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Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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Balance changes:
Houses now have -2/-1/1/3 melee armor Dark/Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age (previously 0/1/2/3 Dark/Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age).

Palisade Walls now cost 3w each (previously 2w).

Aztecs: non-Elite Jaguar Warrior now have 65 HP (previously 50 HP).

Bohemians: Hussite Wagon speed reduced from 0.85 to 0.8

Burmese: manipuri cavalry no longer gives +6 attack vs buildings and no longer affects Arambai, now gives stable units +5 attack vs archers.

Byzantines: Team Bonus: Monks now heal +100% faster (previously +50%).

Celts: non-Elite Woad Raider now have 10 attack (previously 8 attack).

Cumans: Archery Range and Stable discount toned down to -75w from -100w.

Ethiopians: non-Elite Shotel Warrior now have 45 HP (previously 40 HP), upgrade to Elite now costs 900f 450g (previously 1200f 550g).

Incas: non-Elite Kamayuk now have 1 melee armor and 70 HP (previously 0 melee armor and 60 HP).

Japanese: non-Elite Samurai now have 10 attack and 70 HP (previously 8 attack and 60 HP), upgrade to Elite now costs 750f 650g (previously 950f 875g).

Malians: non-Elite Gbeto now have 35 HP (previously 30 HP).

Poles: Have access to Siege Engineers, (Elite) Obuch now train in 12 seconds (previously 9 seconds).

Teutons: non-Elite Teutonic Knight now have 14 attack and 7 melee armor (previously 12 attack and 5 melee armor), upgrade to Elite now costs 950f 500g (previously 1200f 600g).

Vikings: infantry HP bonus now applies at the start of feudal age instead of 10%/15%/20% more HP in feudal/Castle/Imperial. Lose Thumb Ring.
(Standard) Berserk now have 12 base attack (from 9) and 1 base melee armor (from 0), upgrade to elite now costs 1075f 475g (previously 1300f 550g). Elite Berserk training time reduced from 14 seconds to 12 seconds.

Also Tamerlane and Tariq Coop campaigns are available, plus quickplay vs AI, and new mini tech tree when you hover over civ icon.

Please if anyone finds other balance change post here, thanks:)

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That’s… a weird change. I’d expect a buff, and I can’t call this one. It is now even more deadly for archers to be in close combat with Burmese Battle Elephants, but that was always the case, and they can just kite them. The bonus damage vs buildings was an interesting effect.

EDIT: Somehow I forgot that Burmese have decent Knight and Light Cav lines that get affected by this tech. Then it’s a good buff!

Probably a fine idea.

Oooow that is daring, but I like it!

Where? Sounds like a good feature for newer players!

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In addition, ladder arabia has been replaced with KOTD4 arabia. I absolutely love this.

By the way i like cumans balance change, I’m neutral with burmese balance change and I hate Vikings change.

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Vikings losing Thumb Ring sounds like a terrible change. Now they can’t make fully upgraded crossbows/arbs or any cavalry. Basically Celts without the good Siege, or Slavs without Boyars and Hussars. Having the option of a full archer line was what set Vikings apart from other Infantry civilizations.

The Burmese change sounds pretty good for their Hussars and Cavaliers, given how weak their Skirms are against Archers, now you can basically go full Infantry + Cavalry against archer civs.

Cumans change seems fine as well, 100w for these buildings is still good.

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Wield change… They just change burmese as same path of Turks. Now Manipur Hussar become very deadly against archer. They lacking second armor of archer, so make their hussar bonus damage against archer? Uninteresting and arbitrary concept.

It is fine change.

I don’t think Vikings nerf is needed more than other good civs like Franks/Mayans. Just make infantry HP bonus full 20% from feudal is marginal change. It is better to also reduce cost of Cheiftains and/or give 25% HP bonus on Imperial.

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BURMESE
Don’t see why manipur calvary can’t apply to buildings and archers. This tech won’t save them in castle or early imp against archers where they struggle. Why not give the tech bonus against both since they don’t get siege rams? At least you would be rewarded by having a decent army to push with if you survive that late in the game. Don’t think this change will affect much at the top level in 1v1 but maybe in TG.

The previous arambai change was a nerf imo. Arambai still are weak compared to conquistadors. Should buff their damage by +1 to 13/16 and/or have Parthian tactics affect them.

