Temples would be fine for Aztecs if they have a decent reason to justify them much like the noble Warrior classes. In reality you would have a whole line of Warrior Priests (Coyote, cough, Runner, is actually a Warrior Priest). Temples were super important and as soon as your state/city/whatever’s temple was taken, that was it, game over!
But it comes back to the justification question again. If Aztecs were to be refreshed then they could be justified if Warrior Priests were a proper thing, but too be honest I think we’ll be left with a ‘normal’ Warrior Priest and the weird Coyote Runner.
You can’t build anything close to the first enemy TC so you couldn’t do much.
Also the default speed is already so slow that you’d lose a lot of villager training time unit you get where you want to.
Also AoE3 doesn’t have resource drop off so it’s not that much of an advantage to get close to resources.
The XP bonus from the first TC would obviously need to be removed.
I’m very well aware of that.
Maybe only Haudenosaunee and Lakota should get Influence/Fur while the Aztecs and Inca do the the Temple as a new building with it’s own features.
Some of them could play with the concept of XP.
While it’s technically possible to make things cost XP that brakes how shipments work. But you could give a building units and technologies that cost Shipments.
That would be kinda like home city cards with an independent queue.
That’s why I made a relative and not an absolute statement.
I’d I made a 10% as extreme proposal for AoE2 there would be 90% very negative comments.
There are a lot of cultural similarities between Haudenosanee and Lakota, some of them simply because they live on the same latitude.
Aztecs might have originated in what is now the Southern US and then migrated south but that was very long ago, longer ago then the Lakota migrated from the Great Lakes area where the Haudenosanee live.
The other big dividing factor is time.
The Aztecs are a 16th century civilisation in AoE3 while the Lakota are a 19th century one.
Lakota are not allowed to farm but Dakota are. That’s why I picked up Anas idea of adding Dakota villagers as kind of “mercenaries” to the Lakota.
This way the mining restriction is also gone.
The original idea was to make it a new resource but it was so similar that I though why not use the same one and just change the icon, since it was very similar in function to Influence, unlike Export that clearly functions in a different way.
Guns, maybe, horses no.
The Lakota encountered escaped Spanish horses long before they encountered any Europeans.
They didn’t have to buy horses from anyone.
Not sure how much that applies to Haudenosanee.
The issue with the community plaza is that it’s basically “magic”.
People there influence the whole map. That doesn’t make sense in a historical game.
But people doing a ceremony that trains units or makes nearby soldiers stronger makes more sense.
Or we simply add the Temple without any of the Community Plaza features.
As an independent idea:
I think the Community Plaza could return as a feature for some Revolutions, representing political debates in newly formed democratic countries.
It would be debates or something like that.
You could keep the plaza model, you could even keep the name. Most civilisations in this game have some sort of “research centre” in the form of arsenals and churches - or just the University in AoE2.
But the mechanic itself sucks. When you look at the plaza, you’re just exchanging resources for benefits - through several layers of obfuscation. Instead of spending resources for a permanent buff, you’re giving up on resources for a temporary buff. And unlike most other civilisations, you have to expand a significant amount of mental load in order to get the most out of it.
Yeah, I’m aware for the coyote priest. If there was a way to introduce the temple as a proper building and not a cheap plaza clone, then I’d be for it.
Ok, I see. But in that case, wouldn’t that be more appropriate to make the wozu only accessible as a special shipment? Or in the trade house maybe.
Yeah, I’ve read that they found escaped horses. I also know they acquired horses through trades with other tribes, who obtained them from europeans. So maybe a tech which would remove the fur cost for cavalry units? I don’t know.
But that’s the whole point. I personnaly see this more as a game mechanic than “magic”. But if we remove the plaza from lakota and hauds, than we should do the same for the Aztecs and Incas too.
Some people just cannot figure out why European civs are always treated as the “standard” of civ design in every single game while “the other cultures” come with more and more magicial “gAmE mEcHaNiCs” later.
The mere existence of this phenomena explains itself.
So I’m actually advocating the Europeans to become equally gimmicky as well and I’m glad they did it.
Call me whatever you want but its the truth. If this community is that against wonders, plaza and consulate, why have you been playing the game for 15y if you all dislike it that much??
DE is suppoused to have better graphics for new systems and balance between civs, no suppouse to change their basis.
If we follow your way of thinking someone can say HC are too much gimmick and they have to be removed. Nosense on III.
