Disclaimer: This might be the second longest thing you’ll ever read after the Lord Of The Rings trilogy.
Well, it’s about time. It’s been centuries since I posted a topic about AoE II Balance (mainly because the new-born of the franchise is keeping me busy) but I wanted to take a little time to talk about the beloved older brother. And of course, Balance.
Before starting I will like to say that, for me, balance Is the best one ever. We have tons of civs and all of them are somehow viable in different types of maps, with most of them being okey in lots of maps. So all these suggestions are details.
However, I do feel that water balance could be improved, since it’s clearly dominated by 3 civs (or maybe 4, if we count the Dravidians, which seem to have the potential to become S-tier in water maps)
Keep in mind I’m an average player (1200-1300 1v1 elo) so I suggest you all think about the ideas, rather than the numbers I’m proposing. That being said, I want to tackle (mainly) the topic that names this thread.
The overcompensation in balance. It’s seems to me that some specific units are better versions of basic units in one way, but to compensate they are worse in others. In plural. Which make them, at the end of the day, worst unit overall. I will divide this topic in four parts: Secondary Unique Units, Regional Units, Civ Balance and miscellaneous.
Secondary unique units
The Missionary:
The missionary is the second UU for the Spanish. A mounted monk that basically moves relatively fast, improving one of the worst stats from a monk. In addition, being Cavalry, he is affected by both bloodlines and husbandry. So more life and extra speed. So far, it looks great. So why we never see it? The reason is simple: It has 2 less both conversion range and LOS thank the monk. And it can’t pick relics.
Moving faster is great, but monks need to be as far as they can from their target to be useful. Being in the frontline is a tragedy for a unit with no Armor, and that gets countered by pretty much everything except heavy cavalry. It doesn’t outrange Mangonels (while monks do) and get extra damage for pikes aswell. The speed is useful to micro them, but if you are microing monk, you want to micro the conversion target, not try to dodge stones/arrows.
Proposed solution: Increase missionaries conversion range to 8 (one less than monk, one more than what actually have) and LOS to 11 (same that monks). Change inquisition to give missionaries +1 range (matching the monks range). If needed, increase the cost to 110 or 120 Gold (make it a more expensive, but better unit).
The Genitour:
Basically the mounted skirmisher for the Berbers. Contrary to what most people claim, I don’t believe their function overlaps with the Camel Archer (Berber UU). Camel Archers counter only Cavalry archer, while being a good main unit per se. Genitours are supposed to counter archers in general, and pikes. Same as skirmishers. So, why we never see genitours, but skirmishers when pro players use berbers?
Let’s think the advantages of Genitours: Mobility and extra life. Their speed is 1.35 (1.48 with husbandry) against 0.96 of E.Skirms. They have 50 HP (70 with bloodlines) Compared to 35 HP. (keep in mind we are comparing regular Genitour and not elite. Anyway, Elite genitour adds 5 more HP). The biggest difference will be that Elite genitour have 1 more attack than elite skirm.
In terms of total damage (Regular attack + bonus damage) Genitour do 1 less damage to pikes, the same damage to archers, and 2 less damage to Cavalry archers when compared with E. Skirms. E.Genitours do way better, doing 1 more base damage, which in addition to bonuses damages do: 2 more damage to archers and 1 more to cavalry archers than E.Skirms.
Also both upgraded and upgraded have better frame delay than E.Skirms (12 to 19) and a better attack delay aswell (0.5 to 0.52) while having the same rate of fire (3)
So, this seems like a LOT of advantage. Yet, still we don’t see genitours but skirms. Why?
Well, for me the issue is related to 2 factors: Genitours, both regular and elite, have 1 less range than e.skirms. Plus, they cost more food than their generic counterpart. (40 food against the 25 food of skirms). In addition, Regular Genitours do less damage against pikes.
