Well, if you prefer, here’s a more earnest critique. I’ll start off by addressing the walrus in the room - that an Inuit civ is easily one of the most controversial possible choices in terms of design viability. There’s just so little to work with that lends itself to AoE2-style design without destroying every semblance of realism and historical flavor. If Age2 was a game that placed less emphasis on population, economy, warfare and technology, and more on exploration, resourcefulness with limited materials, environmental factors, with extreme weather and other survival-related mechanics, that would be a situation in which an Inuit civ could carve out a respectable niche. But it’s not that type of game. So nothing personal - nobody could create an Inuit civ design that I think would be a good fit for AoE2, or even a hypothetical one that does not appear absurd by trying to fit in the same logical universe as an AoE2 civ. But I expect that your next civ will be more palatable. And hats off to Sandy for his work and generally good ideas but I have to heartily disagree with him here.
Basically, the IRL Inuit present all of the weaknesses (and many more) and none of the strengths of the existing American civs. To the point where every aspect of the civ design is about as grounded as the stone flung from an Aztec trebuchet. You’re literally proposing universities made of snow, and castles that are just piles of rocks even before they’re destroyed. The UU is about as qimmiqy as it gets - visually silly, and silly in every other way. Not only the idea that it would be at all viable (much less fast) outside of snowy terrain, but at also that it would be “tanky” or expensive. IRL it’s basically a much worse version of a bronze age chariot that only works on one terrain and whose weapon probably averages ~35 lb draw weights (definitely not a good reason to have the highest DPS Arbs).
I’ve expressed this in other civ concepts, and maybe it’s just a personal design philosophy, but I generally dislike the idea of inferior regional technologies being presented as more powerful than superior foreign technologies (instead of, at best, a justification for anachronistically having access to those superior technologies). What I mean is that historical use of bone and fur armor is perhaps a reasonable justification for getting the first couple generic armor techs, but IMO should not be used as an additional buff on top of getting those other anachronistic techs. I.e Inuit “swordsmen” and “eagles” should not have a stats advantage over generic units on the basis of using a more limited technology. Similar case for the cable-backed bow, which was a clever way of getting the most out of bad/limited materials, but was far less powerful than a medieval crossbow or composite bow.
Fully agree. An Algonquin civ is still pretty fringey, but has a lot more to recommend it than the Inuit, and yet has enough broad cultural similarities to be an acceptable stand-in for “Skraeling” encounters.
I’d recommend a native name for this.
Even this is too powerful. For reference, a galley with the first range/attack upgrade does 9 damage to another galley - 8 of that is bonus damage. So in galley wars, you’re taking ~3 less damage per hit, which easily beats Saracen (or any other civ’s) galleys.