I think it’s unreasonable to totally rule out changing features of AoK civs (beyond the occasional tweak for balance), but I would advise caution, and unique/region-specific units in particular seem largely unwarranted – especially because such a high proportion of AoK civs are European and the generic base that the AoE2 civs are based on is, correspondingly, a European one. So I’m not really sure what types of European unit aren’t already pretty well-represented in the game, and by extension I don’t see many niches that a Euro-region-specific unit could fill. A few more specific remarks:
Deviating from the “one unit, one population space” principle was already a mistake in Rise of the Rajas. I doubt it makes sense to present the full argument here, but in short, this is the type of mechanic you either introduce in a base game or leave out entirely.
Warrior monks would require intensive micro liable to overwhelm a lot of lower- and mid-level players (with a normal monk, right-clicking an enemy unit automatically prompts a conversion attempt – with a unit that can both attack and convert, a button or hotkey would be necessary).
I like this idea a lot (though I wouldn’t want it implemented as a replacement for trading); elsewhere I’ve proposed something similar myself. I understand persons’ concerns, though; it would be a huge change, though Relics and the Feitoria at least offer some frame of reference for this sort of thing.
I didn’t address every individual case of this, but a lot of what’s proposed would also require quite a bit of revision to individual civs, I think – e.g. if the Middle Eastern culture group got better trade, the Hindustani trade bonuses would probably have to be rethought, and at that point, it would make more sense to just expand that civ’s existing bonuses to the entire bloc. But that seems inadvisable. Likewise, the proposed Crusader unit would presumably render the Teutonic Knight redundant.
Changes to AoK civs that I would entertain are as follows:
Britons: There are plenty of possible gripes about this civ, but one that stands out to me is the devs’ failure to represent the English billman, every bit as important a part of High Medieval British armies as the longbowman. I wouldn’t introduce a UU with this name, though – rather, a civ bonus or UU could make the Spearman-line a little more robust (e.g. in exchange for Yeomen). The idea would be to make the unit decent at fighting enemy infantry in addition to cavalry (while remaining weak to archers).
Celts: Feels a little weird to me that they have nothing representative of their anti-cavalry schiltron formations (maybe my perspective is skewed – when I think of medieval Celts at war, I think primarily of the conflicts of the 13th and 14th centuries; for all I know, such formations were unknown before that era). It would seem to synergize reasonably with a more general focus on infantry.
Vikings: Rename the civ “Norse”, rename the Berserk “Viking”, make the Berserk-to-Viking available at the Barracks and then add a Castle UU called “Berserker” that periodically flies into a stat-boosting battle rage. (AoM offers loads of precedent for rage-style mechanics – alternatively, give it high attack, very high health and low armor.)
Might make a thread on this, because it’s worth looking at how we got here, but in short: If the devs are going to take away Thumb Ring and try to force the Vikings to be the infantry civ they’ve always been advertised as, the civ absolutely needs another unit at the barracks. Given bad cavalry and mediocre archers, it simply isn’t fair to leave them solely with the Militia-line, the Spearman-line and Berserks. Make the Berserk-into-Viking UU available at the Barracks and increase its speed a little (say to 1.1 from 1.05), and they’ll be markedly better off.
Persians: It would be very cool if this civ emphasized heavy cavalry a little more (right now it’s just the team bonus) – after all, the first cataphracts came out of Iran. It’s hardly an OP civ right now, or even at risk of becoming OP. There are a lot of ways this might be implemented, e.g. with a Winged Hussar-style super-upgrade for heavy cav.
Turks: I think Turkish and Italian unique naval units would have been very neat additions to the game, especially since the Battle of Lepanto is represented in a scenario. But (since we’re already speaking in nautical terms) I think that ship has sailed. Also think it’s silly that they don’t get Elite Skirm – I can appreciate the initial logic behind the decision, but it doesn’t really hold up anymore.
Chinese: Setting aside speculation about whether the next expansion will affect this civ, I wish the devs would rethink how they’ve portrayed the civ’s relationship to gunpowder technology. I get the balance argument against giving them Bombard Cannons, but Hand Cannoneer at the very least seems warranted. I also wish for a region-specific siege unit like the Hwacha/Wasps’ Nest (Koreans could have it too, and so could Jurchen, if they’re ever added as a civ) and the expansion of Rocketry to apply to such a unit (in addition to Scorp and CKN).
######nese:** There’s already a thread on revising the Samurai, so I’ll say no more here, except that the unit should be changed.
EDIT: Not sure why it’s censoring Jpnese.