Go ahead and share your civilization concepts! While the game has a very high number of civilizations that doesnt mean that theres no fun to be had in designing your own
4 Likes
Thai as gun powder and elephant civilization. The unique unit would be a bbc elephant.
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We’ve got quite a few civs without stables now. In a similar vein, here are some ideas for tech tree holes I think would be interesting. (Disclaimer: I realise these are not really “concepts”, not even half-baked ones.)
A civ with no universities. I think they’d either have to get ballistics free as a bonus, or be very focussed on melee units. Could make sense for a nomadic civ.
A civ with no siege workshops, but with other anti-building units. They’d probably get arson affects cavalry as a bonus, or some high-pierce-armour villagers with bonus damage against buildings. I think they’d still need trebuchets. Again, could make sense for a nomadic civ or maybe for Vandals?
I’d like to suggest a civ without monasteries/monks, but I don’t know how that would work with relics.
As I say, these are very much half-baked ideas, so I’m very happy for people to dismiss/criticise them.
8 Likes
Tanguts
Camel and siege civilization
Militia costs 25/30/35/40% less in dark/feudal/castle/imperial age
The Tanguts were able to deploy outrageously large armies for their population, in fact being able to even the field with the much more populous Song, Liao and Jin.
Knight cost 25% less
While infantry was the back bone of the Tangut army in the North and South (as the Tangut state, Xi Xia, was built on a corridor beetwen mouintain chains), the cavalry was the spearhead of any incursion into Chinese territory and just as numerous. The first king of the Xo Xia was able to deploy several hundred thousant of horsemen, almost bankrupting the nation.
Siege workshop units +1/1 armor
The Song-Tangut wars saw a massive extension of fortifications across the area, unseen in centuries.
While the Chinese were the ones more proficient at it, the Tangut also took part, but since China does fit the defensive archetype I wanted the Tangut to complement them
Heavy camel available in castle age at half cost
They would have their bonus damage reduced to 13 before ageing up
While camels were mostly deployed to carry materials, their use is notably extensive for East Asia
**Team Bonus**: Militia +3 vs scout cavalry, spearmen, skirmishers
As we will see ahead, the Tanguts are somewhat lacking in good anti cav options in feudal you could say, so
First **Unique unit**: Camel Mangonel 130F 160G
Yep, the same thing as what the Khotans have today, now in their home turf! Unlike the existing one, this one is just a fast, tanky mangonel
| Mangonel Camel | (Elite) |
|---|---|
| HP:85 | Unit Cost: 130F 160G |
| Attack: 40 (60) | ROF: 4.5 |
| Armor: 0/2 (1/3) | Range: 6 (7) |
| Upgrade: 950F 700G | Speed: 1.2 |
| +10 vs siege | +40 (80) vs buildings |
**Castle age UT: Sinicization** 500F 200G (Fire Lancer cost -30 gold, rocket cart cost -60)
Tanguts were very quick to adopt gunpowder, and with godd effect
The Tamguts also had a long and complicated history with Sinicization, with it being an internal conflict that divided the counrt for practically its entire existence. By the end, sinicization had won
**Imperial age UT: Boxi army** (castle units +50 hp, camel riders +100 hp 800F 800G
Camels and siege are the only units with actual stronger stats than generic, but evem then its a huge cost in the case of the Camel
Missing techs:
Archery range: thumb ring arbalest, heavy cavalry archer, parthian tactics, hand canoneer (slingers, eles)
Barracks: Spearman (champis, eagles)
Stable: Bloodlines, Hussar (steppe lancers, eles, hei guang)
Blacksmith: ring archer armor, bracer, blast furnace, plate barding armor, plate mail armor
Siege workshop: (mangonel, elephants, traction trebs)
Monastery: sanctity, illumination, redemption, attonoment, theocracy, heresy,
University: Caneering, shipwright, architecture, bombard tower
Navy: fast fire ship (cannon galleons, dromons, catapults)
Economy: crop rotation, two man saw
So yeah, quite the bleak picture tech tree wise, needed to prevent the cheap paladins to absolutely crush everything. The Xi Xia had a hard time dealing with Chinese crossbows, so thats represented in the fragility of their units
I originally had them with a Imperial Halberdier but dropped the idea once I saw the new Fire lancers, and instead went for the oposite direction doubling down on fire lancers
May post how I envision their gameplan and a short history section later
Not really sure on the balance, I feelboike I may have made them a bit too good by giving them 3 clear strengths (infantry, cav, siege) and the camel mango is tough to balance
5 Likes
Well, just shared a civ without Spearmen and 4 blacksmith techs
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Got you covered on no university: all techs dispersed between the different drop sites
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No universities sounds like a fun concept that could make sense for TupĂs and Cumans… Theoretically Huns as well, but I like them too much to alter them that much, we’d need to see how it’d work in practice.
