I initially thought of giving 20% like most work rates bonuses, but then I crunched the numbers, and the bonus was a bit useless.
The idea is that with 50% by the time your adversary get the first fishing ship out, you almost (3 seconds of difference) have your second fishing ship out.
Though, when I decided 50%, I also discarded the +150w, so maybe 40% is balanced.
I don’t know I’ll try to re do the math and I’ll see, but if I nerf their dock I should re-buff their archers.
Yes but the idea is that the venetians are very aggressive and have an jump start thanks to their extra resources, so to balance that out I decided to make their eco weaker as the game goes on.
I could remove 2MS because that would be a huge nerf on water maps, and also crop rotation I felt that was important for the same reason, so I removed the stone and gold second upgrades instead.
No, the whole idea of the civ is that they have their mobility trough their faster archers, and if they want a knight-like unit they have their UU.
I gave them the hussars because I felt like they needed something cheap and fast in the case they burned all their gold in stradiots.
But I purposely made their knight line weak to push them either towards archers or towards the UU. That’s why they don’t have cavalier or BL.
They can still use knight in early castle age, but that’s not their field.
This could be nice, with venetians (that along with the italians/genoese where at the one end of the silk road), georgianstibetans/khitans.
This 3 civs could made an interesting Silk Road DLC, and with them we would reach 40 civs in the game, a nice number.
The silk road will then be complete, with venetians/Italians - saracens - bizzantines/turks - georgians - tibetans - Indians - chinese - and all the other south east asian civs.
And with 40 civ there still may be room for about another ten new civs.
faster archers inherently is broken, plumes and rattans are UUs made from castles and are also handicapped by less range (in castle age) and less attack/frame delay respectively.
couple that with ridiculous starting resources, cheaper ballistics, a UT that gives 1 more attack, and another UT which basically is just relic count X paper money, its hilarious
Actually, there are already more infantry UU than cav UU. There are now in the game 14 infantry UU and 11 cav, without considering CA, that are 8,but then to the infatti you should add the 7 foot archers to the infantry group, so it would become again 21 foot UU and 19 cav UU.
Considering that the new DLC adds one cav UU and one infantry UU, the proportion will be the same.
I think that a cav UU fit the venetians better, however I did a poll some time ago between an infantry and a cav UU (with the same gold only characteristics). You can go there and vote.
Yeah I know, that’s why at the best I gave them 10% speed in feudal (now it’s 5% because they start with extra wood), but I was curious of what people thought.
In feudal age, an archer would be fast as much as a pike (1 vs 1.008), while on castle age xbow would be still slower than both rattan and plumes (1.056 vs 1.1/1.2). Only in imp they arbs get as fast as rattan (and still slower than plumes).
For skirms, well we have a civ that give skirms +10% speed already on feudal. For HC instead I think that 15% more speed would make them broken…
To compensate the lack of any eco bonus through the game, and I said that they should start with 150 for then reducing if they seem OP.
That’s far from OP, tons of civs saves more on archers related techs (chinese, tartars, bulgarians, spanish…).
And that cost as much as logistica.
I was actually about to rebalance that one, either increase the cost or reduce the gold…
Of course everything here needs testing, I don’t pretend that it’s a perfect civ. This is just theory crafting for fun.
I personally think that this civ is almost balanced, being a bit more toward OP than weak (but not OP broken), but I can’t be certain without testing.
I also know that for sure such civs (for a number of reasons) will never see the light of the day, but still this was fun…
It’s still able to outpace it’s counter, and allows for easier micro against mangonels, not to mention travel through map faster
They already have stellar navy, and strong military options and bonuses. Giving them both 150g and 150w is a bit too much “compensation”,
3 out of those civs don’t have arbalest or even xbow, and you’ll definitely feel the 150 wood saved while placing the TC compared to the smaller several Chinese ones
They would still be a lot less slower than scouts and knights, and the only purpose of skirms is to defend your base, so even if they can’t chase the archers is still fine.
And yes, they can travel faster in the map, which is always the main purpose of a speed bonus (cumans and celts…). As for manganels, they could micro better, but it’s not like they could kill them in less shots or that they can survive manganels shots.
