Basically, what I’m proposing in this post, is simply how would you design a new civilization from 0?
Following the spirit and hype product of the two new African civilizations, I would like us to discuss the best formula to develop a good civilization, which is balanced, strengths and weaknesses at certain points, and with several options and mechanics at its disposal, so that it does not decay into monotony.
If you ask me, I would say that the following is infallible:
-Balanced army, which forces you to produce 2 or 3 different groups of units.
-Units that fulfill fixed roles, preventing a unit from having more than one role, for example, avoiding what happens today with the Carolingian.
-That the houses only serve to produce population.
-A single unit or building, which fulfills a specific role and not multiple tasks.
-Economic options in the medium or long term.
-Avoid “automatic” civilizations, where the skill of play and the right decisions are more important than following a winning formula, I mean, that civilization has a certain dynamism.
To sum up, I would prefer something like France as an example to follow, and Sweden as that which we must avoid at all costs.
so i’ve already kinda designed a faction, which can be found here for those interested:
i would say that my faction is a fairly interesting 1 gameplaywise. but anyhow.
when making a faction you need to do a few things:
A) what is special about this faction historically? this will form the base line identity of your faction
B) what did the faction do well? and what did it not do so well, and how do you plan to implement that into your design?
C) economic specialty, every faction has some sort of unique aspect in terms of economy, be it faster shipments, free settlers or banks, everyone has a specialty.
D) you cant have multiple units performing essentially the same task, esp if are available in the same age. there is a reason factions with skirms usually get crossbowmen, because it gives them an early game option to stop infantry but Xbows are meant to be replaced by skirmishers towards the lategame. similarly how often do you see french players use hussars outside of age 2? id say pretty much never
these are the core tenants for making a good faction i think, ofc along with the faction actually has to have enough units to make a roster. i do not agree that houses cant do anything other than population, but truth be told then by now enough gather houses exist.
also just saying but i actually think france is pretty bad design wise as a faction, they are simply way too flexible, having access to every major units and buffs to litterally all of them. only minor weakness they got is anti cavalry.
now let me use my faction suggestion as a platform to exemplify some of my theories:
A) Denmark-Norway is a major naval faction and also had a strong focus on ranged infantry with some okay to good cavalry. so from this its obvious the faction need at minimum 1 unique ship type (frankly it could have like 3 if it wanted to), the faction also need unique infantry as well.
B) DN often did not perform terribly well in melee with infantry, so the unique musketeer has poor melee stats, to compensate it is a little cheaper but as a price DN doesn’t get Xbows. the idea is that you mass these Landsoldat the same way you do with crossbows in the early game and then use pikemen to actually deal with cavalry for protecting other units, they are still held back early game by higher cost and only standard musk range and stats. later on you get access to a unique skirmisher and slowly your Landsoldat start to become better and better at stopping melee units, slowly transitioning you towards a more classical approach but they will always perform worse than musketeers vs cavalry. now there are other aspects to the faction obviously but this is probably the most interesting i feel for general gameplay/balance.
C) they lategame can cow in a way similar to India, tho getting food rather than exp. id also expect there to be unique techs related to fishing for the faction, perhaps something like getting food from whales.
now these where just my ideas related more or less to my own faction design, but i do think i hit the nail on what makes a faction interesting while staying balanced and making sense. there is no fluff units but on the other hand the faction has most roles filled.
Escribiré esto en español pido disculpas pero mi ingles es demasiado malo pido disculpas.
Bueno como chileno (si ya sabrán que voy a decir jaja) me gustaría ver a mi pais dentro del age, y lo que se me había ocurrido era lo siguiente.
Civ:Chile
Metrópolis: Valparaíso
Líder: Manuel Montt
Unidades Únicas:
Infantes Cívicos: Unidad de infanteria pesada a distancia eficas en el combate cuerpo a cuerpo con poderoso ataque, aunque deficiente a distancia (habilidad chupilca del diablo)
Rotos: Unidad aldeana que trabaja un 25% mas rápido en cualquier tarea, pero con un 25% menos de hp que otros aldeanos.
Huasos: Unidad de combate a distancia eficaz contra caballería (es un guerrillero anticav) puede trabajar de manera muy eficaz el ganado y en molino.
Caballería de frontera: Caballería a distancia muy eficaz contra unidades de artillería y nativos mercenarios
salitrera: Edificio único que funciona como una fabrica, solo que produce cajones y se puede enviar una carta para que el explorador pueda construirla (idea basada del wars of liberty)
Bonus de civilización: Los puestos comerciales proveen un 100% mas recursos y pueden entrenar aldeanos, sus ejércitos de caballería e infantería se entrenan en pares.
