Fishermen bonus problem

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

I think there needs to be some rework with the fishermen bonus of Indians. This bonus doesn’t apply to most maps but if there is any map with several small ponds with fish everyone picks Indians because it’s so good. It has either 0 or 100 influence on a map so it seems. There is little middle ground. This makes maps that could be fun just predictable mirror matchups. Fish are the fastest resource and then add 2 decent upgrades with cheap villagers just makes Indians too good. This was a similar problem with mongols on maps with a lot of hunt (maybe not as much anymore since they got their hunt bonus nerfed). This is unfortunate because some maps could be fun.

I think that you could split the 15% (maybe 10%) fishermen speed bonus and the +15 carrying bonus up. Add in a third bonus that allows fishermen to drop off at docks. You could distribute each of these bonuses among Indians and 2 other civilizations that are either “naval” civs or relied upon fishing as an important resource to fit the civ (Portuguese and Vietnamese?). I’m not sure which bonuses would go to which civs though—would need trial and error. This would have a much more limited influence on a map with several ponds of shore fish.

I’m not sure how you could buff the Indians to balance out taking away a bonus that has very limited use. That’s tricky. Also, several civilizations that could have been a candidate for a decent but situational bonus received buffs. I guess it will take time to know if 2 other civilizations could receive one of these upgrades and not be too strong on maps with several shore fish resources.

Does this seem reasonable?

2

If you need a buff, giving them Battle Elephants might be a nice start.

3

  1. Give Cavalier and Battle elephant as well as War elephant, then remove Imperial camel.

  2. Remove fishermen bonus and make the effect of Sultans be a civ bonus instead of an unique tech, then Mahouts become the new unique tech for speeding Indians elephants up.

4

That’s a drastically different civ. Not sure why you need war elephants and battle elephants. Also you just took a UU and UT from the Persians and now the imperial camel doesn’t have a home. Would the fishermen bonus just be lost?

1 Like
5

There is not only me to hope that Indians get elephants. AOE series can be popular because it relates the history, and it doesn’t make the sense that Indians has no melee elephants.

Persians elephants were bought from India, Persians having them in the game is totally for entertainment. What really represents Persians warfare culture is Aswaran, cavalry that can regeneration like Berserks. If Persians was introduced later than Indians, War elephants would belongs to Indians.

In the other hand, Saracens is worth Imperial camel than Indians, there is a topic for discussing this thing at the forum.

I never mind redesigning the civ if it is needed. The historic accuracy is important as same as the balance since it is AOE series instead of other RTS game.