A regional unit is basically an unconventional unit. A example of a generic faction, the Franks. They basically have zero regional units. Because the game is very confusing with lots of weird units you might as well give legacy civs their own regional units. As time goes on, this will become even more apparent with new regional units appearing with each new DLC of Age of Empires 2. Some faction only have generic units without anything to surprise the enemy with.
Unconventional units. Camel, fast anti cavalry units.
Eagle Warrior, raider/scout infantry.
Champi raider/scout infantry.
Temple Guard, very heavy infantry with attack that gets faster.
Battle Elephant, lesser, but cheaper war elephants.
Steppe Lancer, raider cavalry with plus 1 range.
Armored Elephant. A new kind of ram that’s slightly better in melee. Can fight villagers.
the issue with regional units is that rarely they’re just in the tech tree but like the centerpiece of it. Like give me a civ with weak steppe lancers that are there to be used like Teutonic scouts are in a non long term way
My Georgians concept from long before Mountain Royals had Steppe Lancers, but since the civ’s focus was infantry and not cavalry, they were completely generic. It was an interesting decision.
I also think the exisitng regional units should possibly be a bit reworked. Imo regional units should not “dominate” in certain matchups or settings. They can have their primary usecases, but be more generally viable.
The best examples are Camels on open maps. They are just too dominant against cavalry units. On the other spectrum they are basically useless on closed maps.
A possible change here would be to reduce their speed actually BELOW that of Knights, but give them +1 PA and some bonus Damage against Siege. Possibly also adjusting the res cost if necessary.
Fire Lancers could also lose some of their anti-cav Bonus damage. Ele Archers could lose some Range, Speed and Pierce Armor, in exchange be just a bit cheaper.
Eagles, Champi, Eles, Steppes are mostly fine and would only need changes to bring/remove them more from the meta.
Champi I still believe could/should get the Shock Infantry Armor class for several reasons. I heard the explaination that they would have been designed to replace the Champion line for these civs, and therefore need to not die to that line. But I disagree. These civs have Access to Slingers and the Champi are mostly an anti-Range unit specialist. And ranged unit factions don’t always have any tool against Champi. Usually they would add spearmen against the mobile cavalry - so making the Militia line against fast Infantry is actually an ideal concept. Ofc we need to reassess if this is practically achievable in the midgame. And so far it seems it isn’t, so we probably need to specifically boost the militias against the Shock Infantries imo.
For the northern/central european civs I still believe the best regional unit addition would be a super cheap Shieldman, that is specialised against Skirmishers (but also useful in mostly tanking all other kind of ranged fire).
I’m not too sure about the South european civs, but I can imagine some gunpowder unit other than the Hand Cannoneer. Spanish (and Portuguese) could also get JInetes/Genitours.
In general I think regional units need to be given to at least 10 % of civs (exceptions are the scout replacements). Better 20 % or even like 1/3 of all civs. So they are really a reuccurring part of the game and can work as stabilisator for metas rather than setting these. Camels and Fire Lancers are prime examples for me how regional units actually should NOT be implemented, as they can become very frustrating to play against if your civ just lacks the tools against them.
Before giving more and more regional unit lines current regional units should be shared with more civis eg huns turks getting SL line pastures becoming farm replacement for nomadic civis caravansarai given to more civis etc.
Camel Rider from Mongols, Cumans and arguably Ethiopians, BE from Dravidians, EA from Gurjaras, Siege Ele from Dravidians again can play the role that you wanted. Though all SL and Champi civs have at least a bonus for the unit.
I recall reading a suggestion to split the spearman line into Spearman → Pikeman and Glaiveman → Halberdier, with one of them having range like the Steppe Lancer
The EA with +4 melee armor (technically +3), a 25% food discount and the one ele archer civ with thumb ring… sounds like they’re not disincentivized
true currently… idk how we came to this point. I made a post some time ago, possibly 2 or 3 years or so where i tried to explain that in the meta development we have developed some abstract followup of different aspects of the game. And it’s pretty clear to me as they are different in eco requirements it seems obvious to me that civs with generally strong eco would excel the best in executing these.
however - lately the orders of these executions aren’t as strict in many games as I described them there and sometimes i even see parts skipped which I don’t really have an explenation for. Sometimes people sit on res they could spend but seem to wait for indicators what their next best step would be. That’s a bit confusing to me, as for me it’s often very clear what it should be (like just walling or adding stuff like skirms to your melee units, just focus on getting up or these kind of stuff).
So I would think that the height of the hamster meta we had some months ago would actually be way better for eco bonusses to shine. However it seems that currently it’s even better for them despite we are again entering a different meta stage that is definitely way less straight forward and - despite still shaped by timings - actually has a lot of “wait for the next move of the opponent” aspects.
Possibly it’s also kind of the answer. With a lot of civs that have tools against basically everything it’s actually often NOT the best move to go for units you have military bonusses for. And even if it’s bad if you don’t spend your ressources immediately, they don’t go completely to waste unlike an unused military bonus.
Maybe it*s time to vamp up some of these military bonusses for civs that currently don’t see a lot of play, bring some more spice into the game. even if we know some civs can’t handle certain units well? Like undoing the latest nerfs to Jannissaries and stuff like this?
You can’t “surprise” for long. After a while, everyone will know champis are coming at 5th minute and Koreans are going to open skirms + fire lancers. At that point, it would come to which units are good. Knights, crossbows, skirms, CA, light cav are still the better units in the game. Some civs like Chinese which were already good shouldn’t have received an additional regional unit. But the remaining civs with regional units lack one or more of knights, CA, scout, gunpowder or militia line and have their regional unit as an asymmetric replacement.
Camels aren’t a regional unit, a dozen plus civs have them. Temple guard is actually a unique unit not regional and its so bad. Battle elephant, Elephant archers are expensive, slow and too niche, mostly not viable as main army or as a replacement to Knights and CA. Armored elephant is just a ram that can’t be garrisoned but can get healed. Steppe lancers are a problem only with Mongols since their hunt bonus is overtuned and was meant for a version of the civ that didn’t have lancers. If that’s fixed, Mongol lancers won’t be broken either. Fire lancers were problematic because of the siege tower play. They were moving faster than eagles and instantly shooting when ungarrisoned. That’s gone now. Likewise champi are a problem only in dark age and mostly for Tupi since they start with extra resources. Beyond feudal they’re just a food heavy version of eagles without conversion resistance. So its not like regional units or their civ (except Mongols) are broken. Generic civs don’t need anything extra to compete.
