/200 resources on Age-up instead of 100/100 for all ages

Malay:

  • Karambit/Elite Karambit -5G ; +5HP/+10HP

Italians:

  • Genoese Xbow/E-Genoese Xbow TT-4/5sec. ; +1/2 attack ; -1bonus damage vs. Camels ; Elite +1 Range
  • new civ bonus: recieve free archer armor line at Blacksmith
  • Condottiero +1Pierce Armor ; +7 Bonus damage vs. Siege weapons ; -5F/-5G

Koreans:

  • Turtle Ship -30W/-30G ; profits from Siege engineers
  • Panokseon: Turtle ships move 15% faster, are created 15% faster and fire 15% faster
  • Elite Turtle Ship upgrade -200F/-100G
  • Turtle Ship/E-Turtle Ship +25/+50HP
  • Wood discount increased to -20%
  • Shinchikon: -200W/ - 100G
  • new civ bonus: Chemistry effect doubled (+2 attack to arrows instead of +1)
  • new civ bonus: Fletching line upgrades cost -50%
  • recieve Elite Cannon Galleon

Portugese:

  • Feitoria -100Stone
  • Caravel/E-Caravel +1/+2attack
  • new civ bonus: archery range techs/upgrades cost -50%
  • Organ gun/E-Organ Gun +4/+5attack, added AoE
  • new team bonus: Barracks cost -25Wood
  • Gold discount increased to 20%

Byzantines:

  • Logistica -300F/-100G
  • Elite Cataphract upgrade -400F/-50G
  • new Civ Bonus: Stable techs/upgrades cost -25%
  • Greek Fire added effect of former persian UT boiling oil , +50G

Turks:

  • Attillery effects mango and scorpion line
  • Cavalry gets +1 pierce armor per age up
  • loose Plate barding armor
  • new Imp 3rd unique tech: Harac(500F/300W): get a trickle of gold at the rate of a relic
  • E-/Janissary +10% accuracy ; reload time down to 3.0
  • Elite Janissary Upgrade -50F/-100G

Khmer:

  • Ballista elephant affected by civ bonus and Team bonus (+15% speed ; +1 range)
  • E-(Ballista Elephant) +2/+3 attack ; +10 attack vs. buildings
  • Elite Ballista Elephant upgrade -200F

Burmese

  • Elite-Arambai -1Pierce armor
  • Arambai line affected by Parthian tactics
  • Elite Arambai upgrade -200F/-75G
  • Howdah affects all Cavalry (+200F/+100G)

Indians:

  • Elite Elephant Archer upgrade -300F/-200G

Persians:

  • Mahouts -> Castle Age ; Kamadaran -> Imperial Age
  • Kamadaran +300F/+100G

Saracens:

  • Madrasah effect now a civ bonus
  • new Castle Age UT: Elite Cameliers(300F/400G) Camels attack 15%faster
  • Mameluke -5G

Japanese:

  • Elite Samurai +1/1 armor

Celts:

  • Stronghold effect increased to 33%
  • Woad Raider/E-Woad Raider +1Attack

Goth:

  • Infantry +1 attack vs. buildings per Age -> starting from dark age
  • Huskarl (base cost) -5F/-5G

Chinese:

  • Chu Ko Nu +5G

Tatars:

  • Flaming Camel now classed as Gunpowder
  • Flaming Camel bonus damage vs. Cavalry, Elephants and Camels doubled
  • Keshik +10G

Inca:

  • New Team Bonus: Farmers carry +1Food

Franks:

  • Bearded axe now +1 Range and +1Attack for Throwing Axemen

Vietnamese:

  • Chatras effect increased to +80HP

Lithuanians:

  • Leitis +10G

Spanish:

  • Missonary healing speed increased to 75% of a monk

Vikings:

  • Berserkergang -200F/-50G

Huns:

  • Tarkan -10F
4 Likes
2

It does not make sense to buff Huns, Goth or Franks and to nerf Tatars or Persians

But generally I think its fine to collect ideas. Some of them are good, other less practical.

12 Likes
3

(Heavy) Camels are completely fine. They don’t need any extra attack in any way.

That is way, way too low. I understand wanting to reduce the bonus, but you’re giving pikemen even less bonus than they had in AoC.

Overbuff much ? That’s making Steppe Lancer both significantly tankier and cheaper. I understand the complaint that the unit doesn’t really have a niche, but massive double buffs like that are the best way to make it OP again.

In general, some of these changes are fine, but I see a lot of double, triple or even quadruple buffs to a single units that aren’t even that problematic to begin with.

It seems like a lot of your strategies revolves around finding a unit underused and buffing in various area, instead of properly investigating WHY they would be underused and addressing that specific problematic feature. Like GenBows, they are just too slow to mass. Only need to change that, no need to give them as much base attack as mangudais and the range of arbalests.

And some of these ideas are plain wrong, like buffing huskarls, woads, throwing axemen, tarkans ?

10 Likes
4

I would prefer Forced levy affecting them

Byzantines aren’t a cavalry civ

Again a huge overlap with some other techs and bonuses, also howdah is an Elephant Tower on their backs.

