New Civ concept: Papal States

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

Focus: Monks

Bonus
Start the game with a Monk instead a Scout.
Start the game with a part of the map already explored.
Monastery and Monks are avaible in the Feudal Age.
Villagers and Monks can garrison in Monasteries.
Monks provide a 5% buff in gathering and attack speed to units in healing range. Every Relic collected grants an additional 1% to this buff

Team Bonus
Bishop (enanched version of Monk) avaible in the Monastery

Unique Tecnologies
Excommunication: enemy Monks have lower healing and conversion speed
Compagnie di Ventura: can choose an Unique Unit to train in Castles between the Christian-affiliated civ (Britons, Byzantines, Franks, Teutons, Spanish, Italians, Slavs, Portuguese, Sicilians) or allied civ

Explanation
The state had its origins in the rise of Christianity throughout Italy, and with it the rising influence of the Christian Church. By the mid-8th century, with the decline of the Byzantine Empire in Italy, the Papacy became effectively sovereign. Several Christian rulers - including the Frankish kings Charlemagne and Pepin the Short - further donated lands to be governed by the Church.
For this reason, the civ starts with a Monk instead of a Scout, and the part of the map already explored rapresents the donations. It focus on Monks and have an upgraded version of it.

The State of the Church has tried to defend territorial integrity, and its own religious autonomy, resorting, in the first instance, to religious power, especially that of excommunication. But, when this was not enough, more rarely, also to the use of weapons.
This in rapresented by the Castle Age Unique Technology and by the versatile tech tree.

The policy most followed by the Popes was to involve in their own interests another state, usually neighboring, which with its army would defend the territorial and political integrity of the papal state, receiving in exchange honors, money, legitimacy of its political conduct and religious condemnation of his enemies.
For this reason, Monks can directly influence the economy and the military, the civ can select the Unique Unit to train and share the upgraded version of the Monk with the allies.

Roman Catholic leaders believed a consecrated church was protected space. It would be inappropriate in the extreme to carry weapons into the church or to arrest someone or to exercise force within the church.
For this reason, Villagers and Monks can garrison in the Monasteries and get protection.

Gameplay

In the Dark Age, the already explored map compensates for the absence of the Scout in finding resources. Anyway, the player may struggle finding the opponent, and this may drastically reduce the chances to succeffuly rush in the early game.
The player may focus on a defensive approach, using the Monk to buff the gathering speed of the Villagers. The Monk could even bring Relics near the Town Center to grant a bigger bonus in the future, as Monasteries could be build in the Feudal Age. This could be risky because of enemy Scouts, so the player must act carefully.

In the Feudal Age they can train more Monks and gather the Relics to boost the economy buff. They can even perform an Early Monk Rush, but this could not be the better option because of the low value of feudal units and the risk rapresented by enemy Scout. Maybe a defensive approach could be better: Monks, supporting economy and military, can help reaching the next age with an advantage, and Monasteries can give them repair from enemy rushes.

In the Castle Age there is one of the main differences: they cannot train an Unique Unit from the Castle. They can train a versatile troop anyway, and give them the support of Monks, healing and granting attack speed bonus. The Unique Technology can help, lowering the efficacy of enemy Monks.

In the Imperial Age the player can choose the Unique Unit to trian in the Castles, giving the possibility to create peculiar combination, such as Cataphracts with Bloodlines but without Logistica, ora Teutonic Knights without the extra meele armor bonus.
The very Unique Unit, the Bishop, is now avaible to the player and his allies as an upgrade for the Monk, granting more HP, conversion and healing range.

Tech Tree

Barrack
Champion and Helberdier avaible
Can research Squires and Arson, not Supplies

Archery Range
Crossbowman and Elite Skirmisher avaible
Can research Thumb Ring

Stable
Light Cavalry and Cavalier avaible
Can research Bloodlines and Husbandry

Siege Workshop
Capped Ram, Oneger, Scorpion, Siege Tower and Bombard Cannon

Dock
Fire Ship, Demolition Ship, Galleon and Cannon Galleon
Cannot research Dry Dock and Shipwright

Monastery
All tech avaible.

Blacksmith
All tech avaible

University
All tech avaible

Eco upgrades
All tech avaible except Crop Rotation and Stone Shaft Mining

5 Likes
2

this is either busted or useless depending on the map.

this also could potentially be busted.

this would be an okay bonus with restrictions.

aura affects shouldn’t touch aoe2 at all. this is more of an aoe4 mechanic.

because monks are already niche as is, lets make it worse.

again with the wonky bonuses that don’t jell with aoe2 well.

so this civ seems heavily lacking.
no arbs, generic cavalier. no real bonuses. at least they get BBC.

how does this civ even bring its sheep in to get its eco rolling?

and literally none of this takes into account the fact that we already have a literal horde of European Civs and need to focus elsewhere.

5 Likes
3

Too gimmicky. Try to be a bit more conventional

3 Likes
4

I like it, good work sir.

5

I mean, it’s alright. But I’d probably make it focused on infantry, monks and a full archer tech tree. Fighting with primarily monks is not a good concept.

Monk related UTs should NOT exist.

Nice concept, but idk how the UI will work. Also you didn’t specify what their regular UU is.

Why?

Why no arb?

I’d weaken that.

Rather generic, but weak overall.

Not a good concept, very few civs have that and it’s to emphasize certain compositions.

Not possible, Koreans are the only civ allowed to have that.

