New Civilization Idea - Wallachians

The origins of the Wallachians are a mystery, the majority of contemporary scholars such as Kekaumenos, John Kinnamos, Simon of Kéza, Poggio Bracciolini, Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, Nicolaus Olahus wrote that the Vlachs ancestors had been Roman colonists settled in Dacia Traiana as they speak a latin-based language, their name “Vlachs” comes from the old Germanic “stranger” which was used to describe the Romans and in their tongue they still call themselves “Romani” meaning “citizens of the Roman Empire”. While others such as William of Rubruck wrote that the Vlachs descended from the Ulac people.

The first independent Wallachian state appeared in 1330 when Basarab I the Founder revolted against the Kingdom of Hungary and defeated the Hungarian armies at the Battle of Posada. For most of their history, the Wallachians were sandwiched between the much stronger Hungarians, the Polish and the Ottomans and would often side with one or another to preserve their independence.

It is in this context that Vlad the Impaler appeared, who has a campaign in the game. The Wallachians were known of using hit and run tactics to harass and drain the armies of their much stronger opponents, until they had a chance at face to face combat, using the enviroment in their advantage, especially the swamps that could easily be used to lock an army into place and encircle it, taking advantage of their knowledge of the local area, and scorched land tactics, where the Wallachians would burn the fields and poison the water in front of all invading armies, in a further attempt to drain their resources and manpower.

In short, the Wallachians’ war strategy were rarely about charging your opponent heads on, as most of often than not, they would stand no chance, and more about picking your battles and using the land to your advantage. Vlad the Impaler’s famous night attack, when he charged into the Ottoman camps at midnight with his whole army, almost killing the sultan, was merely another piece of a long Wallachian tradition of fighting this way. Mircea the Elder previously defeated Sultan Baiazid I at the battle of Rovine with 12.000 troops against 40.000 with similar tactics. And before that, Basarab I the Founder earned Wallachia’s independence through an ambush at the Carpathian passes with 10.000 troops made out mostly of conscripted peasants against the Hungarian 30.000 troops army made out mostly of professional mercenaries.

Wallachians: Cavalry and archer civilization

  • Town Center technologies (except Age advancing) cost -50%
  • Archer-line gets +1/+2/+3 melee armor in Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age (not Skirmishers nor Cavalry Archers nor Hand Cannoneers)
  • Villagers get +3 vs cavalry, archers and monks
  • Cavalry Archers get +1 attack

Team bonus: Siege Workshops cost -50 wood

Unique techs:

  • Night attack (200 food 200 wood): Cavalry Archers and Voivodes get +2 vs standard buildings
  • Artillery positioning (400 wood 400 gold): Bombard cannons move 30% faster and get -2 minimum range.

Unique unit:
Voivode: Light Cavalry with high pierce armor. Bonus attack vs archers
Cost: 65 food 40 gold
Upgrade cost: 800 food 500 gold
Creation time 19s. Speed 1.45 Reload time 2.
HP: 50 (60)
Attack: 6 (7) melee
Armor: 0/3 (0/4)
Armor class: Cavalry

Upgrades: Blacksmith, Stable
Attack bonus: Archers 3 (5)
Barracks: Two-Handed Swordsman – Halberdier – All techs
Archery range: Arbalester – Elite Skirmisher – Heavy Cav Archer – Hand Cannoneer – All techs
Stable: Hussar – Cavalier – All techs
Siege workshop: Siege Ram –Siege Onager – Heavy Scorpion – Bombard Cannon – Siege Tower
Blacksmith: Lack the last infantry armor upgrade
Dock: Galleon – Fast Fire Ship –Demolition Ship –Cannon Galleon – Lack Shipwright
University: Lack Architecture – Bombard Tower – Fortified Wall – Guard Tower – Keep – Arrowslits
Castle: Lack Hoardings
Monastery: Lack Redemption – Atonement – Sanctity – Faith – Block Printing
Economy: Lack Crop Rotation

Voivode concept art:



Voivode 3

3 Likes

I had putted forward an idea about “Țintaşi”, the Vlach marksmen, as their UU before.
Low HP glass cannon, able to be a charged shot much like the coustillier. On the other hand, for reflecting the ambush, the attack from Țintaşi may not show their location automatically if they are out of your LoS.
There are only 5 foot archer UUs in the game, I hope there could be more.