Skirmishers are usually the unit you create to support your knights (or Steppe Lancers, or elephants or any other mounted gold-intensive unit) to kill pikes. Also, less range make the Genitours more exposed to pikes. And they die hard to them (because they’re cavalry). So basically while being better in any other situation than skirms, genitours do worst against the unit they should be doing better to be viable. The Unit that kills your gold main unit (Knights/Camels, because you’re not mixing them with Camel Archers, the other unit to go for berbers). In addition, besides doing worst, they cost way more food than their generic counterpart. Food that you need to create your main unit: Knights.
The extra HP and the Extra speed are not that relevant for a trash unit. Specially if you need to micro that unit against the unit they’re supposed to kill (if they’re pikes coming, you might want to save your knights, and not your genitours. Skirms don’t pose that problem)
Proposed solutions:
Option A: Give Genitours one extra range (5) matching the Skirmisher range. Increase the cost of the unit if needed.
Option B: Make Genitours cost as much food as Skirmishers (25 Food) while increasing it’s wood cost (50 wood would be the 1:1 exchange). That way, while costing the same total amount of resources than they do now, they will be easier to mix with knights.
Regional Units
I feel that the main issue with regional units is that they are balanced around both civ bonus and UT, instead of basic stats of the unit. But let’s see 1 by 1
Steppe Lancers:
Steppe lancers were overnerfed. They were the most OP unit ever on released, and then were nerfed to the ground. But let’s see what are their pros and cons when compared to their generic counterpart, the Knight.
Steppe lancers are produced faster, and also move faster (1.45 against 1.35 of the knight). The selling point of the Steppe Lancer is that they have a range of 1, allowing two lines of SL to attack at the same time, and doing, theoretically better in mass battles. I said Theoretically, because they are overwhelming in lots of other stuff.
They have 60 HP (78HP for mongols) in comparison to 100HP of knights (80 to 120 if you count bloodlines, while 98HP for Mongols). They have no natural melee Armor and only 1 pierce Armor (while Knights have2/2) and they have slower rate of fire (2 against 1.8 for Knights). This makes them die to the most two popular units in the game: Knights and Crossbows. While they do perform better than knights against both pikes and camels, the truth is that you don’t want to use units against their counter unit. While being supposed to be better as a raiding unit than knights, having 1 less PA than said unit (and also than Light cav/Hussar) makes them, in practice, a bad option for that rol.
While the gold cost for steppe lancer is lower (40 gold against 75 gold) the food cost is higher (70 food against 60 food). And clearly food Is way more important in castle age than gold.
Last, but definitely not least, while both upgrades grant +20HP and +2 attack, the Elite Steppe lancer upgrade cost 900 Food and 550 Gold, while Cavalier cost 300 of both Food and Gold.
Proposed solutions:
The proposed solutions for SL are complicated. While Mongols SL are viable in Castle age (due to their extra HP) their lack utility in imperial age due to their lack of plate barding armour (which is okey, as you are not supposed to play cavalry with Mongols in the long run)
Tatars SL are okey after Silk armor, although they are hardly seen due to Keshik being an overall better unit
The best approach will be, for me, reducing the food cost (to at least 60 food) in order to make them an affordable alternative to knights. Also, RoF could be buffed to 1.8 to match the knight.
Reducing the cost of the Elite upgrade could be another option aswell. SL is supposed to have an earlier power spike than the knight line (specially when compared to civs that get paladins) but which such a high cost, the Elite upgrade will come often later than the cavalier upgrade (making the idea of upgrading SL totally irrelevant )
In addition, I will propose a change to cumans (see third part - General Balance/Civ Balance).
Battle Elephant:
The elephant in the room. In theory, a tankier, slower, more costly version of Knights. In practice, that doesn’t happen. At least not with some civs.
While useful in post imperial (with all the UT affecting them and the Elite Battle Elephant upgrade), only 3 out of 6 civs can realistically use battle elephants in castle age. Why? Because those 3 civs have bonuses that solve one out of the two fundamental issues with this units.
Their first issue is that Battle elephants are just too expensive for being viable in castle age (Malay solve this having their elephant’s cost reduced by a 30% in castle age). The second one is that they die way harder to counter units than knight do. Khmer solve this issue by having elephants that, after researching Husbandry, outrun both the Halberdier line (without squires) and the archer line. Also Khmer amazing eco allows this civ to support elephant production. Bengalis Elephants Resist both conversion and bonus damage from counter unit. While the civ have, at the same time, a really good eco that allow them to produce Dumbos.