Be aware with the Saracen camels, they already have the Zealotry and with faster attacks it would be too OP to defeat, I would prefer to see that tech in a Nubian civ.
And that new team bonus is literally worse than the previous one.

And making a suggestion nealry two days before the new pacth not ahve much sense honestly, through it can be considerated to the August one I guess.

1 Like
5

i don’t think camels need to be buffed this much, but you do you.

agreed with trirem, this might be a bit of an overbuff.

for the rest of this i’m going to refer to the high end win rates.
https://aoestats.io/stats/RM_1v1/1250-1650
here are the winrates by civ and rank (and last number is rank on Arabia
Goths 55.5% (1)(1)
Franks 53.94% (2)(4)
Huns 53.85% (3)(2)
Burmese 53.31% (4)(9)
Incas 52.71% (5)(8)
Celts 52.57% (6)(11)
Berbers 52.56% (7)(6)
Teutons 52% (8)(5)
Mayans 51.49% (9)(10)
Malians 51.47% (10)(3)
Aztecs 51.16% (11)(12)
Britons 50.90% (12)(7)
Slavs 50.86% (13)(16)
Vikings 50.71% (14)(14)
Spanish 50.62% (15)(30)
Khmer 49.87% (16)(18)
Cumans 49.61% (17)(28)
Japanese 49.51% (18)(15)
Magyars 49.16% (19)(20)
Lithuanians 48.82% (20)(22)
Chinese 48.69% (21)(19)
Ethiopians 48.67% (22)(17)
Indians 48.08% (23)(13)
Mongols 47.66% (24)(26)
Malay 47.36% (25)(21)
Italians 47.36% (26)(27)
Persians 47.21% (27)(29)
Saracens 46.51% (28)(33)
Byzantines 46.32% (29)(23)
Bulgarians 46.15% (30)(24)
Turks 45.62% (31)(31)
Vietnamese 45.10% (32)(25)
Tatars 44.90% (33)(32)
Portuguese 43.29% (34)(35)
Koreans 42.85% (35)(34)

I agree with buffing Koreans, Turks, Italians, Portuguese, Byzantines, Saracens, Vietnamese and Ethiopians
what i disagree with completely is buffing Aztecs, Khmer, Huns, Vikings, Franks, Goths, and Celts.

Furthermore, while i understand the Leitis is too strong and needs to be toned down, Lithuanians are not anything close to overpowered, and if you are nerfing the Leitis they need to be compensated. you are literally buffing almost every civ that is worse then them as is, so their win-rate would already go down from 48.8% winrate they have (on arabia all the civs they are best against are receiving buffs (Turks, Italians, Vietnamese, Koreans, and Portuguese). and on top of that you’re even buffing top tier civs for some reason who need no love at all (Goths, Huns, Franks, Celts, Aztecs, and Vikings).

now to break this down one at a time further.

would change nothing. you still won’t see jaguars.

fine with this. relatively minor buff but they don’t need too much.

same, minor buff that helps, nothing more nothing less.

fine with all this but i don’t know about giving condos bonus vs siege weapons.

so turtle ship is base 150/150 and reduced to 120/150 with civ bonus. further reduced to 90 with shipwright.
i honestly think this might be a bit of an overbuff overall. testing needed.

i think this, combined with -20% wood discount might be an overbuff to koreans.

caravel are fine imho, and i think you just overbuffed the organ gun a little too much.

-700/-150 on Elite + Logistica is a bit stronger then what i see most slinging around, and the stable bonus makes zero sense for byzantines. also, does that apply to blacksmith techs?

people complained about the Korean team bonus and you’re gonna give it to turks?

so in the end they get -1 MA/+1 PA. how does this bonus interact with Cav Archers who technically have the Cavalry tag? that seems like they would be very imba.

i mean you certainly have a trend of going for broke with your buffs. i think you are overbuffing a lot of civs.

all around minor buffs, no issues here.

no issues.

i don’t think persians are much of a problem anymore after the dark age nerf.

does the UT affect Mamelukes?

neither of these is needed.

don’t really think this is needed, chinese aren’t overpowered.

so tatars are nerfed. unnecessary.

Franks of all civs don’t need buffs right. they are a very strong civ and actually use their UU from time to time.

i’m fine with this.

also fine with this.

these buffs aren’t needed at all.

7 Likes
6

Koreans don’t need Elite Cannon Galleon because they have the Turtle Ship which is their unique cannon galleon that uses more HP. Perhaps if there’s a tech that can be added to the Koreans, I’d say giving them Redemption would be a good idea. And no, we are not taking away plate barding armor from the Turks because they have to have all the blacksmith upgrades as their trash wars are the worst in the game.

7

while i agree they do not need ECG, the TS is not a cannon galleon. a cannon galleon is for sieging buildings, and has long range. the TS has 6 range.

7 Likes
8

Saracens, Ethiopians, Byzantines and Vietnamese don’t need MAJOR buffs, I guess you wouldn’t give them big changes.

Saracens: MUCH cheaper Zealotry and Mamelukes should cost 5 or 10 gold less and Monks should return more gold
Ethiopians: They need better Shotels. At least -10G compensating it with +10 or +15 Food
Byzantines: Cheaper Cataphract upgrades
Vietnamese: Chatras should give more hitpoints and their Team Bonus should be their TC revealing bonus

Turtle Ships are useless against Fortifications

1 Like
9

you’re absolutely right. i think he went completely overboard with his buffs to Byzantines in particular.

2 Likes
10

Hmm I was wondering about this and I checked, and in AoC pikemen had only +11 bonus vs camels. 15 is definitely bigger than 11.

5 Likes
11

Im wondering if anything if the standard camel is the one that needs the buffs. They are after all the only counter unit that costs (a lot of) gold. And a number of factions that have camels have very poor Knights and/or weak camels (Byz/cumans/eth)

And even then those sub par heavy camels still struggle pop efficiency wise vs the top tier super heavy cav (teut/frank paladins) which can be an issue in tgs.

But I’ll always believe that if you’re paying gold for a unit it should be a lot more diverse than the camel is. And imo the camel is way too flimsy for such a narrow use and high cost. But because its always been like that, i think vets like TriRem will think thats how it should always be in future…

12

they are also are only available to about 1/3 of the civs in the game and are more population efficient then pikes/halbs are.

Byzantiens get them for dirt cheap though, Cumans would be broken with heavy camels.

yeah but we don’t balance around team games.

i mean the problem is if you reversed its role (heavy cavalry with a light anti cav bonus) you’d see it falling into the same problem you currently see with the Steppe Lancer. you’d be creating an overlap that would cause extenuating issues.

2 Likes
13

Yeah, that was my thinking as well. Same with the Handcannon.
Both Camels and Handcannons are fine vs. the respective units they counter, but for the high cost I think they should do a bit better in general.
I’m looking especially at Camels like Mongols, Ethiopians etc. who aren’t even fully upgradeable and can even barely beat a Paladin. I think the Byzantine Heavy Camel even looses to a Paladin, but thats cheaper, so I guess its ok.

2 Likes
14

I agree with the Camel buff but Halb bonus damage against Imperial Camels CANT be smaller.

4 Likes
15

hand cannons absolutely need love. on the other hand camels are fine. they do what they are supposed to do. be a pop efficient counter to cavalry. and trying to make them an all around unit is unfair to the civs that just don’t get camels at all.

5 Likes
16

But by similar logic its unfair to make eagles so good then?

And i understand the balancing isn’t around tgs but shouldn’t it be taken into consideration?

An extra 1 damage won’t make camels jack of all trades but it’ll change it from a a gold counter that only does 3 more damage to knights than Knights do to them. What kind of melee counter has such a bad match up? Camels do 15 dmg and have zero arm. Knights do 10 dmg with 2 arm. Camels take 3 extra damage from town centres and towers, and 2 more damage from all other ranged sources(which is huge, ranging from 20% up). So not only do they generally do much less damage (40% less) they also take more from most sources than Knights do, all so you can do 3 more damage than a knight?

If we look at the general composition of an army of 1 gold unit and 1 trash unit. What do you match camels with? Most meta are archers with pikes or Knights with skirms. How do you match camels? So now you have to double tech.

4 Likes
17

show me a single civ that has eagles that has access to cavalry units.

if you can do one without impacting the other sure, but it shouldn’t be at the forefront.

except camels already beat the crap out of knights in all categories. they win cost effectively, they win in equal numbers and they win because thy take less time to train. they don’t need any love against knights.

except camels aren’t intended to be used as anything other then a cavalry counter. its literally right in the design of the unit. you don’t have to like it, but the fact is only 1/3 of the civs have access to the unit, why would it be fair to non camel civs that camels are all of a sudden big and beefy and beat the crap out of knights too?

they also cost less, move faster, and train faster.

skirms and siege. the ultimate counter army.

you want camels to be an all around unit and bring up a BAD example like the eagle, when eagle civs have ZERO cavalry.
you want camels to be more well rounded? give up heavy cavalry lines on all those civs period.
and expect some nerfs to what the camel has advantages in, like training time.

1 Like
18

if you want the camel to be a more well rounded unit like the knight, then you’re going to have to see it lose some of the advantages it comes with.
camels that are more tanky against archers, and stronger all around offensively, while retaining there power against heavy cavalry would have to lose some of the advantages they currently enjoy.
you’d likely see a cost increase or training time increase or etc.

You’d also see the unit have the same problem the Steppe Lancer currently has.
Either its better then the knight and the Knight line is pushed to the side, or its worse then the knight and the camel is pushed to the side.

1 Like
19

show me a single civ that has camels that has access to eagles.

If you’re going to argue about who’s making the worst arguments here…

1 Like
20

You said a unit shouldn’t be too good because other factions dont have access to it… Thus the Eagle example. Mayan eagles are better than the cavalry most civs have, or they wouldn’t be needing a nerf. Hows them castle age saracen and Indian knights looking?

A camel does less damage than light cavalry. Making it do equal damage wouldn’t suddenly make it big and beefy

3 Likes