How do y'all feel about the new civ designs?

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

I still really like the Jurchen and Khitan (and I think theres a lot of interesting bonuses in the Three Kingdoms civs) but theres so much weird stuff here

To begin with the Jurchen, they arent bad, but I feel like they are a bit fragile. In the early game, when the civ has around a 10/15% more food out of hunt and sheep, and then need to rely on scouts. Its a prertty mid early game overall and it kind of feels like the strength of their steppe lancers will be the thing that decides if the civ is competitive at all. Beyond that the tech tree seems weirdly limitrd. Their cavalry archers are just bad in castle age, and in imperial age they are quite meh (which is okay, but I dont get why they needed to make them benefit from their faster attack bonus instead of giving them thumb ring). Their militia is sad, their spearmen, skirmishers and archers are quite a bit below average since the civ has no eco. The UUs and fire lancer seem decently attractive but very situational and gettimg siege going seems very expensive.

It just seems odd how much stuff the civ is missing to get a decent mil bonus and an weak-ish eco, their late game options seem very fun and decently strong but its nowhere near Mongol late game tier to justify such extreme tech tree holes. Its also weird they dont have knights but the Iron Pagoda fills that hole decently enough at least

If the Jurchen have some oddities, the Khitan are on a whole other level. Their early game is comparable (at first) with the Jurchen, with faster shepherds yet no hunt bonus. But thats where the similarities end, with Pastures replacing farms in lare dark and early feudal age. I feel like Pastures will be as strong as the Slavic bonus either at release or after one or two patches, and that should make the civ competitive.

Despite me thinking that the civ balance ia fairly alright I still think that its worth mentioning how weird the civ is. In feudal age they have double effect forging and faster created trash units. Their scout rush is really nice, and they can support it very easily with a good eco and strong trash, missing bloodlines is a hit to your long term feudal play but its an expensive tech, you can just usr those resources to age up more quickly. Then castle age and imperial are simply super weird, because the civ lacking bloodlines is specially bad when you dont have knights, all your units are just super fragile to ranged units. Their CA, even after the discount, are super expensive to get going. Its probably worth it getting Heavy CA before thumb ring but yiu still really really want to get thumb ring fairly quickly.

Rheir infantry has extra attack and reflect damage on their oponents, which is really strong
 But I dont think we will see Khitan infantry on castle age.

My problem with the civ is that almost all their units are good dealing with melee units but weaker against ranged. I dont think the civ will struggle with ranged units since they will probably have a good eco and their skirms will be decent (and tge mounted treb will help in imp) but thats all they have, and I think the balance is way too inclined towards dealinf with other cav and infantry civs.

The late game cavalry UT will make their cavalry decently strong on melee I guess but Im again concerned in the loses your very low hp cav will take before it gets there. Their camels will be quite good, but they really seem to be laxking a cav unit that can take arrowfire.

And why are they missing halbardiers exactly? Their infantry UT isnt evem that crazy!

I just dont think the current design has very clear strengths and the bonuses it has are way too focused on melee. It doesnt help that the civ for some reason mixes infantry stuff and a UU (aa well as visuals) from a diferent unrepresented civilization: the Tanguts. Its also just weird that a civ known for being the first steppe nation to really lean into heavily armoued cavalry only has access to fragile cheap cavalry. Its just a very confused civilization.

I may comment in the TK later, for now they just look ridiculoualy overpowered to me

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I find the tangut castle and UU given to the khitans absolutely abhorrent.

Honestly tho after finding out they lied to us again I didn’t have the heart to really look at the new civs design more than that.

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3

Maybe you are underestimating the Fire Lance.
They don’t cost Food, don’t require an upgrade from Feudal like Crossbows and Longswords and they got a lot of HP.
With Gambesons (which does affect them!) they are pretty resistant against Skirmishers and the Elite upgrade triples their bonus damage vs. Cavalry.
They are kind of a combination of the strength of Pikemen and Swordsman.

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They dont see much better than the militia from civs which didnt get to use it in last patch

Maybe Im wrong but they seem low HP and low armour to be meta

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Spearman have essentially negative pierce armour because they take bonus damage from almost all Archer units while Fire Lance don’t.
And unlike Long Swordsman they do bonus damage vs. cavalry.
On top of that they have a charged attack but I don’t know how strong that is.

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I have a problem with “Thunderclap Bombs” for Jurchens. It feels like self sabotaging if explosions damage you and your units.
Their early-mid gameplan is similar to Mongols, but they have weaker eco and better scouts+steppes..
Siege Engineers available in Castle Age is a decent idea, but weak. It should be Siege Engineers available in Castle Age and 50% cheaper.

Khitguts might be really strong. Their animals have more food and pasture must be better than farms. So their eco might be one of the better ones. I’d still remove their Mounted Trebs and replace their Castle with a proper one.

I couldn’t be bothered to check the bonuses and units of 3 Kingdoms.

