Sounds a weird mechanic to me. What about if this dog has the ability to «convert» huntable animals like they’d be sheeps, but the animal remains converted only while stays in Dog’s line of sight.
Is a kind of better version of standar luring, but dog should be weak vs both, vils and scout.
An option for civilizations from regions without camels.
Just by itself it feels like another Mamluk to me, same purpose but seems weaker.
A fresh concept, but not sure if it is technically possible to make deer and wild boar herdable.
Thanks for feedback. Curious what you think of the other three.
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I like this, concept. Actually I posted something similar a time ago in the other topic
Interesting… but I’d make it simple. You can train buffalos in mill, by a 50F 50W cost. The buffalo buff farms gathering speed in an area of effect of 3x3 tiles, in a similar way Folkwark does.
But a mobile aura is probably not welcome.
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Iroquois Warrior remake
Still an untrainable unit, but we can make it no longer just the Woad Raider equivalent.
Let it be ranged melee infantry that throws its tomahawks. Compared to Throwing Axeman, Gbeto, and Chakram Thrower, Iroquois Warrior can feature fire and move very quickly. Or, apply the Throwing Axeman remake mechanic I stated earlier. -
King, Queen and Merchant remake
Allows them to generate 1 gold every 4 seconds. While untrainable, the Italians can give the player and each ally 1 Merchant after researching Silk Road. (Btw, I want to rename Silk Road to “Merchant Republics” for more Italian flavor, and have more regional skins for Queen). -
Warrior Monk type
Infantry units that can heal friendly units, having monk + infantry armor class and thus also benefit from Monastery techs, infantry armor techs and Barrack techs. This type works for Shaolin Soldier Monks, Sōhei, Hwarang, Hospitaller, Aztec Warrior Priest, Bard, etc. These untrainable units can enrich the campaigns.
For potential East Asian DLC:
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Flamethrower
After tweaking its stats, make it the second UU for the Chinese and trainable at Siege Workshops. -
Fire Lancer
The first regional unit, a foot cannoneer that can be trained at Archery Ranges in the Castle Age.
The stats are basically the same as Hand Cannoneer, only with a shorter range (maybe 6) and lower accuracy (maybe 55%). This makes it necessary to stay close to the opponent units to exert its strong power, just like how it worked in history.
It can be upgraded to Hand Cannoneer by Chemistry. This also reflects the evolution of gunpowder weapons from the fire lance to the hand cannon. -
Grenadier (using Thunder crash bomb), or Rocketeer (using man-portable artillery like Huolongchushui)
The second Regional unit. After Chemistry is researched, it can be trained at Siege Workshops in the Imperial Age.
Has infantry + Siege Weapon armor class, so benefited from infantry armor techs, Barrack techs and Siege Engineers. The projectiles have an explosive damage, great for dealing with buildings, siege weapons, ships, and dense units, but costly, slow to fire and have a minimum range.
The Chinese UT Rocketry may be able to benefit this unit. -
Fire Arrow Launcher
A siege weapon unit firing multiple arrows like the Nest of Bees from AoE4. Introduce it into the scenario editor only to serve the campaigns. The reason why I think it might not be suitable as a trainable unit is that besides it might be difficult to balance, it already has also been represented to some extent by the Chu Ko Nu and Scorpion (Chinese) and the War Wagon and Onager (Korean). -
Packed Town Center
Make the Packed TC a trainable unit at Mongol Castles after reducing its health and armor. The cost is 275 wood and 100 stone, same as the TC. After Nomads is researched, make the position of the button of Nomads become the training button for Packed TC. -
Hwarang
To be the second UU of the Koreans. As mentioned above, it can be a warrior monk unit, so it may be trained at Barracks or Monasteries. The introduction of Hwarang would well serve the campaign for General Gim Yu-sin, the great leader who unified Korea for the first time in history. -
War Wagon remake
Fires multiple arrows in a straight line instead of a bolt. This could bring it closer to its potential historical reference — Hwacha. If we can buff Korean Stables to at least not be so awful, maybe try making WW a cavalry + siege weapon instead of a CA units. -
Ninja remake
Not sure how, but maybe allow it stealth in certain situations, like when it has not injured yet and not launching attack yet. Maybe it could be a trainable second Japanese UU.
Some Type of Siege Archer with low base attack but Bonus damage against buildings and with the range somewhere between treb and bbc.
Unlike old Obsidian Arrow archers, they should just deal something like 1-3 damage against units so their only benefit would be the range and the Bonus damage.
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@Player175959732 I posted a comment earlier in this discussion where I mentioned about a unit concept that I came up with called the [Flare Archer] that will replace the [Trebuchet] for the Pre-Columbian civilisations and for other civilisations that did not have trebuchets in reality.
You can find this post of mine under the Popular Links in this discussion or just by typing in “Flare” in the search bar, it should be the top or first search result.
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Yeah that’s what I had in my mind.
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Iroquois Mantlet
The warrior carries its mantlet like a giant pavise, advancing slowly and throwing spears from cover. Think of it as a higher piercing armor but slower Skirmisher. Let it work with the Iroquois Warriors in the Scenario. -
Dog Sled
An Inuit sled pulled by 4 sled dogs. The sled is not tall, and the warrior on it could use bows or throw spears, so unlike the Ratha, it would not be a mounted unit and could have archer mode and skirmisher mode. Once killed, the sled dogs become units, just like Konnik. The disadvantage is that the health and attack might be lower than Ratha and Konnik. -
Carroballista
A kind of cart-mounted ballista pulled by two mules or horses, can move relatively fast, but does less damage or can’t pierce multiple units. Basically it looks like the current War Wagon, so if WW could be remade as I described above, then Carroballista could be brought in to inherit the old WW. -
Springald
A kind of defensive scorpion unit with high damage and attack bonus against cavalry, but needs to be unpacked and packed. -
Plague Catapult
The projectiles are fomites, garbages or diseased rotting carcasses.
It could be a Mangonel or Trebuchet with low attack power, no bonus against buildings, but a fairly wide blast radius (symbolizing the spread of the plague). -
Caravel remake
Change Caravel’s projectiles from Scorpion’s bolts to cannonballs, as described in this thread, to fit the Portuguese characteristic more. We could keep the scorpion ship concept for a new unit, or give it to the Thirisadai to help this seemingly unpopular expensive ship unit. -
Louchuan
Literally means “Tower Ship”. A large Chinese-style warship that can carry a large number of sailors, soldiers and archers, and even set up a traction-trebuchet on the deck.
In the scenario editor, it could be a kind of ship + unpacked trebuchet unit, or it could be a ship unit that fires a lot of arrows (perhaps about 12 at a time) and is able to transport units. This would be a good addition to the scenario of Lake Poyang. -
Gate Blocking Knife Cart
A siege weapon invented by the Chinese to block collapsed walls or gates. Many blades and slits were set into the mantlet of the large cart to prevent enemies from approaching and climbing, and to attack enemies from behind with spears or projectile weapons.
In the scenario editor, it could be a rather dumbly moving siege weapon, like a Hussite Wagon with high piercing armor and the ability of reducing ranged damage, but high melee attack.
A siege archer unit with a normal range (or even shorter for better siege ability) might be acceptable as an UU, but I don’t think introducing an archer with super long range for siege to replace the generic Trebuchet is a reasonable design, especially in AoE2.
Making civs more accurate with new units is a good thing. However, the technological limitations made it impossible for the Meso civs to have a historical and realistic Trebuchet equivalent. Deliberately designing a fictional unit for this purpose is no better than Trebuchet, especially since generic units in AoE2 tend to be somewhat symbolic and representative, which the community has grown accustomed and enjoyed.
If necessary, we could perhaps start with something more reasonable, such as introducing a kind of Meso warrior who might look like AoE3 Skull Knight and willing to sacrifice himself to launch a suicide attack. Then name it Saboteur, a more general, gunpowder-free term, and use it to replace Petard, just like a reskin and rename of Petard.
I can understand that, but I feel pity that it’s similar to the Mamluk in purpose.
If it is not afraid of arrows but has other disadvantages, maybe it could be more unique.
Like how? An Anti-cav unit that is not afraid of arrows is potentially OP. Remember old Indians Imperial Camel? Although you can always make an argument of being locked behind a castle.
Maybe low HP (like 75), attack (like 3) and slow rate of fire (like 2.03), but high pierce armor (like 10) and bonus against cavalry (like 20). At least it could survive under arrows and strike cavalry, but could not threaten archers.
So a spearman on horse with 10 PA? Sounds absolutely broken.
It is just a try and I don’t sure it would be broken. If it’s going to challenge the archers, the low HP and attack will make it killed even with high PA. The purpose of high PA is only to allow it enough time to cause a considerable impact on the opponent cavalry which are under the cover of crossbowmen.
Anyway, we can still try other ways. If this unit cannot be far enough from Mamluk, it might be hard to be introduced since so far there seems to be no such close purpose, advantages and disadvantages between UUs. People would consider it is just another Mamluk but even weaker with no range.
Instead of introducing a bunch of units and make East Asian civs OP, just introduce the Fire Lancer is enough imo.