While Vietnamese and Burmese bonuses are not bad per se (Extra HP and Extra armor respectively), they do nothing for a unit that has a lot of natural HP. In addition, their economy is not good enough to allow them create elephants.
In resume, having the unit costing lots of food, and die too hard to monks/pikes make that, in practical terms, it’s always better to go for a knight civ in either 1v1 or pocket position in team games.
(just to clarify, I exclude Dravidians from this analysis, since I consider that their elephants are a highly circumstantial unit)
Proposed solutions:
Change the elephant base speed to 0.935 (the actual speed base of khmer elephants) and change the Khmer elephant bonus to: Elephants are created X% faster. This would Make Vietnamese and Burmese elephants way more useful, while keeping Khmer ones at the same level. In addition, this buff the Dravidian’s elephants a little, which is good, since they’re the more useless elephants in the game.
Remove Husbandry from Malay and Bengalis. Malay stable is useless besides elephants, so basically doesn’t change anything at all.
For Bengalis, it’s a nerf for several units: Their Armored elephants (which are by far the best ones in the game, so maybe the nerf is well-deserved), the Ratha (the unit seems to be a little too powerful, and might need some stats change anyway. In addition, the stats of this unit in particular can be modified to adjust to this change) and the elephant archer (which also need changes, so can be adjusted as well)
Elephant Archer:
The other elephant in the room. This unit, while not being new, it’s new. Their stats are probably gonna get reworked, and to be honest, I lack the level to understand which stats should be change. So I’m gonna talk about this in abstracts concepts.
For me, there’s a fundamental issue with this unit: it’s supposed to be a tanky ranged unit which is in theory a frontline unit. The problem is that they die to literally every counter unit in the game (specially Skirmishers. 18 Elite Skirmishers can one-shot an elephant archer). They also get outranged by archers, and have no melee armor.
Proposed solutions:
As I said before, I wouldn’t know how to balance this unit. My best suggestion is to increase their range from 4 to 6. This way the unit can outrange archers, and fill the role of a support unit, rather than a front line one, while remaining easy to counter.
Other option will be to reduce the negative Cavalry archer armor they have (currently -7) to a less overwhelming number, increasing that way, their resistance to counter units, especially skirmishers.
Civ Balance
My personal favourite. Let’s wololo (btw, I’m not speaking about Dinasties of India civs, since I consider some further testing have to be done) As I said before, I feel land balance is at an excellent point, but water balance could use some love.
Burgundians:
This one is pretty obvious. Flemish Revolution is a weird mechanic, and feels OP sometimes. A wild card that feels out of context. Nevertheless, The concept of vills resisting an invasion is good though (at least for me).
Proposed solutions:
Option A: Villagers get +X bonus damage against cavalry. Allows Flemish Militia to be recruited in TC.
Option B: Villagers garrisoned in TCS become Flemish Militia. Allows Flemish Militia to be recruited in TC. (this involves more micro, and also cap the Flemish Militia obtained)
Option C: Villagers can now be upgraded to Flemish Militia (with a mechanic similar to the one Rathas have, and for an individual cost). Obviously, the cost of the Flemish Militia technology should be drastically reduced. In addition, Allows Flemish Militia to be recruited in TC.
Burmese:
Sadly, Burmese still die to the archer line in late castle/early imperial.
Proposed solutions:
Battle Elephants and skirmishers have +1/+1 armor. This will make their late feudal and early castle age way better, while making their late castle age and early imperial less awful against Crossbows /Arbs. Yes, having skirms with extra armor in feudal could seem a little to strong, but if you’re producing skirmishers and getting both fletching and padded archer armor, your castle age is getting delayed, so in the long run it’s not that convenient.
Chinese:
Chinese could use a nerf. IDK how exactly. Maybe tweaking their eco a little bit (may changing the tech discount to 10/15/15 or something). Or maybe just nerfing Chu-Ko-Nu a little bit. But again, I don’t have a clear take on this one
Cumans:
Cumans seem to always being in a weird spot. Their civ bonuses kinda doesn’t match together. For me, they feel like a Frankeinstein of concepts. Which is not inherently bad.
