Yes, Maybe my profile icons made it clear but I’ve been playing a lot of Abbasids and the extra flame armor mechanic with the golden age is quite enjoyable for me.
Now the house of Wisdom/Abbasids have been very keen on the Fresh Foodstuffs Towncenter spamming population boom strategy.
However, Im somewhat disillusioned that the other wings just are not up to par. So I ran this thought experiment to review and change the spots of some upgrades.
Economic wing
Fresh foodstuffs-This is the most viable meta first-tier choice, Its great nothing to add
Agriculture - Not much to add to this, It looks really nice, somewhat clashes/competes with the mill upgrade.
I wish it had something more original design but that’s it.
Improved processing- Solid late-game eco boost, alls fine.
Military wing
Camel support - This upgrade gives +1 +1 to Infantry only, as an opener/age 2 transition spears or men at arms won’t be having too big of an Impact.However, if I suggest giving this to archers, the current archer opener+ Camel aura for hostile calvary is already very lethal and that’d be broken.Im aware this upgrade essentially allows you to have a free blacksmith armor upgrade for cheap but it’s still lacking.
Camel rider shields-I heard many bugs with camels but ignoring that, spamming camels at this age isn’t still to particularly vital.
Bootcamp-A very good upgrade, a 15% boost to barracks infantry and archers.
Suggestions: Option A)
Increase Camel support to +2/2 from 1/1 Option B)
Swap out the ages of upgrades to: Bootcamp, Camel support, Camel rider shields in that order Option C)
Swap out the Pikeman range upgrade with perhaps Camel support, this way the upgrade is more accessible
without picking this wing. The pike range upgrade has been somewhat “meh” to me personally but I’ve had better players tell me the impact is there even if I can’t/they cant feel it.
Plus anyone at age two who wants to use the military path will want to have that pike upgrade.
(Half related question: Why are camel riders at age 3? I cant see a real justification for this)
Culture wing
Preservation of knowledge-This is a very good upgrade, It’s not particularly weak but it’s just shot out of the park with “fresh foodstuff.” Upgrade in the economic wing.
Medical centers-This upgrade, I want to like it, I really do want to like it but in its current implementation, I really cant.
Faith-I don’t use/have not used Imams enough as I haven’t found a time and place they are viable to spam and don’t get sniped by something etc, I have no real comment to make on this.But please tell me what you think.
Culture wing suggestions: Option A:)
Preservation of knowledge: Make it also reduce the research rate as well or Impact aging up.
This can be the fast age up/tech path but you would lack the eco boom of the economic path. Option B:)
Increase its numbers to 50%? (This Im not a huge fan of) Option C:)
Swap Preservation of knowledge with Medical Centers and expand on Medical Centers.
Now right now it only impacts keeps and the Are of Effect isn’t that great.
Rework it like this: All structures that cost STONE will now heal nearby units.
So Keeps, Towncenters and Towers with the upgrades.
As for heal rate, I feel it’s low but It’s free so maybe that’s alright? At worst rather then a full buff I’d ask for the Imam/Religious unit upgrade to Impact the heal rate of the keeps as well.
This is my preferred change as after getting raided, nobody really has the time to heal their villagers with a monk anyways. This can help them recover and establish a more defensive playstyle.
Trade Wing
Spice roads-This one is very equal to other civs, which on paper is great for balancing but again cannot compete with fresh food stuff.
Armoured caravans-This is a good mid-game upgrade, It gets the job done as a “just in case” resource sink
or you’d generally add more protection to your trade lines then rely on this armor.But again I really enjoy putting keeps on my trade routes and enjoy this upgrade even against enemy players.
Grand bazaar-This upgrade is amazing, It’s one of my favorites in the game, It gives flexibility and also late game stone viability. Which can equal to more gold given stone is limited or more structures.
So on paper, the trade wing seems decent, and I’ll admit when I started playing Abbasids at first I actually went for spice road trade rush. But man after I tasted that forbidden tasty mango named “fresh foodstuffs” It all changed.I started to enjoy it, but after a good amount of games, I got somewhat tired and bored as other factions have two landmark choices (lol @ England’s Healing church landmark) I felt like I HAVE TO pick this.
This MUST be my choice…Or I’ll fall behind, yet asking to nerf this would be met with great backlash from pros/higher tier players than me. Im good but Im no legend…
Instead, I wrote this post that’ll most likely be forgotten among many others here.
