If all civs had access to all generic techs and all their unit lines were maxed (Aztecs can get to Halb rather than being stuck on Pike, but wouldn’t get the scout cav line) which civ do you think would get the greatest benefit and why?
For the sake of the hypothetical, I would say that the Meso and South American civs can build stables to train the Xolotl Warrior and get the Stable techs but I’m undecided wether the unit’s special Post-Imp start stat boost should count as a unit line upgrade for this question, so I’ll leave answering that up to you.
And it would be kind of overpowered, or even make the civilizations even less unique…
Franks due to 20% health and bloodlines being extremely strong on every single mounted unit, notably their unique Castle UT I think would make their mounted Crossbows the best mobile ranged unit in the game when combined with a full tech tree and the HP bonus. Combined with their solid economic bonuses and cheaper Castles,
A lot of civs would benefit significantly. Persians would love their trash arbs and war elephants with heresy. Roman longswords would get an additional pierce armor in castle age and their legionairies +2/5 armor in imp (should result in a total 8/11 armor - Malian champskarls would be jealous). Byzantine camels would be pretty good with bloodlines in addition to their cost discount. Saxons and Georgians would love having BBCs (as would a number of other civs, like Celts). Dravidian and Bengali elephant archers would appreciate parthian tactics (and thumb ring for Bengalis), and Dravidian elite battle elephants would be strong (wootz steel and regeneration). And Malay (the only elephant civ with Heresy for good reason) would really appreciate having the second cav armor upgrade (and the third of course). Really, any elephant civ would love a full tech tree to stop those pesky monks.
Most of the really OP stuff would come in imperial age, since that’s where most of the techs are missing. But there are some civs that are missing bloodlines/thumb ring for balance reasons in castle or even feudal age. But I suspect Malay would be the biggest winner with their discounted battle elephants. Doesn’t matter how strong you are in imp if you die in early castle age.
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That’s a really good point about Malay Elephants actually. Not to mention the TrashChampion spam to support them if needed.
My thoughts about this was Mapuche, because they’re a cav civ that don’t actually have any cav specific techs but under the rules of this hypothetical their Kona would have more HP than a Paladin without bloodlines (165hp), move slower than only the scout cav specifically (and the whole line for the Cumans) at 1.7 ms, and they’d actually get armour techs making them even more of a nightmare for pierce damage ranged units but also giving them power over melee units as well.
Not to mention how having one more range on their Bolas (as well as their Skirms and Slingers) would eliminate what I think is their only other major weakness.
But would all that be enough to beat a never ending wave of Elephant’s is the question.
Honestly I don’t get why All Techs isn’t like this already, it would be super imbalanced and uncompetitive of course. But it’d be fun to mess around with all the civs pushed to their theoretical limits.