Poll - Dravidian civ wood work Reworked

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

Dravidians as a civ design in AOE2 has been problematic. They are not an economy civ. The 200 wood per age is only useful in the hands of high level players doing high APMs. No wonder Dravidians have the lowest playrates. The difference margin of 15% with the second worst civ Bengalis is the highest across all elos if you consider Frank and Mongol playrates as outliers. Based on inputs from @Pulikesi25 , @SMUM15236 , @KHANATTILA , @Zelley00 , @filtercoffee488 , @UpmostRook9474 and few others I managed to modify their main bonus and work around their tech tree weakness.

image
image1877×666 137 KB

Dravidians is typically played as a meso civ without a good dark age economy bonus or Eagle warrior line. Feudal age is their best timing advantage. A typical player will try scout rush with the 200 wood. But only for Dravidians, that is not a viable strategy for feudal agression considering their long term options. They don’t get bloodlines to play all-in feudal on open maps. They don’t get knights to make use of castle age powerspike. Knights even without bloodlines or husbandry is a potent unit in castle age which a battle elephant is not. So they lack flexible military options for win condition from feudal age. A stable in feudal age is just waste of your early bonus.

The problem becomes glaringly evident in castle age where Knight line is completely missed. To compensate, they don’t get good monks or better light cav. My personal opionion is Bengali bonus of +3/+3 armour monks would have been more useful for Dravidians. What Dravidians get are the worst battle elephants in the game and probably the best elephant archers though the bar is not that high. Dravidian Elephant archers are better dps wise than regular archers but with lesser speed of 0.9 tps meant to replace cav archers who prevail over knights by speed to ensure range advantage + micro. Elephant HP means nothing if you can’t do considerable damage and raid quickly like cav archers.

The castle age is where the tech tree limitations become glaringly apparent and in the initial release they had no answer to siege push at any stage of the game. This flaw was mitigated first with bombard cannon addition and then later with a wierd Siege wood discount. However both are band aid fixes like giving +2 bonus attack for Bengali cavlary and do not address the knight + skirms push which strikes at Dravidian achilies heel and lack of offensive mobilie units. The siege discount is also annoying since it pushes your gameplay in a uni-dimensional manner instead of an economic bonus which is more flexible. However currently, there is no space to accomodate a new bonus. So I propose to merge the 2 wood bonuses Dravidians have into 1.

  • 200 wood per age + 33% siege wood discount → “Receive 10 wood per villager trained till arriving in imperial age”

The bonus will guarentee a good early start to the equivalent of a single lumber jack in dark and feudal age. If Dravidian player manages to hit a good imp timing at 60 pop, the extra wood collected will be 600 wood which equals the original bonus and any more extended play will guarentee more wood for Siege and other military units. Since the bonus comes in dark age, the value of wood is far more useful than getting it all in one go in feudal. In castle age, it gives additonal wood for siege just like the current bonus.

Dear forum, How do you think Dravidian playrate can be improved with change in bonus or tech-tree?

  • Receive 10 wood per villager trained till arriving in imperial age
  • Receive 200 wood on reaching new age & 33% siege wood discount
  • Receive 200 wood on reaching new age & a new bonus
  • Some other tech-tree changes are needed for the civ
  • No bonus or tech tree changes needed for the civ
  • I don’t play Dravidians
0 voters
2

The reason Dravidians are not played very much is because they’re just fundamentally different from most civs. EAs, for example, aren’t meant to play as knights or CA, but as an entirely different and unique style of unit. They lack knights, and are somewhat forced into infantry, which becomes increasingly unpopular at higher skill ratings. And the Urumi Swordsman is a fundamentally counter-intuitive unit; it feels like it SHOULD be an offensive unit like the Coustillier, but it’s actually much better in a DEFENSIVE role, defending elephants and siege, thanks to its massive burst damage and splash.

I don’t disagree with some of your assessment - the eco bonuses are pretty wonky and get pretty useless by the endgame - but not with your core assessment of the civ. Moreover, I find it a very interesting civ, and don’t really want that changed.