One of my unique ways of buffing the civ is to give monks the ability to heal siege. Not sure how strong it would be but it’s something novel and adds to their monk theme. Seems like it would be useful for dealing with archers.

Also there are new changes that OP missed. So far here’s the full list so far:

- Houses now have -2/-1/1/3 melee armor Dark/Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age (previously 0/1/2/3 Dark/Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age).

- Palisade Walls now cost 3w each (previously 2w).

- Aztecs: non-Elite Jaguar Warrior now have 65 HP (previously 50 HP).

- Burmese: Manipur Cavalry now gives +5 against archers (previously +6 against buildings), no longer applies to Arambai.

- Byzantines: Team Bonus: Monks now heal +100% faster (previously +50%).

- Celts: non-Elite Woad Raider now have 10 attack (previously 8 attack).

- Cumans: Stables and Archery Ranges now cost -75w each (previously -100w).

- Ethiopians: non-Elite Shotel Warrior now have 45 HP (previously 40 HP), upgrade to Elite now costs 900f 450g (previously 1200f 550g).

- Incas: non-Elite Kamayuk now have 1 melee armor and 70 HP (previously 0 melee armor and 60 HP).

- Japanese: non-Elite Samurai now have 10 attack and 70 HP (previously 8 attack and 60 HP), upgrade to Elite now costs 750f 650g (previously 950f 875g).

- Malians: non-Elite Gbeto now have 35 HP (previously 30 HP).

- Poles: Have access to Siege Engineers, (Elite) Obuch now train in 12 seconds (previously 9 seconds).

- Teutons: non-Elite Teutonic Knight now have 14 attack and 7 melee armor (previously 12 attack and 5 melee armor), upgrade to Elite now costs 950f 500g (previously 1200f 600g).

- Vikings: Lose access to Thumb Ring, infantry now have +20% HP from Feudal Age (previously +10/15/20% HP Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age), non-Elite Berserk now have 12 attack and 1 melee armor (previously 9 attack and 0 melee armor), upgrade to Elite now costs 1075f 475g (previously 1300f 550g).

  • Some other changes:

- Nomad has a treaty that lasts 5 minutes/until all TCs are up, while the treaty is active the players can’t attack each other.

- Arabia gen changed to KotD Arabia gen.

- Tamerlane, Tariq ibn Ziyad Coop added. Additionally, you can opt to play the opening/ending slideshows.

- Tech Tree Preview, which gives you a quick look at which technologies/units you have access to, which techs are/aren’t researched.

- Middle Eastern, Central Asian, Asian, South East Asian, African civilizations and Indians receive unique design on their trade carts.

- Handicap system.

- Quick Play vs AI.- Tech Tree Preview.

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Viking nerf was needed since the addition of chieftains and the removal of the castle requirement for longboats.

The byzantine team bonus is like another thing that doesn’t help the civ, but now they are better at RPG’s where monks are the healing units.

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Liked almost all the changes. That being said, balance could be waited till KOTD4. Wonder if the tournament will be played with or without this patch. I prefer without.

Great change. I never liked the tech especially for Arambai. +5 is probably too big but again it is an Imperial tech. So I don’t really mind. Maybe Howdah can go back to +1/+1 again.

Much needed one. The most expected and proposed one without any doubt.

Have mixed feelings about this. Why nerf them instead of Franks and Chinese (yes they are still the beast)? Losing TR or nerfing their eco were the two most proposed nerf ideas for them I’m glad that they left their eco untouched. One of if not the best eco in the game and lack of late game powerful unit was their identity and this change kept that.
Vikings LS with 72 HP and 3/3 armor along with their insane eco will probably be very good in some situation. I guess they will finally be a proper infantry civ instead of a top 5 archer civ. Also they will be different from the rest of the naval & practically archer civs - Japanese, Italians, Koreans, Portuguese and Malay. That’s very good to make them unique. Maybe they can get last cavalry armor or Bloodlines as a compensation.

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Very hyped for buffing infantry UU especially Castle age version!
All change to infantry UU is great except Teutonic Knight. They outclass every Melee fight except Jaguar/Cataphract or Samurai and don’t need huge buff.
Teutonic Knights are not a good option in general for sure, but they are broken in some specific situation. Some infantry civ like Goths or Celts will more struggle against Teutons.