For me, they have two particularities that are just too odd to work. First one is Rams. Rams in feudal are great… if both you and your opponent are playing a full feudal game (which usually doesn’t happen). The second one, they fancy being a Cavalry Archer civ… that doesn’t have bracer.
In addition, they have for me, the two most overlapping bonuses in the game: Cheaper stables and archery ranges, and their UT, Steppe Husbandry. So at the end you get the double amount of buildings, producing 3 units faster than usual. And 2 of those 3 units are units you don’t want to create in the first place.
That, and Cuman Mercenaries, that frankly, to me always have been a UT that helps your ally, while you are paying for it.
Proposed solutions:
Change the “Archery range and Stable cost -75 wood” bonus to “Stable and Siege Workshop cost -75 wood”. This makes Feudal ram strategy more plausible in feudal age. Besides, I think it’s already proved that, as Cumans, you don’t want to go for any ranged unit except Kipchaks.
Change Steppe husbandry tech for a technology that gives Steppe lancers either +1 damage or a faster attack rate. The speed bonus is kind irrelevant for steppe lancers, a natural fast unit. Cumans have both the worst SL of the game and Paladin. Thus, we will never see Cumans SL again, unless they get a bonus making them a better unit.
Add an effect to Cuman Mercenaries. This UT should improve Kipchaks somehow, since the Elite version feels a little underwhelming after early imperial age.
Goths
Arguably the worst civ in the game. The one trick pony that doesn’t do that trick that well. Their tech tree is overwhelming, and they have the most outdated civ bonus ever (“Villagers have +5 attack against Wild Boar, and carry +15 food from hunting.”)
Proposed solutions:
Remove both the instant loom and the hunters civ bonuses. Replace it by “huntables last +X% longer”. That eco bonus will make them more viable in certain types of maps, and will add them versatility to their game play.
In addition, they should be granted either Thumb ring or Plate Barding Armor, to have another alternative besides Infantry
Incas
Incas are in a weird spot. They’re not a BAD civ, it’s just they fall short when compared to the other two American civs (which some might claim are OP). in addition, they have a collection of good small bonuses that, while good, doesn’t grant a considerable advantage. In addition, the blacksmith upgrades affecting vils bonus is now irrelevant (but still more balanced than when it was starting in feudal)
The last issue is that, while all three American civs have bonuses for their Skirmishers, the one for the Incas feel super irrelevant.
Proposed solutions:
Start with 3 llamas instead of one. Good eco bonus, similar to the Tatar one.
Replace the blacksmith upgrades for villagers for one of this two bonuses:
A) Villagers gain +1 Pierce armor per age, starting in feudal age. (This will help their tower rush, while not making them the automatically winners of each vill fight)
B) Villagers have +10%/20%/30% HP in Feudal/Castle/Imperial. Again, it gives them a good advantage in tower rush, but it doesn’t make them OP. Plus, this bonus help them resisting raids.
Andean Sling effect changed: Originally, I have thought to “Skirmishers and Slingers attack 25% faster”. This seems still a great concept, but might overlap with the Dravidians too much. If so, the effect could be “Skirmishers and Slingers do +50% bonus damage”
Kamayuk Speed increased to 1.05 (being an UU supposed to counter cavalry, it could be helpful for kamayuk to move faster than halbs)
Italians:
Italian is one of the three most dominant water civs. A nerf could be used in water. Maybe staggering the fishing boat discount to 10% in dark age and 15% onwards, or just make it available from feudal age.
Koreans
Koreans got their War Wagons nerfed. Which is good, because the unit was a little too good. But the thing is, besides that, they have nothing going on for them. FU Slightly cheaper Arbs. That’s it. Yeah, you’re saving some food and some gold with the free archer Armor upgrades, but it doesn’t compare to Britton, Ethiopian, Mayan or even Vietnamese bonus.
