How I think Bohemians could be improved

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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Right now, I think Bohemians are a decent civ. Not the best on open maps, very good on some maps like Arena, but I think they have two main problems. Hussite Reforms, and the mechanics of the Hussite Wagon. The Hussite Wagon is a great unit in theory, with a cool concept and interesting mechanics, but it has some issues. Hussite Reforms is a strange tech. A lot of monk power falls off in the lategame, due to larger armies, getting harder to micro in time, and the eventual presence of trash units, hussars in particular. Hussite Reforms, costing 800F 450G, requiring a Castle, and being an Imperial tech is very much a lategame thing. The weird thing about it is though, most people who have either the Castle and/or the eco to afford food only monks will likely be playing towards a different strategy, and never pick up the tech. The Arena players who might do a monk rush, will usually have geared their economy towards gold over food, and it will not be used by them either. This means, who is it meant to be used by? The players who use monks can’t make use of the tech, and the players who can use the tech don’t really benefit from it, or want to use monks. This suggests that Hussite Reforms could also do with a change.

The Hussite Wagon:

First Option:

The Hussite Wagon now only fires the main projectile at it’s primary target, either the one it is focus fired on, or the one it would naturally attack. It simultaneously fires the small projectile at 1-3 other targets in range, randomly selecting the number of minor projectiles for each shot. If there is only one valid target, it fires the main projectile, and a minor projectile at that target. That way, Hussite Wagons don’t have to worry about resetting the attack, and can fire on up to four units at once. I think that that could be a good solution, although some of the other numbers might need tweaking.

Second Option:

I definitely prefer the first option, but there could just be a maximum time limit of say, 10 seconds, after which the attack resets, and the next projectile fired will be the main one. This prevents the annoying situation where you kill a unit with the main projectile, and then your next projectiles are all the secondary and less effective minor projectiles.

Hussite Reforms:

First Option:

This is just an easy change. Just make it that after the tech is researched, monks can be created for either gold or food, possibly at a gold discount. This means that the tech is more likely to be used by those who have geared their eco towards gold, while still purchasing techs for food, and being able to create the “Trash Monks”.

Second Option:

Monks now have a splash conversion effect. Whenever they convert a unit, they have a X% chance of converting all enemy units within a 0.5 tile radius of the unit they just converted. X is calculated for each unit by dividing 1000/Total Resource Cost of the Unit. A Karamabit Warrior, as the cheapest unit in the game, would have a 25% chance of getting converted. War Elephants, as one of the most expensive units, have just under a 4% chance. This change is aimed at making monks more viable in the lategame, because they now have a low chance of converting multiple units, if clumped together. This wouldn’t affect buildings at all. If people think those chances are too high, then gold could be evaluated at double cost. Original gold cost would likely be applied, to prevent cases where Corvinian Army, or Kamandaran actually makes the unit more prone to conversion. The chance of converting a villager is 20%, a Karambit warrior changes from 25% down to 18%, and the War Elephant goes down to 3%.

What do people think? These are just ideas.

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Main thing with hussite wagon is that using its gimmick is surprisingly hard just because archers units will naturally target it instead of the units behind it, like they do with rams. But Idk if it can be held against it when it’s just how the game works. Second thing is that in imperial age you don’t really need them when you could invest in houfnice instead.

I don’t think hussite reforms is problematic. Yes, you’re not going to micro nerd monks in the late game, but at least you can consider using them without fearing to waste precious gold after slipping up. And your economy can’t be “geared towards gold” forever so players who prioritise gold can just get the tech later.
On the flip side splash conversion would be quite the bs to behold especially when Bohemians have bonused halbs. Imagine you’re trying to snipe their houfnice and after you sacked tons of cavalry units you finally reach them but RNGesus just decides that you don’t deserve to win and instantly give them monstruous momentum + basically instantly refunds the tech because if converting 1 knight with 1 monk is cost efficient then even only 3% chance to get several gold units with 1 monk is worth.

