Migration Perriod DLC concept

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
62

Of all these I think the Lombards deserve a spot. They founded a pre Italian kingdom that lasted quite a lot, specially if you consider the southern duchies like Benevento, well into the Norman age (Lombards appear in the Bari campaign in fact).

The Gepids are maybe the biggest of the smallest ones, they defeated the Huns along with others but were basically absorbed by Lombards before invading Italy. They were a Gothic offshoot I think so they can stay as Goths.

Heruls, Rugians, Scyrians last very little and achieve even less than Gepids. Odoacer may have been one of these people or a Hun or a mix but in the end he was fighting for Romans (and I think he’s among the Roman ai names now) so his “kingdom” was basically a confederation of what army was left of the western empire. He was basically an independent warlord like Ricimer formally serving the Roman empire.

Thuringians and Baiuvari (Bavarians) may have enough to be civs but we’re still talking about semi independent duchies without, to my knowledge, very interesting stories although they survived way longer.

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63

The issue will absolutely bigger than you think, because you make it trainable for civs other than Byzantines. Considered to the history of cataphracts, the civs that could have access to it would be literally a lot, from the West to the East, definitely not only Byzantines and Armenians. With only stables, the civs would be able to spam Knights to deal with archers, Camels to deal with cavalry, and Cataphracts to deal with infantry especially spearmen, while now they are not able.

I could probably accept only the Byzantines to have Cataphracts moved to the stable. Then you can have the flame throwing infantry in Castles.
After that, you should allow their Knights to be better, like having Logistica affect Knights too.

That does not deserve encouragement.

25%. Just image how many gold will be generated just in the Dark Age with three deer and two boars?
I think it is about 200 or even more. That’s too many.

The Tarkan deserves it.

If you just simply mean carts pulled by mules, you can say every non-American civ can have access to Mule Cart.
There is a mountainous region of Georgia (Kakheti, I guess) has been famous with heavily usage of mule carts or donkey carts, as far as I learn. That might be why the devs specially adapted the idea of Mule Cart when they were developing the Caucasus DLC. I’d say the Mule Cart could or should be a unique thing to the Georgian civ for the cultural meaningfulness.

As other bonuses and other parts of their tech tree are different from the Armenians.

Mining stone is not necessary in the build order but you mine gold in any case. Making gold miners generate food will make their early games very ingressive. If someone go Market rush, having all villagers mine gold, 25% is high enough to allow them no longer need to leave some villagers to farm. People will hate it.

For your reference, in my concept of Soninke, the gold miners generate 10% food in addition to gold. That’s is already pretty solid and enough to be the only economy bonus. In addition, I set the Castle Age UT to make gold mines last +30%, to last the benefit of the bonus longer as well. That’s it.

I mean, they are already covered by Teutons so you are going to split the Teutons, and the culverins you set for them fairly fit the Burgundians.

Many people want to ban the Revolution in ranked games and tournaments, and some of them want to nerf their gunpowder bonus as well.

If the Revolution can be moved to TCs, become a button and is placed at the same location as the ages, then the Burgundians can research it after hitting the Imperial Age, and people can ban it in the room settings without having the Burgundians lose a UT.

Meanwhile the gunpowder bonus could be the new Imperial Age UT named “Culverins” so that the effect could have a cost. It is said that the culverins were common in 15th century particularly among Burgundian armies.

Historically I agree the Paladin does not make sense to Huns, but in the game they are a key point of balance for the Huns in the game. You can’t remove it easily.
So far the Tarkan can’t replace the role of Paladin especially against cavalry civs in team games.

64

do you mean the Swabians instead come to think of it?

this type of dlc would be cool if it was spilt east and west. Stemming from the Alans here it would ace to have a Eurasian Nomads dlc similar to the last khans.

Pechenegs
Avars
Gokturks
Khazars

Although there is more great choices. Have a new regional cav archer.

Rework

Bulgars
Japanese
Koreans
Magyars


To have more alignment with their history of cav archery.

