How you balance these mechanics?

In AOE 2 DE we got the Shrivamsha Rider, cavalry that has a shield to dodge ranged attacks, and Ghulam, Infantry that thrusts its spear through multiple targets.

My question is, how that mechanics could work in AOE 3 DE, How you balance it?

These features are already in AoE3.

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The card Hulks lets Ironclads have a chance of blocking incoming damage.

A few of the new units like Winged Hussars have a piercing lance attack.

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Como dijo el camarada de arriba este tipo de cosas ya estaban en el aoe 3

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Well yeah then, maybe is that I don’t play AOE 3 DE at the same rate as AOE 2 DE 11
Though the Winged Hussar mechanic isn’t it like Coustilier one?

Balancing AoE is a pretty simple mathematical calculation to start. You start with a basic amount of damage a unit is intended to do, measured in damage per unit time, usually damage per second (dps). The special attack gets treated the same way. You give it a certain amount of dps you intend it to do. For AoE attacks, you have to make an assumption of how many targets the attack will reasonably hit. Will it hit 2 targets or 5 every time it is used? We’ll pick some number, let’s say 3, and we’ll assume on average, that attack is intended to hit 3 targets when it is used. If you use the attack on fewer targets, you lose value on the attack. If you position it well and hit more than 3 targets, kudos for you. You get extra benefit from the attack. When you pick the attack and rate of fire numbers, you simply calculate the appropriate numbers for the dps you intend the attack to do.

How do you “balance” it? In play, you’ll find that some attacks structured this way “feel” too strong or too weak and you can make subtle adjustments. Boost up the damage a little bit. Raise or lower the cooldown/attack speed. Those are easy levers to adjust.

You can also adjust the area of effect (AoE) itself, changing the shape or size. This changes the approximate number of targets you expect to hit with each attack, so this is a more complicated thing to play with. And, you can adjust how much damage is done to the unit at the center of the attack and how much damage “splashes” into the AoE. You don’t have to award equal damage to each.

As for the other implied question about balancing defensive bonuses and giving the shield a dodge mechanic, that one’s a different math problem. In this case, you calculate an “effective health” number which is your base health points multiplied by your armor value and multiplied again by your dodge rate. So, if you have 100 hp + 10 armor (0.10 modifier) + 15% chance to dodge (0.15 modifier), you end up with 100 (1 + 0.1 + 0.15) = 125 effective health points. That’s the figure you’ll use to compare and balance.

Now, of course, in reality, this is an imperfect equation. This is a rock-paper-scissors game, so your infantry unit will have more effective health vs the units they counter compared to the units that counter them, which must be taken into account. So, you’ll prefer higher health pools and lower armor values for a unit intended to be more versatile and the opposite for high-risk, high-reward units which must be micro’d well to take full advantage. And dodge is another tricky one to “feel” because randomness can be streaky. You can end up with “bad luck” where you never dodge and the unit rapidly dies or “good luck” where the dodge rolls many times in a row and the unit feels invincible. Anything much above 25% will feel really variable, which is something you don’t want in a competitive game.

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Japanese monks since 2009 are laughing yet xD

AoE 2 is taking mechanics from 3 for new civs like the tech that chnages all your food to coin or villagers into infantry. AoE3 is not more played cause AoE2 fans were too closed to changes back in the release days