From Aoe wiki
When the new civilizations are granted shiny bonuses and units with endless gimmick mechanics, they make the old civilizations look bland and create the illusion that something is wrong with them.
Not every civilization needs to have overcomplex units to be fun to play with.
Thanks for the feedback
Firstly: My suggestions are just that, suggestions
Some others have already laid out some more appropriate ideas and they are cool to see.
Secondly: To those opposed to the idea of changes, did you feel the same way about the Savar? Did it break the sanctity of the Persian civ?
It seems like the new changes to the Chinese have been quite popular and those are far more extensive than any of my ideas.
Lastly: as to balance, I didn’t list any unit costs, upgrade costs or unit stats so that seems like a moot point.
I’m not here to ruin the game, I just thought it would be an interesting discussion
Honestly I am upto improving civs tbh. Maybe old school players would still wanna play with European units for old civs for simplistic sake and ofc pro player scene.
However for me, from historical nerd lense, I dont like them at all. I always see there are lots of room to explore. Let’s say if I were to re-design Turks in 2025, I would’ve made Trebuchets having a unique upgrade which would’ve turned them to Orban Canon. For Saracens, I would’ve reworked Mamluke into Knight/Cavalry Archer switch unit. Rework navy and made Fire ship unique only to Byzantines and possibly Saracens too. Historically Fatimids did made a replica of their own “Greek fire”. Rename Genitour to Mounted Skirmisher and make it Iberian-ME region friendly.
So you have many factors which to count. Those were acceptable as Ensemble lacked research materials but not much so in 2025. This pretty much the reason why you see 3K civ backlash. I just hope they wont mess up Chronicles and I trust R@W team.
It does always come down to competitive gameplay versus historicity I suppose, can’t satisfy both audiences, though maybe there’s a way.
I agree with the fireship, such a niche historical unit for all Civs to have access to. Especially jarring is the case of the Mesoamerican navies in game but I guess realism would make them unable to compete.
I still believe it boils down to getting used to it. We got used to many new DE stuffs over time. I still think it wouldn’t be as hard as many ppl makes out to be. Rather was welcoming change. However to this day, I still heavily dislike how we still have European units for every other civs. Totally out of place.
Honest opinion, I would’ve preferred regional villagers and more regional units than elite unit skins.
If we’re going purely by history, the Turks should have had mounted skirmishers. But strangely, they are the only civilization that lacks even Elite Skirmishers.
I’m pretty sure the Turks didn’t need to ally with the Berbers to train top-tier mounted skirmishers.
Meso civilizations shouldn’t have stood a chance against the Spanish, and Ethiopians shouldn’t have top-tier siege either, if we’re being strictly historical. But following this trend would inevitably result in a few civilizations massively dominating the others, which wouldn’t be much fun.
Some food for thought:
You can not only replace an Imperial Age unit with a unique / regional units but also a Feudal Age / Castle Age unit. That would allow to give Civs a power spike in the early game / mid game without affecting the later stages of the game.
E.g. Britions could have an improved version of the Archer with +1 bonus damage against Skirmishers. That would buff them in Feudal Age where they struggle. In Castle Age they would go back to “generic” Crossbowmen with +1 range.
That would be the ideal honestly, I like the Savar mostly because of it’s non-European skin over it’s actual gameplay relevance.
Unfortunately it took five years from initial concept of regional monks to implementation, hopefully their priorities have altered in the meantime
Going strictly by history, skirmishers should be a high damage - short range unit that gets countered by archers than the other way around.
The game needs certain abstractions to function and they’re too deep to take out at this point.
The savar is stronger than it has to be, but so is the catapract. In the end, the idea of filling design holes with more unique units worked out.
Turks atm, would probably be the biggest beneficiaries of a unique upgrade given their near complete lack of counter units is getting more noticeable.
Interesting suggestion and historically grounded, though would probably make the Chinese a bit OP.
My suggestion is to give the Chinese a unique regional upgrade of the Pikeman called Paper Armored Pikeman, which they would share with the Vietnamese (and also my proposed civs Baipu and Chams). It’s based on history as well, light infantry armed with bamboo pikes and arrow-resistant paper armors were common in medieval South China, whereas halberds weren’t that common.
Paper Armored Pikeman Stats
HP: 60
Cost: 35 Food 25 Wood
Melee Attack: 5
Attack Bonuses: +30 vs Cavalry; +26 vs War Elephant; +22 vs Camel; +20 vs Ship; +20 vs Fishing Ship; +11 vs Mameluke; +2 vs Eagle Warrior; +1 vs Standard Building
Reload Time: 3
Range: 0.5
Melee Armor: 0
Pierce Armor: 1
Armor Classes: Infantry / Spearman
Speed: 1.05
LOS: 7
Special Ability: Would only receive 60% of damage from ranged or pierce attacks
To be honest, I think the essence of why people like unique upgrades is people want unique skins for units by official. Sometimes people were just throwing out something historical, didn’t really consider about the impacts on the civs like balance.
If we can receive unique or at least regional unit skins based on the history, I guess unique upgrades won’t be so necessary when they can’t bring something really different to gameplay and strategy in a meaningful way. At that time, brand new UUs might be more attractive to people as their are addition to the tech tree.
