Civilization Concept: Nubians

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

Why Nubians?
First, I looked at the current civ pool and searched for regions that were underrepresented in the game. From there and from the forums it was very clear to me that there should be new Civs based on Africa.

Now that we’ve narrowed down our Region. It’s time to look for Civilization in Africa that flourished in the Medieval Ages. Some of the great powers not currently in the game includes: Nubians, Songhai, Ghana, Somalis, Songhai, Shona, Swahili, Benin, Kanembu, Kongo

Next I had to come up with a good civ concept that doesn’t feel like it’s repetitive or boring. My first choice is an archer civ. With the game necessarily being played as 2 Archer civs in flank and 2 Knight civs in pocket. There aren’t as many good archer civs as there are Knight civs.

The Nubians

My first choice took me to Nubia, now northern Sudan and southern Egypt. The Nubians were very well known for their Archers. They were so deadly that, it is said they put bets on enemy body parts and shoot and then hit their targets. They were very known for their accuracy, the Archer of the eyes, which can be seen in the game as a hero unit, are supposed to be the Nubian Archers. Although they should be black in color and not this Archer of the Eyes | Age of Empires Series Wiki | Fandom

Now, let us see what bonuses the Nubians shall have. I tried my utmost best to gather knowledge regarding them and came up with bonuses in these sectors.

  • A bonus for their Archers
  • Farming bonus
  • Gold Bonus
  • Trade bonus
  • Defensive Bonus

After some digging into some history and AOE2 forums and infusing my ideas with all of them, I have decided the following bonuses

Civilization Bonus:

  • Archery range technologies cost 50% less
  • Ballistic is free but the tech needs to be researched from University
  • Light Cavalry line deals +1 bonus damage to mounted units
  • Wild animals killed give 50 gold each.
  • Hunters gain 20% gold from gathering.

Unique Unit:

Nubian Archers/Archer of the Eyes: Reduces non building opponent’s MA/PA by 1 for each shot.
Cost: 40 wood, 50 gold
HP: 55/65
MA/PA: -1/0
Attack: 7
Range: 5

The unique playstyle of these units will provide a new type of archer units, that you will avoid micro as they tend to do best if each of these units reduce armors of different units. This unit may be hard to balance, but it would definitely introduce new mechanics into the game.

Unique Techs:

  • Ta-Seti: Archer units are trained 30% faster. Cost: 300 Food, 300 Gold
  • Poison-Tipped Arrows: Archers and Cav Archers deal 1 extra damage that isn’t affected by armor. Cost: 600 Food, 600 Gold

Team Bonus: Trade units +50% HP

Missing Techs:

  • Barracks: Halberdier, Supplies.
  • Archery Range: Heavy Cavalry Archer, Hand Cannoneer and Parthian Tactics.
  • Stable: Cavalier, Heavy Camel.
  • Siege Workshop: No Siege Onager, Heavy Scorpion and Bombard cannon.
  • Castle: No missing
  • Dock: Fast fire ship and Elite Cannon.
  • Defensive Structures: No bombard Tower
  • Monastery: Heresy.
  • Blacksmith: Ring Archer Armor and Plate Mail Armor.
  • University: Siege Engineers and Heated Shot.
  • Economy: Two-Man saw.
1 Like
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so not only does this unit have 1 extra attack over normal archers, but it literally also reduces their armor with each shot? can’t see that not being broken.

not to mention you then top it off with these

which means their archers are not only created faster, they are stronger then other archers too.

nah, it would just utterly destroy everything.

3

The problem with dark age gold bonuses is that they overlap too much with Aztecs. I would prefer to give them a herdable bonus

Too small imo

Those come a bit too close to each other. Would prefer if you just pick one of them

Just give them +1 attack

They dont need this. Give them something that isnt archer related instead

Yeah this unit is way too good.

