Other than goths, almost all of the AOK civs and some of the Conquerors ones are S tier on a wide variety of commonly played maps. Looks like you’re moving to aoe-2 from aoe-4 but just understand that Franks, Britons, Chinese are insanely good and OP civs already . Every 1v1 tournament where players pick their own civs sees these civs first (along with Mayans, Aztecs). So definitely DONOT suggest any game buffs to these civs, they need impactful nerfs and not buffs.
Civs like Japanese, Persians while mid-tier on land, very good on hybrid maps. The concept of cav archer that moves while shooting is just ridiculous, it will repeat the Steppe lancer history.
Mongols spawning deer. Seriously??
A lot of these things might sound interesting and could be added to new civs which are probably divisions of the existing ones and balanced accordingly(not the move while shoot ca though) but certainly not to the OG OP civs.
Very valid concern. In one of my posts I had suggested they lose the extra range in imp and instead Elite longbows get 7 base range. Something like that could be compelling.
The main reason for all of this is the OPness of the crossbows in castle age. They’re super cheap, super easy to mass and so powerful. So the archer uus are not made till late imperial age, infantry uus become completely useless and unnecessary and the weird melee pathing makes cavalry uu a very risky option.
Game mechanics to change that - fixing melee pathing, Squires improving infantry speed by 15% instead of 10%, archer line cost increased or archer frame delay increased. This will naturally make all these uus more usable and more options would be feasible instead of the knight/xbow meta
I’m not saying I’d actually do it, just that it’s how I always wanted the Berserk to be. Besides, with all the new mechanics, who knows? Give it another year and it might not seem so far fetched.
I have never had that game installed in my life and I’m one of the harshest people on the forum when it comes to criticizing it.
Have you tried reading? The more unique things a civ has, the easier it is to balance. Adding things won’t come at no cost, and if those civs had an option besides their usual current builds, they could be toned down in the respective areas that they overperform in.
Lmao. I swear these forums are getting worse by the minute.
Have you mentioned any nerfs to these civs. No nerfs and just new strong units just makes a civ stronger. It might be easier to balance but you have to suggest that balance. Like what does the new unit replace for the civ and how it balances the civ.
they could be yes but you have to post how you propose to ton them down to make these units more mainstream.
As always you just keep calling everyone stupid when they disagree with you in how the game should be. You arent even making arguments most of the time
This is a superb suggestion!
It’s a shame that the level of forum discussions are currently so low that game balance considerations are raised as objections to suggestions like this one. As if it was somehow difficult or impossible to re-establish (always elusive) civ equilibrium by any other means.
I will only get into the civs which I think can be improved. A lot of the old civs don’t need nothing.
-1 vill but + 75 food
It’s just too unique which causes a lot of unexperienced players to get too much idle time. Better make it easier to get the start right even if you don’t have experience with that civ.
Remove the berry bonus to make it free for a different civ. Change Chivalry to give Cavalry +5 % or even +10 % HP.
Just a minor tweak that makes their start a bit weaker, reduces the Paladin Timing a bit but makes their FU Paladins again the undoubtedly best in the game. Lately some civs have somewhat closed the gap a bit, but I think it’s time to restore the frank identity.
Isn’t fine, but wouldn’t change it either. Weird civ, totally off all charts but somehow acceptable cause you know what’s coming.
This might be very cotroversial but I think the best would be to give vikings wheelbarrow from the beginning for free. But only wheelbarrow. HC is just a bit too much .
Then they could get back TR and/or a slight buff to the zerks. It might sound weird but if we give zerks +1 PA and a small speed increase in exchange for slightly lowering the HP we could differentiate them more from the vikings militia line. Making it better in raiding but losing some sheer melee fighting power.
AoE2 is one of the more versatile games because you can have a great online multiplayer experience with standard civs, or you can play campaigns or custom RPGs with the scenario editor. Now I’m partly sympathetic to the idea that the devs could have been far more creative, and differentiated each civ much more, but at some point that can come in conflict with the simplicity and accessibility that appeals to so many.
I get it, it can be annoying to have great, unique empires represented with a few bonuses and one UU which may not be seen often. But what is lost there is gained with your ability to design every aspect of a game - including essentially making your own civs - in the editor, and that’s a good enough compromise for me.
No. Balance is a necessary principle of good civ design - they can never be entirely independent. There may people here who overemphasize balance, but it goes both ways - there are also “creative” people who introduce wild ideas with no apparent consideration of simplicity, practicality, legacy, or other design principles, then wonder why people don’t lavish praise on their amazing ideas. Creativity is only really useful when it works within certain constraints, and balance is one of those constraints in civ design. Go make your own game and be as creative as you want, but when you build on the foundation that others have laid, you’d better at least try to be consistent with their ideals.
Sure, almost everything could be improved in some way. By the same token, almost all of the new ideas people have to improve the game will also not be “the best they could ever be” (i.e. most new ideas in almost all contexts are neutral or bad relative to the cost of implementing them).
