[Just for fun] Unique bonuses for hypothetical new civs

I was thinking of it being the Castle Age upgrade to spearman. So the Civ won’t have Halbs but good Pikeman since Castle Age.

I must have misread, still a temporary 4 vill boost is huge, but im sure it can be capped somehow to balance it

Struggling Tiger: For every 10% loss of HP of units (or only UUs) other than siege weapons, attack and rate of fire increase by 10%. When being healed, the 2 type of stats will decrease by 10% back until the origin for every 10% regain of HP.

Sentry: In the Feudal/Castle/Imperial age, when a Barrack is built, 1/2/3 Spearmen will be spawned. If built in the Dark age, the Spearman will be spawned when hitting the Feudal.

High Walls: Buildings, especially walls and gates, block the LOS of opponent units (except Siege Towers and unpacked Trebuchets). The opponent can not explore the area behind the building.

Culverin: Compared to the BBC, Culverin has a 16 range and is a bit faster, but does much less damage, especially to buildings. Apparently it could be a gunpowder siege weapon that is good at countering siege weapons, like it was in AoE3.

Varangians: An UT. Spawn 10 Norse Warriors (or other unit) respectively at each of your (even the team’s) current existing Castles. It is assumed to be the new second effect for Druzhina in the beginning, so this group of Norse Warriors may be your first wave of infantry units fighting on the front lines with the trample damage.

Kurds: An UT. Whenever 5 military units are trained, an Eastern Swordsman (or other unit) will be spawned together with the fifth unit. It is assumed to be the new second effect for Zealotry in the beginning, so those Eastern Swordsmen may be Saladin’s Kurdish fanatic followers and zealous admirers, who join his army voluntarily.

This sounds insanely strong, but I do like it.

I think a Spearman should either spawn from all barracks at all age-ups or not at any age-ups. That way is more elegant. Beyond that; this sounds like a really cool idea.
I think it can be balanced because spears are weak and pretty bad at agro, but in Imp you’d still be getting 180 resources worth of units for 175 wood and some villager time.

UU that gets stronger the closer it gets to death, can have better and better attack power and rate of fire when it can die more and more easily.
Seens it sounds like a crazy warrior priest. :thinking:
Maybe that’s a better name than a beast.

Good suggestion.

Do you mean to replace Pikeman with it?
I think it’s too powerful.

one drop off camp that function as mill, lumbercamp and mining camp. farming around your wood line/gold/stone camp, safing wood if ressources are next to each other, only needing this building to go to feudal age, research eco upgrades in one building (as extra bonus maybe wheelbarrow to save TC production time)? its all possible with the brand new MULTIFUNCTIONAL DROP OFF BUILDING :smiley:

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I was thinking about unique bonuses for new civilizations, then I wondered what would happen if we removed a basic tech from the tech tree, how would you balance that trade-off?:

  • How would you balance a civilization that doesn’t have access to Loom?
  • How would you balance a civ that doesn’t have access to Hand Cart or even Wheelbarrow?
  • What bonus would have a civ without Ballistics or Chemistry? No Conscription?
  • Compensation bonus for lack of access to Long Swordsman, War Galley or Man-at-Arms?
  • Without Bodkin Arrow or Iron Casting, what would you give them instead?

i don’t think you could - not without making them incredibly gimmicky.

same as above. both would require basically cheaper villagers so they can have MORE villagers, but that leads to other problems (too many villagers in the early game leading to huge early eco) that would make them dependent on some sort of throttling mechanism, making them gimmicky.

again - you’re basically making your entire civ dependent on gimmicks when you take away core techs that they need.

Some these could pull off. Chemistry would fit being missing from a civ that doesn’t have gunpowder anyway, the attack upgrades being missing can work if armor upgrades can be worked around as well, bodkin more brutally so but is doable.

Loom would be tricky and I don’t think you can get rid of Wheelbarrow. You can probably have workarounds for Handcart but Wheelbarrow is a bit too much to demand you’d need an eco bonus somehow they can keep up gather rate and movespeed wise…
Definitely not upgrade for Galley, Nor M@A. Longsword maybe?

Conscription could MAYBE work but likely it means you have a slowly incremental version of Conscription through the ages that becomes better or about equal in Imp.

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Villagers +1/+2 armor starting from Feudal Age. 11

On serious note, villagers +a%/+b%/+c%/+d% HP in Dark/Feudal/Castle/Imperial.

Imagine Cumans with Bracer but no chemistry. This one is pretty easy to balance.

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It would probably need to start dark and need an HP and armor component or you are drush city!