Especialidad: Booming y defensiva, no muy buena en el rush (aunque se puede intentar)
Tipo de avance de edad: dirección política (conservadora, liberal, imperialista etc)
Edad II:
1: Político Conservador: El lealista : (950 de comida): hace que los centros urbanos y edificios defensivos tengan un 25% mas de hp y ataque
2: Político Conservador: El Burgués: (800 de comida): Otorga 300 brazadas de madera los destacamentos pueden entrenar unidades de infantería
3: Político Liberal: El Idealista: (950 de comida): Otorga una carreta de corral y 1 oveja engordada, los corrales pueden entrenar un 20% y engordar a los animales un 10% mas rápido
4: Político Liberal: El Teorista Clásico: (costo: 800 de comida): Da brazadas de 200 de madera y hace que los aldeanos trabajen un 15% Mas rápido en los Molinos
5: político Imperialista: El jefe supremo: (1200 de comida): Otorga 11 batallones cívicos y 2 carretas de cuarteles, los cuarteles ahora entrenan a los ejércitos un 15% mas rápido.
(es una idea básica que tenia puede que haya algo roto en esa idea que tengo pero básicamente es una idea de políticos que van mejorando un aspecto de la civ (lo militar, económico y social (en este caso lo defensivo) en donde tu escoges mediante los políticos la estrategia que harás a largo plazo y la que mas se adecue a ti
That’s interesting to think. I probably quite hard to design a civilization that it’s unique and balanced at the same time.
I do understand your point, but I sincerely think that if we have only Frances, the game will be kind of flavorless.
If we just have a bunch of well-rounded civilizations, instead of some heavily specialized, the game will lose the asymmetric characteristics that I honestly think it’s was makes this particular game interesting.
I like creating new civs, but can’t claim to be an expert in it. I mostly just do it for some fun time wasting every now and then.
I think the most important thing for a new civ would be that is brings something new to the table. A reason to include this extra civ in the game. AOE3 civs are very diverse and I guess that also makes it harder to include new ones.
for example: If I make a new musketeer based civ, why would someone play it over the British? If its just better British, why then play the British? It needs interesting additional mechanics to differentiate them from excisting civs but also be balanced so that it isnt much weaker or stronger than them.
I would ignore balance, because no civilisation ever was equal in figth and knowlege. Game balance by it self, when you know the civilisation force and weakness.
Some civilisation did not know agriculture, and where hunters or gather from tree and bush.
Some civilisation did not know architecture, building wall and buildings. Others used stick and dirt or what ever nature give them, to build stuff.
Some civilisation did not know irrigation or aqueducs. They need to get water at a close river.
There is more then one way to create a weapon and there is more then on way of figthing style.
Some civilisation write on wall, other write in book, other talk their knowlege, other show their knowlege… etc…
i can’t be a civilisation by my self, i would need a comunity, a way of life and to be able to give knowlege from one generation to a other.
Here a few example that i have in mind, whit a very short description:
Mongols was a civilisation, they had to travel from one land to a other, because the sheep eat all the grass. They always set camp close to water, since they did not have irrigation or aqueducs. The roads was the land they walked on. Knowlege was verbal and shown
Iroquois was a civilisation, they grow corn and used branche to build the village wall. Their home was permanent, made mostly of animal hide and branche, where a few family live together. The roads was the animal trail and tools was what nature gave them. Knowlege was verbale and shown.
Roman was a civilisation, they used stone to build roads, they used iron and bronze to build tools. They used what the mine give them and cut down forest, for the presious wood, that is need for suport stucture. Knowlege was verbale, shown and writhen.
I think having buildings or units fulfill more than one role is not per se bad, as it adds variety and uniqueness to a civ. However, said extra feature must come at some real opportunity cost. What do I mean? Let us grab Swedish Torpes, the poster child of overpowered buildings. Torpes don’t have a down side. Even when they exhaust the resource around them, they have ways of replenishing them. They basically provide population, map awareness, resources, and require no micro and can even multi-task. Thus they make the Swedish economy impossible to stop through anything but an all in massive assault.
However, if torpes were limited to home city shipments through cards, or if torpes had such brittle health points and high cost that they could be easily taken down but hard to replenish, then you would achieve opportunity cost. Players would have to be very strategic about deploying those buildings, and opponents could punish their aggressive use.
One good example are Spanish missionaries with unction. Unction makes Spanish units much stronger, and it is a powerful unique mechanic, but missionaries are expensive to mass, and brittle to destroy, and if you go for unction that immediately places a bulls eye on them, forcing the Spanish player to be very careful about their deployment. Furthermore, using them does require some heavy micro. Finally, by going for them you must forgo other things (like a bigger mass of lancers or cannons) and a home city slot in your deck that could have been more resources or units. Now I know missionaries are not often used at the competitive level, but they illustrate my point very well.
Yo pensaba algo parecido. O sea, no me he puesto a pensar para desarrollar una civ entera pero me gustaria que sacaran una nueva expansion/ dlc con Chile, Colomba/Venezuela, Argentina, Mexico y Brasil como civs independientes en una expansion llamada “Generals” donde San Martin, Bolivar, O’Higgins, etc fueron figuras militares reconocidas mundialmentepor su rol en las revoluciones latinoamericanas. Seguramente nunca ocurrirá pero estaria bueno o.por lo menos darle mas amor a las revoluciones ya existentes.
The first thing I would think about when making a new civ is to make sure that when it releases it doesn’t break the game and make people stay away from ranked for a while. USA was a good example of a nice civ release.