65

What is so historically significant in Suebi people to make a particular civ for them? Even more, making them a gunpowder civ in (Barbarian) Migration period?
IMHO, they are not much more significant than thuringii, alemmanni, rugii, gepids or langobards. (Tell me if this statement badly wrong).

66

If I had to make a scale of importance for civs who had independent kingdoms around the Roman empire, both east and west, in late antiquity (between the late 3rd and early 8th century AD) this would be it:

  1. Goths, (already in game)
  2. Franks, (already in game)
  3. Huns, (already in game)
  4. Saxons,
  5. Vandals,
  6. Gokturks,
  7. Frisians,
  8. Lombards,
  9. Picts (they already have a UU)

(these are all musts imo, the following could work but are less impactful or recorded overall)

  1. Suebi/Alemanni,
  2. Avars, (Huns?)
  3. Burgundians, (already in game)
  4. Alans,
  5. Bavarians

(the following don’t need to be civs)

  1. Garamantes/Mauri and North African tribes, (Berbers I guess)
  2. Gepids, (Goths)
  3. Thuringians, (Teutons?)
  4. Sarmatians, (Alans)
  5. Heruls,
  6. Rugians,
  7. Scirians

There are also pagan Slavic (Antes, Sklaveni etc), proto Bulgars (Kutrigurs, Onogurs etc) and pre Islamic Saracen tribes (Tanukhids, Ghassanids etc) but they’re not that relevant or they’re better to be considered as their own split outside late antiquity, like for example a Saracen split of Arabians, Egyptians etc could solve the issue.

67

Why Frisians are more significant than Avars?
Sarmatians are at their demise as the Huns came at the Pontic steppes. They had their golden time in the late AoE I timeline. So, also not sure about their rank in your list.
If you are about to include more factions on Roman periphery, there are Bosporan Kingdom, Kartli (Caucasian Iberia), Egrisi (Lazica), if you find them worthy of attention :wink:.
Sklaveni is a Roman exonym for any Slavs of that time (such as Venedi is Celtic exonym), and Antes are the Greek name of the nearest union of tribes (mainly Slavic) to the Roman provinces before Avars migration.

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68

I guess the original idea was to make a late medieval german civ with landsknechts but

1- that’s just letting the Teutons advance a bit in time (and the game has an unofficial end in 1500 in Europe)
2- regional unit skins for teutonic (and possibly other HRE civs, notably Italians and Burgundians) champions, halberdiers & hand cannoneers to look that way. And done !

As for the invasions period the Suebi are yet another group of Germans that can use the Goths as a placeholder.

Indeed, best keep an Invasions expansion focused on the period.

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69

If you consider only late antiquity then Avars are more important but I considered Frisians as a proto Dutch civ going until 1580 AD and in that sense that’s still a big miss while Avars are more similar to Huns and are poorly recorded (only campaign I can think of for them is Bayan khan where they conquer the Balkans, siege Constantinople and fight the Gepids and Lombards but they didn’t do much after that).

Yes though some of them lingered on until 500 AD circa cause Theodoric of the Ostrogoths campaigned in Scythia against a king of them named Babai around 480 before invading Italy. Still I put them in not enough to be a civ, just use Alans.

Yes 3rd century AD I think. Before there were Scythians so that would be better for aoe1.

It’s a similar situation to another late Hellenic kingdom, the one of the Kushans. They both fell around 350 AD but they were not independent anymore since the 3rd century I think.
The Kushan empire was vassal of the Sassanids from the 3rd century and later of the Guptas.
The bosporan kingdom was probably ruled by either Goths, Heruls or Sarmatians by the 4th century before being totally annihilated by the Huns (last Roman coins are from the mid 4th century and the last filo Roman king was Tiberius Julius Rhescupolis VI), the byzantines reconquered Crimea later during Justinian reign.
So not enough for a civ.

Literally Georgia though it was very early and most civs are not equipped for dark ages.

There was a war but I don’t know what civ they would be in game (Georgians I guess?) I don’t think they were ever independent anyway.
From the Caucasus they could Albans/Azerbaijan though I’m not sure, still there should be enough for a civ (not only in late antiquity).

