Balance Suggestions

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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Aztecs:
Loses Fervor
+6 Monks hit points for each Monastery technology (instead of +5)
Tanky yet slow, to nerf their Arena monk rush slightly

Britons:
Archer-line unprecedented having 4% less movement speed per age starting in Castle Age
Yeomen now cost 300w 400g (instead of 750w 450g)
This is such a single dimensioned civ, despite having fully upgraded Infantry and a very solid Cavalier, and there is no real reason to make Longbows. The Archer-line is uncounterable by Skirms or Mangos, now there will be a pay off, you can no longer go for an easy unpunishable mass of Archers, Longbows are now much more relevant due to the slight nerf of Archer and the stimulant of having a Castle and early Yeoman

Franks:
Loses Halberdier
A hole in the Frankish fortifications. Weakness to a possibly Camel commitment, or another civ that mix Halbs and Cavaliers, or perhaps Boyars /Cataphracts/Elephants. Post lategame Hussars wars. Franks are still the most dominant civ in the midgame, we’re just giving them a window to act or else they have a lesser impressive lategame.

Indians:
Shatagni now also improve the accuracy of Hand cannoneers by 25% (65% will become 81%)
It was the most absurd tech in AOE, by giving them range you basically nerf them, cause they miss so much more, so I just made it so they wont have to pay with accuracy

Khmer:
Loses Hussar
I’ve never understood why would they give it to them from the first place, and now we the rediculous farm bonus the civ has become one trick pony of 80 farms Hussar spam, rather than playing Scorps, UU, Elephants, Arbalest…

Malay:
Karambit Attack Rate 1.85 (instead of 2)
Karambit has an alternative way to be trained, another button (where Flaming Camels are), which allows you to create them in groups of 6 Karambits cost: 125f 90g and at a training time of 24 second. (you get a discount of 25f and 2 units in terms of training time)
Karambits are officially the worst UU in the game currently, and for some reason the slowest infantry (non ranged) to be trained, just like Teutonic Knight, 12seconds for 1 pop of Karambit

Persians:
Kamandaran is now an Imperial Age Unique Tech, costs 200f 450g (instead of 200f 200g)
Mahouts is now a Castle Age Unique Tech, costs 200f 200g (instead of 300f 300g)
Mahouts gives 20% movement speed (instead of 30%)
Elite Elephants Upgrade now grants 10% movement speed
War Elephant by design does’t fit the late game, the more Halbs there are on the field the less relevant this unit is, I find a good use of it where I can surprise my enemy, before he can transition into Pikes, now a prolonged Castle Age is a viable play, while enemy is transitioning into Imp and has only Crossbows, plus having trash-bows seems more relevant in late Imp anyways

Portuguese:
Now starts with 150 extra stone
This civ deserve a better treatment, it’s not another xbows meta civ, we need to encourage players to go for a Castle drop of any sort, which is the best use of immobile Organ Guns. A nice Feudal stone bonus can stimulate a Tower Rush that would be a good set up for a castle later on.

Teutons:
Now only Stable Units benefit from the additional +1 armor per age
Teutonic Knight now can’t be converted
Their Halb+Siege push was already so strong and above average, there is no point buffing it further more, plus there is no reason to have a Teutonic Champion doing almost the same job as the Unique Unit, it was an akward move by the developers buffing their champs that totally overshadowed Teutonic Knights

Vietnamese:
Loses Husbandry
Elephants +30% HP passively
Autarky New Castle Age Tech 350f 300g: Grants 10vills in Castle age or 15vills in Imperial age
In order to keep diversity, there should be one Battle Elephant civ with no Husbandry, as intented, it was Vietnamese, for some reason they gave them Husbandry, and soon they would even gift them with Hussars for the sake of balance, who knows, I’m totaly against that. Now they will have the tankiest Battle Elephant, yet the slowest one, they now get 75hp, 90hp (elite), with no commitment needed, can mix an Elephant into an army of Archer/Skirms

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I’d love to hear what you guys think, Thank you very much :slight_smile:

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No, Aztecs are already nerfed and they are fine.

The distinction of the Britons archers is their insane range and is balanced by the lack of Thumb Ring, and Yeomen is balanced with the high cost, and Britons are already strong so no.

NO, they need halberdier to counter cavalry and that is a huge overnerf.

