Magyars buff ideas

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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There were many discussions here already about whether Magyars need a buff or not. I think they do.

Don’t get me wrong, I think they are a strong civ already, the free attack upgrades provide a power spike in the beginning of each age, very strong post-imp with the best CA and great in trash wars, their UU is a stronger version of the light cav for basically the same price, very useful bonus damage against siege and it is the strongest trash unit in the game.

But in the late Castle age they are completely generic. The 12 food cheaper light cav does not help much against knights and crossbows, all the other bonuses are useless at this point. Their CA are completely generic in Castle Age and in Imperial it is very expensive and slow to tech into them to realize their full potential (armor, thumb ring, heavy CA upgrade, parthian tactics, recurve bow). Their lack of eco bonus and the expensive Elite and Hussar upgrades make it even harder. The Magyar Huszar is strong but to mass them you need multiple defensive castles which is opposite to their aggressive play style. To show their strength, you have to survive late Castle Age, reach Imp, spend many res on slow upgrades and most games, especially in higher elo, are not long enough for that. The data on ageofstatistics.com confirmes this.

They don’t need a huge new bonus, just some tweaks to make this notable weakness less punishing. I definitely wouldn’t give them an eco bonus, they are the “we don’t have an eco bonus so damage their eco quickly”-civ and this is an integral part of their identity IMHO.

I have a couple of ideas, I dont think all of them should be implemented, only 1 or 2 among them.

1. Villagers and all melee military units one-shot wolves.
Expanding this bonus from villagers would not have a huge impact on most of the maps, but would synergize nicely with their aggressive play style, would guarantee that your militia/MAA/scouts would reach the enemy with full HP.

2. Additional effect to Corvinian Army - Magyar Huszar can be created at stables
I know, copying from Huns, but it would match here better, you’d rather mass Magyar Huszar than Tarkans.

3. Additional effect to Recurve Bow - Galley-line +1 attack
Spirit of the Law in their civ overview called them one of the worst choices on water maps. Because of the bonus damages in the navy triangle, it would have a modest effect on navy battles, but would help raiding the shorline villagers.

4. Swap the UTs: Recurve Bow in Castle, Corvinian Army in Imperial Age
I Wouldn’t change the costs here, so it would be one of the most expensive castle age unique techs, and similarly to Yeomen, it would be a late Castle or during advancing to imperial pickup, but it would ease teching into CAs and would provide an incentive to start massing CA in Castle Age.
Corvinian Army in Imperial would be an easy pickup, it would be available for trash wars where it matters and the 10 gold cost in Castle is manageable.

5. Heavy CA upgrade cost -50%food, upgrade takes half the time
6. Heavy CA upgrade free
One tame and a more radical idea to ease the difficulty to tech into CA and make them stronger in early imperial.

What do you think? Have I gone too far?

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They are one of the best scout rush civs in the entire game. They do not need any buffs. They are not a booming civ like the Persians. This civ is meant to scout rush and cripple the economy of an enemy, and deny more boomer civs the ability to get their toys out.

They already have a pretty powerful late game roster. Castle UU cost no gold, superb horse archers. Cheap scouts.

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Persians are not that great of a boomer civ. That can actually hurt them a lot, because their eco bonus is a double edged sword.

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They used to be the greatest. They need another economic buff.

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I remember that someone (@SMUM15236 ?) had suggested to have Britons and Magyars swap their team bonuses, before the Britons team bonus got nerfed. The Britons could thus acquire archers just with wider vision, and the Magyars could thus train CAs faster.

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yes but they are also very known for that so you are pretty potato if you play against magyars and don’t prepare for a scout rush…they are THE scout rush civ so they are also very easy to predict and counter in that regard.

also berbers in castle get a much better a broad bonus on their cavalry.

i think magyars scout bonus should scale in ages, 10% in feudal, 20% in castle, and 30% in imp, to differentiate from berbers, then you would have nerfed their scout rush and this would leave space for another minor thing, maybe removing or expanding the useless wolf bonus

make villagers generate food any time they kill a wolf for example, not a significant amount, but at least something to make that bonus feel less useless. they used to have free Hunters tech but then the tech got removed and they never got compensated

so yeah, they have an amazing late game, but they also are not free of flaws in their design imho

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It’s called having a weakness. Which is perfectly fine.