Anyway, I just share my opinion. Put aside the balance problems from the bonus and tech tree you designing, it seems you have studied the Romanian history hard, well done.

4 Likes

I’ve thought of this style of thing as well, but for a different civ. I think that Vietnamese should lose Paper Money, and have it replaced with Guerilla Warefare. Guerilla Warefare then likely swaps places with Chatras, based on when you see the units that each affects. Not sure about the cost or research time, but the new UT would make it that all foot archers (including Skirmishers) no longer reveal their location when they attack, and possibly get a slight speed boost, or a boost to LoS.

1 Like

With Wallachia, it’s better then some suggestions about other Euro civs, but I think most people would rather the rest of the world gets some love now. I agree that it is kind of weird having the Dracula campaign where he doesn’t even play as his own civ, but Africa, Asia, and India all need more civs, and you could make a case for other areas as well.

2 Likes

Cav Archer is already good against Heavy Cavalries, with +1 attack, they will destroy everything except mass skirmisher+crossbow.

This unit is like mounted Eagle Warrior but it is more expensive and weaker than Eagles. It neef huge buff like gain more attack like 6, 7 (elite) → 8, 9 (elite), more hp 90, 100 (elite), 10s training time and more bonus attack against archers like +10 /+12.

Quite close to the burgundian bonus. But also applies to Town watch / Patrol and Loom.

I am not sure it this is really a useful bonus. Archers are already quite strong against melee units. I see no need for that in the game actually.

Weird, just weird. I could understand if it was a bonus against cav, so you could defend against cav raids a bit. Could be interesting bonus. But against ranged things? Bonus attack for villagers? Wasted.

Could possibly be extremely strong in castle. In Imp quite similar to recurve bow.

I miss some meaningful early agression or eco bonus. I think a civ that neither has early agression or eco bonus has a quite hard time.

Not sure about that… Especially cav archers that can raise buildings can be really, really annoying…

For sure a strong yet situational bonus. BBC of them could possibly be even stronger than houfnice.

The unit has too low HP. Maybe you should try to compare it with the tarkan. (I probably would even further decrease the gold ratio to about 30-35% if the main attack stays that low.)
But I’d like to see that kind of specialised anti-archer cav. Would be interesting.
Please also write how much bonus damage you would give to the Volovodes.

While the bonuses arent bad in theory, they are just fairly weak and only “good” against cav civs (and even against cav civs the civ is mediocre): the UU is awful (you almost oay yhe price of a Tarkhan for a unit thats not even a third as good), the eco bonus is mediocre at best (resources in town center techs doesnt matter nearly as much as research timeand the only bonus they can actively use against archer civs is extra attack on cav archers.

Tbh the extra armour on archers is still a fairly meh bonus. Its basically the same as the Vietnamese hp bonus but only on melee.

1 Like

I love the Unique Unit. (Tarkan Huszar)
Besides that it’s another Magyars, yet done much worse, let me explain why.

Developers back then gave Magyars a very unique feature that barely any civ had, having both fully upgraded Cavs and fully ugpraded Archery. With the cost of lacking any eco bonus.
You went safe, the civ has them all, eco bonus, siege bonus, and of course all the gun powder units. Basically Magyars minus the artistic touch. That’s not how civ should be designed.

I’m sorry.

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Other european suggestions had actual kingdoms empires or united under one guy.

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As far as I know, the impression that the Vietnamese were good at guerrilla tactics began with the Vietnam War, and there was no such description in the Middle Ages. On the other hand, the traditional Vietnamese bamboo light crossbow has been used from ancient times to the Vietnam War. After capturing muskets from the Ming army, they were also once quite good at using and making gunpowder weapons.

I prefer idea of “Țintaşi”, the Vlach marksmen, as their UU more than Voivode idea.
One of the reason is because it’s a Slavic word/title for Warlord, and Vlach are not considered Slavs, at least not by the majority of contemporary scholars you mentioned. And besides, there are a lot of Light Cavalry UU already.
Just my opinion.