But here are my suggestions for trade wing: Option A:)
Increase spice trade bonus or make it a speed bonus. This can Impact Gold per minute and also help its survivability.30% extra speed with the armor upgrade can make your trade unique.However, I can only hope this change makes it more competitive with foodstuffs. Option B:)
This one I’ll ask for you to take a deep breath and consider as at first glance it sounds a bit wild
Swap Grand Bazar and Spice trade’s position.
This way the Abbasids can be trading for more total resources while getting the flexibility like the Saracens did in AOE 2 with their market upgrade.
Not only will you be able to choose a secondary resource to collect,which could be food or wood or stone
You’ll be getting more out of your traders and using this bonus so you can send your villagers to gather something else or something your lacking.
Imagine early game swapping of resource bonuses rather than seeing this upgrade at Imperial age just swapped for stone and forgotten (Like I do or other Abbasids I watch)
One could argue this upgrade at the second age won’t compare with the pure 30% gold bonus (or extra resource bonus) one gets with this upgrade and that’s fair. That is a pothole in my suggestion but I am not here to reinvent the wheel. Although my post comes from a balance/competitive play standpoint Im not going to act like Im the spirit of the law and have all the numbers.
You could add something to Grand Bazar like a cheaper build time or faster build time if you think it’d be worse than 30% extra gold I guess? Im open to other bonuses to grand bazar.
So thank you for taking the time to listen or merely read my post.
I hope you all have a great day and enjoy AOE 4 as much as I do
Just btw the 1/+1 already applies to archers and crossbows as they are infantry, please don’t give archer rushes +2/+2 armor, that would be busted.
Also Fresh foodstuffs is really only popular/strong in the early 2 TC build, on maps where the Abbasids don’t go 2 TC, the standard opener is actually the culture wing for cheaper techs.
Trade wing is more of an imp thing because early trade is very punishable, but the Trade wing for Abbasids is really strong already.
The faith upgrade is at least situationally very powerful vs Delhi elephants.
Sadly Abbasids have many bugs regarding techs that should be worked out
Well abbasids are already considered a top tier civilization by most pros right now, so just giving them buffs without nerfing other things would need strong reasoning. +2/+2 armor on non-cav/siege units is an insanely strong feudal bonus even if it requires building a camel or 2. Abbasids might not get nice age up buildings, but their age ups dont require vill time.
Also Abbasids is my most played civilization, they have many really strong bonuses such as the op building springalds and mangos with infantry for free, and hidden double berries with faster gather rate or the flexibility of their landmark.
Edit: Also the op said that it would be too strong if it applied to archers which is why he suggested the buff, but it already applies to archers which was my reasoning.
If what you said about Archers benefitting from it is true then this an oversight.
Thank you for mentioning it.
2/2’s do sort of sound too good but I think there could be a middle spot.
I haven’t seen people go for culture wing, as the goal of this post is to make the other wings equally good without nerfing economic wing early game.Or this would be very short post
I also agree with this notion, the cost of investment for the bonus is really high.
Given camels are minimum 250 resources early game…
The AOE is quite small and formation modes demand you micro them…Perhaps it could give double benefits to Infantry? I do somewhat get the concerns for archers at age two…
Perhaps Camel support being an Age 3 idea with Bootcamp at age 1 would be more fitting if it were to stay at 2/2
I did hear Abbasids are generally A to B- Civ, not bad, not competitive top tier/great
Some say Golden age is global passive some say it has to be connected so I don’t know who to believe
My point is that pros have conflicting views, and I never said the factions underpowered
Its more about having five options as opposed to the other factions’ two options without nerfing foodstuffs.
Either way, thank you for the reply, I’ve had players better than me tell me berries aren’t worth utilizing unless your defensive due to gather rate. After sheep go for hunting/Fishing boats.
I do enjoy free seige engineers but Im guessing they added that due to the ridiculous amount of total upgrade costs Abbasids already have and the fact that they have no real incentive to be aggressive early game.
Culture Wing is an absolute beast option depending on the gameplan. If i wanna play aggressive fast castle age i normally go Culture Wing, Preservation of Knowledge and then Castle Age.
Eco Wing is strong, but if you are not able to get a second TC cause of early enemy agression (Mongols, French, Rus) often the Culture Wing is viable. In terms of late game also. All the Upgrades costing 700G normally are now down to 490G. That is a massive safe on gold cost what quickly accumulates. If you build 60 Vills with Foodstuffs you save 1500 Food. 80 Vills you safe 2000 Food.
