My list of proposed balance changes

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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First and foremost - not all of these changes are originally mine, but i like them or they fit. so yeah. credit to whoever originally thought it up (Some of these i was even against initially).
Second thing - I’m not gonna propose any changes for the 4 new civs, Goths or Chinese, just because i’m unsure how to fix them (Especially Chinese, who are a nightmare at high levels, and bad at low levels).
Third thing - Ladder fixes, Pathfinding, Bugfixes, etc are all of the highest priority right now.

Unit Changes

Crossbowman - Upgrade cost increased to 200 food and 100 gold. upgrade time increased to 50 seconds.

Skirmisher - Elite Upgrade cost reduced to 175 wood and 100 gold. Upgrade time decreased to 30 seconds.

Spearman - Pikeman Upgrade cost reduced to 175 food and 75 gold.

Eagle Warrior - Cost retuned to 30 food and 40 gold.

Militia Line - THS upgrade reduced to 200 food, 100 gold, and 50 seconds. Champ upgrade reduced to 600 food, 250 gold, and 75 seconds.

BE/EBE - Gain +10 Elephant Armor

EA/EEA - Gain +5 CA armor (to -2) and +2 bonus damage vs Spear Line.

New Elephant Upgrade - Mahouts - Increases Elephant unit speed by 10%.

SL/ESL - Food cost reduced to 60, gain +3/5 Damage vs Infantry, and ESL cost reduced to 500/400.

Britons - Yeoman changed to allow the creation of Longbows at the Archery Range.
Longbow/Elite gain +1 Range

Burgundians - Stable Techs cost 33% less instead of 50% less.
Flemish Revolution needs changing - just not sure what to change it too.

Burmese - Howdah and Manipur Cavalry switch ages
Arambai benefit from PT

Franks - Either the HP bonus is moved to castle age or the Berry bonus is removed.

Incas - Gain a 10/20% discount on eagles in castle/imp

Italians - Archers and GC gain +1 MA per age, starting in Feudal.

Khmer - 10% faster elephants changed to → free Mahouts

Malians - Wood discount returns to farms.

Mayans - longer lasting resources 15% → 10%.
Archer Discount 10/20/30 → 10/15/20
El Dorado 750/450 → 900/500

Persians - Town center and Docks bonuses Split.
TC gains 5% in dark age.
Mahouts baked into Elite Upgrade.
Mahouts replaced with a new UT.

Slavs renamed to Rus (not balance, but whatever).

Spanish - build bonus doesn’t apply until first TC built.
Build Bonus is doubled on Economic Buildings and Houses.
BS Gold Loss is extended to counter units.

Vietnamese - Unique Techs Swap positions
Paper Money gold cost replaced with wood cost (does not benefit from civ bonus).

As said before I also think Gurjaras and Hindustanis need nerfs - not sure how to go about it.
Dravidians, Bengalis, and Goths needs buffs - same.
and Chinese need to be rebalanced to not be BAD or ABSURD.

25 Likes
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Many changes make sense, but:

This is pointless as Pikes counter Cav as they supposed to be

This only changes their Imperial Age, they remain broken in Castle Age TG-s. Also you should increase Longbow range by +1 then

Still useless

Don’t see a reason as Italians are already strong. I’d welcome a Condotteiro buff though and probably decrease the Elite Genoese price considering what it gives

Incas would be hit by the nerf so give them a bonus which makes their Eagle cheaper or something

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they are kind of hard to nerf short of just outright removing the “all archer range” bonus (and baking it into Longbows) and giving them thumbring as compensation. which feels bland and more making them generic

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Wow, I’m impressed, you actually made a balance list for once!

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Any change to battle elephant, elephant archer and steppe lancer?

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I’ve made them before, it’s just been a while as every time i get ready to make one the forums get flooded with other peoples threads about them.

I’ll add some for them but most people won’t be too happy with my changes to them. (added).

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made some changes to the list.

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Khmer should have 15% faster Elephants and no Mahouts. It would work the same as Celtic Infantry.

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I more and less would agree with all changes if they decided to implememt them.

Wht would be the main benefits of the armored italian archers? Would they hold more hits against knights? Agaisnt skirms and onagers it should be the same.

I had thought in a similar change for steppe lancers, but restricted to the spear line instead of infantry. Anyway, with that change you can mix a couple of lancers with knights so they are harder to counter. If extra damage against halberdiers resulted too nuch, another option would be giving them anti spear armor

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thats a good option as well. frankly i think SL are underrated. they are one of the least affected melee units by the current pathing issues, due to more stacking.

