Yes I dont understand much english so you have to be more specific.
You seem to do a fine enough job to me. Some non-English-speaking users are basically incomprehensible.
Then why bother wasting my time mate?
EDIT: Excerpt from this website â Age of Empires II
Age of Empires II takes place between the beginning of the Middle Ages in 476 and ends in the beginning of the Early Modern Age, c.1500.â
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Well unfortunately who ever wrote this completely missed 1598 korean scenario which was in the original cd version.
Copy and paste time.
âI am sure itâs quite apparent that AOE2 does tend to bend history a bit to show popular historical battles, figures and timelines. Thatâs creative freedom and artistic liberties(excesses) which is quite normal for any medium be it books, films, games etcetc.â
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So by that logic Mughal empire would fit into the picture, no? Since the time period doesnât need to support it, as it can be bent at will.
Youâre putting too much faith into a fandom wiki page for the game. For the most part, the data there is supposedly correct, but the opinion parts are not. Can you source the claim that the time period for AoE2 is c.1500? Or is it just some random fandom writerâs opinion? This is like writing a thesis and citing Wikipedia, except in this case even worse. 11
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I didnât know reading and comprehension came so hard for you mate. Aoe 2 was always supposed to be set in the middle ages. Do you want me to dig out the old Ensemble Studios guide book for you which shows the time periods of 1, 2 and 3 and the hypothetical 4th which was supposed to be set in the present age??
Why does thread hace almost 1000 posts lol, what is it about Dravidians that inspires so much discussion
imo, itâs because this civ has a few specific weaknesses that almost everybody agrees on. However, devs refuse to fix them. As long as that is the case, this thread will keep going. For maybe years, till devs fix them 11
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This Thread will go on till Dravidians are THE NO 1 Aoe2 Civ!
DRAVIDIANS FOREVER!!!
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Iâll stop when they have 50% win rate on arabia. Honestly, like 48% on 1200+ and 1900+ Elo will do.
Personally I think the thread goes on because theyâre such an interesting civ. The weak stable line, the elephant archers, the very cool UU, TWO fairly bizarre unique techsâŠtheyâre a very zippy civ.
I just hope whatever eventual changes may or may not happen donât diminish that distinctiveness at all!
I hope they donât get any more bonuses, but instead their current ones are worked on. I wasnât too happy with how Bengalis were handled with just more bonuses tacked on, rather than more changes to their current ones and the Ratha. So I hope Dravidians do not go the same way.
They can get these bonuses i mentioned here.
Or they can get the below alternative.
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Battle Elephants cost 60% less gold. Historically they had the highest no of elephants.
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Heresy and Faith free. Considering they had one of the best Spiritual works in the world. 63 nayanmars, 12 alwars, many no of siddhars and much more people redefining Hinduism in India.
Battle elephants will not be overpowered. Since they cost food, doesnt have bloodlines, husbundry and final armour.
Free Heresy and Faith will not be powerfull since they dont have knights and only unit that can be converted is mangonels and battle elephants. Considering they are slow. they get converted before attacking monk anyway.
Light cav will not be powerfull because they lack many upgrades.
They can give bloodlines if they want light cav to be a okaish raiding unit. Also giving bloodlines will not make their battle elephants powerfull. Since they lack husbundry, elite and final armour
The above ones will help both in Castle and imperial and not in Feudal where they are strong.
So what do you think. 60% less gold elephants and free Heresy and Faith.
I have given bonuses that they need and historically accurate.
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I agree that Battle elephants and Elephant archers should have more line of sight of more than 7. But 15 to 20 LOS is going to be superfluous. Nobody is going to be scouting with any slow units in castle age and even monks collect relics without additional acouting. Besides, It will just highlight too many units at one go as well and become extremely distracting. A reasonable LOS for elephants should be 11. It will match Elephant LOS with their primary counter monks. Recently, Battle Elephants had a boost to their LOS to match Ele archers. The logic âElephants with riders(BEs and EAs) should have same LOSâ. When devs can be such juvenile swith their reasoning, I see no scope for elephants to become meta and viable as an in-game unit.
To make elephants viable, Devs shoud have increased LOS to 11 to match monks at least. All elephant civs do not get heresy which is fine when these civs get BEs and EAs as options in addition to Knights and cav archers. But when civs get them as replacements of Knights and cav archers, You need some additional tech or bonus to overcome monks. Bengalis get it as a bonus and Dravidians donât. I see this issue as âthe elephant in the roomâ devs need to fix first. But they wonât since that would make battle elephant + archer combo amazing for civs with husbandry with negligible speed loss. However there is a downside to this strategy. This will force the civ to play forever castle.
Elephants are not meta. Their resource consumption for training is not balanced by the value they bring to play. Despite being cavlry, Battle elephants .3for all practical purposes function as âsiege unitsâ or âcounter siege unitsâ. They are only good to take out buildings and siege. Except Khmer BEs, all other civs can be kited and killed by crossbowmen even with husbandry. If Elephants need to be made viable as a meta unit, they need their costs to be brought down drastically. There will be corresponding decrease in HP. But this a huge balance change that should affect all elephant lines including war elephants. For 2 pierce armour, they should cost only 50 gold. The food cost for battle elephant should be in correspondence to their HP. EAs should also have 50 gold cost. But their food cost should be less than Battle elephants due to their less than stellar damage output and their inability to function as Siege against buildings. Since these changes are not going to happen anytime soon, Elephant only civs need need some high damage units which can play a meta game.