From what I know Sklaveni are South Slavs so the Balkan ancestors of Croats, Serbs etc but I don’t think they should be a civ instead of actual Croats, Serbs etc.
Antes are eastern Slavs I think (?) again not enough for a civ if you ask me. Just a few rulers and wars with the byzantines before being absorbed by Avars.
Wends could be a civ though, the Slavs who formed various confederations north east of Germany resisting Christianisation from Franks, but we’re more towards the viking age rather than late antiquity.

70

I agree with your statememt about Alans.

I insist on my opinion considering Slavs during Migration Period, however, mentioned names could be borrowed to name related later ethnicities and/or political subjects in the same region, e.g. “Scythians” used in Byzantine sources to name Goths, Alans, Slavs and various Turkic nomads in Pontic steppes. Or “Regnum Teutonicorum” to name East-Frankish Kingdom before HRE and, as we use in AoE II community, word “Teutons” to name medieval German states in common.

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71

300-800 really should be its own thing. Because many things from this period are very different than 800 onwards. That is if you see its geopolical climate across the world.

You could add Rashiduns-Umayyads(or Nabateans but reskinned), Sassanids, Romans, Nubians (Ethiopians variant), Himyars, Sogdians, (Tang?) out of this. Even possibly few others from India but its just been Arab invasion of Sindh region of modern day India-Pakistan. So I wonder what you name it. Sindhs? They themselves could be interesting candidates with its own unique tech tree pattern.

72

The Persians in the game already represent the Sasanids as well. Adding the Sassanids separately would be no different than adding the Three Kingdoms to the base game when the Chinese already exist.

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73

Archaemanids exist already and Sassanids are long running empire. 3K is just a political faction just think it like your local electoral parties as civs representing 1 faction. Again issue is mostly with hero inclusion and out of time period. Even after all this, simplest remedy to the problem is delete hero, push it to Chronicles and remove from ranked to avoid it being larped with Middle Age civs.

Also current Persians is odd. One time it represents Seljuk Empire(AI player names), another time Sassanids, another time it is Sassanids. Making it Sassanids will be better in a way to specifically focus on specific event. That’s why I am saying a separate civ them bracket. Chronicles 500-300. Late Antiquity Early-Middle Age civs 300-800. Middle Age itsel 800-1600. More focused approach to design civs. Separated Pagan Romans for Chronicles and Christian Roman for late antiquity time.

74

And they are mostly based on them, which is convenient as Persia was ruled by Turks (Seljuks) and Mongols (Ilkhanate) for significant parts of the Middle Ages.

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75

About the 3K being different civs : it’s only 300-400 years after Qin Shi Huangdi unified China for the first time, so I expect there still were significant regional differences between different regions of China, especially as the 3K formed along natural borders.

(they still should be renamed even if you just pick some regional chinese dialects that are still Han
 but if you look at other civs there would be very little genetic differences between Franks Burgundians and Teutons either)

76

I am against the removal of the option to recruit Huskarls in the Barracks when researching Anarchy technology for the Goths. Since that would make it more difficult and complicated to beat the Alaric campaign since some scenarios don’t allow you to build castles to recruit Huskarls.

77

The problem is solved as the huscarl would become a regional unit in the barracks (Anglo-Saxons also had them). With weaker pierce armour, but anarchy would restore the gothic one to its full glory.

Goths would get a new UU in the castle, possibly tailored to compensate the loss of gunpowder.

78

The Swizz are Alemannic people and the Alamannic people are part the Suebi.
The Swizz only slowly grew independent and culturally distinct over the centuries. It would be very biased towards modern countries to make the Swizz or Austrians their own civs in AoE2.
The French and Italian speaking parts or Switzerland were only slowly added over time.

Alamanni and Swizz should be the same. You could call them Swizz because that might have better name recognition but it’s technically less correct.

Lombards are also technically Suebi.

They later merged with the Italians so they would only need representation for their early forms.
But Italy is already filled with civilisations, not sure if it needs even more.