Right now, if someone has a good micro, he can already kill a manganel with xbows. More speed would make it a bit easier, but it’s not like you don’t have to learn how to micro (or how to attack ground…).
Stellar navy? I actually I’m not sure they are on the level of italians or vikings, not even koreans onestly on water.
As for military their army is very polarized. You have top archers but terrible cav (and no eagles like the meso…) so the absence of an eco bonus hurt them.
They don’t have cheaper archers (like mayans), or cheaper TC to let them boom better (like britons), they don’t have cheaper eco tech (like viets) or cheaper tech in general (like chinese).
The idea was that they had more resources at the start to let them being very aggressive in feudal, but then a civ with an eco bonus or discount can catch up.
Then again I know that 300 resources more at the start of the game is a lot, even too much, that was intended.
The idea is to give them at the star those extra resources, the reduce them after testing, or remove one of the 2 (or let them as they are if it’s not OP).
Ok then let’s look at britons, mayans or viets, all civs with both buffed archers and incredibly good eco bonuses.
Also I don’t get why you are so worried about discounted university techs, most of them are useless and ballistics let you save only 150w and 87g, which isn’t a big deal for mid castle age.
I think that it’s simply a misperception given by the fact that most infantry UU are a lot underused, while instead cav UU see more action (or more talking in this forum…).
They are mostly just bad after supplies only affects the miltia line.
Only a few of them are quite strong, they see some play, but most of them is just weak, not worth the investment.
Two best inf UUs: Berserk + kamayuk, because they add something the militia line can’t provide. See actually see a lot of play.
But units like jaguar, condo, karambit or shotel are either extremely situational or just weak, not worth the investment. And it’s completely justified they see almost no play.
In general, infantry receives not much love from the developers. I think they just don’t like infantry. They trade bad and move slow. Supplies was a first step in the right direction to make infantry more viable, but it only affects militia line. It should affect many UUs, too.
For the venetians: 10% move speed in feudal is too strong. because the meso civs can’t deal with them then, considering the early archer rush potential and lacking scouts for meso. I don’t know if 15% in imp would brake them, considering cavalry (except paladin) doesn’t get extra armor then. Plumes are somehow ok, because their cost compensates for their higher speed. But almost Plumes for the cost of archers might be extremely strong and make the civ instantly top tier at higher levels of play.
The thing is that all bonusses you’ll give to them are very strong bonusses for higher levels, so this civ would be instantly op in pro play, but maybe even bottom tier for beginners. This isn’t a good design in my eyes. If you want to give the archers speed you shouldn’t give the civ an unmatched early eco bonus. Instead a booming + defence bonus would make it more balanced.
Like: Buildings have +2 melee armor from the beginning (how you want to attack venetians with melee?xD) + they start with an infinite fishing ressource right beneath their tc which generates as much food as a single fisher can fish (+1 for each age they are in) + maybe 1 of these for each dock they build, but only reachable by fishing ships. This instead for the free ressources.
This would also fit into their unique city, venezia, which provided a lot of security to its inhabitants and was almost impossible to besiege for a long period of time.
This would balance the civ among the elos, because these bonusses would help lower elos more likely, whilst the archer speed + the short lived power spike of UU would have big impact on higher elos.
Of course this would take away the early feudal power of the venetians, but atm for me it looks like you gave the civs all kind of bonusses which would be a pros dream to play it. This would make it completely broken in pro play. I think you should ask yourself, what you want from that civ, shall it be an early agression civ, an archer civ, a booming civ (on water) or a utility civ. Becaus atm it’s all of them at once. And then give it bonusses which are balanced among the elos. Some power spikes and utility for higher levels and some more general ones for lower elos.
This was how every new civ was designed and released. Let’s not forget how everyone played cumans the last DLC because they can super boom, or how huns wars dominate until the new DLCs.
Even the 2 new civs seem to go that way, a new civ when released tends to be more strong than weak, then they rebalance it following the players feedback.
However, I felt like the extra wood didn’t make them OP, but I’ll remove it again if that’s the case.
I think that meso would be fine with eagles and skirms, since they just need to defend.
They wouldn’t be at the same level of plumes, venetians arbs would be fast as rattan, but of course with less HP and PA.
Again, this is also compensate by terrible cavalry.
