History Vs Gameplay and Beginner Tips for Future Civ Crafters

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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Another semi unrelated thing is to being more respect to the title of those of us who are proper civ crafters… i wonder if this will stimulate heavy conversation for once.

All I ever wanted to do was civ craft for this game on a possibly professional level but alas I wasnt gifted with the right skills. I guess its insanity to keep trying after decades but I know in my heart giving up is a cowardly path so to all you civ crafters who do it to the correct standard don’t give up but try to make us look proper

Happy new year, all!

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What do you mean by “proper” here, and how does one acquire this title? You don’t mean professionals, and I’m pretty sure you don’t mean people who make their civ ideas as mods or use them in custom scenarios – but I don’t see any other meaningful measure here.

Who decides what is “the correct standard”, and how?

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Happy new year to you too.

I mean those who try to be balanced, try to avoid overly complex bonuses keeping the spirit and fairness of the game in mind without resorting to unfun mechanics.

For years I have tried this and I suppose every dog has his day. Someday the civ crafter will too.

On that topic of balance perfect balance is of course impossible but using reasonable numbers with tweakable results can do wonders for setting the tone of the civ

That said I cant tell if you’re angry at me i hope we can start this year more amiable

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So I generally agree with you that this is a good way to approach it. But I don’t think there’s anything objectively better (i.e. more “proper”) about this than any other approach. Other people might prefer to prioritise new mechanics, or historical accuracy, or whatever, and that’s fine. And you’re free to tell them why you think designs that prioritise those things are bad, that’s also fine – but it’s inevitably your opinion, not fact.

Also, I think making judgements about the balance of a hypothetical civ proposal is basically impossible. For example, people thought Gurjaras would be underpowered, and that Georgians would be overpowered.

I’m not angry. But I’m a bit concerned that your attitude towards your own and other people’s civ suggestions is making you quite bitter.

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This thread is pretty weird. You’re preaching to the choir more or less, while also putting yourself on a high horse as some sort of objective arbiter of what’s good or bad design. It’s your opinion, not fact. Many of the civ crafted suggestions are done for fun, not as a realistic civ design suggestion.

No, but history inspires suggested bonuses, so if a civ historically widely used Skirmishers (whether by true definition or spear/javelin throwers and the like), it makes sense for the civ to get a bonus for Skirmishers. That doesn’t mean the civ will only have that bonus.

2-5 are pretty much common sense in my opinion, with a few comments:
2) economic explosion is nice, but you need to have something to make with your economic explosion as well. Vikings were really strong, as their economy gave them really strong Archer timings. Some other civs might not have that. If you have really strong food eco bonuses and no Knights, it’s not really that strong.

  1. I largely agree and this is something for the devs as well to keep mind of. New mechanics are way more complex and contribute to mechanic and bonus bloat for the new civs, making older ones feel both weaker and blander. You don’t need new civs to have 3 unique and ‘fresh’ mechanics.

Depends largely on what the negative bonuses are. I think in some parts, when these appear in civ craftings, people just tack on negative bonuses to balance out a really strong niche of the civ, so people wouldn’t scream ‘this civ is OP!!!’. Teutons for example have more armour, but lack Husbandry. They also have great Halberdiers and conversion resistance, making up for the lack of Husbandry.

Depending on their unit of choice, Goths probably do need multiple bonuses as Infantry generally is not a good unit choice.

Anyway, my own suggestion - if you are going to add in numbers to your civ design, usually the more specific a bonus gets the higher the number will be. Does a similar bonus already exist in the game? You can base your numbers off from that. Example: Franks, Vietnamese, and Vikings all have a +20% hp bonus to affected units. These are in some ways pretty general and in some ways pretty specific: all mounted units, Archery range units, Infantry units have +20% hp.