Additions are ok, removals arent and devs are following this. All of your ideas are nice but to be in a new game like IV, not to completely change III.
PD: come on, you cant compare II civs to III ones. And devs have said german splitting isnt a thing.
The same way you’ll keep complaining about changes, I’ll keep complaining that the changes aren’t enough. I’m not shutting up just because you won’t shut up.
I don’t care about German split personally. I do think Indian split is necessary though.
Where it will be broken is that its a shipment point right at the edge of the opponent’s base that the opponent has no way to fight against.
Lakota poping 4 axe rider with the fast age up already annoys the hell out of a lot of people. being able to do that mid map with a forward the opponent cant remove even if not overpowered is incredibly annoying.
Lakota Teppe also boost HP of units as well so its effectively an unbreakable forward base in age 1
also very funny is that TCs have an x2 bonus against vills so yeah just it will be like aoe 2 TC ###############
edit: the LoS of the TC would also mean you have like near complete vision of their res and would be able to interupt gathering with near impunity
we already sort of have that with italy and units. Nothing too strange about applying that for techs
I don’t really like much the idea of the furs mostly because it’s a watered down version of Export. You’re ultimately just making a limited version of export where you just passively get a special resource from gathering like normal.
Now something interesting I just came up with, is having this “Goods” resource that you can obtain by trading away your excess regular resources in some sort of “Trading House” building that works like the Lombard but only to obtain this Goods resource.
This gives you much more control over the exchange and makes the resource behave differently from Export and Influence, which I presume is what we’re all looking for, gameplaywise.
I think some things about Asian civilisations should be reworked too but that’s a different topic.
Asia is generally a part of the world that needs more attention. No civilisations have been added here in the Definitive Edition at all despite this continent representing 60% of the world population.
No it’s just people picking up weapons.
The last one is a little wild though because it also transforms buildings.
I don’t like this elements but I still like the game as a whole.
But just because I like the game doesn’t mean it’s perfect.
No game is perfect.
It would be more appropriate but less balanced.
The Wozu are needed to mine coin in the early game and the fact they are trained at the TC means you can’t train outer villagers at the same time.
Their foreign nature is represented by their Influence/Fur cost.
Making them shipment only would limit the coin mining abilities in the early game and the farming abilities in the late game too much.
It could maybe be balanced if the ability to train them could be unlocked through a HC card and the early villager shipments are replaced by Wozu shipments.
I don’t think this resource should be used fo their regular units.
Especially when almost all Lakota units are mounted.
Also once you bought horses you can just breed them.
It makes more sense for guns. But then you would have to many uses of that one resource, since it’s also used to buy mercenaries and units from Minor Civilisations.
Liking a game doesn’t mean liking all it’s features.
I love all AoE games (1-4 plus AoM, never played AoEO) but that doesn’t mean I agree with everything in those games, that would be impossible considering how different they are.
I suggested to make a gamemode without Home Cities.
The idea wasn’t very popular.
You can’t just add things, you also have to remove things sometimes, else your civilisations would be full of features.
They already removed revolutions form some civilisations, removed features from revolutions (like making Gattling Guns US exclusive) and they replaced a bunch of units.
And of course they removed a lot of home city cards.
They also removed the core feature of unlocking Home City Cards.
Ok that makes sense.
Maybe the start should stay like it is.
We have the opposite for Italy.
Units that are payed with resources are send in the HC shipping pipeline.
My suggestion is using shipments as a resource to buy things from a building that then are trained in set building instead of going through the HC pipeline.
This would be especially useful when you have a lot of XP.
You have more control over your Fur generation since it’s not passively generated for all types or resource production and it directly scales with out resource production rate techs.
Also their are alternative ways to get it like from Trade Routes or by allying with Minor Civilisations.
This is actually a pretty cool idea, but it would fit other civilisations a lot better.
Could be really nice for the Persians for example.
The idea of Fur is to give a unique bonus to hunting for Lakota and a unique bonus for wood cutting for Haudenosanee.
Simultaneously, across the whole map, unaffected by terrain, from nowhere? Transforming one unit into another one instantly, where there’s been centuries between them irl? That’s magic to me, too. Seems like magic is a core mechanic in this game, the community plaza must be disliked for other reasons.
But isn’t every unit upgrade magic with that logic?