Shatagni need some reowrk I agree, but with something more interesting that this.

ANY civ can make the Hussar Spam scary, why not remove the Hussar from the Slavs then?, no and Khmer are fine.

And Karambit spam is one of the most annoying things and you want that to be stronger lol

No you never use war eles in castle age so that won’t change nothing, and most Pros think that War elephants are deadly on some occasions where they are needed, andcmon they are like a living behemoth so no.

Portuguese isn’t by any means a civ to tower rushing lol, and Portuguese got a significant buff, they are fine.

NO, NO AND NO, before buffs Teutons weren’t funny, now they have their true identity as a slow but armored power, and Teutonic Knight requieres a lot of castles to be massed and are slow, not the same case with their Barrack units, and Teutons are fine.

Seriously do you play this game?, Vietnamese got Husbandry to buff them and you now remove that lol, Vietnamese left totally their ugly past.

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Do Aztec really need even more nerfs.

Civ downsides yikes.

Well if you’re a super pro that can outmicro everything with xbows then good for you, can you give lessons to Lierrey&co?

Congrats now 95% of BF LEL hate you 11

Jesus this cringe got posted enough on Reddit. How much time will I have to say pala civ = mandatory halberdiers!

Well it happened because they attempted to buff them by giving them hussars first then by giving the farm bonus. Admittedly this nerf could still happen and the civ would take it just fine, but it’s false Khmer player pass up arbalest, scorpions or eles for mono hussar spam, after all it’s still just a trash unit.
And the ballista ele is super niche so no matter how hard you nerf the rest of the Khmer tech tree they won’t see more use since well they would still be the same unit.

Sounds stronger than what karambits used to be on RoR release.

We aren’t in 2019 anymore, Kamandaran isn’t OP.

:man_facepalming: That’s the exact opposite: if you try to make war eles in castle age then overwhelming them with pikes/monks is super easy, while in the late game if you have the eco for it eles beat halb because there is something called the “population limit” that prevents the enemy from making more halbs than you have eles.

what did I say about Reddit?
Also it’s not because you posted this idea elsewhere that trying to make the Port a tower rushing civ suddenly becomes a good idea since, you know, towers are still nerfed.

I get the point behind that one. Too bad +2 armour paladin overshadow TK too regardless.

FE needs to hire you for the next DLC

“In order to keep diversity, I will remove a tech that finally allowed the Vietnamese to use their CA with bonus HP”

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you literally just justified what OP said about the teuton champ… we all know the teuton champ basically obsoletes the TK…

because he gave them huge HP… did you even read that part?

then that civ bonus can be shifted to “attained on castle age”

said literally no one… ever… besides their abysmal win rate they now also have the lowest play rate

image

you mean like having the best heavy cav in the game isnt good enough? PS italians say hi…

again did you even read his post, he is trying to nerf them… with 8% lower speed in total

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probably should let them keep husbandry but husbandry doesn’t apply to elephants.

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although i would love to see this… if you check the wiki literally every civ that lacks halbs has camels or a dmg bonus for their pikes, except the super weak italians and thats because of their UU, not that it trains fast enough to make up for the lack of halb…

on top of that, such a large nerf to literally aoe’s poster boy would cause a heart attack

imo they need something to make up for being a 1 dimensional civ with any nerf you give them… (example gaining blood lines with an archer nerf)

agreed, but if you’re fighting big groups, accuracy isnt too much of an issue, the HC sucks goat balls, which is more of the issue

i love this idea, and adds more to their identity of being zerglings. will still be sucky vs anything with armour…

stick it in castle age, and maybe tone it down, stone is THE most expensive res in the game, but even then as lime said they’re fine, they’ve been buffed recently and arent considered bad atm… there’s worse civs around…

i defo think war eles need a tweak, but at the same time i still think their pop must go up (to 2 pop) if they get a tweak… people arent going to accept a buff if they dont receive something in compensation for the cases where you can somehow get a mass of them

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Britons:
The distinction of the Britons archers is their insane range and is balanced by the lack of Thumb Ring, and Yeomen is balanced with the high cost, and Britons are already strong so no.

Sadly they’re being picked in almost a 100% pick rate in team games, civ is too noob friendly, no real strategy, just a single composition unit.

Khmer:
ANY civ can make the Hussar Spam scary, why not remove the Hussar from the Slavs then?, no and Khmer are fine.

