Tarkans have high Pierce Armour while Steppe Lancers have low Pierce Armour so they fill more different roles then Tarkans and Knights. The Traction Trebuchet is because they likely originate from ancient North East Asia and it also makes them more mobile which fits their style.
They should get a new Castle UU because Tarkans should just be trained from the Stable from the beginning. Same with Goths too but thatās a different topic.
Mongols:
Nomadic Architecture
Pasture
I know they conquered and ruled places later, but they conquered so many different places that they look out of place in Europe and the Middle East with their Asian architecture.
Tatars:
Pasture
Cumans:
Nomadic Architecture
Pasture
Persians:
Central Asian Architecture
Khitans:
Nomadic Architecture
Jurchens:
No change
Turks:
Steppe Lancer
Get Pierce Armour bonus from Light Cavalry
Changed Bonus: Scout Line and Steppe Lancer upgrades -50% cheaper and faster
Giving them Steppe Lancers with a Pierce Armour bonus gives Turks a small power spike in early Castle Age instead of just having a super strong Earle Imperial Age power spike.
Bulgarians and Magyars:
No change
I think they are perfectly fine and donāt need to be more nomadic. Europe would benefit from having itās own regional units tbh.
Maybe civs like Malians, Celts or Berbers:
Pasture
Some settled societies did a lot of animal husbandry.
How do you envision a shared nomadic architecture set that works for both Khitans in the east and Huns in the west?
IMHO there really need to be two of them, otherwise you end up with either tents for every single building from Feudal up to Imperial Age or with Huns building Chinese palaces on the ruins of Rome.
I think it should be tents from the beginning to the end. Yes I know most of them settled down at some point and yes I know that the Mongols conquered China, but the Mongols also conquered Russia so do you want to give them Eastern Asian architecture now?
The Huns are originally also an North East Asian civilisation too though. It is as logical for the Huns as it is for the Golden Horde to build Asian looking buildings in Europe. Castles are already unique so there is always some aspect of the civilisation that will look locally fitting. Though that kinda ignores the point that many civilisations probably shouldnāt have castles but that is a whole new topic.
Of course in a perfect world we could have 20 new architecture sets to represent every civilisation perfectly but since they seem to be really cheaping out on those I think asking for 1 has a higher chance of success then asking for 2.
The game is ultimately about realising the power fantasy of creating a huge empire. In the imperial era I want my Mongol city to look splendorous like Karakorum or Khanbalyk, not just the same set of yurts as before just with a couple more fancy colors.
It took about two centuries for the few Xiongnu elites to migrate westwards, assimilate dozens of other peoples on the way, and end up in Europe. Apart from a couple old aristocratic lineages, most Hunnic warriors were not Xiongnu but Turkic, Scythian, or Germanic. No one at Attilaās court remembered how āAsianā buildings were supposed to look like, and people who actually built stuff belonged to the conquered settled populations. Same goes for the Cumans.
They donāt have to add both at once. Make a western set when they work on an expansion adding the Khazars for example, and an eastern set when working on Tanguts and Tibetans.
People want to play civs like the Huns or Mongols because of the fantasy of being steppe nomads and not because of the fantasy of building huge cities, there is enough other civs for that.
There is not settled down architecture that really represents all of what the Mongols conquered anyway. But that doesnāt mean that the Imperial Age buildings canāt look fancy in some way.
But they even less so knew how Central European buildings would look like 1000 years later. I think an Asian looking Nomadic set would probably fit them the best. In reality they never build any major buildings, they never build a single castle or university.
The non-Khitan Pastures will have the same food gathering rate and food-per-wood ratio as generic farms?
That would be a nerf due to the upfront investment of Pastures. The current Pastures are a Khitan bonus and are meant to be balanced around their food bonus, whereas other civs are not balanced around this food eco.
You need to nerf Pastures first, then give a Pasture bonus to the Khitans to compensate for their loss.
When I play Mongols I roleplay nomading around in Feudal and empire-building in Imperial. Itās not exclusive to each other, and I described how it could look in the previous posts (nomadic structures transforming into sedentary ones).
Huns knew how contemporary Caucasian, Germanic, and Mediterranean buildings looked like, as thatās where their empire was located. They didnāt have to build stuff themselves because they had conquered peoples doing it for them.
A western nomadic set should resemble Caucasian, Western Asian, and Eastern European stuff, not the East Asian palaces built for the Xiongnu and the Mongols by Chinese and Tibetan architects.
This logic doesnāt really work in AoE2 because most of the civilisation defining features only come into play in Imperial Age. In the Feudal Age you donāt have Cavalry Archers.
So you donāt want a nomadic architecture set? Or do you want 2-4 nomadic architecture sets?
