Hello everyone, I would design a new unit that I believe will bring pleasure and variety to the game: War Dog.
Dark age:
Hp: 25
Attack: 3
Speed: 0.95
Armor: 0/1
Training time: 24
Cost: 30 food 15 gold
Feudal age:
Hp: 35
Attack: 4
Speed: 0.95
Armor: 1/1
Training time: 20
It will be trained in Barrack**
The cost always remains the same. Statistics do not change after feudal. This is the best stat and cost I can think of. I don’t know how much use it will get. It doesn’t need to be used very often, or on every map. But I’d like it to be an option that can be considered in at least some situations and maps. Would you like such a unit?
Yes the Americans got dogs before contact, but are now almost practical extinct, fun fact, (so far I know) every time an European wrote about a Native American dog, they noticed that the dogs did not bark.
Whether a war dog, guard dog, herding dog, or a combination thereof, I’d really like to see dogs in the game, at least as a Scenario Editor unit. Multiple breeds from different parts of the world would be nice.
In AoE3, the Inca can train Peruvian Hairless Dogs (its model, unlike the icon, is recycled from joke unit Fluffy, though). The Aztecs also kept hairless dogs, called Xoloitzcuintle.
The War Dog description in AoE3 implies that the conquistadors used dogs extensively against the Native Americans.
The Amerindian domesticated various species : llama, alpacas, turkeys, guinea pigs, ducks ( Muscovy duck, a species different than the european Mallard duck). All these species can be added to the game except for the guinea pig because he is too tiny, the size of an human foot, we have already giant super sized chicken but this one will be too far unrealistic.
Amerindian also had two variety of dogs. The first one was the domestic dog who came from Asia in prehistory. Those dogs where not imported in South America by the paleoamerican hunter gatherer. Maybe because there were not adapted to the tropical diseases. Later they finally come in South America with the farmer who brought the maize. The earliest archaeological evidence of dogs in central Mexico and northern South America dating from 5200 to 5000 Before Present. Then 2500 BP the dog expand in region east of the Andes in Argentina. It’s appear than precolombian Amazonia never see domestic dogs. Modern dogs have very low ancestry from precolombian dogs.
The second one was the Fuegian dog domesticated in Tierra del fuego by the Selkʼnam people. DNA show than they were not a breed of dog but rather from south american fox the culpeo. Exterminated in early XX th century alongside their masters.
In Africa the dog come from Asia via Egypt and remain in the northern part of African until the Bantu migration. They reach the southern tip of Africa between 570 and 800 CE. Here there were adopted by the local inhabitant both the Khoikhoi herder and the San Hunter gatherer.
Australia and New Guinea got their dogs circa 2000 BC brought by austronesian expansion.
Few populations on earth live without dogs, only in remote part of the world : Easter Island, Tasmania before colonization (10 000 years of isolation until the XVII th century), precolombian Amazonia (maybe because of disease affecting dogs in this part of the world).
In AoE3 the Incas use dog but this was not a war animal, this is just one of the many urealistic domestic / tamed animal of AoE3.
Dogs were used in war. The most notably case in the AoE franchise is the ability of the spanish explorer in AoE3 to train dogs. The spanish used armored dog one of them was called Becerrillo. Maybe in Aoe 2 a spanish war dog unit can reflect damage like the lamellar armor of the Khitans ? For their armor class maybe as shock infantry ?
I don’t know if they would call themselves “war dogs” in the Middle Ages.
They were better known as “war dogs” in ancient times.
Some civilizations in ancient times used them in actual combat.
It would be nice to have “war dogs,” but it would be important to give them bonus damage to cause some real damage… directed at a specific unit… perhaps bonus damage against archers or skirmishers.
But these “war dog” units should only exist for civilizations that historically used them at some point.
In the Dark Age, we have very few war units. In fact, only one. Therefore, in addition to the militia, it would be nice to see a war dog. It doesn’t need to be a very powerful unit. It would add great variety.
Actually, I’m also thinking about this: the reason fast-paced FC strategies like the Bosphorus are successful even in Arabia is because the Dark Ages are slow-paced and calm. It’s only in the second age, when the action starts, that it becomes difficult to stop FCs. Therefore, having a unit like a War Dog in the Dark Ages would be beneficial in this respect.
