Civilization Concepts!

I think no husbandry camels is weird. The purpose of camels is to catch up to knights, but if they have no husbandry then they can’t really do that. Unless you think it will nudge people towards the UU, then ig it’s fine.

They have no camels though. You are suposed to use your infantry

I would have sworn it wasn’t listed :sweat_smile: Ig the devs giving camels to every African civ by default made me assume a fan African civ would have it

Sure, nothing is free. Take from their eco or tech tree to give to their military bonus. I believe that a Castle Age crossbow with 8 attack (after Bodkin, without chemistry) can be implemented in a balanced way. Rattan, Longbow, Genoese Crossbow and Cav Archer all have the same 8 attack in Castle, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Camel Archer and Chu Ko Nu both have even more attack. And in many cases Ethiopians would compete with a +1 crossbow (vs anything with 0 base Pierce Armor, or 2 after full Castle Age blacksmith upgrades).

Tbh all African civs we have in the game rn historically had camels. We dont have any southern African civ like the Beninese or the Bantu civs

I actually forgot to remove steppe lancers and paladins.

Also: should I give them ring arxher armour or are they fine without it?

With siege rams and the UU I think they can manage without FU skirms

I’ve always wanted to do civ concepts, but I don’t play enough to understand the mechanics/stats of the game. I was also always more fascinated by the historical aspect.

But I would like to understand at least the basics: like, how much does it take for a civ to be considered good or weak economically in each age? Also, is there a minimum base attack for all units that we can use to measure whether a certain unit is weak or strong? Aside from the @WrathofInnos list, is there an “official” list of unused bonuses yet? Also, some of these terms like “drush” I don’t know what they mean either.

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A drush is a dark age rush. When designing civs myself I just compsre the bonuses I choose with those of the vanilla civs to see how good they are, or a lot of the times I hust pick a number that feels reasonable (like for example if we have a civ with longer lasting hunt theres really no obvious example so to me it has tobe beetwen 35% and 50% longer)

Lso I may add a list of civ bonuses tomorrow

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I got it, thanks.
I asked because I see a lot of people discussing which civs need to be represented, but few propose to make a concept of them, which would be precisely the most important thing. But maybe they are in the same situation as me, bad with numbers :confused:

So I thought about adding an African civ, Kongo. As I know its history well, I started here. It would be a light infantry civ, bad early game, but does a lot better in feudal and castle and then fair in the end. It would have no stable and its echo bonus would be more farms and trade and less mining. Forge, iron smelting and blast furnace would be free. The sea would be average, and some creative bonus for monks or archers. UU anti-infantry melee, almost like TK, a little faster and with special weakness for gunpowder. And that’s it for now. What do you think?

Edit: I just saw that free bonuses are already used by Magyars. Nevermind

I feel like no list would be able to really tell you how to design a civ tbh. To be fair, theres still a bunch of unused bonuses, but in practice you should be able to put togheter a civ without using any of those, let me explain: To start, I think that we have to make clear that overlaps are fine as long as they dont overshadow each other fully. You can have multiple civs with overlaping bonuses as long as its substancially diferent in practice with none of them being just the same thing but better (for example, you can easily do a weaker version of the UT of other civs as a civ bonus simply because it arrives earlier and for free), so dont be afraid to do overlaps as long as you can make it work diferently but ideally keep it simple.

Beyond that: in terms of unused bonuses we have:

  • Faster lasting hunt/berries/stone/wood
  • Free cavalry armour (super strong, be careful where you use it)
  • Free infantry armour
  • Free archer attack (this is ridiculously strong so be careful with it)
  • Faster attacking skirms/battle eles/steppe lancers/camels
  • Cheaper Barracks/siege workshop
  • Extra armour on buildings
  • Faster attacking BBT
  • Extra armour on gunpowder
  • Extra melee armour on camels
  • Blast damage on cav
  • X unit regenerates
  • Town center techs research faster and for cheaper
  • Cheaper barracks/archery range techs
  • Free crossbow/arb update
  • Archers +1 attack
  • Archers move 10% faster
  • Eagle warriors move 10% faster
  • Monks regenerate faith faster
  • Monks convert siege from range
  • Cavalier/elite steppe lancer/heavy camel free
  • Monks techs free (pick any, not sure if free redemption would be too strong)
  • Free hoardings, fortified wall, masonry/architecture
  • Free elite skirm
  • Free capped ram
  • Siege workshop techs cost less wood/gold
  • Recieve extra wood and stone each age
  • Cheaper steppe lancers/eagle warriors
  • Smaller farms
  • Start with extra wood
  • Recieve extra resources each age

Mention more if you want

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Not necessarily, if the civ lack TR, archer armors, or maybe even bracer, it might work.

