New East Asian Regional Unit Idea: Fire Lancers

With the hope that Jurchens, Tanguts and Khitans be added to the game in the near future. Could there be a design for a new Regional Cavalry Unit shared by these three civs and the current Chinese called the Fire Lancer.

Unique Effect: First hit against any unit shocks the opponent, stunning them for 1 second, which essentially makes them unable to move or attack for 1 second.(could be tweaked for balance)

With this new Regional Units, each of these civs could get some bonus which would give different effects to these units. Such as, More Armor, Health, Increased Damage, Increased stun time, Cost reduction, Bonus Damage to buildings etc.

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stunning and other status effects like this (poison, slowing or burning come to mind) donā€™t feel like age of empires 2

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Even charged attacks like coustillier and urumi are already problematic.

All this kind of stuff is just usually extremely snowbally and unfun to play against.

I donā€™t say there canā€™t be nice effects. I personally spoke out for things like a ā€œspeed chargeā€ for elephants. ### ##### that reduces interaction is bad.

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did you get censored because you wrote ā€˜butā€™ and then ā€˜stuffā€™, and that sounds like fifth base? thatā€™s so funny

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It is true that the design of OP, such like the target being completely frozen or the effect having an effective time, does not cater to the style of AoE2.

But in the other way, we can refer to the Obuch, making unit attacks change the targetā€™s stats, which can make enemies slower, slower to fire, etc. This may be better accepted. I give this concept to the UU of the potential Jurchen civilization, the flail cavalry.


I donā€™t like making the Fire Lancer a cavalry unit.

The cavalry type of the Fire Lancer in AoE4, I think it refers to certain artworks on the Internet, and it emphasizes the Mongolian military style as a Yuan Dynasty unit. Mechanically, the AoE4 Fire Lancer is just like a Coustillier + Tarkan + trample damage, no such a fancy shock effect, but even if this design is used in AoE2, there will still be problems.

This weapon tends to be better suited to infantry use. As far as I know, it is indeed mostly used by infantry. In my opinion, the fire lancer is more suitable as a foot unit, and may simply serve as a predecessor to the Hand Cannoneer, without a fancy gimmick or particularly powerful effect. In this way, it would not affect the balance of the existing civilizations too much.

Although I do agree with you to some extent but letā€™s be honest, neither did dodging projectiles, reducing armor or charge attacks. But it has been implemented in game. Iā€™m just stating potential changes.

I see value in your point, but the point Iā€™m trying to make is that these effects are unique and could be implemented.

I donā€™t like this change, as this just makes them just weaker hand cannons. Perhaps they could be a separate unit that has extra range and counters Infantry.

I donā€™t have any problem of them being Infantry Units tho.

Perhaps, dealing half damage for a certain amount of time could be acceptable as the ā€œshockā€ effect?

They are trainable in the Castle Age and do not require Chemistry.
Somewhat they would still be useful. Also, since the unit is going to be accessible to existing civilizations, it must not be ā€œtoo usefulā€ to affect the existing balance too much.

Making the FL have a longer range than HC is pretty wrong. This seems to mean that you may not know the actual working principle of fire lances, its development history and relationship with hand cannons.

To me, symbolizing the development of fire lance into hand cannon in history is an important purpose of this design. Making FL a separate unit is an even more ambivalent design for me personally.

Do we really need such a gimmick? Especially for a regional unit rather than for an UU.

Sorry about the confusion, by extra range I meant extra range than normal Infantry not HC. I was thinking along the lines of Kamayuks.

Iā€™m not keen on the stun attack suggestion, it seems pretty anti-fun to me, especially for a cavalry unit. Player input is such a fundamental part of computer games that I think developers should be very wary of allowing it to be taken away or restricted, even for a short time. In particular, there should always be a way to avoid or prevent these kinds of mechanics. In an RPG or beat-em-up thatā€™s usually done with a dodge or block or interrupt, but I donā€™t see how it could work in an RTS like AoE2.

(Then again, maybe I have an extreme view on this kind of thing ā€“ even cinematics in games can annoy me for the same reason.)

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I also envision the Fire Lancers as a East Asian regional infantry unit, however unlike Upmost who places them as predecessors to the Hand Cannoneer, I propose them to be a siege infantry unit trained at the Siege Workshop and do not have an elite upgrade. They function similarly to a Fire Ship and are good against siege weapons and buildings but are weak against anything else. I know there is a Flamethrower unit in the Scenario Editor but Iā€™m not a big fan of siege weapons moving on its own we already have several siege weapons like that and I donā€™t want another one, itā€™ll be way cooler to have a siege infantry wielding a fire lance.

Alternatively, the East Asian regional unit could be the Grenadier, again a siege infantry that is only good against siege weapons and buildings, though throws primitive ceramic grenades rather than shooting out flame.

This can fit multiple civis not just east asian.Byzantines also had greek fire throwers.

Iā€™m really open to the idea of new regional units for potential civs. Can be a replacement of generic units like DOI civs with EA or replacement of generic upgrades like Poles and Lithuanians with WH.

Fire Lancer has a perfect potential to replace knight or LS (militia and maa should be remained same for balance purpose). However stun is just too much gimmick for this game.

The Fire Lancer should be a Halberdier with a charged gunpowder attack with low range but also minimum range. It does not use its gunpowder attack while being engaged in a melee fight but it can fire from a few tiles away at approaching cavalry.

ā€œ[The Fire Lance] began as a small pyrotechnic device attached to a polearm weapon, used to gain a shock advantage at the start of a melee.ā€

Iā€™m not really a fan of stunning effects.

I think it will be a nightmare to balance a trash unit with both melee and ranged attack. Maybe sticking to knight replacement will be better.

My idea

Cost - 65f/70g
TT - 30 sec
HP - 100, 120
Attack - 9, 11 (melee) and 25, 30 (pierce)
ROF - 2.0
CD - 40 seconds
Range - 5
Accuracy - 60%
Armor - 2/2
Upgrade cost - 500f/400g
Upgrade time - 100 seconds

I think East Asian civs could have something called Flail Cavalry as a knight replacement. Horseback flail was widely used in medieval East Asia. On the contrary, the fire lance was mostly used as an infantry weapon during siege or siege defense. I envision it to be a unit trainable at the siege workshop but doesnā€™t have an elite upgrade, it would function similarly to a land version of the fire ship and has bonus damage against siege weapons and buildings, but is weak against anything else.

This could be a flamethrower, it exists in scenario editor

Yes but we already have several siege weapons moving on their own, so adding a flame-throwing siege infantry would be way cooler.