Polish and Magyars and Lithuanians

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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Magyars have long been my favorite Civ. Lithuanians and Poles could be termed sister Civs that I also really really like.

Obviously these three civs should be balanced, I just think it is easiest to compare among them to figure out what could be done to make them all equally strong (More like the Lithuanians?) Now in no particular order…

Magyars - Identity Crisis Part One

What always bothered me is that there is a split between the focus of the Magyars in game terms,

  1. free forging and cheap cavalry push the player towards the light cav line (Aside from Free Techs The only Eco Bonus.)
  2. Their First Unique tech pushes them away from getting Light cav line upgrades and focus on Castles.
  3. Their Second Unique Tech pushes them towards cav Archers.
  4. And their team Bonus pushes them towards an Archer Opening which can transition into Cav Archers.

I think these bonuses are good but I wish they were a bit more broad, so that they bind the Light Cav and Cav Archer combo better together.

Anarchy or Marauders are a tech style that would be really good to combine with Corvinian army, so that you aren’t so dependent on castles to produce what is essentially a seriously stronger trash unit, and can make Magyar hussars in stables

Especially considering that the Lithuanians and Poles get strong Unique Units and better a improved light cav.

Something to soften the transition into Cav archers would also be good because only in imp are they any better than most other cav archers, here I am not sure what should be done.

Poles - Identity Crisis Part Two

Even though the Poles are termed a Cavalry Civ and Szlachta almost forces the Polish player to build knights lacking paladin and plate barding as well as ring archer armor makes them feel much more like a melee infantry civ given the Obuch, Arb, Champion etc.

Especially considering the bonus through the Folwark and stone miners generating gold it feels like the Polish as a Light cav civ get serious and broader help to get to castle age, build a castle and produce all cav than the magyars.

I mean I like the bonus of generating gold with stone miners, And generating extra food when reseeding farms,

I just wish that each civ, that can and should be Light Cav civs?
Poles as Light cav + Knights and Anti Armor Infantry
Lithuanians as Light Cav + Anti Armor Cav
And Magyars as Light Cav + Cav Archers

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the problem is that light cav do not make a good sustained fighting unit, so making the civs balanced around them isn’t a good idea in general. even on cav archer civs who do use light cav extensively its only really used as a meat shield.

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Agreed that is why the Magyars have strong cav archers later (maybe too late)

The polish have strong infantry UU and cheap knights (bad synergy though) so UU and arbs is more natural

The Lithuanians have strong heavy cav and good support options.

So the light cav don’t need a buff but for poles we should look at knights arbs and UU and for magyars the cav archers

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but the point was - the light cav is never going to be a main fighting force unit, without some radical changes.

they already have viability of both of those.

magyar cav archers are already great. they aren’t supposed to be a primary cav archer civ, they are a secondary cav archer civ.

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I think the Magyar Huszar feels suddenly pretty underwhelming compared to the Winged Hussars. You can essentially get the same unit out of stables with Poles/Lith. At this point It might be worth having the Corvinian Army just “baked in” and have the Magyar Huszar trash UU by default and give a new Castle Age UT effect.

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That would actually be a pretty solid buff to magyars. i like it.

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Tbh Magyar Huszar is still far better against ranged units. If for some reason theres archers on the field Polish Hussars will struggle while Magyar Huszars most probably not

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If Magyar huszars could be trained at the stable, they should cost golds in my opinion.
68F for a common one and 80F10G for a strong one, the player can make a choice for requirements.

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I did not specify what new Castle Age UT to give (Because I don’t have a good idea). But right now the unit is pretty underwhelming for something that requires a castle when compared to the stable produced winged hussars. I wouldn’t mind just giving them a UT that gives them an ‘edge’ stat-wise or utility-wise, while remaining a castle produced only unit.

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what about +1 attack to knights, scouts, and Magyar hussars?

