More native civs please

I personally think they are fine with obvious “howevers”. I just feel that Haudenosaunee and Inca are the only ones with a need of sharping and cutting the edges in order to have more identity. All four could get more attention and focus and it wouldn’t be hard at all

E.g:

  • Aztec politicians are really bad= Easy to solve.
  • Haudenosaunee mercenary cards = easy to rework
  • Enable Trading posts on Haudenosaunee travois = easy to solve
  • Cut 20-25% of Inca travois= average difficulty
  • All three should have a politician with a way to promote native alliance on the map and one singular alliance just like Africans ( Aztec= Maya/Zapotec, Lakota= Cheyenne…). Not sure why Inca were the only one with perks… Average difficulty.
  • Tribal Marketplace was a mistake= but they will never replace it
  • The list goes on…

But we are really behind with attention regarding legacy content. =\

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The issues lie with their inherent gameplay patterns being obnoxious and dull. All three are centered on the early game, with little to no ability to scale into the late, and the Hauds and Lakota do very little to represent the people they’re supposed to.
You’ve got British Redcoats and Roger’s Rangers and Yeomen, why can’t the Lakota get Tokala Soldiers, Crow Warriors, and the Broken Lancers? Japanese get Samurai, Ashigaru, and Yamabushi, why can’t the Lakota get Badger Soldiers, White Lancers, and the Silent Eaters?

Hauds have a similar problem, although I don’t know enough about them, but the problem is still there. The Native civs need a redesign from the ground up to be true to the cultures themselves and actually bring an interesting, new style of gameplay to the game.

But we all know that’s never going to happen.

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I think we have enough of them

There is no problem with that. There were always civiliztions like that in the franchise: Huns and Goths. As Byzantines and Saracens shine in late game. Haud are not so centered in early game as Aztecs and Lakota, so they can scalate better.

You are diving in to deep into the matter :sweat_smile:. They have several units that represented warriors who were present at that time. Obviously a “Clubman” is generic name and belonged to other natives as well but I understand your point. “Muskeeters” are generic for all but one european nation but If we dive into history they will all have remarkable differences.

The Native civs need a redesign from the ground up to be true to the cultures themselves and actually bring an interesting, new style of gameplay to the game.

At this point, new things are going to be saved for new civilizations. Being realistic: We just hope for tweaks in gameplay, techs and cards. I think this is the better move. Things that aren’t that hard to make because the pace of patches has become extremely slow, specially when new civs are in the works.

Sweden for instance is an incomplete civ that needs rework more than any of the four natives. But ever since Torps and Caroleans were put in line, we saw 4 new (overworked) DLC civilizations and nothing on Sweden. If half the work put into Mexico had been put into natives, they’d be far better.

I don’t know their (devs) philosophy, but it would make sense dividing the game design team into old and new content (always helping each other) so we can have a steady amount of updates. But I think FE, WE and Talantus have really small teams and if they do it, it would’ve been too slow for both old and new stuff.

How? They’re better designed than the Lakota or Hauds. Those two are by far the worst designed civs in the game, in terms of both how they represent the culture they’re supposed to and in terms of gameplay options and versatility. Sweden is far better than both in both situations.

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Talking about gameplay:

  1. They don’t have skirmishes, they don’t light cavalry: two of the three most important units in the game.

  2. Their musketeer, the other “most important unit”, is an almagamation of light infantry, musketeer and shock infantry. That can only be too good or too bad. Now we are in the “too bad” because they were nerfed. And now people see how weak Sweden army is (It was backed up by one single busted unit).

  3. Their core army was supposed to be around melee units. Fell short. Hand infantry sucks hard, specially in late game, so it’s just a amke believe concept. And they have only Pikeman (Ironically Halberdier is only available through cards). Their hand cavalry is Hussar and Hakkapelit. Hussar is fine but Hakkapelit is completely dismissable.

  4. Hakkapelit, one of their unique units, is a forgotten flawed unit with a unusuable designed and never used since DE was released.

  5. Skirmishes and Dragoons obliterate their army. GGs. Sayonara. They can’t defend themselves vs civs with Skirmishes because their cav is killed by goons and they can’t kill goons because they don’t have Skirmishes or range.

  6. Power and complements coming exclusively from cards and not the civ itself (a pattern from D.E. civs). Soem cards were busted af. It means we are dressing a skeleton with clothes instead of with skins. Only a few Legacy civs suffer from it but they are more balanced nevertheless (e.g: Ottomans).