What it could be is one thing. What it “should be” is your opinion that seems not to be shared by many. The problem with mainstreaming “creative”/divergent thinking as the highest ideal of game design is that, balance aside, your ideas from the game are going to, well…diverge substantially from what other people want (even other creative people who want the game to have more “flair”). I would love for civs to be further diversified (don’t think it’s ever going to happen), but I would go about it in a completely different way than the OP.
Not everything is about balance. People are more likely to object to this idea on the basis of it being gimmicky, not needed, overcomplicated, changing a legacy unit, etc. I personally would like this idea if the Vikings/Berserks didn’t already exist in the game and we were designing them for the first time, but you’ll find the devs will not be willing to disrupt an AoK unit and make a new sprite just for the sake of novelty, so I’m not going to waste mental attention wishing for something that will never happen.
Also, regarding the Berserk, while the idea of “going Berserk” is of course a great way to represent them, I think the current mechanic is also good, as Berserkers were seemingly immune to pain, which is approximated well enough by healing.
Franks don’t need to have the very best paladins, just because some zealotry towards franks.
Franks just need the cavalry HP bonus moved to castle age, and Chivalry effect changed to fallen knights 33% of the gold cost (nerf in TGs but helps in 1v1 when gold is scarce).
With the cavalry HP bonus moved on castle age means they no longer have that military supremacy in feudal boosted by the other eco bonuses (free farm upgrades and forager that work faster), and players would need to use both to get castle age sooner and make use of the free HP on cavalry + cheaper castles (kinda similar how Burgundians are played, have insane eco but a hole that needs to be adressed by making use of the eco advantages).
It overall makes Franks less oppressive in teamgames but still a strong 1v1 civ.
Vikings eco is still busted and they need a nerf on water maps too, best way is just making Wheelbarrow and Hand cart techs instantly researched but not free (you still get the +3 villager advantage and the eco boost quickly, but now you have to invest resources into it).
Their team bonus has to be reduced from 15% to 10% cheaper docks, as well some nerf to the Longboat.
Keep Thumb Ring Away from Vikings, we don’t need again that stupid Fast Imperial Arbalest with extra firing rate again lol (Is still seen, but now castle age skirms and mangonels can hold up that), better revert that ridiculous Chieftains cost nerf, so Berserks are easier to upgrade and eventually, use. Berserks can stand up vs infantry and cavalry, they don’t need more PA.
It’s their Identity from the beginning to have the best heavy Cav. And also historically accurate. (though it is debatable if not some italian states had better cav but they never fielded a lot).
We live in a state of 42 civs now. I think it is time to give some civs the identity they should have to make space for other civs to grow into more complex identity roles.
Everybody knows Franks have the best Cav but bec of their eco bonusses and also somewhat decent alternative options other cav civs needed to be buffed to stay competitive. Now we have like 5-6 civs battleing for the role for the best heavy cav civs: Franks, Teutons, Lith, Poles, Berbers, Bulgarians, Burgundians, (sicilians). But because they are basically at the same level as franks with their cav there is not much room left for identity. Teutons often just dominate vs melee cause of their extra armor + farm bonus. Berbers are just overloaded with also cheaper other cav and camel archers.
But Lith (150 F + skirms + halbs), Poles (super weird eco bonusses), Bulgarians (???), Burgundians (faster timings + flemish revolution) and Sicilians (Anti-Counter) struggle with having a good identity. They have interesting concepts but because of their potentially dominating cavalry these other options are often left in a state where they are extremely situational.
No the devs tried so desperatily to make them competitive with the franks cavalry that the other bonusses which had good potential were left unfinished. And see rarely use.
Just a waste of bousses imo.
And that’s why I want to reestablish Franks as the “heavy cav” civ so the other civs get space to develop their identity.
Really bad Idea. Would lead to absurd team game situations.
Franks already kind of fall behind in longer lasting feudals vs other cav civs cause their scouts have so much less HP after bloodlines. It’s already weird and you would make it even worse with that.
(BTW even Burgundians have better feudal scout spam because of their eco, they can just make more and kill with numbers)
Also a bad Idea, way too powerful. Not only in 1v1s. And weird. I’m happy that they removed that silly tech from saracens that made similar things with monks. Just weird…
Without HC they wouldn’t get that FImp timing they currently have (especially with 3 TC boom behind).
Wouldn’t that be the old Aztec bonus combined with the Berber bonus? Sounds like the castle age nerf would be more than made up for by a big early game buff.
Only thing that’s never seen here is serjeant + arb, and that’s because serjeants outside first crusade are bad and Sicilian arbs are bad.
Except that their scouts are already supreme over others till late feudal and up to castle age.
Man is basically only until Imperial and after reseacrhing the tech, also is practical for Knights because Franks always use Knights, and Saracens aren’t a civ that can spam monks like nothing.