You could make a new bonus: ‘all military units have more %hp’. This usually shouldn’t be at +20%hp (with some exceptions such as how wide/narrow tech tree is, eco bonuses etc, but this has its own drawbacks), so the bonus should probably be ‘all military units have +10% hp’ instead. However, if your suggested bonus is narrower, the bonus can be higher, f.e. how Saracens get +25% hp on Camel units (on top of Bloodlines!).

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The “civ crafter” has his day when he has fun with a design. That’s why most people seem to do it. It’s emphatically a hobby and emphatically not a profession. At best, it’s one of the least demanding portions of the profession of a designer for a specific game.

I wouldn’t go that far - there were also people who predicted where they’d fall more or less correctly, or at least reserved judgment but questioned the popular opinions. Georgians had a few things going on between an awkward start and bugged UU that made their true (i.e. optimally executed) strength hard to measure for a while. I also think a lot of the overestimation of Georgians and Armenians is due to people failing to update their mental models of average civ strength after all the changes within the last year. The most obvious example of this is the restoration of the Persian and Slavic eco bonuses (and then some), which were widely considered OP in the past but are now considered strong but acceptable.

But I agree that it’s difficult to accurately predict the strength of something that only exists on paper. Hence my earlier contention that “civ crafting” is just one facet of the niche that is game design and by itself is insufficient as the basis of a profession. In most of my civ concepts I’ve included a playable version of the civs so that people can at least get a few reference points for how they stack up vs. official civs. But more importantly, so that there’s actually a usable end product. Anything that doesn’t result in this is just glorified brainstorming.

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Part of me tries to fight against the whole “you’re useless go die” mindset that has been following me for years as I shared my works. I want to prevent others from that too. Oh well if there’s no path forward then giving up feels wrong… i dunno though its hard to hear all years pf effort worth nothing and for the new crafters if I need to prevent them from wasting time because they too are “glorified brainstormers” we are at an inpasse

That said… lets all be friends

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I doubt that anyone here has such ill-will towards you. I certainly don’t. And nothing wrong with civ crafting/brainstorming anyway, but I think it’s fair to point out that nobody as yet has been willing to pay for it. It’s plausible that you could have a career doing something adjacent as a game designer, but in that case it’s likely just one part of a much larger skillset. If you can be the one to change that, more power to you, but I wouldn’t put all my eggs in that basket.

Until then, like most of what we do on the forum and with this game, it’s just for fun.

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Well maybe next decade my writings will matter. Until then maybe the learn to code insults will die down.

Now back to civ design.

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AoKheaven is a reminder of my age lol.

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I’m younger than both AoK and AoC. There, that should help even more.

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Why a millennial and a gen Z discussing their age here.
ಠಿ⁠_⁠ಠ

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Anyway lets get this back on topic.

Ill think of a topic we can discuss soon. Honestly its hard to gain traction on this and Im new to mediation

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Like you’re any better. I could combine the egos of all the most active users and the resulting megaego wouldn’t even come close to your normal ego. So maybe just lay off everyone else.

Dynastic Planet is doing us a favor by sharing his civ design tips for anyone that struggles. The fact that you read ego tripping into it is more of an indictment on you than him.

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You’re the one who always gets stuff off-topic, and I have to respond to your harassment and insults towards other users. If you were actually nice, all of your problems would go away, but obviously, that’s too much to ask.

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It is still hypocritical for you to point out the egos of other users when you have a massive one yourself. So perhaps you should take a break from the forum and do some self-reflection.

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It is not EGO if I am correct 1001 percent of the time ( and so my opinions)… It’s just me being Awsome!!!

LOL (Sarcasm) :laughing: :joy: :rofl:

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He got suspended for being too combative

Which yeah he surely was

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I know. I was there. I have to agree with the assessment, considering I was frequently on the receiving end of it.

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I tried to keep it simple without going into complicated mechanics or one-time unique techs. Perhaps the biggest risk was the Castle Age tech where you get back 50% resources (only 25% stone) from buildings destroyed by the enemy.