They suddenly all pick up a new uniform, weapon and learn new tactics?
I also dislike it because I don’t like using it and many others seem to see it the same way.
The Native Americans aren’t really popular civilisations.
It’s just not fun.
The Native Americans aren’t really popular civilisations.
It’s just not fun.
Agree. You can’t have them be fun, use smoke signals or tobacco. You can’t give them a bonus on fighting on home turf, getting map control or be good at scouting - like it’s eg the case of the Shoshone in civ v.
Yeah, I didn’t think about it. You’re totally right.
That’s why I suggested a tech that would remove the fur cost. This is just an idea.
Fur/goods should totally be its own thing, while being similar to export and inflence. I agree it shouldn’t be limited to a passive income.
I suggested something similar. Fur/goods should be exchangeable at the market like every other ressource.
A big difference for the native americans is that they should be able to access all arsenal techs WITHOUT any kind of alliance. Simply buy them with furs at the trade house.
I don’t think the Wozu should be available by default, and nor do I think they should be an integral part of the Lakota economy. Their existence should be a choice by the player, enabled by a home city shipment.
The Lakota still need to have a full economy on their own, and a primary way to gather gold without mining. The Wozu give an interesting alternative, but one that shouldn’t be available until Age 2, and even then, the Lakota would still need to gather Furs and Gold to train them out of Tradehouses and, potentially, Town Centers.
The idea behind them is that they are the mercenary unit enabled by the Native version of the “Theatres” or “Dance Hall” cards.
A mercenary villager would be quite unusual but interesting at the same time. I like it. But in this case, how would you suggest the Lakotas obtain gold in age 1?
Every culture has some religion. Hell, even self proclaimed atheists sometimes thank God. The difference is the impact it had on their society and daily life. Aztecs and Incas were very religious. Aztecs particularly engaging in large scale ritualistic human sacrifice. The same goes for Inca. While i do not advocate to introduce human sacrifices in aoe, it’s nowhere near the same as Lakota and Hauds. I think you can tell where in going and this.
They tried to capture this with warriors priests and priestesses, but imo it’s not enough and it’s a trait worth differenceting on.
If we use this as our baseline for the Native civs, I imagine the PNW civs would be similar to the following:
80% Coin + 40% Influence
100% Coin + 20% Influence (default)
120% Coin + 0% Influence
(I’m not entirely sure, but I think the rate differences between food/coin + influence is because of the Khuwa, which would have their own rates. Should other prairie nations be included, I imagine their food + influence rates would match the coin + wood rates here, and that the Lakota Khuwa are unique. Helpfully, other prairie nations would be able to mine directly without issue as well, making the issue of mining purely a Lakota problem.)
My initial thought on how to gather gold with the Lakota was to give the Tradehouse an aura that converts a % of food gathered into wood, but the Tradehouse is being given a more pan-Tortuamerican purpose of converting into Influence. I actually like this approach more, but it doesn’t solve the Lakota issue of gold.
The natural follow-up would be to make the Tribal Marketplace a Lakota-unique variant of the Market, and that it functions as something between a normal Market and a Lombard - but rather than being able to variably pick your resources, the Lakota player would solely be able to invest Food and return Gold at varying rates, with a base of 1:1, speed based on normal mining rates. Additionally, the Tribal Marketplace would only be able to be built on mines and would grant Khuwa a small trickle of gold as they hunt near it, but reducing the rate at which they gather food.
Not that only Khuwa would be able to gain a gold trickle while hunting near the Tribal Marketplace. If other villagers are sent to the Lakota via TEAM cards, those villagers would not gain this trickle, but those villagers would also be able to mine directly.
Khuwa sent via TEAM cards would be unable to generate gold at all for the nations they are shipped to, lacking the ability to work Estates, Farms, Rice Paddies, Haciendas, and Rice Paddies. In return, however, they would have a higher-than-normal gather rate from natural resources.
Related note on the Khuwa, but it’s worth noting that the Khuwa would have to be considered Akicita, the same as the military units I gave names to, like the Crow Owners, the Owns Alone, the Kitfox Soldiers, or the Warpath Badgers. It was strictly forbidden for non-Akicita to hunt because they could cause entire herds to move on before the Akicita could hunt, and causing something like that could be grounds for confiscation of your tipi, horse, and belongings. This inclusion into these societies might have interesting implications for later design involving the Akicita.