My argument is if we could only add one architecture set, we would have to do some compromise. Not everyone can get the perfect architecture set. And I think itās better for the Mongols and Huns to share an architecture then for the Mongols and Japanese.
I put another voice to preferring a more eastern nomadic set being a good fit for Huns and Cumans. I would rather that than Huns making ornate Gothic universities next to Tengri shrines. And I would prefer the Mongols not to be making Japanese buildings.
This isnāt even a difficult set to make, as there are multiple yurt models in the game already.
I know it does not correspond to history 1:1 (Franks only starting to train Axemen after building castles is another example) but I think thereās still a feeling of historical progression. Game time is counted by hundreds years for stuff like Wonder victory even if the actual playtime doesnāt reach more than two hours.
My power fantasy when playing Mongols, Huns, etc., is to conquer with my swift cavalry armies and build strong empires atop the ruins of my enemies. Building a splendid capital for the Khan is part of this fantasy.
I envision two sets, one for āWestern Steppeā and one for āEastern Steppeā. But in contrast to some others who imagine a Steppe set composed entirely of nomadic tents all the time, my wish is to see them evolve into more solid structures (and Iām not alone in this, judging by people earlier in the thread expressing doubts if a fully nomadic set can be done). All existing sets showcase progress throughout history, some do it better or worse, but at least they try, so why the Steppe sets couldnāt?
Iād like the Hungarians, looking across the river, to see the Mongol army living in a large cluster of yurts decorated with gold, silver, and silk, not in an East Asianāstyle city that belongs thousands of kilometers away from Eastern Europe. The empireās cavalry swept rapidly westward from the East, and yurts werenāt just portable for them but also a symbol of their culture and conquests.
In both campaigns you are in the conquering phase in every mission. Unlike the Goths campaign there is no āempire buildingā mission at the end.
Also many people in Mongolia still live in Yurts today, so it would certainly not be out of place for Imperial Age Mongols in AoM.
Of course more sets would be better but I think 1 set would already be much better then 0 sets. I would rather have Mongol looking Huns then them having any other already existing Architecture.
There are many more civs with more out of place architecture sets. Why do the Chinese still have Shinto Shrines?
So this isnāt a hard-set āwe should do thisā idea but just something iām throwing out there for food for thought. I know in the past I have said that I wanted a nomadic architecture set and a barbarian architecture set (for Goths, as well as a hopeful future DLC with like Vandals, Saxons, and another Barbarian invasion civ). What if they made the architecture set so that it could fit bothā¦? I think it would be hard, but something that starts with tents and yurts and then transitions into more rustic-looking standing buildings, but that donāt lean too hard into the E. Asia motif and still have some tents around? Kill two birds with one stone that way. Might be too out-there of an idea but thought iād at least throw it out thereā¦
Some yurts to accompany solid structures is perfectly fine in my book, itās just that Iād prefer if it wasnāt SOLELY yurts like some people are proposing. For the Eastern Steppe, Iād like to see something along these lines:
Because Microsoft is too greedy to hire more artists I guess
Perhaps one set for the Western Steppe and the barbarian civs? Though given the rumored Scandinavian DLC I suspect that Germanic barbarians would share architecture with Vikings instead.
Broadly speaking most nomadic peoples of the middle ages originate from the eastern steppe. While there are exceptions, generally theyāre all altaic peoples ethnically and linguistically.
If you go earlier, you get more westerly and iranian nomadic peoples. The only one that comes to mind for a medieval setting would be the alans. However the alans become more sedentary and settled in the caucasus throughout the medieval area. I think theyād share architecture with the georgians. The Alans that went into europe during the fall of rome were conquered by the byzantines in 534. So the more nomadic branch of alans during the medieval period were relatively short lived and early (longer, later, and more consequential than 3K, but whoās keeping count?)
rambling aside, I donāt think it makes sense for a āwestern steppeā set. Just a nomadic set.
Thatās fair. I admittedly kinda hope they donāt do a Scandinavian DLC, though there is a way that they could have a Scandinavian architecture work for Goths and future Vandals and Saxons civs as well, which would mitigate the need for the āBarbarianā architecture iāve previously mentioned.
ā¦which could then also mitigate the need for this. The Scandi set fill in for Barbarian civs as well, and then the nomadic set for the Eastern Steppe peoples. Huns are a toss-up on which set they get but the nomadic set would probably be better.
Architecture isnāt coded in genetics. Cumans and Huns in the gameās timeframe lived in the area stretching from Central Asia to Eastern Europe, and their subjects who were tasked with building stuff did so in local styles. Turks originated from East Asia as well and yet thereās nothing East Asian in their architecture, both in real life and in the game ā they adapted local Persian and Byzantine styles instead.
I posted images earlier in the thread how it could look like.