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We could take this a step further and I really apologize if I sound like Allergictable but the old saying about Broken Clocks sometimes having interesting ideas. If this is dumb, then I’m sorry:

Remove the baseline Archers +1 ranger per age and bake it into the Longbow and elite upgrade. If Yeoman still provides +1 archer range then that’s cool. But then… give the civ thumb ring but don’t let it increase longbow accuracy. So now you have a dilemma: Do you want an archer who is more accurate and possibly only has +1 range over the average archer (and trains faster,) or do you focus on the unit that has 3 or 4 extra range but less accuracy?

Is this an awful idea? Probably. The Britons would then be a 2 bonus and Team bonus civ but it would give more identity to the Longbow.

Let Persians get this tech for free and as @Akoskaaa10 suggested, let the Khmer be the Celts of Elephants, especially if it’s Castle Age… and maybe give Persia Elephant Rams so it feels a tad more impactful? Does this tech require Husbandry?

Why not stagger it to 5/10/15/20? Technically they now have -5 HP knights vs Bloodlines in Castle Age and get a whopping +2 HP extra Scouts in Dark, 5 in Feudal. Also would removing the free farm upgrades be too much? Two food bonuses is a tad excessive. The problem with removing BOTH berries and extra cav HP is that their only attribute in Feudal would then be free Horse Collar which was their identity issue back in Conquerors days. Every other civ has something MORE by this point to define their direction.

Also add Ele Arches and let Manipur effect all mounted units. Maybe too much?

1 Like
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the problem with this, at least from my perspective is its making the civ more generic.

my problem with this is that before Khmer proceeded to get elephants heavily nerfed because how strong they were. so i wanted to limit the speed potential.

because this right here.

that’s why i am in favor of removing the berry bonus.

thats why i said EITHER OR. not both. either remove the berry bonus or move HP bonus to castle age. not both. either they get up to feudal faster with the berry bonus, and have an economic advantage going into castle age (berries into farms with completely generic units), or they get the better scouts but no dark age bonus.

why? giving them Ele Archers isn’t really going to do much for them. they are very food heavy and knights with manapur are going to be better option. I do agree Manipur should also affect Arambai. I also think having EA and having them benefit from Manipur would be completely overkill.

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I feel the mayan and eagle nerfs should be implemented more gradually so as to not over nerf. Eagles to 25 food before 30, and any 2 mayan nerfs rather than all three at the same time (4 with the eagle nerf)

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So the eagle while going up to 30 food, it’s also reducing its gold cost by 10 as well. which is why i feel comfortable with such a “big jump”, because while it’s definitely a feudal and early castle nerf, its definitely a late game buff for them as well.

as for Mayans - not all the nerfs need to happen, i just listed a couple i thought would be good, but i do think they need at least 2 nerfs.

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I normally really don’t like arbitrary balance lists without any explanation, though I think I can forgive / accept these having read lots of your prior posts which contain the rationale. Must say I do agree with most of these as well and would be happy for most to be implemented :slight_smile:

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if you look at some of my past balance threads you’ll see i normally do explain my rationale, but i’m in the middle of moving atm and don’t have time to write half page essays. :slight_smile:

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Get the middle ground - 40 sec.

Take 1 step at a time. Keep the cost as it is. Xbow is being nerfed anyway.

Why? Is early knight really that strong? Or is this tied with xbow change so that xbow+pike is still a decent choice against knight (+skirms) play?

I will do 25f/50g.

Agree.

Excellent. May I get the credit for this one? 11
On real note, available for which civs? Khmer is out of question that’s for sure. Then everyone with at least one chonker unit?

I’d change the attack bonus to cavalry and remove camel from SL civs. And actually decrease gold cost instead of food or both.

Agree. We are now free to give tower extra attack to a new civ.

Okay but i think Elite Arambai should lose 1PA then.

Remove early eco techs instead. 50% cheaper food on eco tech is already a top 10 eco bonus imo. Don’t forget 1 relic = 1.25 post imp farmer.

Fine.

Or they don’t get Mahouts as it will increase their Ballista’s speed as well.

Longer lasting resource doesn’t apply to food and period. I bet this will alone do all the 3 nerfs you/almost everyone proposed.

Seems okay.

Maybe leaving them is better for now.

Add Portuguese on open land maps. They are always worse than Italians and u want to buff them.

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That could be fine.

I just think Elite Skirm is too expensive.

It’s more to keep counterplay more or less equal.

That could be fine too. I’m no Equalizer who wants to see them nerfed into Oblivion.

and

I went for smaller buff first.

Is Elite really that strong?

I don’t like this at all, it really sets back there boom hard and hinders the entire civs game plan.

Shrug. Either or.

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I think Tarkans should benefit from Arson, since they use a torch as a weapon ;).

  • Tarkans benefit from Arson (+2 attack vs standard buildings)
  • Huns gain access to Steppe Lancers
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But Huns aren’t in a position where they need buffs like giving them SL, and if anything i’d just give Tarkans better damage vs standard buildings baseline.

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