Ideas for Abbasid - Remove eco wing

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
1

First off, I like the Abbasids and they are by far my most played civ. Their aesthetics and sounds are fantastic and the concept of a booming golden age civ which picks techs for unique playstyles sounds like a flexible and fun experience.

Current Situation

However, in their current state that is mostly a dream. Ideally, the freedom of choice in the House of Wisdom would promote diverse strategies, but in reality it does the opposite. If you’re not picking Eco wing first you’re doing it wrong.

There are multiple reasons for this problem. First, Fresh Foodstuffs is simply the most powerful early game tech. Boot Camp and Preservation of Knowledge scale well into the lategame, but they don’t do much for you in feudal age and trade is very niche.

Second, Abbasid do not have a strong feudal push. Their unique unit gets easily countered when it can’t use its mobility and they lack an outstanding eco bonus, like the Rus wooden fortress, to compensate. This gets compounded by their generally slow start.

Third, Abbasid is a booming civ by design. The higher the age the more of your unique techs you get to unlock through the HoW. Feudal gives you 1 tech, castle 3 and imperial 5. On top you gain access to additional golden age levels.

In short: Since the Civ has to be balanced around picking the economic wing first you have to pick it which completely invalidates the HoW design.

A Possible Solution

What kind of changes would I like to see made to the wing choices more interesting?

Generally, I think a wing should promote a specific playstyle and NOT give you a generic bonus. Currently, the trade wing does a good job at that and the military wing is decent to promote an infantry heavy style. The worst offenders which simply make you stronger are the economic wing and PoK which should be removed.

You might be worried about the Abbasids eco if their main wing is gone, but there is a rather simple solution: Boost the golden age. Give it 5 tiers. 1 every 10 buildings to have it curve better throughout the game. And tie whichever generic economic bonus you want the civ to have to the golden age. Tech discount? Villager dicount? All possible. All about tweaking the numbers.

Examples for the wing redesign

What could the new wings look like?

Culture wing could be refocused on monk play. Move piety to castle age and add another monk bonus in imperial. Maybe a discount or build speed bonus. Not sure what would fit in feudal.
Culture: ??? / Piety / Monk bonus

Either split military wing into infantry and cavalry…
Infantry: Composite Bows / Boot Camp / Camel Support
Cavalry: Horsemen or CA bonus or discount? / Camel Rider Shields / Medical Centers

Or add a siege wing on top of military? The ability to build mangos and springalds in the field could be locked behind a tech, too. Maybe a bonus for rams in feudal to enable a ram push.
Siege: Cheaper or tankier rams / Mango & Springald field construction / Medical centers

Final Thoughts

This is simply brainstorming. I’d love to hear more ideas on what could be done with the wings or the civ in general. Maybe you completely disagree with my take on the economic wing - Let me know! Let’s have a discussion on how to bring more variety to the Abbasids gameplay.

2 Likes
2

I like your ideas.

As for the golden age mechanic, I would more closely tie it in with the HoW wings. Instead of generic buffs, the golden age is tailored to the wings you are choosing, that way there is more incentive to go, say, military wing early on. Example:

  • If you start with the military wing, each 10 buildings you get a buff to your military unit’s speed/attack speed/hitpoints/etc (take your pick or a combination), but you DO NOT get the resource/research/production buffs.

I would honestly limit the golden age research and production bonuses to the trade wing (and rename it as commercial wing or something else). The economic wing would retain the villager resource collection buffs, which is very strong and more than enough.

Finally, if you unlock several wings you get either the last golden age bonuses or all combined (this may be too OP), or my personal preference: you get to choose and switch for the rest of the game.

3

Tying the golden age bonus to the wing is a nice idea, too. However, I think you’d have to be careful to lock a powerful eco bonus like the gathering rate behind a wing. That just incentivizes opening with that wing which is something I’d like to get rid of.

4

Let me be dull a little bit. I would preserve all the wings and researches. Golden age system is good as it is, but I would lower tier 3 building count to 45 and increase camel base attack. Bonus for rams is completely bad idea. Letting this happen would make every second player to do boring early ram pushes. Regards,
Bazsa

5

Very nice suggestion. Abbasid is my secondary civ behind mongols.
And i agree to much you are saying.

I do think though that Eco wing isnt alpha omega

Ive figured out a tradewing meme build for maps, especially french pass that allows you to reach Imperial age as fast as HRE, by going for traders and had great success with this.

And especially in team games.

But I totally agree that Eco wing is so dominant. That whenever I see another abbasid player NOT going for eco wing first, i can do nothing but paying him utmlst respect and salute him.

6

The reason why I’d like to go further is that your suggestions wouldn’t change the wing balance. It would always be Eco wing first 100% and that’s boring. Not sure if a ram bonus would be an issue since the Abbasid feudal army isn’t all that strong, but it’s just an idea.