Civ Concept - Venetians

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

The Republic of Venice was known for its extensive naval prowess and was one of those European powers to utilize gunpowder in warfare. Having control over the Balkans, they also employed mercenaries to serve them as well. They also had a major monopoly over trade in the Mediterranean.

Gunpowder and Naval civilization

  • Receive a bonus interest for every 500 resource gathered. (5% in Feudal Age, 10% in Castle Age, and 15% in Imperial Age).
  • Careening and Dry Dock are free.
  • Monasteries and Monks are available in the Feudal Age. (The techs will still be available from Castle Age onwards).
  • Spawn militiaman-line or archer-line units when a new Archery Range or Barracks is completed. (1 in Feudal Age, 2 in Castle Age, and 3 in Imperial Age).
  • Gold miners carry +10 gold. (Reference to the Venetians’ extensive salt trade, and how salt was used as money, hence the salt is represented by gold).

Unique Units:

  • Arquebusier (55f, 55g) - Hand Cannoneer with high pierce armor (similar to Huskarls and Rattan Archers).
  • Brigantine (80w, 40g) - Gunpowder ship that fires a volley of bullets (similar to Organ Gun)
  • Stratiotai (65f, 45g) - Mercenary medium cavalry unit available in allied Stables once Balkan Mercenaries tech is researched. Has an attack bonus vs. other gunpowder units.

Unique Technologies

  • Cernida (430f, 450g) - Foot Troops regenerate 20HP per minute.
  • Balkan Mercenaries (880f, 860g) - Enables Stratiotai for self and allied Stables.

Team Bonus:

  • Trade units generate +1 gold during journeys. Researching Caravan increases the gold generation by 0.02.(20 Trade Cogs/Carts = 3 relics)

Unavailable (to be updated):
Archery Range:Heavy Cavalry Archer, Parthian Tactics
Barracks: TBC
Siege Workshop: Heavy Scorpion, Siege Ram
Stable: Hussar
Defensive: Arrowslits
Economic: TBC

2

You need to heavily nerf monks for this to be remotely balanced. Significantly decreased conversion range and conversion rate, and not being able to pick up relics until Castle, and that’s at minimum.

3

Sorry but why do you think we should have more “Italians” civs in the game and a Europian one in the first place?

1 Like
4

Why shouldnt we? Do elaborate

6

i think there are too many eco bonuses and no coherent bonuses. you have a bit of eco, a bit of military weird spawn which feels odd, and a bit of monk bonus which is bonkers OP if not limited in some way, and no actual bonus for gunpowder

7

This alone feels very strong 23 Castle age Farmers give you 50 additional food/minute and 63post imp Farmers 225 additional food/minute (with good perfect placements).
And that’s without the additional free Wood/Stone/Gold

8

As a fellow venetian enjoyer, I’ll give you my personal feedback on this design, I’ll hope that you’ll take you time to do the same with mine, so we can exchange ideas and feedbacks.

It’s interesting, but how does it work?

Every time you hit 500 resources in the stockpile you get +25 extra, or every 500 resources gathered you get that +25 resources?

Anyway +5% isn’t a lot onestly, it could be at least +10%, or staggered through the ages. Just for comparison, the mayan bonus is better because it automatically gives you free resources with an higher percentage and without needing to hit a cap.

A bit of a standard bonus, but it’s fine for what it does…

This is incredibly OP in my opinion, even just getting the monks near the relics 1 sec before hitting castle age is an incredible advantage that can be decisive.

I don’t like this bonus, both for balance and historically speaking… also considering that the venetians were quite indipendent from the pope, I believe that a good monastery tech tree is enough for them…

A nice way to buff you xbows numbers in castle age, but the problem is that you’ll already have most of your ranges already built by that time, so maybe the bonus should start in feudal age.

Also, the militia line is nice because of free units, but the unit themselves aren’t much useful…

That’s actually quite weak, the miners already doesn’t have much walking time, and it’s basically stable, so really the bonus wouldn’t help much…

I would instead suggest an extra carry capacity for lumberjacks, maybe +2/4/6/8 in dark/feudal/castle/imperial age, that’s too is historically accurate (Venice became rich thanks to the wood sold to the ERE of the alps) and it also helps more on water maps.

Mmm interesting… so it’s like an anti archer gunpowder that cannot be counter by skirms, so I suppose that I’ll lose on damage output,right?