Byzantines and Armenians used the same style of Cataphract while the ones of other civilisations had different equipment and style.

Maybe reducing it to +1/+2 in Castle/Imperial Age would work but that might be a little too weak.

Jurchens get essentially >200 Food though their bonus.

Mongols collect Food from hunted animals 40% faster while Goths get 20% more.

It can be a smaller number if 25% is too much.

I gave them the bonus because they are neighbours of the Georgians like the Armenians.
A hint to their origins and also a mechanic that works well for this kind of civilisation.

They just increased the Food cost in the Market in a recent patch so not sure how big of an impact it would still be.

I feel like +10% would be so low that most people wouldn’t even notice it.

Alemanni are Suebian and so are the Lombards.

Because it would be boring it all civs of one DLC would be too similar.

It has been part of AoE2 from the very beginning. Hard to rip that out of the game now. I don’t think that would be possible without making many long term fans extremely angry.

79

Huskarl version

I made different version of the Huskarl. Making them regional unit is good. I think they need a feudal age version because this is an unit used mostly in early Middle age. I made a viking version because this unit was used by the vikings.

Gambeson : Now affect the Huskarl line. This because this is an anti archer unit and now this technology affect militia lien and fire lancer line.

Light huskarl

For this Huskarl I increase the Line of Sight to 6 (same as militia line) because this is an anti archer unit. +1 Pierce armor than militia line because this an anti archer unit.

Available at Feudal age

Cost : 75 Food, 35 Gold
HP : 45
Melee attack : 7
Attack bonus : +4 vs Archer, +2 vs Standard building
Reload time : 2
Melee armor : 0
Pierce armor : 2
Armor class : Infantry, shock infantry
Speed : 1.05
Line of Sight : 6

Huskarl

Available at Castle age

For this Huskarl I reduce the damage by 1 to equal the damage of the Long swordsmen. I give +1 ranged armor.

Cost : 75 Food, 35 Gold
HP : 60
Melee attack : 9
Attack bonus : +6 vs Archer, +4 vs Standard building
Reload time : 2
Melee armor : 0
Pierce armor : 3
Armor class : Infantry, shock infantry
Speed : 1.05
Line of Sight : 6

Elite huskarl

Available at Imperial age

The final stage of the Huskarl line equal to the old one minus less ranged armor.

Cost : 75 Food, 35 Gold
HP : 70
Melee attack : 12
Attack bonus : +10 vs Archer, +6 vs Standard building
Reload time : 2
Melee armor : 0
Pierce armor : 4
Armor class : Infantry, shock infantry
Speed : 1.05
Line of Sight : 7

Goths

Original gothic anti archer cheaper huskarl

The goth huskarl is the same as the original, anarchy give him his original Pierce armor. Also he have the bonus damage against building of the goths. Have blast furnace but lack plate armor. I put gambeson technology inside anarchy so he gain gambeson but only for the huskarl (other gothic infantry don’t gain gambeson), this fit well with the anti archer purpose of the unit. Also he have the infantry discount of the goth

Anarchy : + 5 ranged armor to the Huskarl line

(Skadidesu propose +4 Piercing armor to equal the old version of the Huskarl but I put +1 similar to gambeson but only for the huskarl because without them my viking huskarl will have more armor (0+3 melee, 4+5 Piercing total 3/9) and regeneration + damage against cavalry in comparison with the goth huskarl (0+2 melee, 4+2+4 Piercing, total 2/10) only one more than the viking but with anarchy who give +5 the total is 2/11)

Saxons

Free upgrade + charged attack + speed charge

This version is based on the Bayeux tapestry who show Huskarls armed with two handed axe. This men fought with a charge attack and a speed charge like the samouraĂŻ : they charge during a battle a give a powerful first blow with their two handed axe. Also the anglosaxon huskarl were famous, this give them the free upgrade of the Huskarl line. For the UT see Dane axe article on Wikipedia.