Dravidians from a historical context should have massed up elephants in their army composition. Since elephants are not meta and Siege is close to that role, any civ bonus or unique tech should benefit some siege unit as well. Elephants are either food intensive in castle age or gold intensive in imp, if you want a civ to play Elepehant they should not be cost prohibitive and have bonus for some other siege as well. E.g In castle age, if you are giving 60% discount on elephant gold cost or total cost, you need to extend it to units such as trebs, petards to make the tech actually useful. ## ### ######### context, I see a good reason to modify the 33% cheaper siege to an âelephant-siegeâ combo bonus and get something like below.
or
The above 2 bonuses make both Siege and elephants hard counters to siege weapons in castle age and alleviate weakness of Dravidian civ. EAs can also tank damage from skirms better like Bengalis.
Fishing bonus is very situational. Even if your version of arabia is implemented, the current build order meta provides for safe food collection below town-center. Your version will have 250 or 500 food only and will be more dangerous to collect at the edge of wall-off. Just having a couple of milita or archers near area will be an easy exploit for opponents. Only Malay can exploit this map in late game. Dravidians donât have tanky vills like poles, incas or fast ones like berbers. So this carry capacity itself is good only for fishing ships which makes it an extremely underwhelming bonus. With vills, it only facilitates forced drop-offs. However understanding the identity it gives the civ, it can be worked in as a team bonus.
Dravidians were put in C-tier eco bonus by Ornlu and he is right. I see both the 200 wood and +15 fish carry as terrible bonuses that can make way for a proper one.
This bonus will help make Dravidians play the game like a proper civ despite lacking all late-game eco techs. They can have two-man saw removed from their tech tree and it will still be balanced. Both the old bonuses are #########er thus can be removed as a re-work. If needed, a bonus mimicking the +200 wood can be added to preserve the flavor.
The above bonus helps with the Drush and replaces +200 wood bonus. The civ design was borrowed heavily from this design by @MantisAoECivilisationConcepts. So it makes sense to have this bonus as an ode to his design. If these 2 bonuses are present, there may not be a need for siege discount bonus.
I said if they had fervour, they could counter. But they donât and as Iâve emphasized time and again, the solution to the problem is:
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Youâre never going to see massed elephants in the castle age, itâs opposite their design. Most of what youâre paying extra for is HP, and HP is useless without damage.
The real place elephants should be providing value is in combined compositions. If you mix one battle elephant into a larger army, the battle elephant is going to provide a lot of value, assuming it doesnât get converted. But to achieve that, you have to protect them from monks somehow.
Lacking an idea like I suggested here: , the next best way I can think of is extra LOS. But that doesnât just need equal LOS to monks, it really would need superior LOS, especially lacking Husbandry. So I donât think 11 is enough. After all, you already basically get that much with all the range upgrades in.
That said, you could well be right that 20 is too far, but there is a middle ground to be found there.
One issue with that team bonus you propose: it could make 1-tile trade routes generate instant infinite gold.
Anyways, you have to remember that fishing is the fastest source of food in the game. If you could use it regularly, they might not be S-tier, but theyâll be MUCH better, and thatâs the real goal here.
Edit: For personal context, yesterday I had a game where I got a TC close enough to shore fish to send my villagers to it after building, and the extra food did feel like it made a big difference, especially since it saved on having to build farms right away.
I understand that. I initially wanted to give +5 carry capacity for transport ship. But that belongs to sarcens. The bonus can be plain vannila one for fishing ship.
Incas and portugese got this treatement when they were buffed. I canât see why Dravidians can get a similar treatment.
Of course, it not even A-tier bonus. Its a very situational one. Any bonus that can be used is definitely better than one that is situational. But Dravidians have situational bonuses in spades. Their only general-purpose usable bonuses are +200 wood and 25% faster firing skirms. So this one can be taken as a team bonus in place of the oppressive âdock - pop spaceâ bonus.
Pretty good example of a situational bonus. If you force it when itâs not favorable, you are likely to lose vills and fall behind. There is very little upside to such risks. I put my boar lure vills on farm right-away. They keep the vill safe under my TC. Now the meta has changed to have less vills on wood and consequently less farms. But at my level, I can manage.
Bottom 2 on Arabia and NOmad with less than 45% winrate, Iâm not surprised. Because, they have too many gaps in their tech tree which needs to be fixed. E.g They are not a meso-civ yet they donât need stables.
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Thatâs why I want to make shore fish more regular. For context, that example was my second TC, and the positioning was quite safe.
Getting even an extra 200 food at high speed is still quite beneficial, even in early castle age.
Iâm not talking about the bonus, Iâm talking about the civ overall. They already have a very decent bonus in the 200 wood, so just making the fishing bonus consistent enough that itâs at least available on all arabia generations would be enough to make a big difference.
oh yes! I forgot to check that. I play mosrtly nomad and Arabia which are open. But off-late I see Dravidians being better suited for closed maps. However they are not particularly good on them either. Just about the middle on the lower winrate side.
You have good ideas and Iâll give you that bro. If you TC shorefish, it will give you 250 food which is comparable to tatar bonus of 2 sheep. But second TC should preferably on a good woodline. Tatars get a woodline and food bonus. However given that you can TC the shorefish, there is no need to walk far from TC. So the carry bonus ends up being superfluous. Any civ can do this gimmick of putting TC on shorefish on Arabia if needed. For Dravidians however, you use up your only proper bonus of +200 wood to make a TC which cannot be used as an efficient farm TC later. You would have used up 275 resources to collect 250 food and would need to abandon your TC due to its awkward location. So the most optimal way to use this bonus is only for fishing ships. Hence its best to change the bonus into a Team bonus which applies to only fishing ships.