No siege workshops makes sense for most of the American civs, but perhaps a better alternative would be to replace the normal siege units with something regional instead of outright removing the workshops.
2 Likes
Interesting… I had imagined that they simply wouldn’t get the university techs at all, and would be hyper-aggressive to make up for it. Your approach is basically the opposite since it makes the university techs more accessible. I think both approaches could work well and would end up giving very different civs.
I thought of it because back when The Conquerors was released, my brother said it was weird that Huns don’t build houses but they do build universities. I would prefer it for a new civ specially designed around it, rather than changing an existing civ significantly.
Yes, that might work better – or have an alternative siege unit as the castle unique unit. (They would still need an alternative that doesn’t require castles, though.)
2 Likes
I once imagined that, if I were making AoE2 from scratch, it would be interesting if each region of the globe offered a different level of gameplay complexity. Given that not all peoples used all the units and techs present in the game, these units would be replaced by others that would offer different and perhaps more difficult approaches to the same objective, but would cover more niches, and thus there would be a way to show new players the exact civs for “beginners,” “intermediate,” and “advanced” players.
So, for example, the current civs that historically made use of all military units — Persians, Gurjaras, Tartars, and Hindustanis — would be the easiest to master; then would come the transitional ones (most of the roster, but separated into 3 categories) such as Chinese, Byzantines, Saracens, etc; and finally, the “asymmetrical” ones, such as the Americans, would be the most difficult and with units and techs that are truly distinct from the others, which would require greater mastery.
I wrote this on Reddit and was told that’s what AoE4 tried to do. So maybe it’s a really bad idea lol
4 Likes
Why would any civi loose spearman as they were a universal unit.
They would still need chemistry and murder holes as its universal.
Easy fix is make the uu a monk unit and castles/tc the place to put the relics.
Basically, I just think its more interesting to have the civ replace spearmen with fire lancers
A horse-less tarkan equivalent in Barracks?
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But they would not have any cavalry counter in the feudal age right? Maybe the flemish militia is a better spearman replacent than FL.
Double effect of arson?
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If AoE4 is anything to go by, I don’t think it would be particularly accessible.
They have super cheap militis with extra bonus vs scouts
I feel like the Vandals would be more fitting as a good siege civ since their sack of rome happened after settling down
The Mapuche could have worked for a siegevless civ. The way they managed to stall and harass the Spanish with practically nothing to begin woth was impressive
Other option is an Indian civ, moving the siege eles to the stable. Hephtalites could be like that since they were a nomadic civ that plundered India
African civs around the gukf of guinea and the Bantu area to a lesser extent didnt deploy siege weapons but developed very elaborate siege centric warfare
4 Likes
More civs with more crossover regionals. Vietnamese sorta has the right idea going lancers and elephants and I guess Jurchen with lancer and lancer but…
But what about civs with incomplete unit lines? The civ without elite rocket carts, ele archers, steppe/fire lancer, impi or eagles and some others I’m probably missing
I like the idea of an Afghans/Pashtuns civ with access to both Battle Elephants and Camel Riders. That’s a combo that doesn’t exist at the moment. The Alans would also allow for a civ with Camel Riders, Steppe Lancers, and Dromons, which would be neat.
3 Likes
Yeah, currently every civ has ballistics, chemistry and murder holes. It’s very unclear to me how essential they actually are (especially for an aggressive melee-focussed civ) but it would certainly need some thorough testing.
Definitely the easiest approach but then it would feel thematically weird having a civ with a monk unique unit but no monastery. I was imagining maybe they have a unit that can destroy relics for gold – so relics give them instant gold but no trickle from being garrisoned.
Either of these could work. The horse-less tarkan would need high pierce armour but should be more anti-building focussed than a huskarl.
Yeah, I like that. Maybe with a speed boost to their siege elephants (either as a bonus or unique tech, not sure)? Obviously not as fast as horses, but it would help with the nomadic raiders feel if they were a bit faster.
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How will this civi go for relic victory?