Intro:
In the Culture Wing, Proselytization (previously known as “faith”) is seldom used by players. This is because it is unpractical in the late game. Golden age Abbasid was a pioneering time for Religion and Philosophy. This is my suggestion on how to make Proselytization more practical and give justice to the significance of religion during that time.
Suggestion:
Upon completion of the culture wing, it acts as a mosque where you can train Imams and garrison relics. In addition, the ability of Proselytization will become instantly available to Imams. The Imperial tech of the culture wing will be replaced with something else.
Conclusion:
By reworking the Culture Wing in that manner will add to the “Jack-Of-All-Trade” feeling that the Abbasids are known for. This will also revive the classic monk rush from AOE2. In addition, the Abbasids will be able to capture sacred sites in feudal age joining the HRE and Deli Sultanate in early sacred site plays.
Now we can reflect the religious significant that the Abbasids had during the Golden age.
2 Likes
Yea. The House of Wisdom in general needs an actual rework. Currently, I feel the HoW functions too much like 4 Meinwerk Palaces. They don’t do much besides granting techs that you have to learn instead of getting for free like Landmark bonuses. And the free military/trader units don’t do much besides giving temporary momentum. Your suggestion is in line with an idea I’ve had. So instead of the current free military units, or free traders, this;
The idea that I’m leaning towards, is making each wing to be fully represented by becoming actual production buildings that either produces units faster or at a lower cost. The Military wing can produce all military of appropriate age (like english keeps), Culture wing can produce Imams, Economy wing can produce Villagers and Trade wing can produce Traders.
Additionally, I think they should be granted one tech from each wing for free and immediately. You can still learn the other 2 techs per wing at the right age too. So Culture; proselytization. Trade; grand bazaar. Economy; fresh food stuffs/fertile crescent. Military; boot camp. This will make the decision of choosing a wing much more important for your gameplan. You’ll be set with both a unique tech as well as a slightly better production building for that very unit. The biggest problem with Abbasid currently is that, they take too long to kickstart, and this would counteract that perfectly.
If going Culture wing meant you could produce Imams with Proselytization from the HoW early, at a faster rate or lower cost, this suddenly creates a playstyle that feels like much more like a meaningful bonus with a playstyle. The same goes for if you wanted to spam Archers, Infantry or Camel Archers immediately in Feudal. Not needing to make a production building grants momentum just as the current free traders/military units does, but also a longer lasting bonus that matters.
This gives the HoW a lot of depth, as the multi-production building can both offer offensive and defensive means. The quicker or cheaper production in addition to an immediate tech bonus allows them to both go on the offense immediately upon age up or to pump out units from a building that can’t be shut down if rushed.
These changes also contribute to making the HoW feel like a super landmark instead of a super university.
I agree that proselytization is never used and does not work well.
I think it needs a few things to make it usable:
- available in an earlier age
- allow conversions beyond pop cap to happen
- make its targeting work like AoE2, currently if the unit goes out of range I believe it goes on full cooldown
2 Likes
You know, I have thought of making every wing a production building as well. I have concluded that since the house of wisdom is a library in its true nature, it would be somewhat out of place for it to be training soldiers or traders. I actually think the few units you get right now for the military wing is kind of silly. No. There has to be a better way.
Imams on the other hand during the Golden Age were also scholars. It makes more sense to train them from the HOW.
1 Like
There is a leap of logic with Imams too I would say, they’re not exactly librarians. You’re right to say that the HoW is about knowledge, but I like to view this iteration as a “place of learning”. To learn about economy, culture, trade and military, and that would explain why you could train all the various types as long as you have the appropriate wing.
I agree with everyone’s ideas. Although it sounds a little OP if the House in imperial age was able to train military, villagers, and imams or traders.
I wish it worked more like the Vizier point system, where you have different paths to choose, but you can’t go to the full depth in all of them. Each path has a stronger identity.
Like, aging up gives some kind of points that you distribute into the wings. Eventually, if you go deep enough into military wing, you can train military from HoW and still have points in the other wings for some other bonuses. Or you just invest across the board on a variety of stuff but maybe don’t unlock any production.
It just seems like they’re having a hard time balancing around the fact that Abba can fully unlock all 4 wings eventually if it wants to. So they can’t make any one upgrade as powerful as it should be (in Feudal for example) without making Abba OP in Imperial. If they change that mechanic, they could make the individual wings a lot stronger and meaningful.