The just for fun threads are pools of ideas.
They are not supposed to all be implemented.
But an inspiration for designing new civilisations.
There is like a >50% chance that the next DLC will have a new regional unit again, besides the obvious unique units.
It happened before that features of some DLC civilisations appeared in one of those threads before. It could be a coincidence but it at last proves that some of those ideas are good.
I don’t support it. The generic Knight line has represented the own heavily armoured cavalry for every civilization.
At most, skin mods could be provided. Do not make different stats and name.
I’m sure many users have already told you this.
Not entirely, there are reports of use of greek fire on smaller cases by, I think Saracens and Malay ships. Maybe it wasn’t exactly thanks to the same recipe, though, especially in the Malay case.
The new Indian civilisations don’t have access to the Knight line.
Also they have the Elephant Archer instead of the Cavalry Archer.
Changing some of the original AoK civilisations is obviously a bigger step then doing this for new civilisations but it’s not something completely new never seen before thing.
It could also be turned into a regional unit too, but Malay are certainly not the same region.
This is the result of inheriting the FE Indians.
If they can’t even get the generic Knights, how can they get other type of heavy cavalry at Stables.
I do not believed that the Saracens could have Fire Ships as a kind of regional unit with the few recorded uses of Greek fire, especially compared to the iconic use of Greek fire by the Byzantines.
Your suggestions are really great!
Here are my suggestions and some minor corrections to yours:
Regional Unit for: Goths and brand new Saxons civ
Regional Unit for: Byzantines and Persians
Regional Unit for: Ruthenians (curently Slavs) and brand new Romanians civ
Regional Unit for: Franks and Burgundians
Regional Unit for: brand new Croatians civ and brand new Serbs civ
Regional Unit for: brand new Swedes civ and Vikings
Here I will give units that, like Condottiero from Italians civ, can be shared with allies:
Shared Unit for: Bohemians
Shared Unit for: brand new Bavarians civ
Shared Unit for: brand new Bavarians civ
Shared Unit for: brand new Venetians civ
that’s strange, Silesia is part of Poland and was historically largely German speaking, what does it have to do with Bohemia? (nowadays czech republic has part of silesia, but not as part of bohemia)
what? have you looked at a map?
They’d also make sense for Vikings. (I’m not sure why Goths have them, to be honest. Maybe ES were working from some old sources that conflated Anglo-Saxons with Goths.)
The Normans also used Longboats, so they’d make sense for Sicilians (or arguably Franks).
Silesia is a region that has had ### moments throughout its history:
yes, which makes me wonder why you are giving their unit to Bohemia
so at its greatest extend you need to look with a magnifying glass to find any part that’s overlapping with switzerland? is there even a part? maybe something in the upper Inn valley?
and the map of languages shows that Swiss German is different from Bavarian German. for someone who speaks Bavarian German, Swiss German is borderline incomprehensible.
that’s why asked if you had looked at a map. switzerland and bavaria are neighbouring regions at best.
Many suggestions in this thread not only undermine the symbolic meaning of generic units and the identity of UUs, but also seriously affect the balance.
Cataphract and Boyar to replace Knight?
Composite Bowman to replace Crossbowman?
Mounted Crossbowman to replace Cavalry Archer?
Suddenly let a large number of civs have units with different stats, the entire meta of the game will completely change.
Viking Huskarl? Frank Coustillier?
Leaving aside the fact that this hurts the identities of Goths and Burgundians, it also seriously threatens the balance. Even though they may not be benefited from the HP bonuses, the Vikings still get an extremely effective anti-archer prop, and the Franks still get an extremely effective raid prop.
New units added for civs without Cavalry Archers, Cannon Galleon and Bombard Cannon as equivalents of these units?
This is clearly unacceptable.
Even if it’s “just for fun”, if you think about it a little, it’s bound to be a mess if the above is applied.
Obviously simply reskin (and in rare cases rename) is a more effective way.
Fine, aside from objections, let me give some thoughts.
Aside from the Fire Towers and Fire Ship UU for Byzantines I mentioned, what I would agree the most is making Missionary an Iberian regional unit. This is to emphasize the fact that both Iberian civs are colonizer civs, and also the unit gold discount has the potential to make this rare unit more used.
Caravel does not need to be shared, but it is worth a remake, such like changing to fire cannonballs rather than bolts.
It is not necessary to completely remove the CA line. The Iberian kingdoms often recruited Moorish light horse archers, and CA and mounted skirmishers are different types. Just remove the Spanish HCA.
After the current Genitour gets renamed to “Zenata Rider” or “Javelin Rider”, a new Genitour can be introduced as a decent mounted skirmisher for being the Spanish UU at Archery Ranges that costs gold. The training button is located where the HCA upgrade tech is located.
