Some ideas that have been mentioned before in many threads about potential new civs.
The UU of Jurchens: Iron Flail
People’s impression of using flails is more about Europeans, but in parts of East Asia, especially in North China, Manchuria and Korea, similar weapons are also used. Their common form is a multi-sectioned wooden or metal stick, such as the two-section staff or three-section staff. The common feature of Europe and those areas is that wheat is the main crop, and the flail-type weapons are derived from the agricultural tools used to process wheat.
Those used by cavalry usually had one end made longer or like a hilt for use on horseback, and possibly more sections, such as the nine-section whip. (In Chinese, the term “whip” also refers to some hard metal clubs and sticks.) In the Chinese folk story, cavalrymen of the Manchu Eight Banners used this type of weapon to conquer China.
The image of this unit can refer to the AoE3 Iron Flail. In AoE2, I want it to be a melee cavalry with 1 or 2 range, with lower attack than Knight line, but can cause damage to multiple units in a straight line, similar to Chakram Thrower and Scorpion. And/Or, the enemy units damaged by it will slow the speed and rate of fire by 10% (no stack), similar to the snare effect of AoE3. The slowed units must be fully healed to restore, like Obuch’s ability.
The UU of Khitans: Crossbow Cavalry
As we all know, the Chinese invented the crossbow very early. The warriors of state of Qin used crossbows on horseback. Hundreds of years later, the Khitans imported crossbows from the Song Empire of China, and the Chinese communities they ruled may have provided related technology as well.
Although the crossbow cavalry is quite rare, in the History of Song, there was still a record of observing soldiers of Khitan’s elite heavy cavalry troops firing arrows with crossbows (even though it did not record it was on foot or on horseback). In the Chinese Internet world, some history buffs infer from this that the Chinese and the Khitans were the only forces in East Asian history, and maybe world history, that had heavy cavalry to use crossbows.
Unlike some other empires originating from nomadic tribes, the Khitans preferred to fight in dense heavy cavalry formations rather than the wide formations of horse archers. Harassing the enemy on flanks through a large number of very lightly armoured (almost unarmoured) horse archers levied from the tribes and non-Khitan communities, forcing the enemy into chaos and hard to move, and then crushing them to finish the battle by the heavy cavalry, the core of the empire’s army.
The Crossbow Cavalry would be interesting and full of potential in the game. As a cavalry archer unit, it may have high HP, armor and attack power, but has a shorter range, slower speed and rate of fire, just like a cataphract archer. Or, as a tough melee heavy cavalry with a charge bar that ablr to fire a crossbow bolt with piercing damage when fully charged. If the civ can also have trash Cavalry Archers, it will allow the two types of unit to work with each other, like the tactic above.
The UU of Göktürks: Böri (Wolf Guard)
In Göktürks, the elite warriors who make up the khan’s guard were called “böri”, which means “the wolf”. They were responsible for the safety of the Khan and the royal family. These units may be fully armored with their horses. In the records, they were pronounced “fuli” by the Chinese.
We can design it as a cataphract lancer. Even with zero HP, it can still launch attacks, take attacks and move for three seconds before actually dying. When the cavalry is equipped with enough heavy armor and fixed on the horseback, even if it dies while charging, its mount can continue to charge and still deal damage.
Btw, they seemed to have a good tradition of heavy infantry as a nomadic empire. There are records that a prince led the infantry to charge and achieved a key victory. But I’d rather it be a historical reference to bonus about infantry than being an infantry UU.