Ideas for minor Armenians historical and balance changes

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

The Armenians are very strong on the water currently, with a high win rate on water and hybrid maps for 1200+ -rated players. Their land performance, on the other hand, is utterly mediocre. They have a below-average win rate on most land maps, and only a few are either average or above average.

This is because their tech tree has a great deal of holes, most of which are completely ahistorical in nature, and their specialty is infantry, which is not favored in the current meta, and is another ahistorical element. They lack Plate Barding Armor, Thumb Ring, Siege Engineers, Parthian Tactics, Heavy Cavalry Archer, Paladin, Siege Ram, Siege Onager, and Bombard Cannon. This is despite the fact that Armenian heavy cavalry, siege weapons, and archers were all historically top-tier. The Armenian navy is powerful, despite Armenia proper being landlocked and Cilician Armenia being too small to have a proper navy. Essentially, the Armenian specialties are opposite what they should be.

The way to fix both the historical and balance issues is to make the Armenian navy much weaker while making the land army much stronger. This can be done by making the Armenians essentially a jack-of-all-trades civ, with good infantry, cavalry, archers, and siege, while none are particularly exceptional. The genie (no pun intended) is already out of the bottle in terms of Armenian unique units, techs, and bonuses, so it is too late for a total overhaul, but it is still possible to tweak minor attributes. This is what I would do (some of these ideas are inspired by @UpmostRook9474):

  • Replace Cilician Fleet with Cilician Engineers (possible better name): Siege weapons and Dromons +1 range and deal +25% vs buildings; Mangonel-line and Dromons fire one extra projectile (no Siege Engineers still, but a superior version available one age earlier); costs 500 food, 500 gold

  • Bonus for extra Galley-line and Dromon projectile removed

  • Receive Thumb Ring, but the Composite Bowman fires 18% slower to compensate (therefore only affecting other archer units)

  • Receive Heavy Cavalry Archer and Parthian Tactics

  • Receive Plate Barding Armor

  • Receive Siege Ram and Bombard Cannon

  • Lose access to Heavy Demolition Ship

With these changes, the Armenians could become only average on water maps instead of utterly overpowered, and they could become balanced on land by having a wide variety of options in the late game. They would still have an infantry specialty, but the naval specialty would probably have to be removed from the civ description, probably replaced with a Monk, Archer, or Siege classification.

4 Likes
2

Maybe do something to the regional things for the historical issue. The Mule Cart is a very Georgian object rather than Armenians, so maybe the Fortified Church can be the only regional building and the Mule Cart can be unique to the Georgians. On the other hand, the Warrior Priest has both Armenian and Georgian elements, so it can be the regional unit in the regional building.

  • Swap the bonuses. Give the Armenians 1 free Mule Cart, and reduce the Mule Cart cheaper by 25% for the Georgians. Then, the Armenians cannot build Mule Carts but Lumber/Mining Camps, and they research the techs there with the +40% effects still. (If losing that free one, you cannot build another.)
  • Give the Georgians the Warrior Priest. (Although they don’t seem to have any more bonuses for it.)

Since you don’t leave Galley line any bonus, give them the Shipwright.

Not necessary but let’s see.

If they had worse infantry than they currently have (e.g. if their infantry bonuses were exchanged with the Georgians for cavalry bonuses), perhaps consideration could be given to giving Paladins further.

No Bombard Cannon maybe.

1 Like
3

Unlike Dromons, extra projectiles of Mangonel deal only 1 damage. And the new UT is offering way too many things. If you want their siege to be good just give Siege+Dromon +25% bonus damage.

Japanese tech tree. And their stable and SW tech tree is already same. Only difference is SE.

That doesn’t make sense.

2 Likes
4

It’s just because the Mule Cart discount would be meaningless when they cannot build Mule Carts but Lumber/Mining Camps. That would make the Armenians have 1 less eco bonus, and the swap can keep a bonus for them if people care about this. The swap would make sure you can use that free Mule Cart as the second eco bonus to save the cost of first Lumber/Mining Camp while the better lumber/mining upgrades is the first eco bonus. On the other hand, the Georgians who were really famous by using mule carts would reasonably gain a build discount.

To be honest, I’m personally fine if the Armenians cannot have that free Mule Carts.

5

Armenian free Mule Cart is unnecessary.

This is a good idea. Armenia has a major plain, the Ararat Plain, unlike Georgia, so not using carts makes more sense (unless you consider the idea that wheels are impractical in mountains, but whatever). It also has a plateau.

Good idea. They’re obviously based on Khevsur warriors anyway. Perhaps they can gain extra attack through some means that doesn’t overlap with other civs. Or they can be cheaper.

Not a bad idea, I suppose.

