Hello!
As per my title. I would like to suggest and argue why war drummers would be an amazing addition to the game. Please if you get time give this a short read and leave a like so hopefully it’ll at least be noticed!
Why?
Over history we all know how important the use of loud noises, dances and instruments have been in moral warfare, inspiring your troops and scaring the enemy to gain the edge.
A game such as age of empires would be the perfect place to house such an amazing and interesting troop type. It would make such an immersive experience for those who appreciate sound in their battles. Different empires could have different unique types, drums on the back of elephants for one whilst others may have foot soldiers marching with their instruments. This could further even be expanded to maybe a special troop for future empires (cough cough Polynesian’s getting a Haka ability). Aztec’s could have their death whistles and so on.
For those less competitive players, think how amazingly powerful you would feel marching down to your enemies castle with the sound of drums echoing across the map to them. If I were in my safe stone walls and heard a loud marching beat, I would be very scared.
How?
You may be thinking two things reading this. 1) Why on earth would I make a drummer in my army 2) How would a drummer benefit the game at all? How would it work.
Well to answer your questions it is very simple. Buffs! Many of us know in the campaign, leaders can provide buffs to their troops for attack speed etc. This can easily be translated into drummer gameplay. Each empire can have unique effects from drummers such as slightly buffing per troop up to a cap, their armour or health, or attack, or movement speed. The possibilities are very much endless with creativity not even being needed, for example a death whilstle would almost obviously be best applied to a debuff on enemy troops (maybe movement speed for example).
Buffs exist in the game but are very specific, this would make them much more commonplace yet balanced and unique. You may ask how is this balanced? Easy; first of all the drummer(s) must stay alive and in range of the troops, second I believe they should have to be moving to create the buff and third there would only be a very small buff using them, one that is noticeable but not gamechanging. It is also worth noting there is a downside to using these troops, 1 less pop space, resources used up on them and the most overlooked, the noise! If you hear a drummer approaching it is a very useful warning sign to a possible invasion. Send out the scout party!
Conclusion
I would argue that the above reasons alone explain why they would make the game so much more fun.
For my case study example of this working in practice may I turn your attention to exhibit 1! (Lord of the rings battle for middle earth II) This is one of the most beloved RTS games ever! Especially on console, for good reason too.
For those who do and don’t remember, when playing as the Orcs of Mordor, you could create drummer trolls. These were my favourite troop in the game and you may ask, why? Because the sound was amazing! Yes they were way less optimised than what I described above for AOE but that didn’t matter for me! Having the thundering sound of drums to the beat of your marching troops is one of the best immersive experiences you can have in an RTS.
Sound is such an important feature in games and I think Drummers really would push the power of sound to a new level!
Thanks for reading!