To my knowledge, Guerilla Tactics were literally used by Le Loi to push back and defeat the Ming Dynasty, when they invaded Vietnam. It’s not something new, they always were good at it, it just became really obvious after they did really well against the US military in the Vietnam war.

Not such a special thing actually. Every force on the world use guerilla on the land they know well.
Similar to the ambush, they both are the common classic tactics in the world warfare history.
The Vietnamese people won the impression of guerilla master only after the Vietnam War.

Anyway I like an UT about the economy. They already own the stronger archery range units.
The Paper money could rename “Monetary Reform” for the better accuracy. Also, adjust it to the better exchange rate or the persistent effect maybe.

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The problem with paper money though, is that it’s pretty much useless, or at least very situational. If they played into the Guerilla Tactics theme, you could get some interesting archer style stuff.

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Well, more often be researched than many UTs like the Atheism, Burgundian Vineyards, Cuman Mercenaries, Great Wall, Greek Fire, Kataparuto, Hill Forts, Tigui, Nomads, Shatagni, Supremacy, Mahouts, Madrasah, Orthodoxy, Inquisition, etc. Especially, more often than the another Vietnamese UT, the Chatras. :joy:

In the fact, I saw it several times in the match. It is okay in the team game and in the 1v1 late game. It is criticized because of its disposable effect, people cannot feel its benefit with time goes by. Perhaps change its effect into giving a gold trickle by the half relic rate or into a thin gold trickle per TC.

Sorry for off-topic.

Chatras is actually kind of good now, it literally turns elephants into tanks.

You actually see Vineyards, Kataparuto, Supremacy, and Inquisition from time to time. Paper money isn’t so good, because it’s only 500 gold. Also, surely you agree that a Guerilla Tactics UT that stopped foot ranged units revealing their location would be cool?

Vietnamese elephants themselves are rare already.

Still obviously seldom than paper money. 11
At least Kataparuto is worth changing into the another UT and the monk-reveal UTs need more adjustments. Those above should have the higher priority to gain the update than the paper money. Anyway this is not the point.

When your gold mines is blocked by the oppose or the prices of the food and wood are low to 14 gold, you would hope you are able to pay 500 food and 300 wood to get this 500 gold. Of cause it can be better after updating.

No. The Vietnamese archers are useful enough. More HP arbalesters, high armor UUs, imperial skirmishers, all of them have made the Vietnamese an outstanding archer civ.

The mechanic about the charging bar is hard to keep balance, not suitable to be the abilities obtained afterwards, so do the features unable to show the advantage clearly at the statistics table or affecting stably and continuously. It is better to be a feature of the new unit rather than giving it to the regulars. We may not wanna see the abilities of the special units like the leiciai, coustilliers, konniks and serjeants becoming the common things of the regulars.

Let Tintasi or the other new unit get it.

So it’s a cavalry, archer, cavalry archer, siege, and gunpowder civilization?

It’s ridiculous, don’t quote me on history, but I don’t think historically vlachs had any gunpowder to speak of pre-ottomans. I can see it as a cavalry + archer civilization, but not gunpowder.

Also it can’t have a full siege workshop, only ethiopians can get that.
Not to mention the civ bonuses are bland and mostly either ridiculous, you don’t need to make army in feudal, just vil fight with wheelbarrow, or too weak, like the TC techs thing.

We will see vlachs for sure, alongside swiss, but get back on the drawing board with this one.
The UU seems mostly useless too, I can just make hussars or skirms.

A cool UU concept is lacking Parthian Tactics, but it’s a crossbow cavalryman with high damage and range, but a bit slower attack speed. Benefits from thumb ring and all other CA upgrades. Idk if Vlachs had that per se, but it’s something I foresee we will get in the next DLCs.

Give it full stable bar pala, archery range without parthian and HC, full barracks and blacksmith, lack plate mail, siege ram siege onager, no heavy scorp or BBC, whatever university with siege engineers, UU is that crossbow cav thing, civ bonuses benefit LC and eco in some way, UTs for the archer line and the UU, something like ranged units +2/+2 armor who knows.

Civ plays into scouts/UU or scouts/archers in 1v1, prefers flank in TG due to lacking pala and knight buffs, and on closed map goes for halb SO UU.