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It’s even a great unit in practice. Just not like you play similar units. Best way to use it is not play them until imp and get a large mass and pair them with halbs and siege. The fire mechanics is indeed weird and that makes the unit so difficult to play the unit properly in castle age on low eco but tbh with all that hp and pierce armor that’s fine imo. If you could micro these tanks as if they were organ guns they’d be op for sure. Only thing that’s a bit problematic is that it’s not obvious how the unit works. That’s especially bad for people that try to learn the game or the civ and also you still pro players using them like other ranged units and then claiming the unit is useless 11

That’s kinda true and I agree the design is bit off but at least there are some use cases. Imagine you play arena with the civ and you boom into wagons, hofnice or whatever. The upgrades for these units are quite expensive food wise so you need good amount of farmers to get them to begin with. However once you have all of these you basically only need food for producing halbs so you usually will start to bank food at which point trash monks are kinda nice addition. Healing and converting some of your opponents melee units can be nice but I guess isn’t super decisive. But since some of the best counters to bohemians are siege units you can convert these and that’s when the tech really can take the last option away from your opponent.

Also if you replaced the tech by one which can be used earlier or is more useful in general I fear that bohemians monks get even stronger which would be pretty bad.

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Imo Bohemians will naturally sort themselves out once HCs are changed in a way they finally justify their cost and then Bohemians lose the castle age mining techs for free.

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Imagine unironically wanting to buff Bohemians smh 11

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Do you ever bring anything useful into a discussion or do you just enjoy being sanctimonious and contrarian for the sake of it?

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I did bring something to the discussion, but the issue is, this post is a troll post in my eyes because you can’t reasonably buff Bohemians if you look at their bonuses, their statistics, and their UU.

Tbh I just enjoy people thinking that the devs look at their post and even consider that they implement it. Besides Bohemians are already button-line OP on Arena (I think #2 after poles?) and any further buff would make them stronger than they necessarily have to be.
When a glass is already full to its top, should mean that nothing should be added to it.

Furthermore, why does anybody cares about these kinds of posts anyway? Surprise surprise, most propose buffs only because they pick the civ and are biased. And since the average player is literally bad and knows little to nothing about the game their opinion is worth even less.
You will get my attention when you start your balance proposal with your elo statistics, aoenexus profile or similar site links, otherwise, these threads should be worthless In my POV.

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The devs might not look at individual posts but interesting topics and polls or long threads with many replies do occasionally get picked up by influential figures. E.g. Spirit of the Law’s latest video about Burgundians referenced the poll from this forum about worst designed civs with a screenshot. That video already has over 40,000 views. And with only 40,000 players registered on DE, averaging at around 15,000 and peaking around 25,000 active players, aoe2 is a relatively small community. The idea that none of the devs ever look at the forums of their own game is pretty preposterous.

Football manager Arsene Wenger took Arsenal to the highest level in competitive football, but he never played football himself. Gerard Houllier also played very little and managed Liverpool at the top level. Higher APM + higher ELO doesn’t always mean better game knowledge. Just like the best footballers in the world are not necessarily going to be the best tacticians. Equally, a higher than average ELO doesn’t mean that player’s idea will be good, as we saw recently with the cocky 1550 guy wanting to destroy Franks. But more importantly, 90% of the player base is below 1400 ELO. The fan base of the game in general is low ELO and based on the stats of the top performing aoe2 videos, there’s a significant proportion of the fan base who don’t even own the game, let alone play it. You can look down on noobs all you want, but they are the foundation of the community and one day some of them will be the future top players. Without the ‘noobs’ there would be no money, no streaming revenue for the top players, not enough income to support updates and the devs, no further investment from Microsoft etc. So respect the noobs! We’re all noobs compared to the pro players anyway, so that includes you.

Yes sir! We will endeavour to be worthy of your approval, Lord Keyboard Warrior!

