The Polynesians would represent the islands of the Tonga Empire, Samoa, Fiji, Hawaii, and Rapa Nui. Their specialty would be infantry and navy. They would have the regional unit the Tribal Sentry line, which is like the Eagle Warrior line, but doesn’t cost gold and is more similar to a Light Cavalry than a Knight. They would have the Oceania architecture set, shared with the Micronesians.
Their Wonder would be Ahu Tongariki on Easter Island, but with only one statue.
Civilization Bonuses:
Docks work 15% faster
Infantry armor technologies free
Skirmishers fire 15% faster
Animals do not decay
Team bonus: Transport Ships move 10% faster
Unique Units: Koa (infantry unit that occasionally dodges enemy melee attacks), Catamaran (galley that fires a bolt with blast radius)
Unique Technologies: Body Oils (Barracks units +3 melee armor), Crab Claw Sail (ships +25% HP)
The overlaps are pretty bad honestly. The second and four bonuses as well as the TB are fine but the first and third bonus as well as the castle age UT have very big overlaps. The castle ageUT would be fine if it was better than the Teuton Infantry bonus but the other two have to be reworked I imagine
Well, I did make this before DE came out, and have only altered it slightly since then. I’m not changing the Imperial UT, as it is unique. I don’t see any significant overlap, so can you elaborate?
In any case, there are even official civs that have overlapped bonuses with each other, so it isn’t THAT bad.
The Imperial UT while it overlaps with Portugal it is fine since Portuguese have multiple more advantages and Portuguese get their extra hp since dark age. The castle age UT isnt unique, its just a worse Teuton bonus. Make it +3 and it should be fine tho
And I get liking old designs, but you have to change them if you want them to fit in the game
Yeah but those bonuses should all have advantages and disadvantages when compared and not be an straight worse or better version most of the time. In this case I think the overlaps are just worse versions of other bonuses
Let me propose an slightly changed design:
Polynesians
Infantry and Naval civilization
Food sources dont decay
Infantry armour upgrades free
Docks spawn fishing ships when built
Skirmishers +1 attack at castle/imperial age
TB: Infantry units +2 line of sight
CA UT: Crav Claw Sail (Ships +25% hit points)
IA UT: Body Oils (Infantry +3 melee armour)
seems a copy of already-existing bonuses. Also, some of them (Docks work 15% faster, ships +25% HP) are overpowered on certain maps.
Some bonuses like herdables rot more slowly are basically irrelevant.
Overall I can’t say that this civ has enough flavor right now to make me think it’s a separate civ from Dravidians/Malay (mostly Dravidians).
this introduces an element of RNG to melee engagements previously unseen, making melee engagements a bit like Monk conversions (RNG based). In small numbers, such RNG detracts from the quality of the gameplay, and in large numbers, it averages out and you might as well substitute this dodging with extra HP equal to the average HP gained by dodging. Overall, I am not sure such design belongs in AoE, one thing is Shrivamsha dodging arrows (notice that this isn’t RNG based), another is dodging melee attacks.
I actually thought about that. I figured there could be a meter that Koas have which is depleted by enemy melee attacks, and once depleted, the next melee attack deals no damage. The meter will then have to replenish before it can be depleted again. So it wouldn’t be RNG-based.
The problem is, making it +3 in Imperial Age is basically just a better version of the Bulgarians’ Bagains tech. I figured that by making it worse overall, but available to all Barracks units and not just swordsmen, and one age earlier, made it different enough from Bagains. (Of course, I actually came up with Body Oils before I knew about Bagains.)
So far I think it’s good but I definitely think that the Koa isn’t that unique of a unit, just a melee Shrivamsha Rider, but I could definitely see it being a fair unit. As for Body Oils, it already feels super indifferent from Bagains, but I would argue far stronger. Giving extra melee armour to Halberdiers is a very scary, and if you were to add it I would say that they should get Pikes max, and yeah it would also help the Tribal Sentry. I definitely think an entirely different UT would be better.
Funny enough, I actually came up with the unit before the release of DE (I just wrote it down afterward), and just wasn’t sure how it would function. The Shrivamsha Rider gave me an idea of how it could.
My problem with most of the new world/Polynesian civs people come up with is they almost invariably have some kind of hokey attack/armor bonus tech despite peaking at stone, or at best, bronze technologies in the AoE2 time period. The Chimus used copper mace heads? Let’s give them a tech called “Superior metallurgy” that gives them +3 attack on top of all the other metalworking techs they never had! The Polynesians oiled their bodies? That’s more protective than German 16th century Maximilian plate armor! Yes, there are ridiculous things in the game, but if you use that as a crutch to justify any kind bonus you want, you end up with a game that has more ridiculous things than not.
There’s a reason most of these civs were not included nor seriously considered by the original devs and even now are not near the top of the list for new additions; the tech gap is massive. Arguably the most far fetched techs in the game are all New World techs the devs pulled out of thin air so that Meso/Andean civs would be able to compete with other civs (El Dorado, Garland Wars, Fabric Shields). Garland wars is probably the least bad since it refers to training/warfare instead of technology, but it’s still pretty silly.
If I’m going to try to give constructive feedback, I’d say if you want to make more new world or oceanic civs, don’t go with unimaginative, played out bonuses like more attack or armor, or things that are basically modified versions of what other civs have (I get that this becomes harder to do the more civs are added). But looking at this civ, I see a Persian dock bonus, a unique but fantastically ahistorical free armor bonus, a Dravidian skirm bonus, a unique (ish- probably operates similarly to Mayan hunt in practice) but low powered hunt bonus, a Berber ship bonus, an infantry/melee Shrivamsha, a Polynesian Caravel, a Teuton armor bonus tech, and a powered up Portuguese ship tech. I would like to see Polynesians added if they could be done in a way that isn’t some kind of sci-fi Wakanda-esque idealization of their civ, or some kind of potluck stew of other civ bonuses, but that seems pretty unlikely.