-Uber vils that havr better gather rates for all res.
-Vils gain gather skills with relics. Could be attached with the monastery available from feudal.
-a new UU available in TC from Feudal Age that works as a mobile gather point and buff vils around.
You can stil make generic buildings, but without WB and HC

I think no Loom is unworkable, unless you do it like with Byzantines having “no masonry”
No War Galley is probably really bad design, regardless off how it’s done.

All the other ones I think are possible.
No Ballistics → basically like Spanish. It’s just a no-archers civ.
No Chemistry → Entirely possible for Cumans. Just design around no gunpowder, and either design around Imp ranged units being bad or give them a UT that makes (some) ranged units better in some other way.
No Conscription → A valid debuf for pretty much any civ.
No M@A → I think could work if you give them really strong generalist spearmen. Like spears +2 MA or something.

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That will never be a thing, it doesn’t only affect archers but all archery range and defensive buildings like castles, towers, bombard towers, skirmishers and cavalry archers. Removing ballistics is killing a civ in lategame. It will only work with a massive buff to cavalry and infantry and the best siege in the game.
And also, you wanna ruin Daut’s career in Aoe2 ??? :joy:

This is basically removing a tech but giving them other that will have the same effect, whether by increasing the attack, range or making them more tanky.
Cuman archery range is already bad in late game because they dont have access to bracer, they dont need more nerfs.

No Wheelbarrow leads to an interesting thought;

  • Villagers carry +25%/+50%/+75%/+100% in Dark/Feudal/Castle/Imp. (But no wheelbarrow upgrade.)

Which might be a terrible idea for all I know, but it might be fun.

Do Spanish ever actually research Ballistics?
I know they’d care for the sake of their skirmishers and for the sake of making castles better able to defend against raids, but I don’t think either of those concerns is actually worth paying for Ballistics, at least most of the time.

Just to be clear, I don’t mean that Ballistics should be removed from Spanish. Just that a civ with strengths like Spanish could survive without ballistics.

To your second point, removing Chemistry from Cumans and replacing it with Bracer is a buff, not a nerf. I didn’t mean to start an argument as to whether this should happen, it’s just a proposal for a civ without Chemistry that people may have already seen.

To your first point, having units that are nerfed via a missing tech and buffed via another mechanic is a design mechanism that is very common in AOE2. I don’t get why you’re being negative about it.
Missing a blacksmith upgrade but getting a UT that gives +5 attack. Missing thumb ring but getting extra range. Missing Bloodlines but getting early upgrades. Missing an armour upgrade but getting 35% discount. This is the bread-and-butter of AOE2 design.

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They definitely do and im not only talking about land maps. What will happen to their navy without ballistics? Probably one of the worst galleons vs fire ships. What will a spanish player do vs Britons and other archer civs with average cavalry and without siege onagers, heavy scorpions and now ballistics? Basically, cry.

You didnt mention adding bracer. And btw, there is a reason why cumans dont have access to it, even if they miss +1 attack it will be too much. You are just moving them from average to broken with one change.

Of course its a thing but not with this type of basic techs. Aoe4 has ballistics implemented for all civs as a game feature and that makes me think the devs dont really want to touch it.

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Or even that a civ with a tech tree like Spanish could get free ballistics without it being OP (mainly a defensive bonus).

One way to make a functional substitution for ballistics is to increase projectile speed enough. I partially did this with a Tarascan civ design (although neither with the intent nor to the level as to substitute for ballistics). Something like 25% faster arrows in Castle Age would be like a weaker version of ballistics for free (and perhaps 45-50% in Imp)

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Royal House: Advance ages at House, not at TC.

General/Khan/Daimyo: When hitting the Castle Age, the TC spawns a hero unit. This unit is up to one and won’t have fancy auras, but the tough stats can be very helpful already. Once it is killed, it can be retrained for free at Wonders and Monuments (or even Castles).

Cherry Blossoms: Can build a 3x3 orchard (9 berry bushes) for 60 wood or less.

Fur Trade: Hunters can generate some few gold.

Tomahawk: Gives infantry UU a charging bar. When the charge bar is full, the UU would gain a range to throw its weapon. When the weapon is thrown, the bar goes to zero and the UU loses the range. This is the my ideal mechanic for Throwing Axeman.

I have no idea how to balance the fact you can pretty much handwave all that TC idle time. You will be 6 villagers ahead provided you can maintain food production after a 500f hit.

I count 5 villagers just for fuedal. by the time you hit castle age you’re another 6 (with a 7th on the way).
(130 seconds for feudal is 5 villagers with an extra 5 seconds; 160 seconds for castle is 6 villagers with another 10 seconds, so 15 seconds of the 7th on the way) putting you 11 villagers ahead. absolutely no way is that balanced.
you might have to go up a little bit later just to maintain villager production but dang if that isn’t a nice upside.
the only way that could be even remotely balanced was if it was the only eco bonus they have, and i’m still not sure if its balanced.