They are supposed to have good siege, but having mangonels with less minimum range is an infimal advantage (yeah, they have their imperial UT, but good luck having onager with that UT in any other map than BF).
Besides that, they have awful stable and meh infantry.
Proposed solutions:
Give them either Blast furnance or Plate barding armor. That way they have either FU Infantry or usable Hussars (they could even get both and it will be still okey)
Elite Turtle Ship gets 7 range. Koreans could use a water buff.
Malay
Malay are perfect in land maps, but I would love a buff for water maps. Maybe increasing the range of harbours to 8, or removing the minimum range, or maybe increase the bonus damage against ships.
Mayans:
Mayans for me are a little bit OP. 4 economic bonuses are too much (at the end, the archer bonus is an eco-bonus aswell). In addition they have the best eagles of the game, and one of the best UU.
Proposed solutions:
Economic resources last 10% longer instead of 15%. This will nerf their amazing dark age, and thus, the rest of their game.
Portuguese:
For me, the best water civ, no doubt about it. Cheaper ships, with more HP and a UT that provides more armor. It’s just the 3 best bonus you can think of for ships. (okey, maybe 3 out of 4 with the Saracens faster-firing ships, but still) In addition, if you are behind in techs, don’t worry, you have faster technologies to catch up.
And Fetorias. Oh gosh, Fetorias.
Proposed solutions:
Change “All units cost -20% gold” to “All land units cost -20% gold”. This also have the secondary effect of allowing a future buff to 25% discount.
In the same fashion “Technologies researched 30% faster” can be changed to “Technologies (except dock) researched 30% faster”
I honestly think Fetorias need a rework, as the concept seems impossible to balance. I propose that fetorias can now be build either in land or in the coast (like a dock). They act like a market/dock in terms of trading, except that provide 50% more gold when trading with it. In addition, the resource exchange fee they offer is 10%. Portuguese lose access to guilds.
Sicilians:
Along the lines of Portuguese’s ships, the sicilian knights have too many bonuses: A natural Resistance to bonus damage, and then two UT that gives them conversion resistance, and more armor. So they resist pikes, camels, monks (all their counters) and are almost immune to arrows.
Yes it takes a lot of time and resources, but at the end, they’re an absolute unit.
Also, first crusade seems a weird mechanic. A Panic button that have no downside
Proposed solutions:
Hauberk cost reduced. Now grants +1/+1 armor, instead of +1/+2. This way cavaliers still are better than the average but can still die against arrows.
First crusade effect changes to: Serjeants Cost -10 food and -10 gold. Donjons are build 100% faster (both numbers and the concept could slightly change. The idea is to make Serjeants more relevant, reinforcing the idea of Sicilians being an infantry civ). An alternative effect could be grant Serjeants regeneration.
Vietnamese:
Viets have come a long way since they were the absolute worst civ in the game. Still, some minor details could be tweaked. Paper money is still underwhelming, the same than their elephants.
Proposed solutions:
Paper money gets a mixture of their old and current effect: grants X amount of gold to all the allied players (maybe not 500, but something like 300) and now lumberjacks produce gold while chopping wood.
For the elephants I propose doing the Zealotry treatment to chatras: Viets get 30 extra HP for their elephants, and now Chatras provide the other 70HP. Cost slightly adjusted
Vikings:
The last of the historical three well-stablished naval civs. Vikings could definitely use an small nerf in water
Proposed solutions:
Longboats creation time reduced from 25 secs to 30. Back dock FC into longboats it’s just too good. Other option could be slightly increase the cost of each unit
Warship discount nerfed from 15%/15%/20% to 10%/15%/20%
Miscellaneous
-Trade Cogs should be buffed somehow in order to make water trade equally viable to land trade. I think I’ve only seen water trade once in a competitive TG (Rise of the elephants, Suomi against AM).
-The same we got the beautiful regional cart-trades, it would be amazing to get regional queens and regional monks (both were available in voobly :O) This would make a great eye-candy addition with no downside.
-Last, but definitely not least, I think archer line is a little overwhelming these days, particularly the early castle age spike. Maybe the Xbow upgrade could be nerfed, either in time or cost.