Civilization Concept Overview: The Basques (Euskaldunak)

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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New Civilization Concept: Basques (Euskaldunak)

Focus: Infantry, mountain warfare, choke-point control, hit-and-run defense
Playstyle: Territorial, disruptive, attrition-based
Identity: They do not rush the enemy — they make advancing expensive

:green_circle: Civilization Bonuses

Mountain People

  • All land military units on hills gain:

    • +1 melee armor

    • +15% attack speed

Holding high ground is decisive for the Basques.

Pass Warfare Tradition

  • Infantry units take 20% less damage when fighting in narrow areas
    (gates, palisade gaps, bridges, mountain passes)

Designed to reward positional play and choke-point fighting.

Mountain Settlements

  • Watch Tower and Guard Tower gain +1 range

Area denial rather than passive turtling.

:green_circle: Team Bonus

  • Outposts are free and gain +2 line of sight

Superior map awareness and early warning.

:green_circle: Unique Unit: Euskal Gudari

Role: High-damage shock unit, siege hunter, line breaker
Trained at: Castle
Cost: 55 Food, 35Gold
Training time: Short

Base Statistics

  • HP: 45 / 60 (Elite)

  • Attack: 14 / 18

  • Speed: Slightly faster than Militia

  • Attack speed: Slightly faster than standard infantry

Low survivability, very high burst damage.

Armor Profile

  • Melee armor: 0 / 1

  • Pierce armor: 2 / 3

Moderately resilient against archers, fragile against cavalry and heavy infantry.

Bonus Damage

  • +6 / +8 vs Siege units
    (Rams, Mangonels, Scorpions, Trebuchets)

Purpose-built to punish siege-based pushes.

:green_circle: Unique Technologies

:castle: Castle Age – Fueros

  • Infantry units gain +15% movement speed

  • Infantry conversion time increased by 25%

Enables true hit-and-run tactics and rapid repositioning.

:japanese_castle: Imperial Age – Defense of the Pyrenees

  • Units on hills take 15% less damage

  • Towers gain +2 attack

Turns terrain into a strategic weapon.

:green_circle: Technology Tree Highlights

Missing:

  • Paladin

  • Siege Onager

  • Bombard Cannon

  • Hand Cannoneer

  • Camel

Available:

  • Champion

  • Halberdier

  • Hussar

  • Arbalest (no thumb ring)

  • Siege Ram

No brute-force options, no gunpowder dependency.

:green_circle: Gameplay Summary

  • Early Game: Men-at-Arms pressure around hills and choke points

  • Mid Game: Outpost control, towers, positional infantry fights

  • Late Game: Siege denial, terrain locking, slow territorial advance

  • Weakness: Open flat maps, prolonged frontline brawls

:brain: Design Commentary

This civilization is not about raw power or unit spam.
It rewards map reading, terrain control, and disciplined movement.

Euskal Gudari completes the identity:

  • Fragile but frightening

  • Hit-and-run strategy (not widely represented in Age of Empires 2)

  • Perfect for punishing careless siege play

:green_circle: Historical Background

The Basques are among the oldest continuous populations in Europe. Their language, Euskara, is not Indo-European and predates Roman, Germanic, and Celtic expansions, pointing to deep prehistoric roots in the western Pyrenees.

From the early Middle Ages, Basque territories were politically organized under the Kingdom of Navarre (9th–16th centuries), a long-lasting state controlling key mountain passes between Iberia and France. Navarre relied less on feudal cavalry and more on local militias, fortified towns, and terrain control.

Even after its absorption by Castile and France, Basque regions preserved strong traditions of autonomy through local laws known as fueros, reflecting a historical pattern of resistance to centralized rule rather than imperial expansion.

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You based this entirely on the Battle of Roncevaux, didn’t you?

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I did some historical research. I like realism.

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This is clearly AI written

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Not completely. A lot of the tricks belong to me.

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Well then we can give you only half as much admiration as I was going to… whoch is none because civ bonuses DONT HAVE NAMES! We cant give the rest to AI though because ai deserves none

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Extremely situational and micro intensive.

Isnt this just a barrack and monastery tech combined?

Too similar to the team bonuses and again situational.

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Its ai: it doesn’t understand how repetitive it is

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I’d love a rule that prevents this AI slop from being posted, or at least one that would require AI content to be marked as such

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This isn’t AI content. I just used AI. I provided the main ideas, I provided the statistics. But I didn’t want to write paragraphs of text, so I used AI. Besides, the important thing is the idea itself, not whose brain came up with it. Please critique the idea itself.

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A difference without distinction. Is it really so hard to write it out yourself instead of letting a chatbot add your ideas to its database and pretend to make you look smart?

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My friend, I’m the one controlling the AI. I correct the parts I don’t like. Or it inspires me in certain areas. Discussing or consulting with other minds while thinking about a topic isn’t a bad thing. I recommend it to you too. I repeat, I never accept AI’s ideas as they are. I always revise, improve, and contribute to them. What I’m trying to do is improve my ideas by utilizing AI. It shouldn’t be hard to understand.

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If you didn’t want to write it, why do you think it’s reasonable to want other people to read it?

The AI does not have a brain or a mind.

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It might have one if it becomes sentient.The thing AI would lack is gender.

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15

Can we have rule that will detect AI-generated content and flag them?

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If. I don’t see any good reason to believe that an AI of the type that currently exists could or would become sentient.

Unfortunately, detecting AI-generated content definitively is not a solved problem.

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Besides which at that point the OP deserves no accolades whatsoever since the AI can probably crank out more civs as is and can probably infiltrate the hardcoding to add them itself with enough time and knowledge.

Of course at that point we have real things to be afraid of

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I feel in the next five years this would become a reality,afterall the AI is supposed to become that in the end.

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We were supposed to get fusion power 50 years ago

Whats supposed to happen rarely happens

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I don’t really care about who deserves accolades, but my point of view is that internet forums are for human interaction. I am not interested in interacting with generative AI.

We have things to be afraid of already – AI is doing much worse things than creating bad civ designs right now.

It doesn’t matter what it’s “supposed to become” – with the way that current AI programs work, I don’t think it’s possible for them to become sentient. In fact I think there are good reasons to believe it’s impossible. This forum is probably not the place to discuss things like this, though – although don’t feel at all bad for having derailed this thread!

2 Likes