But part of the issue is that a large part of their weakness has more to do with map generation and broad balance trends than their core design. Like, their fisherman bonus isn’t bad, but a lot of maps have no fish to even use, and even when they ARE there, the bonus isn’t actually strong enough to make them worth taking in the majority of cases. At the core, a lot of people don’t like that randomness. Am I going to get a fish pond, or not? My entire gameplan might change based on that, but I can’t afford to go scout for it because I need to chase deer.

And infantry, too. Militia are largely useless from late feudal till early/mid castle age(at least without a speed bonus), but Dravidians are seemingly encouraged into the infantry line. That’s not a problem with Dravidians, it’s a problem with militia in particular.

General Changes

See the issue? Dravidians would be much better with a few general changes, like:

  • Squires moved to Feudal
  • All maps guaranteed to generate at least 1x pond with 2x shore fish somewhere near each player.

Dravidians-Specific Changes

Of course, that still leaves the diminishing returns on their wood bonus. Like you say, it’s really good for Feudal, kinda meh for Castle, and basically irrelevant for Imperial. That said, your proposed change isn’t all that much better. In practice, it’d probably WEAKEN the bonus, after you account for the Siege discount - which isn’t to say I LIKE the Siege discount, but it’s still better overall, though I’d prefer it somehow also apply to armored elephants. Personally, I’d be more inclined to change WHICH resource they get on each age. Something like:

  • Receive 200 Wood/Gold/Stone in Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age

You get 200 wood in feudal, when you need it for farms or buildings. You get 200 gold in castle when you need it for upgrades. And you get 200 stone in Imperial Age, where stone eventually starts to get a bit scarce.

Notably, this is exactly the sort of bonus they’d need for a very important tech that helps them with ALL their problems: Atonement. Monks are their core weakness, after all, not siege or skirms. The core problem is that they lack Redemption, so while they can go siege to counter siege, they can’t deal with the monks with redemption, due to their bad scout line. Their only real choice is Atonement and a monk war.

As for Siege, i’d prefer something more like:

  • Siege Repaired/Healed 50% more effectively.

So you can repair your siege 50% faster, and heal your armored elephants 50% faster, for the same resources. This is functionally equivalent to the 33% discount, just without the upfront discount, but with the added perk of faster speed.

Notably, this would be far more effective help in early 1v1 situations where your 33% discount hasn’t yet had time to play out, and losing 1 mangonel can mean losing the entire game.

Lastly, I’d like to see their fishing bonus changed from a carrying bonus to a Khmer-like:

  • Fishermen don’t require Mills/Town Centers/Docks to drop off food.
3

Dumb proposal from someone who’s not a pro or anything close but what about giving them elephant regeneration from the start, make wooz steel a castle age UT instead of medical corps and give them a new imperial age UT? Finally I guess they should get husbandry.

4

How about Damboli? It could make Trebuchets and Mangonels affected by Ballistics.

5

Don’t know much about south India but if it’s historical and Dravidians retain a siege theme sure why not.

6

Thank you! But the civ design annoys plenty of people who play them.

Balance wise, it should be fine.

This is a susggestion I myself had made earlier. But devs again gave a wood discount on siege. Probably, they should be like teutons using the farm wood discount to power their economy. But having 2 wood discounts is dedundant. So the new bonus which is better than the 200 wood per age. But about half as effective as the siege wood discount to prevent the kind of siege spam Dravidians can do now.
→ “Receive 10 wood per villager trained till arriving in imperial age

Its easy to research atonement

Probably too much work to be benficial for casual players. The current problem with the cIv.

Thats a huge boost. I am more interested to make their land play viable. The civ itself was not a thallasocrasy in the vein of Majapahit or even to the extent of the italian & greek city states. Cholas were a huge infantry and elephant based land army. Here is an excerpt from a current research by a living historian,

When I started research for this book, I was obviously looking for mentions of ships. When I read the inscriptions, there were all these mentions of army regiments, clearly suggesting that the Cholas loved to document all aspects of their military, political, and religious life.

But I was very puzzled. There’s no mention of navy regiments.