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honestly tho with the housing, walling (3w!!!) and arabia (some of the kotd4 maps are literally unwallable), I think we will see a lot more small walls and a lot less full walls

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Man teutonic knight in castle age is really bad, 14 attack and 7 armor is enough motivation to create them, the buff on castle age infantry units is good overall, can’t really complain, the woad rider and samurai were always under performing.

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Welcome to DE.

No Franks / Mayans nerf 11
hahaha

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I love FE. The placeholders of new 3 unlockable portraits.
PR7-068PR7-069PR7-070

New trade units skins ! For Asians, Middle East and Africans ( but somehow African image broke here )
image

2021-11-02 (2)2021-11-02 (1)
Also it appears that Scenario Editor has own tips and tricks shown on loading screen.

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A more detailed opinion on the changes.

I like this change, I don’t think it will make walling unviable but it will push it a little bit later in the game since the cost of walling/repairing houses should be harder to afford in the super early game.

This one doesn’t make sense to me, the upgrade comes too late in the game to be useful most of the times, while burmese expecially struggle against the early imp power spike from bracer civs. I don’t think it really helps versus CA aswell which is burmese greatest weakness.

My personal unpopular opinion is that devs should stop being stubborn and give burmese second archer armor upgrade, I think it’s quite clear that without decent Eskirms at least in castle age is really hard to compete on arabia and pretty frustrating to play aswell. Even turks despite having free upgrading tanky scout line are still a bottom of the barrel civ for arabia.

My personal guess is that this change is going to have more impact on TG closed maps or something like that

I think this bonus was pretty underrated, faster healing was already quite noticeable with monk rushing or when defending from siege pushes with redemption monks, so I wonder what’s going to be the effect of this change on these situations. I would have honestly preferred to give Byzantines herbal medicine if anything.

Like, that bonus definitely needed to be toned down.

Not sure about this, poles needed something versus archers late game but I’m not sure this one is the good buff. Looks mostly oriented to closed maps and poles are already pretty good there, while on more open maps it’s harder to tech into onagers. I’ve not completely figured out poles myself so I’ve not a strong opinion on this.

Obuch nerf is good.

Well this is almost a civ redesign, I don’t think Vikings were in a spot that justified this change and I don’t like that they’re basically unviable on TGs right now on land maps. Open maps TGs already struggle with civ variety and this change will remove one possible flank civ basically.

I also think that infantry buffs will not be nearly enough to compensate lack of thumb ring on 1v1, Vikings mostly relied on their imp arbalest power spike, getting there as soon as possible thanks to their eco. They basically traded this for a 4HP buff on m@a, a 3HP buff for LS and a bit better berserks (which you still need castles for, ecc ecc…).

Well this is basically a buff to infantry play in imp, since these UUs are better while waiting to float the res for the elite upgrade. I’m fine with the changes, but I don’t see infantry UUs consistently played in castle age anyway.

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Certainly some interesting changes. That viking change actually gives the civ it’s identity back. It’s an infantry civ which was never played as one.

But also you guys are crying about vikings being useless? Are you so quick to forget aztecs don’t have TR and still heavily use archers?

That Burmese change is very interesting. Someone do th math on hits to kill various archers? I don’t think it helps them enough.

Guessing 2 hits from a cavalier v an arb lacking 2 armour otherwise 3.

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At least Aztecs have siege onagers and 95 HP monk as actual late game units. Vikings just have berserks. Ig now there is no way they ever lose free wheelbarrow/handcart ever now that they made sure their late game would be the absolute worst.

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Looks like black is a player color now.

Hopefully they will add new monk skins soon.

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This must be the image having quality issues rather than the player colour.

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So Burmese buff seems useless imho, as it comes too late, and Arambai is even more useless now.
Good thing I never made them.

Infantry UU buffs, meh, they’re still too food heavy in castle age, most infantry UUs cost as much food as knights (some even more), while being extremely slower and painfully weak vs archers.
I would have preferred a food cost cut first, like -10F for all infantry UUs (obviously with some exceptions like Karambit, Shotel, Gbeto).

Cumans nerf, good.
Wall and house nerf…11
I just hope it will stop the nerf threads at least.

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Yeah the dude who changed manipur cavalry probs forgot halberdiers exist 11

1 Like