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Dunno about the new Civs, but Chinese water late game looks stronger now.
That their UT now affects both Scorpion and “Mangonel” might make them stronger in land late game, too.
Them losing Camel Riders might not be that much of an issue as they gained Fire Lancers.

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Apparently 3x3 armor ignoring, 5 range charge attack.

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Ehhh Im still not convinced

The problem with Militia isnt cav, its archers, and Fire Lancers are still worse than Militia at that. All meta units can easily run away of archers and have either high pierce armour or range.

It may make their archer play better since you can judt ignore food, but I cant imagine them taking over the battlefield

10

I don’t like how the Jurchens have some common elements with my Polynesians civ. I’ve grown rather attached and hate that I have to change it.

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11

Jurchens and Khitans re-use the Chinese and Mongol voicelines


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Khitans probably spoke a mongolic language, so I get their re-use. But yeah IDK how you don’t have jurchens speak some tungu/manchu language.

Feels like an afterthought. like a medieval trenchcoat on a chronicles dlc.

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Yeah the Jurchen have the reduced friendly damage taken but with a well placed mangonel or fire cart attack it would be a chain reaction

I honestly feel like the Jurchen Steppe Lancers just are quite a bit weaker than Mongols, the Mongols are better at dealing with archers. Also Mongols have better CA. Not really sure if Jurchens will perform, rn Im thinking that they will be underwhelming.

The Khitans are prob strong but their military just doesnt make sense to me.

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14

Khitans on land maps seem very strong. Healing Cav Archers, strong infantry and cavalry, maybe useful Bombard Cannon variation.

edit:
Hm, seems Cav Archers do not count as “Cavalry” for the UT


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They purposely make the new civilization strong. That’s how they sell the content.

‘Introduce OP civilizations, then tune down their power later when these civilizations’ popularity drops.’ It’s a known marketing strategy.

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It’s more like balancing is hard.
Iirc a few times all new Civs of a DLC were bottom tiers, sometimes all were top tier, sometimes a few were top tier, a few were bottom tier.

I mean, we have seen Hindustanis drop from #1 to bottom tier when their Villager Food discount was decreased by 5%, and back to top tier when it was increased by 3%.

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I have questions about that tbh. Because it’s a castle unit. Knight gets a lot of its power through that early castle age Powerspike - that’s why most cavalry UUs are so massively overtuned to somehow still make them attractive despite missing that powerspike.
For me Iron Pagoda don’t look competitive to other already existing cavalry UUs.

The eco Bonus looks to me just straigh-up worse than the Goths - don’t allowing to lame opponent deer, but giving some nieche anti-laming potential.

The faster attacking scouts are decent, but I don’t think they will give an overwhealming advantage in feudal.

But they would need this with the lack of Knights as an “Cavalry” civilisation.

They have good Siege and defences which will be nice when going for the lategame. Though they won’t reach the power of the other well-known lategame powerhouses.

All-in all I agree that the civ looks a bit weak overall on the paper. And it also kinda misses a real “wow” factor. Fortified Bastions can be nice touch, but it’s not like your forts will be undestroyable - the opponent just needs to make sure to finish the job.

Yeah it looks like the Civ is all around trying to get an Advantage early. The eco bonus isn’t massive tho - and despite the Pastures will help similarly to Khmer Farms - Food will be more available during feudal and castle age - I doubt it will be sufficient so support the faster Production from multiplie facilities. So it will be mostly helping to get the numbers out of each unit you want at a specific time, not to really flood the map with units. It’s questionable if this will be enough to achieve that goal to get such an early advantage.

And again, the missing of Knights will be an Issue for the Civ in the midgame - though ofc their Skirms and Infantry play can be strong. But strong enough to overcome the currently really bad reputation in the midgame? I doubt it, considering that lamellar armor needs a castle and res to be researched. If they would get it for free it would be a different story.

It’s a bit weird for me those two civs look weak in comparison to the three kingdom civs. It looks to me straight-up that devs didn’t factor in the missing of Knights. Cause with just Knights the civs would be fine.
Not that I thing they should get Knights, right the opposite actually.

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18

Khitans feel like Tanguts. Jurchen are good.

What I feel is that the civ designs for Wei, Shu and Wu feel like they were different civs before and they turned them into the Chinese clans sometime during development.

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19

Oh Im mostly talking about the flavour rather than it being strong.

Its absolutely not as good as other cav UUs. I like their high pierce armour but they just arent good enough with how little of an eco the civ has and how much food they need

Oh I understppd that they were quite good, Ornlu says its quite good :person_shrugging:. but even if its not I think it will get quickly buffed until the civ is competitive. Theres no easy numbervto tweak in the case of the Jurchens.

Also I still see the Khitan Military as way too weird beyond them being competitive or not

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Yeah I posted about that theory at some point, theres some Xianbei and Bai stuff