6

The true HRE from AoE4 has arrived! Interesting in some ways, but I’m not sure if it would be balanced, and I’d also rather see some more civs from Asia, Africa, and India. Also, as an atheist, I’m not particularly stoked about getting a super religious Christian state like this, although it is kind of interesting, I do feel like the devs are trying to avoid religious entities, and although we have civs like Aztecs, Burmese, and Teutons, they are more than just religion, but that’s just my take on it.

7

And this literally doesn’t matter when he is simply speculating a new civ. Got a civ idea? Great! Go make your own thread.

7 Likes
8

Interesting concept. But the influence area of the monks is a bit weird. I could imagine a boost for building and gathering speed for one villager (with the same function as healing), by a huge margin (like 100 %) instead.

What about a special ability for Papal monks? They could “collect” Faith which could be used to “unlock” parts of the tech tree that are initially unavailable. This way the civ could be really unique in allowing to go in any direction but with additional cost for the last few techs in the exchange.

2 Likes
9

Unique Unit should be Papal Guards some sort of anti-infantry halberdier.

4 Likes
10

This itself is an issue.what do you do when the gold runs out?

11

Create a new Hussite Reformations! Let the wood only monk spam begin!

1 Like
12

Didn’t know April Fools came this early. I think you got the wrong forum, aoe4 suits better for this civ idea

1 Like
13

It would’t be an issue with some good eco bonus, such as relic boost. I still don’t like the general design though, there’s no civi or mil boni aside from the monks, and stealing other faction’s UU makes everyone less unique.

1 Like
14

Nice Idea. Besides I remember the swiss guard was introduced very late, it could make an interesting unit, maybe comparable to the kamayuk. But different.

Well there could be a UT “Letters of indulgence”, that gives a gold trickle from every vill. (In the exchange Villagers could slowly lose health, but maybe that’s too gimmicky)

Because of that Monk focus that civ would have a natural weakness to archery and needs some bonus to one of the anti-archer options available.
Refering to the roman origins of the papal state they could have a bonus to skirmishers and/or scorpions.

Don’t think Relic bonusses should be a major point for any civ (Sorry Lith). The reason is that depending on map, size and amount of players on it the amount of reasonably achiveable relics can vary heavily. That can make a big relic bonus OP or useless on these different settings.
The civ also can get relics in faster than everybody else, this alone is already a strong relic bonus.

15

This belongs more in AoE4, frankly. The AoE2 engine really isn’t that impressive when it comes to changing hardcoded things at runtime afaik. And while I love the concept of adapting a civ’s tree and units to what they are needed for, and it’s definitely something from AoE3 that I miss, I don’t think it’s ever going to happen in AoE2.

That wouldn’t work as intended due to walking times. What I can imagine is a Hero-style unit like in AoE4 prelates or the Khan that boosts nearby units. This can’t be the main UU though. Could be like a … monk that you start the game with, that doesn’t die and can be respawned from TCs. And it has an aura that buffs nearby units. Like 20% to all villagers in a range of 9. And monk techs affect it, Block Printing increases the aura range, Sanctity makes it affect HP as well, Fervor makes it affect speed. Illumination increases the aura by 50% to 30%. Redemption makes it affect Siege Units. Etc.

But 95% of players would be against this.

16

I think it’s very unlikely we will ever see such a gimmicky civ anyways. So… let’s become creative!
Nobody is harmed with ideas to a civ that is basically sure will never come.
A “pure monk” civ is just such a case of a civ that will never come. For an absurd amount of reasons everybody knows.

2 Likes
17

Dont think this would be a good solution maybe something like TC’s or monasteries generate gold slowly might work.

Absolutely no harm in putting up creative ideas for civis.

1 Like
18

You cant just decide that you want a Monk civ and base everything civ has into this aspect, it’s too single-dimensional. Franks, Britons and Goths are poor design for a reason, try to get inspired but a great civs we already have in the game first.

19

Interesting ideas. I’m going to run with some of them but make them more aoe2 rather than the aoe4/wc3 type elements you got going with hero type units providing buff and debuff auras which might be too tricky to implement witn the aoe2 engine

PAPAL STATES

MONK AND INFANTRY CIV

-Start with an extra relic on the map just outside the starting town center (can be tweaked for relic victory maps like how Chinese and Spanish bonuses are tweaked for nomad)

-Monastaries cost -100 wood. (Remove bohemian bonus and give it to papal states)

-Can build monasteries and train monks in feudal age (monks can’t pick up relics till the castle age)

-Monastaries can be used as resource drop off buildings and can garrison villagers (no attack like Khmer houses. If this is too OP and makes them unraidable except for idle time then can increase the cost of -monastaries. It is fairly historically accurate though since the Vatican and Rome was well defended)

Unique unit

Swiss guard

Stronger gold costing version of the halbadier with attack bonus vs cavalry but with beefy stats so can contend with other infantry. Kind of like kamayuk/Flemish militia. Elite version beats generic champion 1v1

Unique techs

Holy military orders

Monks gain ability to attack and benefit from infantry upgrades (basically becomes a glass cannon champion like the shotel warrior but with the ability to convert and pick up relics and heal on no attack stance. If it looks too funny with an old guys beating up people with a stick than can unlock another unique unit made in -monastaries that can heal and fight the warrior monk that looks something like the obuch but without the big hammer)

Counter reformation

Monks cost - 80 gold

Team bonus

Tributes are free (since many European kingdoms tributed alot to the papal states )

2 Likes
20

Byzantines and Slavs are Christian but not subordinate to Pope, they were Orthodox not Catholic.

2 Likes