The Portuguese don’t have to have access to this Genitour, one is this is to make up for the Spanish losing the second UU, two is to avoid being too similar, and three is the Portuguese already have a good Archery Range with the gold discounts.
Without considering new civs, the Slinger can become a regional unit for the all Meso civs, and UT Atlatl can influence Slinger, but it needs a lot of corresponding work:
Only the Incas have the elite upgrade in the Imperial Age as compensation.
The Jaguar Warrior should get a bonus against either cavalry or gunpowder units to avoid getting jobs taken by the Slinger.
The Mayan Archery Range unit discount should not affect the Slinger, and may even have to delay access to the Slinger until the Imperial Age, or even cannot access.
The prerequisites for making the Axe Thrower a regional unit for certain Germanic civs are that it does not replace any generic units and is sufficiently nerfed or reworked.
It should be a Feudal Barrack unit to encourage early game infantry rush for those civs.
It should be weakened to the extent that once the cost is considered, only the range is better than the M@A and the anti-Spear ability is still obviously inferior to the Archery Range units.
Only the Franks have the elite upgrade in the Castle Age as compensation, but the upgrade cost should be expensive to balance the fact that the player doesn’t need a Castle to get an effective anti-Pike tool.
The new UU should not create new strengths for the Franks, otherwise it would be equivalent to strengthening an already top-notch civ. For example, the Gendarme would just be a pure heavy cavalry with a strength between Knight and Cavalier, and the Elite Gendarme would just be a pure heavy cavalry with a strength between Cavalier and Paladin. In this way, the Franks would still be a heavy cavalry civ, and they just have a chance to get a little bit better unit than the Knight line when they have Castles, but they should still return to using Paladin eventually.
I question what you mean by “a lot of people”.
Neither this forum nor the Chinese-using communities I visit frequently have such a voice become mainstream.
You only have European unit suggestions?
You don’t get the point of the thread? I mean I mentioned it like 5 times but I can do it again.
Each of the suggestions here is to be seen alone. Each of the suggestions would likely be the only one implemented in a DLC.
If the Boyar would replace the Knight it would do likely only do so for a few new civilisations plus whatever the Slaves would be changed into.
And that DLC wouldn’t include any other new regional units.
So basically exactly what happened in the last DLC. (Just that they actually got a second regional unit with the armoured elephant.)
The Franks getting the Coustillier makes little sense, I agree with that.
Giving the Vikings access to the Huskarl would definitely need some balance changes.
My suggestion was to make the base Huskarl a lot worse (at last -2 Pierce Armour) but change the Goths unique technology to improve it to it’s original state instead of unlocking it in the barracks (since it’s already there now).
It wouldn’t be the first time an old civilisation got a new Regional unit. The Mongols got the Steppe Lancer too and it’s even effected by their civilisation bonus that gives the Scout Line 30% more HP.
So Dynasties of India is unacceptable since it replaced the Cavalry Archer with the Elephant Archer?
It also replaced the Ram line with the Armoured Elephant.
I’ve seen that idea pop up a lot of time.
It’s not the loudest group for sure but it’s not that small either.
A lot of people didn’t like the fact that the inventors of gun powder don’t have any gun powder unit (besides the Cannon Galleon since nearly everyone has that).
Since China is already a very well established civilisation in the game, the only way to get a gunpowder China would be by adding a second China to the game.
A DLC that turns the Knight of the Slavic civs into the Boyar.
Another DLC turns the Knight of Asian civs into the Cataphract.
Then, another DLC turns the Crossbowman of Asian civs into the Composite Bowman.
…
Cumulatively, a large number of generic units are replaced by units of different stats for a large number of civs.
You’re the one who missed the point.
-2 PA hardly changes anything.
No matter how you weaken it, you can’t make it lose its anti-archer ability.
But with Vikings having such an unit, balance will become a big problem.
All in all, it’s pretty unnecessary design for the Vikings to have it.
Also, the Mongols didn’t steal someone else’s UU. The presence of Mongol SLs also does not change the strengths and weaknesses of this civilization. Your example is not appropriate.
If you can understand that this is a reuse of the game asset and that the EA is vastly different from the CA in every way, and the AE and Ram play the game differently since they are very different in cost, mobility and being healing, you can find it’s a poor example to support many of your ideas.
Getting the Chinese to get the Hand Cannoneer barely affects the balance.
Moreover, what I question here is the Chinese Cataphract you mentioned, which has nothing to do with gunpowder.
That’s when you expect that they keep making a lot of big DLCs like Dynasties of India in the future.
If they made exactly those changes then at the current speed of one DLC per year that would be done in mid 2025.