I don’t know, I look at the 2 meso civs (that are some of the most similar civs considering venetians cav) and both have stellar eco bonus (+3 CC and basically resources for free) and bonuses for their archers rush (faster TT and cheaper archers).
If I look at the venetians, they do have a better archer bonus, but their eco is a lot less consistent. You have more resources at the start, and then once you spend those you don’t have anything, while meso’s eco becomes even more strongher.
If you then look at britons, they have, both an eco bonus for early aggression and one for boom, and 2 great bonuses for archers (extra range is arguably on pair with extra speed). On top of that britons also have in comparison better cav.
Comparing the venetians with britons, venetians may have a stronger start (maybe…) but they would lose a lot after castle age.
I mean, to see if the venetians would be balanced, I compared them with such civs that seemed the most similar, and looking at those (and viets too) they seem about at the same level, maybe stronger on a certain aspect or moment of the game, but then weaker on another one.
I don’t know, it seems like the new tartars’ bonus, which is far from being balanced.
I already gave them 3 bonuses to help them get on fish faster, if I also gave them a DF then it becomes even more broken like tartars.
I actually thought too of giving them a SF under the TC, but I fear that this would be supper buggy.
Pretty Meh bonus if I have to be onest, like a worse version of the bizzantines’ bonus. And it wouldn’t have an historic base (Venice had a lot of fires actually 11…).
It was actually possible, it required both a land army and a fleet but it was doable. I also designed a campaign mission around one of the most famous sieges of Venice.
What did I gave them for booming? The university discount? The relic bonus? Those aren’t that strong onestly, the first just have 3 tech that are meaningful. As for the second, yes is more of a pro player UT, but it wasn’t actually suggested by me, but by another user. I however think that it fit them, because they aren’t a boom civ, but they can still help the if they don’t get an advantage in feudal.
I may had based my design most on pro play, I onestly think that I was careful to avoid that (free resources and speed bonus are easy bonus to use…) but I may be wrong on that.
When I designed this civ, I did it with in mind the idea of making it an aggressive all in civ, with a super fast and easy start and then nothing that would distinguish their castle age. That both on land and water.
That because both Italians and Sicilians (at least it seems to…) are booming civ. Venetians instead was famous for quick lighting campaigns.
I don’t think that venetians are a booming civ, a booming civ are britons (cheaper TC), slavs (faster farming), chinese (more vills, cheaper techs), japs (faster fishing), vikings (free WB and HC), all civs with bonuses that let you get a ton of resources as the games goes on (more than 150w and 150g).
The extra resources or the getting on fish earlier is to let them get on archers faster. Even the relics UT is to let them keep up with being aggressive. I see them popular with 1 TC only strategies.
They can also use their bonus to boom (like any civ can boom), but you wouldn’t use them to their full extent then.
The game is full of civ that aren’t balanced for all elos, just look at examples like chinese or franks.
Just to complete a bit this fan made civ design, I’ll add some pictures of venetian castles. Since both the sicilians and the burgundians have their unique castle design (despite sharing the general architecture with other civs) I think that venetians too could get it, so I’ll post some ideas about it.
In general, they are a bit different from other castles that you see in aoe2, since for the protection of the city, the lagoon and the fleet was enough (with heavy and big ships, you can’t navigate everywhere in the lagoon, since it requires underwater canals, while venetians used flat bottom boats that invaders usually lack, since they came form the open sea, also those canals were easy to block if necessary) but their fortresses were needed in their overseas territories, and and often they were built along the coastline. Later one, with their new territories in North Italy, they had to build some “land castles” but in this case, again, they differ from more medieval castles, since in the 1400/1500 the architecture stile changed.
So here are some ideas for how the venetians castle in game should look like:
I don’t think faster archers are necessarily broken, at least not any more than CAs. Could be interesting to have that bonus but no thumb ring to balance it out.
Can I say just how much I love this? Congrats on an amazing job! Of course, as you said, some tweaks can be made here and there, but your presentation is incredible, with lots of great details and info and it really makes you think of the things you could do if the Venetians were to be part of a future DLC. I always felt the Italians failed to represent them and they should have been a distinct civilization in the first place, and what you wrote here (including the bits about their fascinating history) shows there are plenty of reasons for this to happen. Question is if it will at some point.