That’s my point, Slavs are the ultimate 80 farmers Hussar doomsday strat, why Khmer needs to copy paste it by abusing the same (new) eco bonus.
Besides that, Khmer has much more to offer than Slavs, slavs NEED Hussars, Khmer can go for early Imp Arbalest, very meta play that Slavs dont have.
Remember that there was no logical reason to give Khmer Hussars few patches ago, while they still had Bombard Cannons, they just wanted to buff them in the easiest manner, now it’s time to bring it back where it was, considering the OP farming.

Portuguese:
Portuguese isn’t by any means a civ to tower rushing lol, and Portuguese got a significant buff, they are fine.

What are they then? a civ needs to be “tower rush” civ to mine stone? Portuguese without Organ Gun is the most boring civ to play, the most generic one, the least strategic one.
30% tech buff makes them even more generic, it’s not always about balance, it’s about diversity.

Teutons:
NO, NO AND NO, before buffs Teutons weren’t funny, now they have their true identity as a slow but armored power, and Teutonic Knight requieres a lot of castles to be massed and are slow, not the same case with their Barrack units, and Teutons are fine.

FYI Teutonic Knight does not require a lot of castles to be massed, 12sec creation time for a unit worth of a cavalry pop wise, plus this unit doesn’t designed to be massed

Vietnamese:
Seriously do you play this game?, Vietnamese got Husbandry to buff them and you now remove that lol, Vietnamese left totally their ugly past.

Do I play the game? yes.
Ugly past was with and without Husbandry, they got out of there thanks to the eco bonus they recieved, not because of the Husbandry which happened way before that.
Yet even these days none makes Elephants, not even a value unit to tank for the Archers.

I appreciete the detailed comment bro, despite most of the arguements being “they’re fine”, “NO” and other conservative comments.

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Perhaps indeed, though It would be weird.

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Thank you for your detailed comment, It’s hard tackling all these conservative players.

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although i would love to see this… if you check the wiki literally every civ that lacks halbs has camels or a dmg bonus for their pikes, except the super weak italians and thats because of their UU, not that it trains fast enough to make up for the lack of halb…

I agree with you, it’s radical, though the beauty of a strategy game is that there’s always an exception, that what makes civs and their tech tree so unique.

stick it in castle age, and maybe tone it down, stone is THE most expensive res in the game, but even then as lime said they’re fine, they’ve been buffed recently and arent considered bad atm… there’s worse civs around…

You’re right, they aren’t bad, they’re just generic, the most generic civ unless using the Organ Guns in a way, which are one of the most unique Unique Units. So it’s not just about balance :slight_smile:

i defo think war eles need a tweak, but at the same time i still think their pop must go up (to 2 pop) if they get a tweak… people arent going to accept a buff if they dont receive something in compensation for the cases where you can somehow get a mass of them

Nice idea, reminds me of AoM

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So you hate that Britons don’t use their mediocre cavalier and generic champions (even though they do) and think they should ignore their archers who they have like 4 bonuses geared towards?
At the same time you also hate how Portuguese uses generic units instead of a difficult to use UU produced from castles?

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Ok now I’m lost. How is faster technologies, a bonus that affects everything, not about diversity? And it’s one of the most strategic bonuses in the game because you have to plan on how to use it. If you get in castle age at the same time as your enemy for instance, and that you have the same army composition, you can try to force a fight so that you can attack them whith better units. If you play too passive or fail to catch their army in time the bonus is wasted.

Well the problem with Vietnamese (and Burmese) eles is that people see them as too generic to build. It’s worse for Vietnamese ones since they lack blast furnace so people don’t feel like they are good enough to use. But they are wrong. Heck, Malay eles had to be buffed until they were cheaper than knights to make people use them. And it’s fine because the Malay eco bonus is harder to use than most and as a naval civ they basically have only two bonuses on land.
With your change what would happen is that people would maybe remember to use them as “panic units” once in a while, while nerfing their light cav and knights for no reason and making their CA unviable yet again.

I mean you use arguments such as “Franks are badly designed” just based of the stats and then you claim that Briton have a 100% pick rate which is a peculiar way to say “7%” as the very same stats show, you say the Tatar free sheep bonus is a lazy eco buff but we should accept free stone for Port as the best idea ever, and that for the sake of diversity we need a no husbandry ele civ even if it means ruining half of said civ’s diverse options. Not getting on board with so much contradictions isn’t being conservative.

