Idea for a slight water expansion/rework

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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I was rewatching Spirit of the Law’s video about Rome at War’s then-upcoming major water overhaul, and it got me thinking about ideas for my Oceania expansion idea, which naturally focuses a lot on ships. Since other people (but not me) want a major water rework, feeling the current system is boring, an expansion focused on maritime empires would be the perfect time to do it.

Here’s the idea, which I got from the Rome at War creators: There are two new ship types available on the second page of the Dock: The Pirate Galley, upgrading to the Fast Pirate Galley, and the Scout Ship, upgrading to the Scout Galley and Heavy Scout Galley.

The Pirate Galley has the ability to “convert” enemy ships by boarding them at close range, freezing them in place. They can still attack, but cannot move. However, the unit is foiled by Heresy, and two Dock technologies called Forecastle and Aftercastle improve the boarding resistance of ships, like Devotion and Faith for land units. (They can instead be researched at the University if the Dock is getting too crowded.) It has high armor and bonus damage resistance in order to reach its target, but it is relatively slow, so it can be countered by the Scout Ship.

The Scout Ship is a ship that’s used for, well, scouting. Perhaps it can be a starting scout on amphibious maps like Water Nomad instead of or in addition to the standard scout, but its main role is to scout the map in the Feudal Age, as well as counter Pirate Galleys. It has a weak attack and generally does not hold up well, so it is best used in its intended role. However, it only costs 75 wood, making it invaluable in late games when gold runs low. To counter the Pirate Galley, it has great speed, a bonus against the Pirate Galley, and boarding resistance. It could also have a bonus against Monks as well, with accompanying conversion resistance, giving it a dual purpose in the late game during coastal raiding.

Well, what do you think? My goal was to replicate the general complexity of the Rome at War water overhaul without overcomplicating the game, retaining the simple counter system while simultaneously adding complexity to a part of the game many players find bland. If the idea is well-received, it could easily become part of an expansion focusing on maritime empires, like, for instance, Oceania.

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Heresy should have nothing to do with boarding, having a ship captured is no valid reason to condemn its crew for heresy and burn them at the stake :upside_down_face: maybe a mechanism to scuttle the ship, possibly depending on how much damage it has taken (easy to sink a heavily damaged ship than a pristine one) ?

The issue I see is how much of a mess ships are in AOE2, it’s nowhere near how it’s supposed to be. Boarding was the main combat form (by no means exclusive to pirates) until a great number of cannons were mounted on the broadside, with archers on the ship’s castles. Ramming would depend on the ship type and how the sea is, while fire ships should be a Byzantine UU. But without a way to manage the crew (doesn’t feel right to capture a ship from nothing) there is no way of getting even close…

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Yeah, I didn’t think so either, but didn’t have any good ideas for tech names to have the same effect on boarded ships.

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That sounds good, but I have no image the way Scout Ship counters Pirates in real. The problem is whether separating monk conversion and pirates conversion. Another problem is what spec Pirate Galley gets.

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I think Oceania DLC is more suited to AoE 3, where the peoples of Oceania could be presented in a really cool way.

The Oceania DLC does not have to be necessary to rework the Navy as there are many other potential civs that were famous for their outstanding advanced navy.

Besides, why add another can of worms when there is still an underrepresentation of African and American civs???

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Give me Africa or give me death.

I don’t know enough about Polynesians but having them as minor civs would be cool.

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Why only Minor civs?

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A slight rework would be making Dromon a short ranged mangonel like ship available for most if not all civs in Castle Age.

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The main reason the dromon exists is to give a siege ship to civs that were relevant before gunpowder (yes the Byzantines survived until gunpowder but they were a shadow of themselves by this point). It’s fine as it is

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I think water needs a big overhaul but not in that way.
I think the dock needs to be split in 2 Buildings

  • One for civilian ships (fishing, transport and trade) plus Scout Ship
  • One for military ships

So we don’t need 2 pages.

Military ships need to get a rework.
Adding new ships like a Melee Ship and a Mangonel Ship (with lower range then Dromon but larger AoE).
Making the Fire Ships a regional unit.

Boarding Ships are probably not that fun to use in practice. I mean would you want to use 0 range monks?
There would probably be some ways to make them work.
Maybe make them also have a melee attack and make the conversion something you manually trigger?

The Maori gave the British some good fights and the Hawaiian Empire was also pretty successful for a while.
Both candidates for playable civilisations.
There is also a lot of potential for minor civilisations too of course.

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Then add a new ship. Name can be mini Dromon or whatever that fits.

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If they were actually going to invest in a water rework, I would prefer if they implemented ramming and boarding ships as alternatives for the fire ships. Ie most civs gets 1 close-ranged ship, one arrow ship, and one self-destruct ship.
Some civs (eg Vikings) could get a very good arrow ship instead of a close-ranged ship, as Vikings do now.

I’d also love if ships cost more pop space and resources, so that a ship could actually be worth as much as a trebuchet or more.