Fixing non euro/colonial esp Asians

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
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First off with a bit of blunt honesty Asian Dynasties was a terrible expansion. The asian civs were horribly stereotyped, too strong in some ways too weak in others and the silly villiager retrictions. The consulate/export system in particular is so awfully implemented it needs a serious overhaul.

Warchiefs was better for the Native Americans but now we’ve got to consider the greater scope of the game. Definitive Edition has helped

However the African Civs seem all right for the most part even though there are only two of them and we could use them as a sort of Template to fix the others.

Access to armory//armory upgrades;

Currently Lakota and Hauds get new ways,(which is a bit weak) Inca and Aztec do not, this is particularly unfair since they can’t upgrade minor civ units in ways others can.
And in Asian civs only Japan gets armory via dutch consulate (even though they don’t have rifle infantry.

My solution: Armories become available to the british consulate and a new USA consulate. for Japan. You can send New ways again in the Imperial Age and gain the advanced Arsenal upgrades . Inca and Aztec gain the equivilent armory upgrades when they send the temple cards. Royal Green jackets and repelling volley don’t give rifle upgrades anymore (while they’re at it rename Rangers to Green jackets).

Churches (
Basic Churches have three purposes in the game, a small xp trickle, training priests, training spies, Train speed upgrades, and vision upgrades. Native Americans mostly have this covered with community plaza and updated native scout.
Again Japan gets church via Dutch consulate which is historically inaccurate as at one point most European trader were expelled becauses they were pushing Christianity the Dutch were not so they were allowed to stay. Christianity was brought to japan by the Spanish so make the Spanish grant the Church makes sense.
New proposal: Mosque becomes available via Ottoman consulate (covers india and china) and church for the Spanish consulates,

Now lets talk about the elephant in the room,

The consulate. First of all lets get rid of export, Unless somebody has a fair way of introducing influence to asian civs lets stick to food/wood/coin for everything. Dump the passive bonus’ too.

Second make them like native settlements that are exclusive to asians. Granting limited numbers of foreign auxilaries and technologies but nothing that the base civ can’t have. Won’t be too alienating since the Japanese isolation consulate is sort of like this already.

As an example.

British Consulate; Redcoats (build limit 15) and Hussars (build limit 9); a shipment of 3 Drummers in the commerce age, Armory Wagon in the fortress age (rebuildable if destroyed), Factory Wagon in the Industrial Age (not rebuildable).,

Also Mercenaries are now made from consulates not monasteries, (so no more stupid repentant prefix) and all three basic artillery can be shipped via the consulate like basilica ships Papal Units, one at a time taking the shipping queue.

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I thought I got my timing right…

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I agree that Asians need a big rework.
They feel like the odd ones in many ways.

  1. The hero unit should not be a monk
  2. Asians should have “normal” artillery available (Japanese is the most normal)
  3. Asians should have an Asian version of the Arsenal and not the current strange mix of solutions
  4. Export feels so boring and uninteresting compared to Influence
  5. Related the the first point. Monks should be normal units and Monasteries should function more like Churches/Mosques

Africans have

  1. Cool heroes
  2. Simply build European artillery
  3. Get the Arsenal though their Alliance system (not the best solution)
  4. Influence has different interesting ways to be collected and not just passively
  5. They have the coolest Priest replacement units and simply get a Church/Mosque though alliance.

There are also other minor things that are calling for a rework like including new civilisations like the USA or Italy in the Consulate.

The Native American civs also need a rework but for different reasons and that’s a different topic.

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I think simply build european artillery is the most boring thing. Asians should have there own artillery which it fine as it is right now. The only thing I want to complain is flow crow is too slow and too hard to micro because of shitty animation, same with hand mortar

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Indians and Chinese don’t have good artillery.
Which is especially sad for the Chinese that literally invented gunpowder in the first place.

But I agree that the African solution is boring.
The Light Cannon and the Flaming Arrow are much cooler solutions.

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The problem is not unique but gimmicky.
Asian artillery except the flaming arrow and the morutaru (functionally standard as it is, this unit is forced with a very bad name) all have very strange functions (culverin-mortar, dragoon-culverin, skirmisher, ram, etc.). Their only access to normal artillery is through the consulate and these are still “simply European artillery”.

And they visually are more strange and exotic than practical, just like how Chinese cavalry use meteor hammer and flail as their main weapon.