The turnback for Preservation of Knowledge in total is actually way way higher.
Medical Centers? Beast Technology also when going for fast Castle Age. Forward Castle suddenly becomes super viable. Not only there is a castle in enemies face, but you can heal everything under your castle WHILE you fight.
Abassid is able to get ALL 4 Wings if it really comes to that, but it rarely happens due to the last wing beeing again Imp Cost to buy.
Going full camel also btw only viable imho if you have fish since they are so frigging Food Expensive.
Technically if all the Abassid Techs would work as they should, they are beast. Camel Riders with +8 melee Armor? Infantry with over 200 HP ? Negating enemy Cav? Building strong siege in field? Beeing ultimately flexible?
They just need fix, and seem totally viable to me as they are
It’s usually considered Mongols best, French 2nd, English Abbasid 3-4, although there are varying opinions on exactly where abbasids are and maybe they could use some minor buffs, but they are one of the better civs at least.
Golden age should be a global bonus for having connected buildings, but I would have to test to be sure.
Abbasids are usually very highly contested on certain maps in pro play, particularly hill and dale because 2 TC play is really strong with fresh foodstuffs. They are less popular on more open maps like arabia where they usually go culture wing first (because 2 TC is hard to justify against agro civs there).
Biggest thing though is techs need to be bugfixed, Camel armor tech doesn’t work properly, camel barding doesn’t apply to camel archers, the composite bow tech is bugged with incendiary arrows, also incendiary arrows reduce camel archer damage, and there may be a couple more.
And maybe they should get some camel buffs, they have good techs but the camels are barely in the maybe viable status with all of the unique techs and blacksmith techs researched (especially camel rider)
How do you justify medical centers?
I wonder if Infantry random chance to block a melee hit applies to camels after the “shield” upgrade?
I cant justify the military branch and the medical centers at age 2 or 3
This is true from what I heard, this is one of the reasons I rarely want to change anything with numbers,
But swapping things and their ages sound more agreeable
Medical Centers? Forwad quick Castle + Knights / Camels early castle aggression.
So you can fight, fall back to your castle, regen, go back to fight. Also fighting under a castle with medical centers heals your units while fighting. They dont have to be out of combat for it to work.
The regeneration is like 2hp a second…I understand if it’s normal maintenance but it won’t help your units anytime soon. Almost a minute of garrison or waiting beside it to fully heal it
What do you mean?
Men at arms with imperial age base armour in early feudal age sounds perfectly fine to me.
Jokes aside, what op is not really keeping in mind with these suggestions is that the wings/tech add on top of each other.
Meaning, buffing them to make them more “accessable” as the first wing without reducing anything is just a flat out abbasid buff across the board when it goes past feudal.
I opened with any wing multiple times, depending on the situation of the game and what my team wants to do (culture wing opener feels really disappointing to use tho, since you don’t aim for upgrades at that stage of the game with that eco anyway).
In 1v1, in which it’s basically 2 base build only, it’s different story.
I’d be really careful in balancing too much stuff at once.
Rn obvious imbalances such as french bloated civ bonuses/hulk in feudal or springald usage streamlining unitlayouts should be fixed first.
Overall I don’t really think that the Abbasid situation is as bad as described tho.
Culture is actually one of the 2 most popular openings. If you build spears, that’s 2 techs there, all of the eco techs, eventually blacksmith.
Plus typically you want to get castle upgrades immediately on hitting castle meaning the tech boost helps there too. It’s more archers having 2 armor when they do 5 damage is insanely strong in feudal Archer fights. (Almost halves incoming damage) the issue with making trade wing viable is that trading in feudal is usually not viable.
Both culture, military and economic are viable at first pick. +1/1 armor is just super strong age 2 where upg matter a lot. You can hit some timing arround 10 min with a good ball of arche with 2 blacksmith upg and the camel buff, in archer fight +1 armor is insane (also, the camel debuff cav mean your arche are not that much countered by horseman, debuff + 1 armor against horseman = -30% dps).
Tbh i am amazed how well balance those abassyde upg are.
Random Bump to get more feedback on this, I decided to take the time to review and watch pros play this and I haven’t seen these playstyles really pan out…Can I have more sources?
