Let us be honest, any civ with paladins, will just race towards making Paladins, because it is just the best unit in the game.
In my opinion, Paladin civs should be civs that cannot do much else BUT Paladins, like the Franks and Teutons. It is ay too strong of a unit, and any civ that has them should have fewer options to compensate.
Please don’t try to redesign 20 years old game, which has players used to gameplay they have experienced throughout the years. Paladin was quite common unit in AOK. It became less common with expansion packs, but taking it away from civs which have had it for years is just not okay thing to do.
If you want to depend on cavaliers, then just don’t research paladin upgrade and let other people have their fun with paladins, like they are used to.
I am not trying to redesign anything. I am just saying that, if it was up to me, only 5 civs would have Paladin.
You can go and talk about it in AOE 4 forums. That is a game in development, with probably unfinished civs, which can be designed. AOE 2 has already existing civs and gameplay, which shouldn’t be redesigned in such massive way.
Yeah but no one makes just paladins. And their weakness to the pike line can be negated simply by incorporating elite skirms to kill the pike line units.
Teutons Champions now get 1+3+2=6 MA and have the base 70 HP. Bulgarian 2H Swords have 0+3+5=8 MA and have base 60 HP. Both Units defeat each other in 7 hits. Maybe Bulgarians should have gotten access to Champions, maybe even for free, I do think Bagains is just that expensive.
M@A to Champion costs 100+200+300+750=1350 Food and 40+65+100+350=555 Gold vs 900 Food, 450 Gold for Bagains.
I do look forward to seeing Stirrup Cavaliers dominate in early Imp. Bulgarians have faster Blacksmiths as a Team Bonus and Stirrups is a Castle Age UT so they can have that when they advance. Even without any eco bonuses, it should still be a solid power spike.
I do not know about that, since they save so much in the Militia upgrades already. If Bulgarians had Champion, it would be the best Champion, able even to nulify Garland Wars completely.
For now, and according to what you yourself say, they appear to be balanced, even if asymetric, which is perfect.
Kmher were super vulnerable to siege onagers. All they had against onagers+halbs combo was bombar canons. Now they got nothing. Push Kmher with halbs + onagers and they lost the game.
With the removal of Bulgarian paladin, they’re now again the rarest upgrade with siege onager as the second closest. I don’t see why is it a problem. They’re expensive upgrades and still easy to counter for most civs and only a team game thing
Isn’t that just math error and it is intended 33%
It’s indeed that, and the 33% buff is entirely intended, or else Japanese infantry, for instance, would have been nerfed years ago.
In other topic you say that:
If Lithuanians partialy cover Polish Kingdom after Union of Krewo, they should have Paladins. Poland was known from their knights, in fact in this times one of the most famous knights in whole Europe was Pole.
Also Byzantines should have Paladins. They represent fact that many west-european knights serve as mercenaries in Byzantine armies. Cataphracts are their native cav, Paladins are Latinikon. End offtopic.
About Teutons. TK get speedboost, and teuton Cav have boost. This can be good Teutons now have top tier Cav, Infantry and Siege. And Eco. Only deathballing.
Lithuanians. I think Leitis is overbuffed. I always see Leitis not as Paladin replacement but more like more universal Heavy Camel. This mean should have simmilar price, especialy in gold (this mean 60G).
Tower Shields. On paper it seams broken for ES, but i think is not as drastic. Against Arb lithuanians ES will perform like before, against other ES also nothing change. They will be better against some UU and HC, but in standard trashwar nothing change for Skirms. Halbs on the other hand have standard arrow resistance.
Goths… We will see. Im scared.
Persians. They probably deserve this nerf, but i dont konw how i see it.
I still think few new units are too cheap. Keshik is practicly equal to Tarkan and have similar role, but is 20G cheaper. Leitis is more universal Heavy Camel, and is 10G cheaper. Konnik is more universal Cataphract, and is 5G cheaper.
Funny is, increase of firegaley TT can be, paradoxaly, slight buff for Byz. Because with slower TT you will have less FG on the water, and they will be harder to replace. And Byz have the best FG, so they will win with equal numbers.
Still we dont see buff for Portugese.
Slavs cover for Poles, which is why they haver Boyars as Heavy Cavalry.
Byzantines have Paladins because they cover for the Armenians, not because of Latin mercenaries.
You do not get to say when a topic is over.
Both Lithuanians and Byzantines shoyld lose Paladin. Paladin with Relic damage bonus is too strong, and Byzantines have Cataphract.
Leitis and Cataphracts are reason enough to remove Paladin from their Tech Trees, specially now that Leitis is super spammable.
Love the post and discussion. But if anyone thinks that balance is ever going to solve this:
You’re kidding yourself.
Actually cumans used heavy cavalry after settling in Hungary, Not much is known about Hun warfare but cataphracts were popular with everyone
I think they’re making it a theme for last khan UUs, cheap and cost effective units, Konnik isn’t cheap but it’s basically two units for a price of one
You refer to the civ balance or to the campaigns?
I guess he meant that people are too used to their favourite civs to change the ones they play, even after balance changes. I don’t think it’s THAT true, as most people will want to try new stuff and aren’t that tryharding (I must have fought a persian player only once, and he went for a full TC drop meme strat). Some pro players however won’t be willing to change but that’s another story.
In my experience, people are tryharding that hard now. AoE2.club confirms it when you check after matches. Most people played the civ they just played 40-100 times in their last games there. They will keep using what they think the best civs are, because they want their points. It’s a consequence to having a completely blind pick with no opportunity to ban civs or see if opponent is random.
Well that one plays only with is favourite civ it’s one thing, and it’s ok, everyone should have it’s favourite civ for one reason or another, but that everyone use everytime the same civs just because they are strongher than the average it’s another thing, and it’s frustrating.
We managed fine for years enjoying the elation in the surprise when you drew your favorite civ at random. 
Huns are a cavalry civilization. Their melee fighters are cavalry and their archers are cavalry…
So I don’t know how you think magyars can’t have the best cavalry archer if they are a cavalry civilization.
Also even when turks are labeled as a gunpowder civilization, I’d say they are somewhat a cavalry civilization too, since they get FU hussars and have the unit upgrades for free, so getting a good cav archer also fits them, especially when their foot units are very lackluster aside from FU champ and HC/Janiss.
Just like malians are an “infantry” civilization only. Yet their light cav beats many hussars and their cav in general are really good.
(Yes I’m aware I’m responding to a week old post and maybe somebody already replied but I just started reading this now 
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