I think it’s good to give Palintonon to some early medieval civ for better historical accuracy instead of the Trebuchet. Trebuchet arrive only in 6 th century in Europe.
So give Palintonon to the Romans, the Huns and the Goths. You can also replace Trebuchet by Palintonon in campaign who takes place in Europe before the VI th century : Attila the Hun, Alaric, Gaiseric, Vortigern
As it’s just a reskin it would make sense without any cost.
Indeed, the first documented use of the counterweight treb was during the First Crusade by the Byzantines.
I whole-heartedly agree. This is an excellent idea.
This unit is a good starting point for regional skins.
It will not be an issue for readability at all since there is no other unit that looks or functions remotely similar to either of those two.
I’d add that it shares the same platform on the ground that the treb has, the same rotation mechanism. Can’t mistake it for anything else indeed, you can guess its use by looking at it.
And unlike a unique Infantry/Cavalry/Archer unit it can’t be “hidden” in a pile of other units.
Trebs are one of the largest units on land and they can only fight in their even larger stationary form.
I can kinda understand that seeing a Chronicles Guardsman (Pikeman reskin) next to Ghulams might be confusing since they both use spear and shield but have very very different stats.
I kinda wonder why they decided to make the Spearman Line look so different in Chronicles.
The Lancer Line is also pretty different to the Knight Line considering they use lances.
Maybe they are testing the waters here. If people can quickly get used to units being that different then making less different looking regional skins for AoE2DE should not be a problem.
Generally it seems like every mechanic in Chronicles is “too much” for what they could have ever tired in base AoE2DE without a massive backlash.
Palintonon, a heavy catapult, mostly stone-throwing, which was constructed in various scales (from just heavy to enormous). It was invented and intensively used by the Greeks in the early or mid-4th century BCE but it was soon adopted by the Carthaginians, the Romans and other ancient states.
Though, I don’t know whether it stayed in use in aoe2 era (starting in 5th century).
It’s torsion-based so of dubious efficiency in the humid northern european climate as humidity makes the rope spring lose potency, just like the onager (after which the mango-line is modeled while real ones were traction- or counterweight-operated). So my guess is it was less used as the climate got colder in that era.
Also as Rome was on the defensive it had less use for offensive siege engines. Still this is a tech they had access to, compared to the counterweight treb.
Between this and the Dromon, what else could be swapped?
Bowmen line, Gastraphetoros, Scout line and Lancer line.
Goths, Huns, and Romans all would get the Bowmen line, the Chronicles Scout line, and the Lancer line. With the same limits they currently have (such as Goths and Huns getting no Imperial bowman upgrades).
And Goths and Romans would get Gastraphetoroi in Imperial Age as well.
Maybe the Goths and Huns can get Priestesses as well.
Edit: Though the Goths get Bombard Cannons right now and they’d need to lose that.
Most civilisations around the world did not use European weapons.
Most civilisations preferred bows over crossbows.
I think most Asian civs would looks a lot better in they used the AoE1 Archer sprites since they are based on Asian clothing and weapons.
They just made 55 new land units sprites for this DLC so I don’t think it would be too hard or too expensive to make regional skin DLC for them instead of making them reuse existing skins.
That’s definitely an idea that has merit, but the question was about which BFG unit replacers would fit existing civs, not about making new ones.
The AoE1 unit sprites are already in AoE2 and many of them would work well in AoE2 for none European civs, especially the Archers.
The units that look very Greek/Roman like the Infantry ones would not work well though.
You know I would love to see how one unit is made in this game.
Not sure which Asian civs you’re referring to, but crossbows were actually commonly used by medieval East & SE Asian civs like the Koreans, the Chinese, the Khmer, the Chams, and even the Mongols.
Hence the archer line of AoE 2 works perfectly fine for most Asian civs, except perhaps the Japanese who primarily used Yumi longbows.
What are the units in Chronicles that are better reskins as generic unit lines?
Anyone has pictures of all the regional Units of Persian and Greek?
The crossbow is wearing very European looking armour while the AoE1 Archer line is wearing Asian looking clothes.
Then a reskin by changing their clothing is enough, no need to completely modify the archer line for Asian civs. And TBH I feel that only the arbalester skin is somewhat off for Asian civs, whereas the crossbowman with his kettle hat can still work, since kettle hats were used by some medieval East & SE Asian civs.
For instance here’s a Ming era 15th century Chinese kettle hat, and I believe similar styles of helmets were used by the Siamese, the Vietnamese, the Koreans, and the Mongols.
I agree that a reskin would be better but this thread it about reusing existing skins.
Most civilisations primarily used bows instead of crossbow during the Middle Ages, Western Europe and East Asia are kind of an exceptions, with the funny island countries being an exception form the exception for liking big bows.
The other unit Lines look pretty Eastern Mediterranean. The Horse Archers look Central Asian though.
The skins in Chronicles cover that better though.
The only reason why I’d like to see the AoE1 sprites for AoE2 civs is nostalgia.
It would be really cool for the AoE2 Romans to have the AoE1 Infantry and Cavalry lines as sprites tbh.
The only thing I want to add is, if the civ gets any form of firearms (Goths) then it should retain the Treb as the unit composition already suggests a later Medieval at Imperial age.
Also if we go down this route it brings into question the usage of the Trebuchet by American civs. They had neither of the Trebuchet variants. What would they get? It would be even more Jarring if we all of a sudden remove the Trebuchet from some European civs but Incas and Mayans and Aztecs still retain it.