Who knows how long they will even keep making DLCs for the game.
And those suggestions are mend for 2-4 civilisations each.
So for example the Tatars or Persians plus 2 new Central/Southern Asian civilisations wold get the Composite Bowman instead of the Crossbowman.
Huskarls are historically not actually Goth but more rather Saxon/Norse. So making them a unique/regional unit for those civilisations would make more sense.
Vikings would have to be changed in some other way to keep balance of course.
I think rebalancing 1 civilisation is not a massive deal breaker, is it?
Things like Obsidian arrows had probably a bigger impact on the game.
Yes it is a different unit that uses the same slot.
They still fill the same role.
The Mounted Crossbowman would be Cavalry Archer that fills the role of a Camel Rider. So a little more like the Elephant Archer in the way that it replaces a unit with one that has a different role.
But I feel like you would have been the type of person that would have protested those changes if someone in the forum would have suggested them.
It was more about giving the Catapharct to Persia.
If if would be given to one of the Chinese civilisations in a potential China split then it would be given the the one that represents Eastern or Earle Medieval China, like the Tang Dynasty. So that a different Chinese civilisation can focus on the gunpwoder aspect.
You suggested to make the Fire Ships a Unique Unit for the Byzantines? Wouldn’t that be a bigger change to the game then most of the other suggestions in here?
The Goths originated from both sides of the Baltic Sea, Scandinavia and North Germany.
And the Goth civ does represent the Saxons very well in the game.
I don’t want to change that at all, and I believe the devs don’t want to change as well.
It might make sense, but that sense doesn’t really matter, compared to causing series of unnecessary balance trouble.
Obsidian Arrows is considered toxic to the game, so it must be changed, and it is only a UT change.
The Vikings don’t need to be overhauled for this since they don’t need such an anti-archer unit.
Deliberate changes in order to steal the other’s UU should not be compared with the change of Obsidian Arrows.
The AE only serves 3.5 new civs, and basically does not affect the old civs.
The food cost and cavalry class of AE make it a very different use. The Indian civs can actively use the AEs in the Castle Age, especially on closed maps, however it is quite difficult for other civs to do with the Rams.
Why do the existing European civs have to be changed a lots for this unit? Hand over such a mobile anti-cavalry unit to some already balanced, even somewhat overpowered civs, and an unnecessary balance disaster is predictable.
Although you raised “just for fun”, I can feel your strong desire for these. you propose to change a lot of existing civs just for this little bit of accuracy already represented by generic units.
If you just suggest to provide the skin of mounted crossbowmen for the CA of these civs, or introduce mounted crossbowmen in the scenario editor to enrich the campaigns. Not only will I not oppose it, I may even strongly support it.
Same trouble as Mounted Crossbowman for Europeans. Why does Persia need such a heavy cavalry with bonuses against infantry? Why would they need to make more balance changes for such a unit that they basically don’t need?
IMHO splitting the Chinese into Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, etc is the worst suggestion I’ve seen in this thread.
First, this mostly only affects the Byzantines and doesn’t break the overall meta.
Then, the new close-range anti-ship unit will serve all civs almost as same role as the old Fire Ship, no any special ability. Its introduction sould not produce new gameplay or strategies, so in theory it has minimal impact on the overall meta.
It might actually be the smaller change to the game than most of the other suggestions in here.
The Goths represent the Saxons better then themselves tbh.
Unique Technologies are often more impact full then Unique Units.
It’s like Eagle Warrior and Scout/Knight. Very different units but they still fulfil a similar role.
Depends if this unit will be added to any existing civilisation.
I mean it could also just work as a unique unit too, but it feels kinda too generic for that.
Definitely not a good idea to give the Franks a new powerful unit, I agree.
Not really.
I love the idea or regional units. It makes civilisations feel like they belong together. Both the Chinese and the Britons feel game mechanically equally far away from the Franks.
But the Indian and South East Asian civilisations are all connected by the fact that they have Elephants.
Or Poland and Lithuania have the Winged Hussar that symbolises the later union of those countries in some way.
There is not a single one of the units I or someone else have suggested that I think are so amazing that they have to be in the game.
Something like the Catapult Ship might be nice in the Scenario editor to make Scenarios in settings that don’t have Gunpowder yet.
I personally think that they should get a unique unit replacing the Knight line or even just the Paladin that has an attack bonus against archers, replacing their Team Bonus.
They are the only civilisation outside of Europe that has access to the Paladin.
I didn’t suggest splitting them by Dynasty.
The Tang were the only ones that controlled the very Western parts of what is now China. And it seems like the current China in the game might be supposed to be them since why else would they have Camel Riders?
I don’t like the idea of making this unit a Scenario Editor unit particular.