Historically the fire lance wasn’t so much of a hand-cannon but rather a lance could spit fire or noxious smoke at the enemy right before melee combat. It’s true that hand-cannon likely evolved out of fire lance, but even after the appearance of hand-cannons and other firearms the fire lance continued to exist for a long time. And it’s true that some later versions of fire lances designed and used during the Ming could indeed lance pebbles, iron sand, and other types of shrapnel, but its main purpose was still to set fire and cause chaos rather than directly aiming and shooting. And also from a game perspective, having a gunpowder unit for East Asian civs one age earlier, though historically accurate, may break the game balance.
I propose the Fire Lancer to be a siege infantry for East Asian civs trained at the Siege Workshop once Castle Age is reached. It doesn’t have an elite upgrade, and only counters siege weapons and buildings while being countered by pretty much everything else.
It’s unlikely that the devs would want to change the Korean UU since it’s a legacy civ that’s more than 20 years old. But if we were to change the UU of the Korean civ then the Knife Cart is perhaps more suitable than Hwarang or Hwacha. The Goryeo kingdom used a type of war cart called Gumcha to fight against and repel Khitan cavalry. It was similar to the Chinese Knife Cart and was most likely inspired by it, though instead of having blades or knives attached to the front mantlet it had spears attached to it.
3 range vs 0 range is more than enough to make a distinction. They are more of a camel than mameluke.
The invention and popularization of the crossbow and halberd did not make the bow and pike no longer used, however in the game the crossbow and halberd are the upgrades of the bow and pike.
As early as the 12th century, when fire lance began to be widely used in East Asia, people had used pieces of shrapnel as its projectiles, and in many cases discarded the spearhead altogether and relied solely on the firepower. In the 13th century, the improvement of the material made it possible for people to use it repeatedly to fire. Twenty years later, still in the 13th century, the world’s first bullet was recorded as the projectile for the fire lance. The metal-barreled fire lance began to be used independently of the lance around the mid to late 13th century. These proto-cannons which fired co-viative projectiles were the forerunners of the hand cannon.
Obviously, the development of this weapon was very early towards gunpowder weapons. Of course, its pole, derived from the lance, served as a melee tool, allowing soldiers both on horseback and foot to strike opponents who got too close and continue fighting when the ammunition ran out, but you could also describe muskets and rifles that way.
Even though Chemistry is accessed in the Castle Age, very few people seem to use Bohemian Castle Age Hand Cannoneer, not to mention the East Asian civ usually have better Crossbowman than the Bohemians. I think even though the fact that the Fire Lancer, being the predecessor to the HC, doesn’t require Chemistry is an advantage, the high cost, low range, and awful accuracy would drastically limit its usefulness in the game. In Castle Age, I would expect it to still be effective against melee units, but more likely people would tend to train it earlier just to get more HCs if they need them, just similar to Camel Scout.
In theory, it is somehow close to my grenadier concept, so I have no objection if there would only be a kind of grenadier unit.
I just pointed out a feasible way for the devs to make UU more accurate, and theoretically it would not greatly affect the usage and strategy of UU. It’s the devs’ decision whether to accept these ideas or not.
The Three Kingdoms era of Korea, when General Gim Yu-sin lived in, is a great reference for the potential campaign. Silla, Baekje, Goguryeo, and Gaya competed with each other and still had to contend with the intervention of the Chinese Tang Dynasty and the Japanese Yamato. There was no gunpowder in that era, let alone War Wagon, but in Silla, which had been ruled by three queens, there was a unique and important Buddhist warrior organization called Hwarang. This is why I recommend Hwarang as another UU at Barracks or at Monasteries.
Mamluks are also nothing but ranged melee camel units. Even with the Cima, the unique Camel Lancer unit for Kanem–Bornu Empire, I’d make it have a lower gold cost and faster movement speed, and probably be less afraid of Spearmen.
So what advantage are you going to give this unit has and the Mamluks don’t?
Cheaper and more armor. Maybe I should increase their attack bonus.
A medium cavalry.
Cost : 45f/30g
TT : 12 seconds
HP : 85, 100
Attack : 8, 10
ROF : 1.9
MA : 1
PA : 2
Speed : 1.45
Los : 5
Upgrade Cost : 650f/400g
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Austroasiatic Crossbowman
People in Southeast Asia use a more primitive type of crossbow, firing poisonous bamboo arrows. Weak, cheap, fast, only uses 0.5 population, like the archer version of the Karabit Warrior. -
Hooked Spearman / Billman
An anti-cavalry infantry with higher attack than Halberdiers, especially against cavalry, but without the added bonus against elephants.
The hooked spear is a variant of a spear in China and even East Asia. Soldiers used it to hook the armor of heavily armored cavalrymen to dismount them. The Bill is a similar looking European polearm. -
Packed Tower / Wheeled Tower
A packed siege weapon unit. When unpacked, it turns an immovable siege weapon that looks like a tower and fires arrows, and could allow archers to be garrisoned to fire more arrows. Once packed, the garrison would be automatically released.
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