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Having a weakness is one thing, being predictable and one dimensional is another

Magars are definitely not weak, but that does not mean they can’t be improved, not made directly stronger per se, but tweaked to be better there’s always room for that.

We saw in this patch completely fine civs like malians or ethiopians getting big buffs, and become more interesting to play. so it’s not like it’s unprecedented

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Yes, that would be an awesome change. Especially the useless wolf non-bonus should change.

Yes, something similar to Spanish techs.

what’s this?

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The first version of the Forgotten expansion had a tech in the mill in the dark age, called Hunting Dogs, which increased the work rate of hunters and fishermen by 25%. It was soon removed because it rewarded the closer deer spawns. Magyars had it for free as a civ bonus, it was their eco bonus.

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The Cuman bonus of cheaper stables and arch range would’ve been perfect for them, either that or not needing barracks to build military buildings. The one-shotting wolves feels like devs trolling us tbh, most useless bonus in the game imo.

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-They need new team bonus

-Similar civs (huns, tatars) have trebs bonus. Cheaper trebs can be good for magyars. They already dont have siege ram,bbc etc so their only option for take down building is trebs.

-Scout bonus should be buffed. They dont have good eco bonus so good unit discount can fit this role

-Castle age ut pretty weak, It should be changed. Something like scout line get +5 vs buildings or +10 vs farms can make them excellent raid civ and able to cover their weak siege and defence abilities.

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Technically they are not as Magyars have discounted light cav.

That’s outdated for almost an year now. Overall Magyars stat didn’t change much though.

Honestly don’t change things at all.

If they are objectively the worst naval civ, why change that into an opposite direction?

I have no problem with that but this might actually confuse player whether to train LC or Magyar Huszar.

I have started to dislike Magyars scout line discount ever since Berbers. Yes you can say Byzantines Camel discount also overlaps with Berbers, but Byzantines have bigger discount. For Magyars it is applicable only in Feudal Age, and literally the opposite in Imperial Age, making their bonus almost objectively worse than Berbers.

Not me but I proposed something similar. TB changed to CA units train 25% faster (Just like Gurjaras TB that applies to all types of camel and elephant units). On the other hand, extra LOS on Britons will be an unnecessarily overbuff because extra range gives extra LOS anyway.

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Start by Swapping Corvinian Army and Recurve Bow, so Recurve Bow is a castle age UT and Corvinian Army in Imperial (tbh Corvinian Army effect should be different so Magyar Huszar is Goldless by default and maybe another effect for Cavalry).

3 Likes
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Oh is this the beta month where Boyars had 16 attack, Imperial camels had 6 p.armor ?

Anyways the tech sounds really solid. Would have been a good thing for Magyars and a good way to balance Mongols on Megarandom. Don’t know why they removed it.

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Because it’s a generic technology that can make several civilizations become Mongols.

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Which is exactly the problem for Magyars imho.

That’s huge. This should come with a tech tree nerf or will be broken. And honestly nerfing Berbers is an easier way.

Very true. But I think they should keep no eco real bonus as their civ identity.

That’s Khmer lite.

Same.

Maybe all cavalry cost -10 gold?

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But they have to pay a price for it. I don’t know what its cost was but if they kept it something like 60 food 40 wood then it will be an upgrade which you get after you’ve consumed about half of the first boar. Mongols would still stay significantly ahead because of saving resources on that upgrade, being still 15% faster. But it would have narrowed the gap on hunt-heavy maps. Maps like Scandinavia, Yucatan won’t be exclusive to Mongols.
As far as Arabia is concerned, plenty of good balance changes could have been done with this upgrade. Some impact bonuses on this tech itself, discount for some civs like no wood for Vietnamese, no food for Koreans or Bengalis, denying the tech for civs like Mayans that already have a huge dark age bonus.

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Bulgarians, Mongols, Turks and Franks also straight up Scout rush civs. I don’t think predictability is a problem.

As for Magyars vs Berbers comparison, Magyars has free attack upgrades (very strong bonus) and wolf bonus isn’t bad. Both civ has advantage to each other. Berbers isn’t better than Magyars in my opinion.

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From wiki
It was 40 food, 25 wood and 15 seconds. So almost a spearman.

I honestly sometimes feel this tech can be returned with a slight increase on cost.

And unironically Goths, the king of not getting any new generic tech.