Gatekeeping the forums because of your superiority complex is borderline toxic. A good idea is a good idea, regardless of who comes up with it. I’m not saying this Bohemian idea is good but you can respectfully disagree and argue your point without spite. Do you think the scientific community scoffs at interns or students who come up with new ideas during research who can back it up with a strong argument and data? Aoe2 is generally a friendly inclusive community, that’s one of the things which sets it apart from other games. We come to the forum to share ideas because it’s fun to theorise. Obviously we know the devs almost certainly aren’t gonna listen, but we like to discuss nonetheless. You can disagree with suggestions obviously, but just coming here to ridicule people, laugh at them to stroke your ego, call their ideas ‘worthless’ etc
 It’s just not cool.

So to any “low ELO” players like me who are reading this, don’t be dissuaded from posting. Your ideas might get shot down, but don’t feel bullied by gatekeepers like this guy.

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Ok, Bohemians are indeed an S-Tier Arena civ. Why is that? It will typically be either their really good monk rush (Which I myself have used), or their lategame army comp, with any of the gunpowder units, halbs, and Houfnice an particular. The thing is, the Hussite Wagon doesn’t really have a great time to shine outside of Imp, although it can definitely do so, and when it does get used, it is typically never used as a shield, and there is almost no ability to micro, due to how the projectiles fire. Hence the suggestions to make it slightly more mobile and able to be used in a more micro oriented fight, or even just let the player retreat without having to worry about next firing the minor projectiles. The first suggestion also makes them weaker against single units, but better against groups. Ignoring the second idea for monks, I do think that the tech should let the player create monks for either food or gold, depending on what they have most readily available.

I have found this really weird paradox on these forums. People are fine and accept you while you critique the posts of others, and then as soon as you actually make any suggestions of your own, instantly you get shot down in most cases, and declared a likely low elo player. Not a great display of community spirit.

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I agree to fix this projectile bug thingy, which looks more like a bug than anything. But you would nerf the UU outright. Hussite Wagons are already somewhat broken as its sister, the war wagon

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The thing is, bohemians are actually quite fine.
There are some occasions where the free castle age mining techs are just too strong, at the same time the intended castle age HC powerspike doesn’t comes through yet.
I’m of the opinion if something isn’t broken, don’t fix it. And Bohemians are actually the closes of the last 4 civs of not being completely broken somewhere.

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Buffing the ability of Hussite Wagons to hit and run seems dangerous. Their unusual firing delay helps to balance them, otherwise we’d just end up with a unit that is basically a tanky conquistador without the weakness to Skirmishers.

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It doesn’t even need to buff their hit and run. But there really should be a 10 second timer, after which the attack resets. Otherwise a fight ends, and then you have to start the next fight with the minor projectiles.

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Bohemians are fine, but something they need to tone down their power on arena

  • Gold Shaft Mining and Stone Shaft Mining aren’t free anymore, having all mining techs for free is way too much.
    *Move the University discount to Italians, I think Italians will benefit more of 75W universities than Bohemians.
  • Standard and Elite Hussite Wagon HP reduced to 180 and 220, so Mangonels are better vs them
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Bohemians need a nerf to their imperial age in any form and a buff to feudal age instead.

They are broken as an arena civ. Just like Poles. Same problem with the insane eco bonuses when left untouched combined with good impieral age unit combo (e. G. houfnice/Obuch)

I see nerfing their broken area performs ne as more important than buffing then else, because even if they are nerfed they won’t be Portuguese level of bad.

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They don’t need a buff on feudal age because they already have cheaper blacksmith and free mining techs.

Btw I will open a thread about civ balance on arena

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I think Bohemians have too much bonus and options in Arena and intentionally OP, but underperforming in open map. So they need Arena nerf and compensation buff for open map.

First, I would remove their Monastery discount entirely. They already have too much options on Arena such as their UU, castle age HC, Houfnice etc. They don’t need to be best Monk rush civ on top of that. Even after removing monastery discount, their monk rush can be strong with free mining tech.
They can get Barrack discount to compensate that for buffing their early eco and drush in open map.

Their non-elite version of Wagon need slight nerf also. It is broken in some matchup especially civ without redemption.

Btw, I think their free mining tech can stay because it is eco bonus actually also help them In open map.

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Just remove free stone mining techs. That way we keep them more or less the same in Arabia and we nerf their castle play more in Arena