Missing ring archer armor may be the play. That would mean they do +2 more pierce damage to enemy archers in imperial, while also taking 2 more damage from enemy archers in imperial. Still would be useful against melee units before they close the gap, and balanced.

Missing bracer is not an option IMO. That would turn their +2 into a +1 attack, and the missing range would outweigh the benefit.

Similar story for missing Thumb Ring. I believe they would lose to an equal number of generic FU crossbows/arbalesters. The reduction in fire rate means that even with +2 attack they are doing similar damage per second, but the reduced accuracy would mean a civ like Byzantines or Malay with Thumb Ring would pull ahead.

The problem is against melee units, against archers it doesnt matter as much. +2 attack against melee units is ridiculous. Paladins would drop like cavaliers and cavaliers would be like playing as Poles with every civ.

You are greatly understimating the strength of extra attack

Or never use them at all :sweat_smile:

Same for these. “free and instant” kind of bonus are the strongest archetipes of bonus in the game, some people underestimate them because they are temporary, but they forget this game is about time windows and giving those strong bonus to archers attack and knights line defence would be insane due to the amount of damage they can do in the time window…

Some concepts I would like to see instead are:

  • Faster working villagers
  • Bonus damage versus walls and houses for military units
  • Faster moving rams
  • Villagers can garrison in mills/lumber/mining camps.
  • Discount on food cost for units
  • Discount on wood cost for all military buildings except walls

Nah you can make them work. The extra +1 attack is more UT material, but beyond that I can see these bonuses working well.

On 1v1 maybe you can make it work, but on TGs it would be redonkulous to be honest, too much additional damage output on paladins. I know some UU have 7 base attack in imp, but they’re rebalanced by the fact they’re hard to mass and often more expensive aswell

I think I’m estimating it just fine. It would take the same number as shots to kill a Paladin or Cavalier as several existing units with the same 12 pierce attack (Magyar CA, Mangudai, Camel Archer). The main difference is that it wouldn’t be able to hit and run these as effectively , and cannot outrun Skirmishers. They would be cheaper and easier to mass than these cav options, but they would also die quicker when melee units inevitably closed the gap (lower HP and armor, no Bloodlines, no Husbandry). Foot archers are also more vulnerable to Onagers.

I’d like to compare the +2 arb to an Elite Chu Ko Nu after their UT. That unit has 14 pierce attack and fires extra arrows (another 4 damage?) but is balanced by -1 range and slower reload. Would be interesting to see some comparisons if anyone wants to modify units in the editor.

It would also be interesting to see how +2 arbs performed against equal numbers of Briton, Ethiopian, or Vietnamese arbs. Or if they could beat Mayan arbs with equal resources spent (assuming both had full upgrades, then maybe repeat with missing Ring Armor if they are too strong).

Your point about Poles is true. Another one I’d like to add is that +2 arbs would turn Sicilian Cavaliers into standard fully upgraded ones for that matchup. One civ bonus countering another is balanced IMO, and I don’t believe Hauberk is overpowered.

Its barely better than playing Ethiopians (10% more damage) and you need a castle for it.

Magyars need to pay for it and cost 50% more. Tankiness matters little on team games when you can put Paladins in the front

Im 100% sure that +2 attack without missing any tech that increases damage or range is absolutely OP. For free its ridiculous

I’m not opposed to it being a UT, paying for strong bonuses is fine. Magyar CA cost 15 gold and 15 wood more than an Arbalester. That is 33% more gold cost or 43% more total cost. I suspect a Magyar CA group would beat the +2 Arbalester with equal resources given their double HP and 1 more Pierce Armor, with the same attack and range. That would be another interesting thing to test, I’m not 100% sure. I do really like the Magyar comparison because both are archery ramge units so massing from castles is not an issue.