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Not much objection here, dont think it would make too much difference. Dont really see it as necessairy either.

This would be a HUGE nerf, i dont think you understand HOW big. There are two reasons: With -4/-8% speed, they will have troubles escaping enemy skirms. This makes a huge diff in early castle age, as everyone playing lith can tell you. It also makes it harder to micro against kts. Note that a -8% speed increases the speed difference vs paladin by 13%, which is rather substantial.
The second reason why this change would hurt a lot is that briton archers are actually WORSE than generic if the enemy manages to get close as the lack TR. Archer v archer fights usually have to non-briton player trying to dive in the kill the briton archers from close, while the briton players tries to micro back and absue his range. But with your proposed nerf, that wont be possible anymore. Briton archers would still be okay, but by far the worst of all the archer civs.

Franks:
Loses Halberdier

Just think for 2 sec: What can frank without halbs do vs heavy camel? Thats right: The answer is “GG”.

wont change much, but overall a nice buff.

Khmer are nerfed enough imho. No need to take away hussar.

I would rather not buff a unit AND make it easier to produce at once. Do one of the two and see how it goes.

Those changes will change barely anything, its just a needless +250g on kamadaran for no reason…

Yeah because ONE civ that is annoying with towerrushes is not enough, we need another one? Pls no

I dont think you understand why noone creates TK. Its not because their champs are good, its not because they are weak to monks. Its because they get shred by absolutely everything. You just nerf teutons for no reason.

Dont think this will be enough to make their eles work. So its just a nerf to their lcav, why?

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From my experience with current balance, all these suggestions sound terrible.

Like yes, if Mahouts exist it should be a castle age tech but why would it exist at all in that case?

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aztecs don’t need nerfs.

so they slowly get slower. makes zero sense.

franks absolutely need halbs to counter other paladin civs.

should we nerf slav hussars and malian light cavalry then?

12 seconds for 1 pop, but you get 2 units for 1 pop. furthermore berserks train slower then this, and jaguar warriors of all things are equal

this already costs 400 food and 300 gold, where are you getting 200/200?

making this castle age still won’t matter because war elephants are still too expensive to see use in castle age.

yes lets nerf a civ that doesn’t need to be nerfed.

this seems awful and overpriced.

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The karambit warrior could use some love but not 2 big buffs at once that makes it outclass goth spam 11

As of Autarky it’s fine if it’s bad since you wouldn’t want to give them a new useful effect after making the previous useful UT a free civ bonus.

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Actually aztcs have been needing a monk nerf since release, 95 hp monks is just too much, the bonus should have been reduced to +3 several years ago when in arena aztcs were even a better civ than turks cause of the monks.

The other changes are not necessary, the war elephant even with +10% speed it would be too slow, even with mahouts their eles are only good in numbers cause they can’t catch anything, after the addition of units like leitis and BE the war ele should have be tweaked maybe +2 attack to keep his identity as slow, tanky and the most powerful.

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hate

I dont hate any civ, maybe Cumans if being honest :stuck_out_tongue:
Britons have a very unique bonus, giving their archers extra range, it’s almost if they got free Bracer in Castle Age. It wont really nerf Britons, 4% movementspeed difference will still keep them a top3 Archer civ. Would just make them harder to play, you cant just ball archers endlessly, since they have no counter but mass knights. (which requires a prolonged castle age, while britons can just go imp, very typical match, quite boring)

hate

Portguese has the potential to be as unique as Spanish, sadly they ended up being the most generic civ, most pro agreed about that. Again, I expect civs to be hard to master.

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Spanish are not unique at all. Paladin and FU Trash is the bread and butter of cookiecutter civs.
Spanish are actually just a power civ that has all the lategame options. That is not unique at all.

Portuguese being a “do it all but cheaper” civ is also historically accurate. It was the most scientifically advanced military at the end of the Middle Ages, yet Portugal was highly dependant on mercenary armies which it payed for with land, rather than Gold.

Portuguese would mostly use locals and mercenaries to fight, so they did command a bit of everything, including Tupi Bowmen, Japanese Ronin, Sinhalese Elephants, Kongolese Swordsmen and German Foot-Knights.

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