Civ bonus : Free upgrade of the Huskarl line

UT (Castle age) Long axe: Huskarl have a charged attack and a speed charge

Charged attack : who give +5 attack over 40 seconds.
Speed charge: The charged-up speed activates when its target is within 2 to 6 (7 for Elite) tiles. Its speed increases by 25% (to 1.312 before Squires, 1.433 after) in this distance, and dissipates once impact is made.

Vandals

Burning building huskarl

This version have a UT who give the all the infantry the power to deal burning damage to the buildings. The Vandal huskarl gain burning damage.

UT (Castle age) : Infantry gain burning damage against the buildings.

Vikings

Regenerating anti cavalry huskarls who gain gold when killing civilian units

Huskarl were used by the vikings. In this version they have all armor upgrade (including gambeson) all damage upgrade and can regenerate at a lower speed than the Berserkers after researching the technology Chieftains who give also a bonus against cavalry. The rate of regeneration is 10 HP for the Huskarl (a quarter of the Berserker, 40 HP)

Chieftain : Give all the benefits of the technology + a regeneration of 10 HP per minute to the Huskarls.

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80

IMHO gunpowder civ during (Barbaric) Migration period as weird as gatling camels in AoE III. I still advice you to try smth else if possible. Ecomony tech tree bonuses, unique bonuses maybe. Make a Tarkan-like infantry, for example :laughing:
No gunpowder, no arbalets (except Roman manuballistas), no siege scorpions (except Roman ones), no halberds, no zweihanders, no full plate armor at that time.
Also no Greek fire if the end of mentioned period will be at the start of Muslim expansion.
And don’t forget that Romans (both Eastern and Western) obviously will get significantly larger set of techs and could go imbalanced easily. My proposition - make them more expensive (especially in gold) + more trade & economic bonuses for Eastern Romans comparing to Western Romans.

81

Suebi

Archer civilization

Civilization bonus

Angon thrower, skirmisher and huskarl move +5%/+10/+15% starting in feudal age
Archer receives double the effect from Blacksmith armor upgrades. (Lack Ring archer armor)

Angon thrower

Anti infrantry skirmisher

The angon was a barbed spear. When stuck in a shield she can not be removed rending the shield useless. When hitting a corpse the barbed spear can not be removed and the victim dead by bleeding.

Cost : 30 Wood, 30 Gold
HP : 35
Pierce attack : 6
Attack bonus : +1 vs infantry
Reload time : 3
Range : 5
Accuracy : 90%
Projectile speed : 7
Melee armor : 0
Pierce armor : 4
Armor class : Archer, Skirmisher, Unique unit
Speed : 0.96
Line of Sight : 6

Special : charged attack every 30s, reduce Piercing armor by 1.

For the visual of the unit it’s very important than she have the suebian knot on this head, so no helmet on his head. Also a warrior without armor with only a shield for defense.

https://archivos.arrecaballo.es/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/guerrero-alaman-siglo-iii-iv.png
https://imtw.org/upl/load/load1506292164_073-14.jpg

Elite angon thrower

Cost : 30 Wood, 30 Gold
HP : 40
Pierce attack : 7
Attack bonus : +2 vs infantry
Reload time : 3
Range : 5
Accuracy : 90%
Projectile speed : 7
Melee armor : 1
Pierce armor : 5
Armor class : Archer, Skirmisher, Unique unit
Speed : 0.96
Line of Sight : 7

Special : charged attack every 30s, reduce Piercing armor by 1.

For the visual of the unit the same as the precedent + a chainmail and a helmet like the Elite Throwing Axeman

The warrior of the right (he even have an angon) :
https://archivos.arrecaballo.es/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/guerreros-alamanes-siglo-iv-v.png

Castle age UT : Barbed javelin

Angon thrower and skirmisher gain +1 damage
The charged attack of the Angon thrower gain bleeding damage who inflict damage over time (do not function against building, siege and navy)
Skirmisher gain the same charged bleeding attack (but don’t gain the charged reducing piercing armor of the Angon thrower)

Technology tree

Available Technologies and Units

(Elite) Huskarl
Dromon

Missing Technologies

Ring Archer Armor
Parhian tactics

Plate Mail Armor

Paladin

All gunpowder units