That’s really similar to the thirisadai, so not very unique unfortunately…

So a condo on horse? I don’t see a place for this unit in the meta onestly… but I guess it depends by its stats.

It’s ok, but not that important since most foot units have low HP anyway… it’s still nice if it’s cheap.

The concept it’s intriguing, but in practical terms it’s the same output of the spanish TB, meaning that trade carts gives you more gold… one way or the other…

No arbs? No thanks, I can’t imagine a venetian civ without the arbs.

Anyway, I’ll leave my design linked here, so maybe you can take inspiration from it.

9

I think he means it will damage near by units too with the volly fire.

To me venice not having arbs will make them more different than italians.

10

Yes because having 2 free archers during feudal archer wars right from the get go is totally balanced

2 Likes
11

What if they were free Skirms instead of archers. You could even play mind games and make him wonder if you might’ve built an extra range every time you throw an extra skirm into your army.

Also that’s a very large amount of techs available. And it’s odd to see camels lancers, Eagles and elephants not disabled.

12

He probably forgot as this is a european civi.

13

It is the responsibility of the civ crafter to be concise.

Otherwise it’s not doing due diligence. After all maybe the fact that they traded so much with desert dwellers means someone might think they do get camels. You and I know better but it’s like saying “well yea I didn’t write a good research paper but you can just imply the correct research is there!”

And what is here I do like bonus wise it’s interesting enough but it feels unfinished.

And no I don’t want to hate any civ craft even from the “competition” before anyone thinks as such.
Mint assuming even all of those units are unavailable this seems like a civ with a lot. Good knights, even Paladin for team games, feudal monks and free archer and militia spike.

I think this one needs a little tweaking.

1 Like
14

The pick up relics locked behind castle age is already a thing for aoe4, but I believe that in aoe2 it’s already too much to just have your monk near the relic 1 sec before hitting castle.

As for the conversation, I don’t that that it would be actually strong… consider that you are investing 100 gold in a unit that at best convert you an archer at best (there are no knights or siege to convert) but in the feudal metà of archers and scouts (natural enemies of the monk) but it could still be useful to heal scouts and convert spears time to time… but the main problem are the relics…

Well… mayans gets free +15% of all resources without needing to hit “cap”, so I don’t see it as broken, but it depends on how it’s implemented.

It’s most likely one from the get go and another one 50 seconds later, but yeah I don’t see it that broken… a civ with a good early eco bonus will most likely get to feudal faster and already train archers and scouts by the time that this civs have a couple of free archers, which by the way can be annoying, but they’ll hardly kill any vill if the enemy react to it correctly.

I mean, bengalis 2 free vills when aging up is a way better bonus than 2 free archer.

15

Yep it all depends ob how its implemented.
If we assume there is a pile of gold with 500 gold inside and they get the 15% at the moment the pile is finished they get 15%more than a generic civ (sama as Maya) and 15% faster than all other civs (depending on Upgrades).
That way it seems pretty strong

16

Why it has to be every 500 resources instead of as you go I don’t understand.

As is it’s unreliability in the spikiness of when you get the resources means you have to count every 500 resources you get to plan for that added influx. And if you’re playing well you won’t be stockpiling unless specifically trying to age up or get a big tech.

17

Well, mayans get it gradually, by slowing down the depletion of the resources, the venetians instead would get a +75 resources whenever the 500 cap is reached, so in reality it depends… in the early game, the mayan bonus is better because you get more resources from faster incomes (like hunts), but in the later ages the venetians’ bonus starts becoming better because it’s faster to hit that 500 cap.

In my opinion the idea isn’t bad, but it still needs some work… I personally like the idea of free resources for a potential venetians civ, in my design in fact I suggested a bonus that gives you a flat +50 gold for each tech researched, but there are a lot of possibilities.

Like, each drop off building gives you a +15% resources every if you build a monastery nearby, or every time a vill drop resources into a gathering point an extra 5% is generated inside it, and you can gather that whem it reaches a certain amount, but the more resources you leave there, the faster it accumulate… those are just random ideas from the top of my head…

Because it’s basically the mayans’ bonus, with a different implementation, but the same effect.

The idea of gaining resources through something that emulate a fee is nice, it just needs some work.

18

Sorta but the Mayans can still work that resource to get that extra resource a little longer. In this case what happens ins you tick in 500 and get an extra 25 per age and thus you technically didn’t work that resource extra. If a 5% bonus as you drop breaks things I’m not sure what to think.