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This is probably the least important change. You cannot just add the Arsenal to India and China in isolation. You’d need to rebalance half a dozen cards for only a little bit of benefit.

A Church from the Spanish and Mosque from the Ottomans would make sense. But it would again require a lot of card rebalancing for civs that don’t already have it since those buildings have important upgrades like the training time techs. I don’t think China needs one just because either.

Yes to scrapping export, but the passive bonus could probably be retained. To make up for scrapping export, the Consulate shipments could come with an experience cost. It could be a flat cost that increases each time you resend the shipment so it is independent of the home city shipment curve. This would probably work well with moving some improvements from cards to buildings like Churches/Arsenals.

This still isn’t the right place for mercs. Give them a proper Tavern equivalent! If you want to merge a building into the Consulate it should be the Native Embassy.

No, give the Asians proper artillery from their own countries. There are plenty of good domestic options. Leave the European ones to Consulate armies.

You’re also missing some big issues.

  1. Make Wonders generic landmarks (Stepwell, Porcelain Kiln, Tulou, etc)

  2. Replace the monk heroes and add actual healers

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I feel like it would make more sense to give the church to the portuguese consulate since they were the first europeans to come in contact with Japan and Francis Xavier being a representative of the Portuguese Empire

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As these civs have been very well established I’d suggest mostly a reskin than a major rework.

Monastery to teahouse/caravansari (it can still offer hero upgrades because what is the problem).
Trainable consulate European units to Western style units but with Asian skins (those obtained from one-time techs can still be European).
Monks to some terms for military leaders (lord or general or something equivalent, etc. just like Ras and Emir for Africans), with the monk being the default skin. Now that there are hero skins, monks become the weirdest because the name “monk” is too specific so all skins that are not monks do not fit.

Gameplay-wise increase the access to consulate artillery a little bit.

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I mean you are treating European cannons as the “standard”, then you think asian ones are weird. Why do asian artilleries need to same function as Europeans? Why can’t we have a Asian unitvthat functions like a combo of 2 european units? You might treat Asian unit as standard and European mortars and culverin as extension of the Asian artillery but do their own job better respectively.

I am Chinese myself and I don’t think Chinese civ is based on stereotypes and have weird units. It is fine. Meteor hammer etc are from Chinese stories and mythologies, tbh the Japanese naginata originated Chinese mythologies too (Three Kingdom period). Itvis fine tonhave some unique flavours. In real history of course they didn’t use meteor hammer and iron flail as real weapons on horse, but it is acceptable as a game and fixes are welcomed but not necessary.

My only complaint is Chinese artilleries move so damn slowly and are unable to get speed upgrades, and flying crows should take 6 pop instead of 7 pop. It costs 600 resources, same as horse artillery.

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Because European artillery are first designed to be the standard roles that fit in a pretty intuitive system. Then the Asian artillery are designed to fill into the weird spots.

This is not an European vs Asian thing. This is basic game design. If the game was released with 4 Europeans, 2 Middle Easterners and 2 Asians I believe they will also have the “standard” units (look at AOE4) then the latter additions, whether European or not, would have weird units. And I’d also be against those.

On the other hand, there are very few hybrid infantry or cavalry. Most Asian infantry and cavalry fall into the standard category and it’s not a problem so I don’t know why only artillery has to be gimmicky.

Naginata is fine because it is a standard weapon. In fact the Japanese units suffer the least from this problem maybe because they were better known to the west at that time.
Meteor hammer is a martial art equipment, or a side side arm. It is never a cavalry main weapon.

The real problem is NOT stereotype but intentionally choosing “different” weapons just to make them look different.

Now we’re talking about visual designs instead of in-game roles. Meteor hammer or flail cavalry are still the same heavy melee cavalry like the others, but they are given exotic visuals for the sake of it. That’s another side of the problem.

In reality practical weapons are always similar across the world. Same with artillery. Asians did not prefer throwing meteor hammer on the horseback, or deploying odd-looking artillery pieces spitting flame, or mounting all of their guns on elephants. Those existed for sure but were either rarely used, or quickly proved to be impractical. On the opposite, they preferred “long pointy sticks” and “metal barrels shooting round spheres pulled by horses or men” like everyone else.

Africans were designed a little better than this. They use javelins, sabres, etc. Most of them are practical weapons for war (I’d exclude the sebastopol mortar, but it’s still a mortar with standard mortar designs). The developers did not dig into some local martial art practices and give them some strange looking gimmicks.

