One time use techs like Paper Money and Cuman Mercenaries are underwhelming and do little to add to the strategic depth of the civ.
The design of these unique techs seems lazy.
For Cuman Mercenaries, Cuman dude pays for the upgrade and his allies get free Kipchaks mercenaries? What???
Wouldn’t it make more sense to allow allies to train Kipchaks whenever they need it, but make them more expensive and only allow them to have 10 at a time? If your allies are Cuman too they get a free one every minute or something.
As for the Paper Money, giving allies a lump sum of gold add little depth to gameplay.
Get upgrade, get money. BORING.
It would make more sense for the upgrade to improve trade somehow or change some unit’s gold cost into a wood cost like the Persian’s Kamandaran and have a little more impact on the eco since you know, you’re reforming from coins to paper…
The Vietnamese are underwhelming already but Paper Money is just depressing.
I think these changes would make the techs a little more impactful and interesting to gameplay, and make more sense in a logical manner as well.
Both UT are good. Cumans might be situational, but paper money is not. It gives yourr allies 66% of the gold needed to research paladin. Cam be a game changer.
Cumans could be super useful for certain civs like turks or Magyar. All in all, good techs
Vietnamese are definitely not underwhelming, and ever since they dropped the gold cost of Paper Money, it’s actually been pretty badass. Dunno why you think it’s underwhelming, I’ve been in so many 1v1s where it’s actually dug me out of a hole and gave me a fighting chance back in the game, or just gave me more gold to play with to stall a game out so I could get to rattan halb deathball.
Source? 100+ wins as Vietnamese They’re probably my favorite archer civ, having battle elephants and bombard cannons are pretty awesome and in post imp they don’t need that much gold to fight.
As for Cuman mercenaries, it’s not the best tech and doesn’t have a place in 1v1s but not every civ needs an amazing post imp tech. Vikings are an amazing civ and you rarely see people research berserkergang, kinda the same logic with Cumans since they’re such a powerhouse otherwise
This has been my gut feeling about both techs, but I don’t play many team games, so i haven’t compiled a lot of real game experience in that context. I will say some of your suggestions for replacement might be a bit over powered, but I get you’re just spitballing.
I feel like the Berber castle age tech is a really nice team bonus, that might be more in line with what you’d want to see from vietnamese and cuman. They’re techs probably do have good situational use, but in a long team game with essentially infinite gold, I’d rather have the Berber ally then Viet or cuman, based on the bonus.
Cumans can additionally tain every 2 minutes another kipchak for free, which adds up uo to 10 again if not used in time. Allies only get the flat 10 and no refill.
Vietnamese get a additionally a gold trickle euwal to 0.75 of a relic. Allies don’t get this additional benefit.
Cumans don’t reaaaly need a buff but Vietnamese sure can do.
Lastly huns tech atheism needs to be adjusted, since it useless in 99% of games.
Atheism reduces additional enemy relic income by 15%.
Since this tech isn’t worth the cost in 1v1 and isn’t that helpful for teammates if they don’t have any archer upgrades, it seems way too situational and therefore hardly used. What if Cuman Mercenaries took a little bit longer to research +20-60s (overall 60-100s), but made kipchaks immediately available for use? Then there is more of a reason to use this tech in an emergency situation. You are spending more resources per kipchak but you gain the ability of having units available. Since it takes 200s to make 10 kipchaks but 60-100s to research, it would amount to getting 5-7 overpriced kipchaks instantly.
Or you could just go a whole new route and change their UT to give 0 frame delay for kipchaks. So basically just make cumans pay resources and research time for something they had for free. It would prevent the kipchak from being really strong until late imp which I don’t see a problem with.
They’re probably my favorite archer civ, having battle elephants and bombard cannons are pretty awesome and in post imp they don’t need that much gold to fight.