Having said that, once we really receive the unique or regional skins for general units, people will have a hard time distinguishing general units in a unique/regional skin from unique/regional units, which can be a trouble in multiplayer games. Although a mod or a setting option for turning them back to default European looks can help, but that’s kind of putting the cart before the horse as multiplayer competitive games should be the priority.
It’s strange pick to me. It’s a name of a outlaw group. Maybe it’s just like having Routiers be their own unit and trainable for Franks.
This kind of thing more like a name for an AI player in a scenario rather than a trainable unit, isn’t it?
Moreover, the wokou were actually made of various ethnicities of East Asian ancestry, not purely Japanese.
I think the Janissary could just gain a little bit attack bonus vs cavalry and more attack bonus vs elephants particularly. Give the Janissary unique values from the normal Hand Cannoneer, and deal with the problem.
The Turks’ Scout Cavalry line units are actually unique and special since there are two exclusive bonus just for them. I think it will be meaningful to simplify the thing by making the bonuses directly part of the unit. Somehow similar to making the Longbow replace the Crossbow for the Britons so that the range bonus can be removed.
A unique unit, maybe named Turcoman Horseman or Turcoman Raider, can be the replacement, and directly have the 1 more pierce armor and the shadow upgrades be the features of this unit, so that there is no need to list them into the civ bonuses, and in the tech tree it only needs to be displayed in Feudal and there is no any Elite or Heavy upgrades in next ages, just like how the current Flemish Militia gets displayed.
Once the Turks’ trash cavalry have to be buffed, like adding attack bonus, the devs can just tweak the stats of that unit instead of adding more and more new civ bonus.
‘Feeling unique’ via civ perks is a pretty subjective outlook. Imho its a long ways from being an actual unique unit. The end result is a generic huss with +1 pierce armor. Quite a bit removed from something that IS a unique upgrade (imp camel, w. hussar, etc).
Its arguable what it could be but Turks, like most AoK civs, definitely need something.
The wokou are just a nod to Japans history for pirating about in their neck of the wood - was a long time they did that for. All the other things that were unique to them alone are pretty well covered…even highlighted in many cases.
What we need is regional unit skins. All this final unit nonsense is not needed.
For your reference, the unique settler/villager unit of the Dutch from AoE3 is the Merchant. The Dutch used to have the common Settler like other European civs, and they had a faster mining bonus and a different type of cost to their Settlers. The devs just replace the Settler with the Merchant, while the Merchant is basically same as a Settler but mining faster, costing coin rather than food, and having a unique skin.
To me, if they are going to have more unique stuff in the civ, it makes sense to have a unit with multiple bonuses or special settings be replaced with a unique one having those things directly in its stats. It makes things simpler.
Um… Usually outlaw groups would be a AI player rather than a unit. They would include various type of units since they were armed bands. For example, the Écorcheurs are an AI player in the Burgundian campaign, having Long Swordsmen, Crossbowmen, and Light Cavalry, rather than training an “Écorcheur” unit.
Personally I’d like to see a AI player named Wokou Pirates in a campaign training infantry, archer and ships as their own troops and fleets to have battles against other AI players such like the Kyushu governor, Goryeo, or Ming Dynasty, rather than see Minamoto no Yoritomo, Oda Nobunaga or any other Japanese Leader training Wokou as a simple foot unit in their campaigns.
On the other hand, there is Ninja in the editor, so it would most likely become the second UU if the devs need.
According to Ming records, the majority of Wokou was Ming fishermen and merchants, only a small portion of them was actual Japanese.
Not to mention that the Wokou appeared relatively late in history, around 14th or 15th century AD nearing the end of the AoE 2 timeline. It was not something that the Japanese had done since ancient times. For the most part of its history, Japan was a relatively isolated agricultural kingdom with little connection to other parts of the world (apart from North China and Korea).
In my opinion, the thing that is still missing from the current Japanese civ is an archer unit. While I know that the Japanese civ is an infantry-focused one, historically speaking they were quite adept at archery and horse archery as well (and so does their neighbor the Koreans). Therefore I propose the Bow Monk as a regional unit shared between Japanese and Koreans, a unit that is a combination of monk and archer and is available at the Monastery in Castle Age. Unlike ordinary Monks he cannot collect relics. Out of all Monastery techs, this unit is only affected by Sanctity, Fervor, Faith, Devotion, and Herbal Medicine, and is unaffected by others.
Bow Monk Stats
Yes the wokou was like that mid-Ming but the term originally referred specifically to japanese pirates.
As for the archer angle.
Aoe2 gives japan fully upgraded horse archers with bonus damage against archers for having a ‘cavalry’ that was barely mobile if the rider was armored.
That, on top of a full archery range and handcannons is really above and beyond what the civ should rightly have.
Not a serious suggestion.
SL is good against stacked up melee units. FL is good vs cavalry. Remaining is… Archer and siege.
More Unique upgrade = new civs’ UU in future will overlap more with these unique upgrade.
You’re the one proposed Billman first. And I really liked the idea.
Upgrade cost - 600f/300g
Upgrade time - 60 sec
HP - 70
Attack - 13
Armor - 2/2
Speed - 0.90
Speed is reduced from THS to differentiate more between Gallowglass and WR.