What bothers me is that people have the mindset of “Europeans should have the standard and practical weaponry then we give the others strange weapons to make them different from the Europeans”. Most people take it for granted without being aware, including some anti-European-civ champion that pops up in every discussion of potential European civs spreading the propaganda of “Europeans are not unique because they all use the same weapons” (while it’s fine to give the others impractical, rarely-used weapons to make them unique).

A quick example:
If we design an European unit with duck foot pistol as the main and only weapon, or give the French a unique musketeer called “mousquet musketeer”:

People who like European civs will be against them because they are weird.
People who dislike European civs will also be against them because they are forced uniqueness.
But in the meantime both assume meteor hammer cavalry or “qiang pikeman” are perfectly fine and justifiably unique.

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I agree that their units are unnecessarily exotic and detached from reality. But it would be a real shame to make everything stock standard like the Europeans. There were plenty of real out of the box weapons with unique functions that could be used instead of a clone of European cannons or straight up nonsense like Meteor Hammers that would be near impossible to use from horseback. It’s also not entirely true that Euro civs avoid stupid names. The royal house names are terrible and Euro-adjacent civs have stupid stuff like Soldado.

You can have your cake and eat it too with some eccentric Asian weapons that actually were used in battle.

China

Get rid of Song dynasty Flamethrowers and give China some troops armed with rocket pods. You wouldn’t even have to significantly change the function.

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Replace Meteor Hammers with mule drawn War Carts.

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Split up Hand Mortars into Hongyipao (cluvs) and Crouching Tiger Cannons (mortars).

Replace Disciples with Wolf Warriors.

Add some different infantry like Lang Xian and Three Eyes Gunners.

India

Making Siege Elephants actual siege mortars that are just transported by elephant.

Gajnal could be an elephant mounted Culverin.

The falc role could be covered by Turkish artillery like Darbzen or Mysorean Rocketeers.

Japan

Replace Morutaru with Ōdzutsu instead of a silly Samurai buff.

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I’d say the Warchiefs civilizations being “better” than the asians is an incredible hot take. Balancewise the civs are weirdly built around the auras of the Warchiefs and the Plaza ceremonies so most units are either overcosted or understated.

Nevermind the fact that only one of the civs can train artillery and the civs had really janky ways to work around that. (Captured Mortar, seriously?) Or the last minute patch-solution of the Tribal Market built next to mines.

Let’s not even start talking about them thematically. There’s been dozens of threads made here about how the Lakota units are completely fantastical in nature, or how the aztec units speak gibberish (and half the unit roster is made up anyways.). Inca and Haudenosaunee are slightly better at this, although the Inca roster is weirdly just a copy of the aztec one with gimmicks thrown on top of each unit.

I feel like native americans need way more drastic changes than asians to make them, well, functional civilizations. I have a really hard time wrapping my head around how’d you add more native american civs because you must work through so much jank built into the frame first.

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I would like more Asian mercenaries, natives and outlaws.
I would like also using Indian Rocketeers and Indian outlaws as useful units in lategame.
For China, Imperial Iron Troops as Mercenary Azaps, is a good and popular solution.

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As someone who has posted a lot about Asian civs, I don’t think Chinese unit roster needs too many changes that some people want.

It’s true that there are things that are deliberately designed to be orientally exotic, such as repeating crossbows, meteor hammers, and flamethrowers, but they are unavoidable as parts of an entertainment piece, just as there are unavoidable British longbows and the Leonardo’s Tank. These are small details in my opinion. Before getting too hung up on these little things, they clearly have bigger issues that deserve more discussion and effort, such as wonders, monasteries, and heroes, which are very heavily stereotyped and more importantly clearly inconsistent with the game’s own worldview.

I’m not saying changes to these small things are unacceptable, but I think drastic changes on the roster are unnecessary.

We can first just try making the Meteor Hammer a shock infantry so they won’t have the awkward feeling of using this weapon on horseback. It can even get some multipliers against mercs and heroes to hint that this weapon is also used for assassinations.

The Flamethrower is actually iconic. But if you want more Asian artillery, we can introduce it through the way like Mysorean Rockets without replacing the Flamethrower. For example, a card shipping Falconets, Mortars or Heavy Cannons operated by Chinese crews, and naming them Hongyipao Cannon, Weiyuan General Cannon, or Great General Cannon. The Crouching Tiger Cannons can simply be the name of the card that improves Hand Mortars, such like how Wankouchong is in the game.