Good idea. This idea is much simpler.

And? I consider the Japanese to be the model jack-of-all-trades civ. You can do pretty much any strategy with them and come out on top. Chinese are similar. The Armenians could be the same way.

But the Armenian one would be better in exchange for worse defensive capabilities.

I agree.

6

I would prefer to give them Paladins over plate barding armour. There are currently no civs with that combination (Celt Paladins lack last armour but also bloodlines so the Armenian ones would be better) so that would make them different from Japanese too. I feel like in general there are too many civs with fully upgraded to exceptional cavaliers like poles, Sicilians, Malians, Bulgarians, Georgians… But too few Paladins, specially now that other heavy cav candidates Bulgarians and Persians lost them.

I’m not good at balance but I think Armenians have a problem with pushing in late imp (although their hp bonus for infantry helps) so I would give them Paladins, maybe siege engineers or some siege option and take away champion upgrade in castle (available in imp) since they’re already strong enough there.

2 Likes
7

Especially late game in some closed maps where early rushes is impossible.

Fereters extra HP and one upgrade early sounds nice on paper, but it still useless and doesn’t change the fact that infantry still suck due to their slowness and cannot catch up to archers, hand cannoneers, and cavalry archers. Need me to mention Cataphracts, jaguar Warriors, and other stronger infantry civs such as Japanese and Dravidians (Wootz Steel, ouch)

Their cavalry is also useless, since there’s no Paladin and Hussar, and no final upgrade. I can’t bear the thought of getting decimated by professional Hindustani and Saracen camels, or even more pop-efficient cavalry units like Paladins (Franks and Teutons especially), Boyar, Savar, Konniks, War eles/Battle eles etc.

Apart from ignoring armor, composite bowmen’s are too situational to use, thanks to short range and slow fire rate and most importantly? No Thumb Ring. Cavalry archer without Parthian Tactics and no HCA? No thank you.

I played some matches, against a ###anese, Persian, , Hindustani, Mongol, and Mayan player, and these civs have better units than Armenians!

Any advice on playing Armenians better in the late game?

2 Likes
8

Armenians doesn’t have very good units in imperial age, but have many selections of army. You should push the frontline with eco upgrades.

In my test (equal resources), composite bowmen can beat halb, eagle, hand cannon, knights, camel (and CA, hussar, steppe lancer with imperial armor). They act like Genoese crossbowmen. Warror priests can beat many kinds of unit (except champions, paladins, BE, hussar, and archers with micro). I think knights & warror priests comp in castle age is good.

That’s a idea on a paper that is written by a man taking a rest from ranked matches. :slight_smile:

9

I’m personally against the idea of changes for the sake of better historical accuracy only. Balance, play rate and civ design should be the primary concern for balance changes with a bit of historical accuracy. But historical accuracy should never be the main concern.

I think Armenians is at an okay position in terms of balance. But personally I don’t like 1 time bonus and their Cilician Fleet UT offering too much in water but not adding anything on land. I’m okay with “a free relic from 1st fortified church” bonus being replaced with a military bonus, can even be siege. Even if I put historical accuracy aside, their siege department is terribly bad.

4 Likes
10

They really need a buff for better late-game land and water balance and better historical accuracy. I just made a post with some suggestions.

12

Mostly the issue is infantry is still not good enough in this game. The fact that you can get champions and halbs one age earlier and that hardly matters is a proof. Armenians are one of the civs I have more troubles playing with.

5 Likes
13

Historical accuracy is one other thing, but I’m more interested in a reasonable buff for the Armenians. I once had a thought of giving camels to Armenians.

1 Like
14

I don’t have TMR DLC. So I can’t really tell how to play them. I heard some suggested to put 7 on sheep instead of 6 as you need to spend 15 food on Mule Cart.

15

Aww, why not? It’s actually quite fun.

1 Like
16

Waiting for a good discount.

1 Like
17

Oh, that’s a valid reason.

18

The same problem as many other Naval civs, they’re not meant for such maps.

19

This paladin would take 36 arrows from arbs, compared to generic FU cavalier’s 35. Might still be situational worthy.

I honestly think Armenians late game is so garbage that giving them both FU paladin and FU HCA won’t be broken. In exchange all their infantry bonus should be given to another civ.

20

Tech Tree is very accurate for Cilician Armenia. Not so much for Bagratid Armenia

1 Like
21

If you do all of these, you’re definitely not doing “Minor” changes as you wrote in the title.

And I was thinking Fortified Church could be a unique building for Georgians.

That completely changes their identity. For example, Dravidians got a siege identity but didn’t lose any bonuses they had. So I think you can just give them final cav armor and it won’t be bad. I’m against Paladin and HCA though.