Is there already a thread like that for Scenario Editor unit suggestions? I guess that’s a heard one because theoretically anything could be suggested there making it kinda pointless.
Not sure about that one.
The pathing of having a little range can be different to no range.
But it’s water. There aren’t many water fans anyway, so even big changes wouldn’t make many people sad.
Water is also literally not balanced. Some civilisations are just better on water then others.
You can’t ruin balance if there is none.
The Winged Hussar replaces the Hussar for 2 civilisations and is better in every way but both civilisations that have access to it don’t have all Blacksmith upgrades.
Interesting is also that this regional unit only replaces the final upgrade in the line.
For a Campion there are three options. Either only replace the Campion, replace the Campion and the Two Handed Swordsman with one unit, or replace both with two units.
I think the second option is probably the best one. Skipping the Two Handed Swordsman and directly going to an improved Champion, but with a higher cost.
Doubling down on the Anti Trash role of the unit while also making it more flexible since it can catch up with ranged units faster.
As with the Winged Hussar, there has to be a drawback like missing Blacksmith upgrades or Supplies. Missing Squires would undo the increased speed, which would be counter productive.
Giving them Infantry armour makes them harder to counter. Most anti infantry units do around 10 bonus damage to Infantry so they would still counter this unit.
Only (Elite) Plumbed Archers and Elite Chakram Throwers (the base version doesn’t have an attack bonus against Infantry) would lose their bonus.
Removing Plate Mail Armour from the civilisation that can train this unit would kinda defeat the purpose so only missing Blast Furnace, Squires and Supplies are really an option.
This would make them on the same level as Burmese Halberdiers (+3 attack and all upgrades) in most situations.
The additional bonus damage against Eagle Warrior would be needed if the Civilisations don’t have a strong Militia Line. So they would be a good Infantry unit for a civilisation with otherwise bad Infantry.
Having 1 less pierce armour then a Heavy Cavalry Archer with Parthian Tactics and the -1 Cavalry Archer armour makes them a lot weaker against ranged units, especially Skirmishers with the exception of Cavalry Archers because of their bonus damage against Cavalry.
In some way this unit would be the mounted version of the Genoese Crossbowman because of it’s anti Cavalry bonus damage.
None of the civilisations with this unit should have Parthian Tactics and of course no Camels.
Making the unit only available in Imperial Age prevents it from being used against Knights in Castle Age.
Giving them +2.5 Projectile Speed somewhat makes up for them not being effected by Ballistics. They are still not accurate though.
The +10HP and the +1 Range brings them on to a level with the Janissary (but with 5 less attack).
Even with all upgrades this unit would be weaker then the Hindustani Hand Cannoneer (+2 Range and +1/1 Armour) in most situations. The only potential missing technology would be Ringed Archer Armour though.
The base Hand Cannoneer could be nerved back to having a 5.0 projectile speed and this unit would be 7.5.
Then this unit could be given to the civilisations that currently have the Hand Cannoneer but perform poorly in the lategame.
The Portuguese are relatively bad atm but their lategame is good.
Generally bad civs are usually bad in early game so I don’t think there are many candidates.
Bengalis and Dravidians are at the bottom of the win rate list at the moment. Vietnamese and Malay are also pretty low so they could potentially use that unit too.
Maybe the unit could resemble the Tiger Claw from AoE3 which also serves the role as a cavalry replacement.
They have 5 more HP then Ghulams but have no extra damage to other units and also the the Eagle Warrior armour class.
The big advantage of this unit is that it only requires a Barracks in Castle Age.
The Elite version is only available to the Bengali and Vietnamese because one of them misses Plate Mail Armour and the other one Blast Furnace.
The Dravidian version is affected by the Unique Technology giving it effectively +3 attack vs. most units.
They would still have more Armour then the Bengalis and more Attack then the Vietnamese because of the Blacksmith upgrades.
The Malay version would benefit from their Unique Tech too, changing the unit cost to 80 Food.
This would give them a unit that outperforms the Hussar against Archers but is worse against pretty much everything else.
Zwiehander for Teutons as a barrack UU, maybe you need a UT to unlock them… a fast, cheap infantry with feed upgrades and quite tanky thanks to the Teuton bonus
Catapharct for Persians, maybe as an UU upgrade or replacement for knights, I kind of inspired this idea on gurjaras that can beat the current meta of knights and xbows with just stable units… it could be a heavy cavalry with higher PA and HP but less dmg than a regular cavalier.
Ronin for Japanese, similar to champions, with less dmg but faster, and you cannot see them in the minimap, maybe with a little more PA so it can be a stealth rider
Kerns for Celts, a light infantry unit that can throw a javalin from time to time