For more, we can try to change the German ally to new Chinese Isolation at the Consulate to introduce more Chinese units such as Three-Eyed Gunner, Langxian Spearman, Guandao Cavalry, and Jingal. After replacing Manchu with Mongolian horse archer as a mercenary, Manchu with new stats can also be available in the Chinese Isolation.

As long as there is no intention of splitting those using spears and those using muskets into two units, then rename the Ashigaru Musketeer to the simpler and more accurate Ashigaru, just like the Samurai is not called “Samurai Swordsman”. It’s important too to rename Morutaru. In addition, renaming Naginata Rider to Yari Rider and simply reskinning the weapon in its hand to a straight-edged yari will be an easy and effective way to improve accuracy. The Japanese also have the opportunity to ship Culvelins or Light Cannons operated by Japanese crews and name them Kunikuzushi.

The most important thing is that changes like the above will not affect the gameplay of these existing civilizations too much. Being parts of the Consulate or new cards and so on, they don’t directly have a huge impact on the game. The reason I am opposed to directly giving new artillery that can be trained with general resources is because it will significantly change the gameplay of these civilizations.

The only civ I am more supportive of reset the roster would be the Indians, because I personally don’t like using the name of a ethnic group directly as the name of a general unit. The absence of horses, bows and native ships was also a serious mistake. I’ve already posted my thoughts on Indian units. Besides, adjustments to the Asian ship roster are also acceptable, as water battles have never been a major part of the game.

How to change the wonders, monasteries, and heroes is another matter.

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This.
Europeans have their weird units as Mercenaries and Outlaws (and even most of them are not strange). There are only a few European units that are out of place (Portuguese Organ Guns) and the community is very vocal about changing those.
For Chinese or Indians it’s like every second unit that is wrong. It’s obvious why the Japanese are the most popular Asian civilisation for none Asian players.
The main reason why many people play the Chinese is because there are many Chinese players in this game.

You know what?
Who cares if the Native Americans or the Asians are a little more wrong.
Let’s just agree that both should be improved!

By giving Asians less stereotypical units the ones that are in the game right now would be perfect candidates for new mercenaries.

Mercenaries and and should be more crazy and unique units.

But do all of them have to be regular trainable units?
Leonardos tank is an age up reward that is locked behind a shipment, you won’t see that in 95% of matches.
Longbows where actually deployed in relatively large numbers until the English civil war.

Also those are only 1 unit for each civilisation not half of the unit roster.

So why not make the meteor hammers a mercenary unit?
Maybe the flame thrower too.

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They don’t have to, but they have been there, for over 16 years. If the civs haven’t been introduced, I might say those could be nice to be something else instead of regulars. But we have them in this way so long, I’d say it is not a big deal to put these small things there, as they are not very serious mistakes.

Wonders and heroes, as the core of the civs, are clearly bigger problems than just one or two regular exotic unit. Not to mention changing them may carry as much balance risk as changing wonders and heroes because they are the regular units, for example you replace Flamethrowers with something like cannons. Then you lose the entertainment that comes with exotic locales, but such the exotic locales are not something that players even from, say, China would mind.

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The Ottomans have been around for longer, yet they got a pretty big rework.

I agree with that.
But a change in Wonders should also lead to a change in units like for the Flying Crow.

That is true for that particular unit, especially because it’s a Commerce Age one. No other civilisation besides the Swedes have a Commerce Age cannon.

But the Meteor Hammer could be replaced with a new unit that has identical stats but new design. I personally don’t care as much about that unit though.
I think both Chinese and Indians need a reliably Fortress Age cannon that is somewhat comparable to the Falconet.
Hand Mortars and Bombard Elephant can keep their role as a cannon that is not good against Infantry.

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I highly agree on:

Changing Indian ethnic units to more general ones. Sowar wither needs a name change or an actual horse. Rajput should be a generic spearman.

Changing monks to heroes all Asian civs.

Some units, specially from China, bit also from Japan, with the homecity upgrade could get unique skins with more XIX century modern units. One mod did this

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Ottomans didnt lose any unit, they just got new ones, same happened with Lakota and Haudenosaunne and I have to remember you all that nobody is happy with these latter 2’s rework.

PD: same with russia, their units were reskinned but essentialy they keep the same, a musketeer and a halberdier

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