The Kanem empire was one of the most important and long-lasting empires in Africa. After late XIV century, it changed to the Bornu empire, whick lasted until XIX century.
I believe the Kanem should be considered for a civilization in Age of Empires II.
Their features should consider:
Trans-saharan trade
Their main commodity was slaves
Their Cavalry gave them military superiority
Nomadic lifestyle
Wealth was measured in livestock
Therefore, some of the features I believe might fit are:
Resilience of the trade units
-Trade carts gain an attack, or
-Trade carts have a higher HP
Clustering trade units
-Trade carts increment HP of nearby trade carts
Slave trading
-Trading by land generates free villagers at the market, or
-You can garrison villagers at the market, which would be picked and carried by the trade cart, to earn
extra gold when completing the trip, or
-Killed enemy units generates temporary extra gold on land trading (as if it was captured and sold)
Light cavarly bonus
Moving houses or economic buildings
-Discount on houses, or
-houses, mills and lumber and mining camps can be deconstructed (which saves the invested wood)
Livestock can be garrisoned at the market to generate gold.
Generating villagers with tests carts is superfluous and borderline detrimental. Its benefits would be Super niche.
In fact an economy focused on trade is gonna be low tier on dark age starts maps
By the time you start major trade in team games you’ll not be spamming villager creation and instead likely have deleted extraneous villagers to start focusing on your military outflow.
Saving livestock to be used ag a market to play Relic Jr… is a noob trap. You’re going to be so much food behind an enemy who eats his sheep and therefore will likely lose sooner.
A better bonus might be that herding and or hunting generate gold. Much better application and useful for Drushes.
They also had heavy cavalry and dont forget about the gunpowder revolution of Idris Alooma or thr fact that while not a naval civ fishing Lake Chad was key to swttlement for the kanembornu. Actually it was also key for Songhai come to think of if
Very interesting. My idea is precisely to discuss the features, techs and unique units in order to have a nice and balanced civ.
In that case one or two trade civ bonuses might be included, but not all those that I posted. The idea is to represent their trading abilities.
For example:
-Trade carts have a higher HP
I like your idea
They might have a cavarly bonus then (not just light cavarly)
I focused only on medieval times, but you’re right, it might be considered.
-Generate gold for every killed enemy unit (option 2: Generate gold for every killed enemy villager) (Option 3: Generate gold for every killed enemy unit nearby your buildings)
-A Melee cavarly bonus
-Houses, mills and lumber and mining camps can be deconstructed
-Herding and hunting generate gold.
-Other
Team bonus:
-Trade carts have higher XP
In “Other” there might be something related to fishing (e.g. cheaper fishing traps), monastery (cheaper monasteries) or monks (faster monks)
Features:
-Generate gold for every killed enemy unit
-A Melee cavarly bonus
-Houses, mills and lumber and mining camps can be deconstructed
-Herding and hunting generate gold.
-Fishing traps are cheaper
Unique unit: X (cavarly)
Unique techs:
-Castle: Monks are faster
-Imperial: X