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That sounds pretty interesting. Would be cool to test this idea out

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pretty in line with the civ design too seeing as it gets + attack for free, and their cav archers get +1 attack/range in imp.

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I mean why not, it fits historically, it could also be something simple like swapping the UT,
also the primary cav archer, secondary cav archer civ line makes little sense to me, is that based on whether a civ has a cav archer UU or what?.

What bothers me is that all the cav Archer civs get their bonus early or passively, Like Huns cheaper cav archers, or Silk Armor for the Tatars, mongols fire rate bonus,

all of those civs get a bonus in castle age in some form or other, and Magyars get what imo is a weaker bonus than Silk Armor in Imperial, that doesn’t make sense.

And I don’t see an issue with another cav archer civ since most of the cav archer civs rely on a UU and not many only build standard cav archers so a standard cav archer civ makes sense to me.

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I mean what are the units that Hussars really struggle against, I think in reality they should probably be have a soft bonus vs Heavy cav but maybe not be so good vs archers.

I mean the archer part already is the case but a +2 bonus vs Paladins would help alot to make them fight better?

could also only be for the Polish lithuanian and Magyar Huss where they reduce the availability of paladins.

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it means the civ is a cavalry civ first, with solid cav archers later on. think of it like a reverse huns or cumans.

because those civs are cav archer civs first and cavalry civs second.

problem with this is they instantly become useless in team games and would need changes to make this work.

yes let’s just completely change the design of lithuanians, no thanks.

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right but the issue with this is that it makes them a much weaker cav archer civ because while they are massing them they are not really that strong, and because of build cost, going knights with cav archers makes little sense,

going archers into cav archers is really strong as magyars because of the team bonus, and I think it is a strat that can be reinforced

thats isn’t a reason to make magyar cav archers stronger in castle age… just swap the UT to give 1+ damage and 1+range in castle age and make corvinian army a Imp Tech

heavy cav or scouts? i don’t know which unit you are referring too.

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by the time you are transitioning into cav archers you should already be in imperial age, so yes your cav archers are strong. they aren’t as strong as mongols or tatars cav archers, but those are cav archer civs, why should a cavalry civ have cav archers as strong as cav archer civs? makes no snese.

that’s why you go magyar hussar

but the civ isn’t designed as a cav archer civ first. that much is clear in bonuses and techs.

that would be an insanely strong castle age tech and an insanely weak imp tech.

scouts - if the goal is to compete with heavy cavalry but be weak to archers then you would have to reduce their pierce armor - which makes them much weaker overall and not a good unit anymore in most situations.

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because the Magyars can become a cav archer civ, it is the gold Unit that works best for them, and if you open with archers building two ranges you can mass cav archers, and you should because why do you want to build knights in castle age?

that means you have to build a castle you don’t have the production availability like multiple ranges and stables

yes but when you look at poland and lithuania with the winged hussar and Anrachy and Marauders it is clear that at least one unique tech has to change, and there is no reason they cant be swapped.

silk armor is +1 meele and +1pierce armor that is also a extremely strong bonus for cav archers, and like I said at least corvinian army has to be reworked because only magyar hussars are not a strong castle age strategy.

the idea is just to make them trade better, a small amount of bonus damage would help them.

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so now we have to change the entire design of two civs, just to make you happy. thanks but no thanks.

well seeing as you’re in imperial age, you probably already have a castle to begin with.

poland and lithuania have regional units, much like the steppe lancer, battle elephant, or eagle warriors. and anarchy and marauders are unique for their civs and they are balanced around those bonuses.

do me a favor - go find one single archer civ that has both increased range and attack in castle age. just one. you can’t. there is a reason for that.

but they aren’t supposed to be good against heavy cavalry. that’s kind of the point of them being LIGHT CAVALRY. they are supposed to be light and speedy and for running down weaker enemies. not for beating up on big heavies.
you’re pretty much asking to redesign and rebalance the game and it wouldn’t be pretty.

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no civ can be equally strong as another technically unless exactly the same :wink: