I’d imagine this bonus would go with a cav civ, not an archer or infantry
With the addition of Burgundians, it is in the realm of possibilities. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean I can’t
edit: I never mentioned the Konnik unique dismounted unit
Haven’t read all the replies in the thread, but I’ll throw this one in:
Farms cost gold instead of wood 
(obviously it’d have to be cheaper than 60)
Pretty awful unless it also generates gold like Burgundians.
thats a terrible bonus.
Yes, I think so too. By itself it’s pretty bad. The civ would need some other powerful bonus to make it a thing
Polynesians could build stilt house formations over water which would have a tactical advantage of boxing in your fish for protection or making small scale land bridges.
Fast and slippery unique canoe unit that doubles as army and transport
Extra LOS for navy makes a lot of sense too
Less Navy upgrades/no navy unit upgrades but unique techs to make them on par with upgrades boats (less cost overall)
Maori Wardancers as a castle unit, expensive like monks, like monks they have an activatable wardance that buffs units in a nearby radius
Some water related bonuses -
Team Bonus
Team Bonus/Civ Bonus
Civ Bonus
Unique Techs
Eco Bonus
Military bonus
This is a solid early game bonus but will be broken in late game and also in TG.
An imperial UT:
Villagers cost half food and are created 100% faster.
This could be a tech you want to use when you feel you’re losing but can survive by mobing to other parts of the map and rebooming.
Maybe the numbers are too much, but you get the point
I’ve been thinking about ways to balance it late game by wrecking the tech tree.
Maybe if you max out at no-bracer arbalester, no-plate cavalier, and no-plate champion, it wouldn’t be too broken late game? You could give Goths a run for their money in terms of unit spam.
For team games, you’d have to knock out Coinage. Even then I can see the sling potential might be problematic.
In addition to all that, the bonus sounds extremely weak early-game, so a civ with this bonus would need a solid dark age/feudal age bonus, either military or eco.
I couldn’t actually come up with a good coherent civ design which uses “villagers cost half pop space” as a feature, but maybe the devs (or someone else) can.
I thought about this bonus and tried to balance by the exact way you suggested - no strong military in the late game. But pretty sure I didn’t propose that on this thread due to this reason - slinging.
Can be an Imperial age UT. And the civ will have solid bonuses in the early game but same bad military in the late game.
I think a cool unique thing could be a replacement for the monastery that is also a defensive building like a Temple or perhaps a combo monastery and university, maybe call it a Cloister?
This must be a coincidence. I was thinking about this last night. I thought I’d call it “Vihara” from Pala empire perspective.
I intended to show these ideas in my own civ concept thread, but thought it best to share them here because (1) this thread was made for this and (2) I would like to know your thoughts on them as I suck at it. All ideas are based on the civ I want to introduce (Kongo), but maybe some might be useful for others.
General:
. Relics garrisoned in the same monastery generate a gold bonus or Relics garrisoned on the TC (both simulate the civ’s holy city idea)
. Free loom (textiles is one of the civ’s economic underpinnings; weak justification for an OP bonus, I know)
. Cheaper or free palisades (civ used this a lot)
. Free building repair
(Central African peoples were cultured for being mobile, so they always built houses in the simplest way as temporary shelters. When a regional leader moved to another land, usually in times of war, villagers would abandon their homes and go with them)
. 2x2 farms (obviously not my idea)
. Houses built 2x faster? (same logic as repair bonus)
. Monastery makes surrounding garrisons heal 2x faster (like Folwark; simulates high religiosity)
. When villagers load they have x% more speed
. Villagers can march together with soldiers (!) (same logic as repair)
. Dismountable/mobile constructions (like trebuchets; same logic as repair)
. Instant or free Feudal Age (bantu peoples basically skipped the Bronze Age and went straight to the Iron Age)
Slavery (perhaps too controversial to add):
. Each villager converted by the enemy returns x% gold
. You can sell your villagers (possible? Maybe turning them Gaia units?) and receive back gold
. Each villager you convert generates more x% gold
. Type of specific villager (slave) that generates more resources but has less hp
. Villagers you convert give you the option to become warriors (slave soldiers)
. Villagers you convert give you the option to exchange them for gold
. Can use population as a resource to pay for buildings/techs
. Can tribute villagers or give them to allies (team bonus)
Units:
. Archers able to walk between trees (simulates guerrilla tactics)
. It starts with a farm (simulates origin from the fracture of an empire)
. Archer and infantry unit (specifics to Kongo)
. Unit that builds traps disguised as (1) farms and (2) mines (based on: Traps by Kondrikthus on DeviantArt)
. Infantry unit with high pierce armor (simulates ability to dodge arrows)
. For every x units, one is free, preferably a regional unit/UU (simulates recruitment of soldiers from each province instead of a fixed army)
. Bombard Cannon in Castle Age (simulates technology acquired from a trading partner)
. +5 pierce armor for every (only) 20 infantry units group (simulates shield walls);
. Fast boat that transports 5/10 units and can shoot, but with low hp
Seemingly unfeasible ideas:
. Houses (≥5) return cost when deleted (not destroyed! Same logic as repair and can simulate scorched earth tactics)
. Bleeding effect for low attack archer (possible? Simulates poison arrows)
It’s proven to be OP. Change it to the opposite of Goths bonus - Loom can be researched for free. It will be similar to Aztecs +50 gold.
Mayans Team Bonus.
OP. May have a discount of 30% or so.
The most broken bonus idea I have ever seen. Also this is not AoE1.
I thought this before. Didn’t propose as it is hard to balance especially after gold runs out.
OP
Cost 2 pop space but unit has 3 units grouped together like in ron.
A lot of these are either already implemented, or look to me like really bad ideas. There’s also a couple that -as you said yourself- have been suggested before.
Your suggestions that look fun & original to me:
A lot of your suggestions look like they’d lead to tedious (and therefore un-fun) gameplay, even if they could be balanced. Examples with this problem are:
And faster building houses looks insignificant as a bonus, unless you intend it to be combined with the house-delete-refund to make cheap housewalls, in which case the combination could easily get obnoxious.
Its been proven to be too much because of the civs they used it with
You mean Goths right? For them it was ultra broken. Originally it was for Aztecs during AoC days and it was still OP but people didn’t utilize the bonus that much in aggressive way. Now we know the meta, and whatever civ gets it, do exactly what Goths did with this bonus.