  7. Their “reliance in mercs to complete their army” falls short since nothing but shipments being 10% cheaper exist. No way to recruit units from Saloon easier, no way to supplement the coin cost, etc

  8. Leather cannon just like Caroleans was either too good (shipments) or rarely used (shipment cost food). They are far too expensive but vulnerable to replace LI in early ages although that is their design. Still no cost reduction/ redesign

  9. Torps: not even worth talking about it.

  10. Sweden players play the game by queueing one single unit until the match is over: clearly something must be wrong with the design. It’s been like this when they were OP and it’s been like this as they are UP.

Sweden is the number one civ that deserves a look into core issues. Whatever was meant to be there, it doesn’t fit and it doesn’t work. All others, including Inca, can be tweaked, cut and added in order to be playable in more or less extent. Sweden is in a whole other level since their debut.

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En mi opinión los Mapuches/Araucanos podrían ser una facción interesante y divertida para agregar.

Un ejemplo de su poder militar es La Guerra de Arauco
Descripción de la guerra de Arauco:
La Guerra de Arauco fue un prolongado conflicto que enfrentó a las fuerzas militares del Imperio español y aliados indígenas conquistados, contra facciones mapuches y algunos aliados de los pueblos cunco, huilliche, pehuenche y picunche.

La zona del conflicto estaba comprendida entre el río Mataquito y el seno de Reloncaví, situándose la mayor parte de ella entre Concepción, la zona costera de la actual Región del Biobío, y la Región de La Araucanía.

Duró 236 años, entre 1536 y 1772.

Batalla de Purén (1570)
Fue la primera vez que los mapuches vencieron a los españoles en campo abierto, ya que fue la primera vez que usaron armas de hierro y cotas de malla que les robaron a los españoles.

Me encanta este concepto.
Espero que si agregan a los mapuches los podamos equipar con armas y armaduras españolas.

Fuente: wikipedia

Espero que esto les muestre a los desarrolladores que hay interés por los mapuches y que son una fuerza a tener en cuenta en América del sur. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

I would like to add Anasazi,Polynesian and Haida to the list. Just because there civilizations are really unique and somewhat sophisticated and never been touched by other RTS game before. The Polynesian could be major powers too, like the Tui Tonga empire,Maori and Hawaii kingdom.

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Add the Italien States and The Safavid Persia

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they have the best artillery and a musk that also acts like a dragoon, not to mention mercenaries, they under no circumstance need a skirmisher.

like you are not arguing design, your arguing making every faction as tasteless as glue.

they are IMO still pretty fine.

their core is musk, huss and art. which they do better than the british.

dragoons got nothing on sweden and sweden has plenty of tools vs skirmishers.

musketeers counter dragoons, esp caroleans with their ranged resist and extra range.

you can recruit them straight from barracks and buff them up with 20% dmg and hp. train cards work on mercenaries.

many factions use relatively simple line up of units, sweden isnt that unique here.

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Sure. And that has been working wonderfully so far/s

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I agree that we need updating existing civs more than new civ now. The fact that a coming competition (Fair Player League Winter Tournament - Liquipedia Age of Empires Wiki) straight out exclude a civ (incas) is concerning to me.

There are a few civ-specific mechanics that deserve to be reworked or removed.

I think the concept of Swedes is fine: as a civ without skirmishers, dragoon, and/or heavy reliance on mercenaries to complete their flaws. The carolean as ranged anti cavalry infantry is a nice idea too, but it may be anniying that the civ feels too unuque compared to other civs (so we could give e.g. more reliance on mercs to germans and a third civ)

I think the concept of Native civ as “without proper artillery and weird gimmics to compensate” (well except Hauds’ who got siege) is nice too. I think the natives just need some fine tuning. If Lakota as so bad late, we cab for instance give Prowlers a multiplicator vs siege and give one if the two ranged cavalry a ranged resist instead of melee resist. After all, the japanese cav archers are great as ranged anti artillery without being artillery itself…

After all is nice and well for current civ and no civ “feels lame” to play as or against, yeah sure we could enjoy more civs.

Nevertheless, I would not like to have as many civs as aoe2 because for every new civ, we need to learn new unit skills and units appearances, which is very beginner unfriendly…

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