Overall some good ideas but the civ is too focused on one thing and their eco isnt the most interesting

4

Yeah I’m also dying to have a new “Archer” civ. Back in AOC, we had 3 out of 18 which is 1:6. Now we have 6 out of 42. So the ratio has gone up 1:7. This is a result of not having a single “Archer” civ in 4 consecutive DLCs that added 11 new civs.

I think Nubians is the perfect candidate and my most preferred civ right now.

2 Likes
5

You’re over stacking. Bonuses on archery. What logic do you think this has?

And if you weaken their archers what else do they have? Looks like they have elephants and Lancers the first of which make sense I guess? Eagles though why aren’t they disabled?

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I treated them as regional units 11. They don’t get any of those xD

7

You shouldn’t be making light of this until your civ is balanced.

8

I guess this civi is more like goths using the uu as the core,interesting idea.

Finding a name for the uu which is not archers of the eyes seems to be the hard part.

9

I wonder if it’s possible for a ranged unit to just reduce the MA/PA by 1, but only one. So 40 Archers shoot a unit with 3 PA, the unit is left with 2 PA.

10

It is better to choose only one of them.
Personally, I would choose the former. No Heavy CA right?

I understand you want to buff the trash unit for this gold-dependent civilization, but in my opinion this bonus is very OP in the early game and Arena, and have little impact in the late game.

I would hope it’s a bonus about camels to make sure they have a chance to survive once they are behind. Maybe Camel Rider +1 PA, or Camel Rider cost -33%/-66% gold in the Castle/Imperial age without Heavy Camel upgrade.

The latter alone is sufficient. The latter is already very helpful for early archers or fast castle strategy. Maybe it work on shepherds rather than hunters, whatever.

But I’d prefer a military bonus to an economic bonus if they are assumed to be a Magyars-like military-focused civilization. I hope it’s a bonus about Trebuchet, to make up for their lack of siege ability you designed, like cheaper cost, or +50% health, or even a weaker version of effect of Kataparuto if this fictional UT is eventually removed.

Too strong. Ranged attack weakening armor is probably more toxic to the game than ranged siege ability.
Considering the UT you design, it’s almost impossible to balance.

The UU can be named Kushite Archer, Kushite Mercenary, Nubian Mercenary, or Pítati Archer (this one is more specific but more ancient).

I would like to have them with standard archer health, speed and armor, very low base attack (like 2 or 3), but fire 33% faster than the archer line and have Ballistic effect by default. Then, make the Castle Age UT named “Archer of the Eye” allow UU and defensive buildings’ arrows to ignore the target’s base PA. This gives UU a special role as the killer of high PA units, but the regular Archer line is still better at fighting low PA units.

Just simply UU, Archer line, CA line and defensive buildings +1 attack is already very decent as the Imperial UT, allowing the regular Archer line to keep advantage comparing to other civilizations in the late game, and also greatly improving the UU’s low base attack shortcoming.

Weak infantry was not required for their balance, and archaeological evidence also shows that the warriors of the Nubian kingdom of Nobatia had decent body protection, including shields and body armour made of thick leather. So I won’t remove Plate Mail Armor. Even returning Ring Archer Armor is possible as long as it doesn’t allow ranged units to weaken the armor.

The kingdom of Nobatia also had halberd-like polearms, but that seems to be a ceremonial tool rather than a combat weapon, so losing Halberdier is acceptable as long as there are camel-related bonuses.

On the other hand, the bows of the kingdom of Nobatia seemed to have inherited the bows of post-Meroitic period, which were originally used for mounted archery. Reflecting this, they can symbolically acquire Parthian Tactics without having Heavy CA.

11

Mmm intriguing civ design, I’ll try to give it my contribution to it:

Those 2 bonuses overlap too much, coupled with the gold bonus it would be too strong probably…

Consider that most archery techs came in in castle age, so you get all of them for half the price and then you can also alongside get ballistics…

So you could potentially get crossbow, then tumb ring and meanwhile build a university to get ballistics, it’s too much…

For a comparison, britons in castle age saves about 275 wood from their discounted TCs, numbians would saves 425 wood between just ballistics and tumb ring, and that without considering elite skirm upgrade and the food and gold saved.

In my opinion just take 1 of the 2 bonuses, the one you prefer, and it would be enough to buff numbians archers. If you pick the free ballistics, you can even have it research instantly upon completion of the university.

Is it to have them win feudal scout wars? Because overall I don’t think that +1 damage would make a big difference outside of that context…

I don’t like that bonus, it doesn’t require to do anything, just kill the animals, so no necessarily harvest them, so it’ll incourage to lame to kill the enemy deers and boars just to get free gold…

This again overlap with the previous bonus, but this is a good thing…

In my opinion you could reduce the percentage a bit, like to 10% or 15% and include hunt too into the bonus, so like:

  • villagers generate 10% extra gold when hunting and foraging

This translate into 128 extra gold just for gathering from the 2 boars and the berries, it’s another 56 with deers, with the 15% it’s even better and it would allow you to mass a lot of archer in feudal age, so it plays into your main strengths.

This is again redundant, not even tech or bonus have to be about archers, especially if they are FU.

Have it train faster a weaker unit instead, maybe one that doesn’t have all the upgrades or that have no bonus, and that it’s a bit the weak spot of the civ.

Just increase the attack by +1, although again it’s pretty redundant, with the exception of few units, +1 I’ll be enough.

Maybe a secondary effect could be that units cannot auto heal if they are hit by a poison arrow, since lately we have quite a good number of auto-healing units.

That’s fine.

This is incredible OP. Removing the armor with a slow melee unit like the obuch is one thing, but removing it with a ranged unit that can force engagements it’s way too strong.

On top of a super OP effect, the unit have basically plumes stats, which makes them even stronger, no in my opinion the unit needs some work…

A cool weird idea might be that when a enemy unit is hit by an archer of the eye, you get to see its full LoS, even if it get out of yours, like an hunter that stalk his prey…

I don’t know, it’s just an idea out of the top of my head…

It doesn’t necessarily, aztecs gold bonus is more towards get a ###### ###### but with the nubians it could be more about boosting their archer numbers.

13

yeah I think this needs to be changed.
It could be interesting if the archers of the eyes would be quite expensive, so it would make sense to mix them in your archer formations. Effectively reducing the size of an archer army to hit the critical mass. This could possibly be achieved by making the arhcers of the eyes have a bit less frame delay so they fire faster before the archers can and therefore reduce the opponen unit pierce armor before the archers arrows arrive.
So if you eg add 5 Archers of the Eyes in castle age to your xbows, instead of 40 xbows to one-shot a knight, you would only need 18 xbows.
As we see the effect is really strong, so it would only be balanced if the Archers of the eyes had like 80-100 G cost or something in that ballpark (don’t forget they still need to be made from castles and when adding to the archer formations in that manner they could only be so strong as long as the units are microed).
I think it could be an interesting concept, though the opposite of what the TO intended. These Archers of the eyes would need to be added to archer formations and then also microed all the time. But they would have the advantage of heavily reducing the needed amount for the critical mass which would allow to possibly split up your archers into 2 or even 3 separate groups.

14

This unit is possible but MA/PA reduction should be like -0.5 / -0.25 and its attack only 4. 1 MA/PA and 7 attack is equal to Cobra Car in strength. -1 MA is unneccessary and 1.3 speed for raiding can be side usage.

15

I do not personnaly like the special capacity of the eyes archer. It’s very similar to the obuch, and little bit broken.
Because of the economic bonus you give them, thay look like fit for a castle rush. Maybe, to adapt their ‘’ precise shot" in the game, we could make them shooting garisonned unit.
For example, when they shoot on a building with units in it, these unit take the damage instead of the building. In that case the pierce armor of the building and the unit is applied.
It could be a very unic feature, make them fit for raiding, and not too much broken. It’s just a proposition ^^

16

@DynasticPlanet5 quite an interesting civ, don’t you think?