In fact, the great Tamil historian Tamil Y Subbarayalu, wrote a paper about this. He extensively looked at all published Chola inscriptions and found maybe one or two mentions of what might be naval forces based in Nagapattinam, their primary port. But the description is as the ‘Army of the Sea’ rather than naval units. Most Chola inscriptions tend to focus on land-based wars. You see many Chola generals making gifts and temples, but there’s no Chola naval officer.

Then how did they ferry troops to Malay peninsula to fight wars?

“Maybe the Cholas didn’t have a navy, but the Tamil merchants did,”

Good idea. May be with a +2 LOS

I am not against it. But the civ is based on chola empire which was primarily an infantry and elephant force.

Thank you Einstein. Why don’t you explain your 1000 IQ proposal?

1 Like
7

That’s fine, imo. Not all civs should be for everyone. I’d rather have a few civs that are unique and different but not for everyone, than have all civs feel more or less the same, y’know?

Sorta. In early castle age you’re pretty strapped for resources. Getting an instant shot of resources is the sort of thing that makes it way easier to get techs that otherwise might be off-limits for a good while.

And really, I think Atonement is key for proper Dravidians play. It’s the only thing that solves their weakness to Redemption.

Dravidians are mostly weak at higher skill ratings. To me, that speaks to a limit on their skill ceiling more than anything. Enhanced repair speed would work nicely with this, as it’s the sort of high-skill action better players could best make use of.

The thing is, while the 33% wood discount on siege is theoretically strong, it’s just not terribly PRACTICAL at any skill rating or stage of the game. In early game, you’re going to be 1v1 siege anyway, and losing your mangonel in that 1v1 is just as crushing even if you spent the ~20% less total res on it. And in the later parts of the game, the wood matters much less than the gold.

Changing it to a repair(and healing!) bonus makes it more useful in the early parts of the game(since it makes it actually easier to WIN that fight, rather than just reducing the consequences of failure), and it also makes it better in the middle and lategame.

8

No wait you misunderstood, that was refering to myself and I wrote my maybe dumb proposal in the same comment.

9

I honestly don’t know. There are so many things I would like to improve.

I, like others, am of the opinion that they should have the bonus of the Armenians (although the Champion should remain in the Imperial Age). If I try to put it all together something like this should come up:

Civilization bonuses:

  • Receive 200 wood when advancing to the next Age [unchanged].
  • Fishermen, Oyster gatherers, and Fishing Ships carry +15 (except Fish Traps).
  • Barracks technologies are 50% cheaper. Long Swordsman and above, and Spearman line available one Age earlier.
  • Siege units cost -33% wood.
  • Skirmishers and Elephant Archers attack 25% faster.
  • Infantry units and Elephant Archers move 15% faster starting from the Feudal Age [or as you proposed].

Technology tree:

  • Remove squires.
  • Add Elite Battle Elephant.

Broken af

1 Like
10

Meta when Dravidians was added in the game (April 2022) and current days (March 2025) are very different. Also players of lower elo like 1000 ratings, are way better at this game.

I never had the opinion that 200 free wood on age up is only good at high elo. Surely most if not all bonuses are utilized at their max potential at pro levels. And 200 wood on age up is not any exception.

I think the unpopularity of Dravidians is closely related to 2 factors -

  1. Being only civ that don’t have a viable raiding unit ever.
  2. MAA opening is at its lowest point.

Dravidians is one of the top tier MAA+Archer civ. However this BO is proven lack luster in current meta. If MAA opening becomes as good as others, I’m positive that they will be seen more play.

Unfortunately we can’t address the issue without making some big general balance changes of Militia line. So I’ll focus on the other issue.

Medical Corps is removed. New UT - Militia line +25% speed at a cost of 200 food, 200 gold. Lose Gambeson or Champion in return if necessary. With this UT, their LS will be as fast as EW while costing only 20 gold.

The speed could also be given to Battle Elephants instead. We even have a removed UT for this, Mahouts. But I prefer staying at their “Infantry” identity.

11

I’ve never really thought they were a particularly good MAA rush civ, myself. Their lack of a long-term eco bonus to transition into, not to mention the fact their bonuses don’t come in until Feudal, slows them down too much. And you can see that in their stats, where they only manage about a 50.2% winrate in the 20-30 minute timeframe, compared to civs with actually decent MAA rushes like Celts or Malians, that manage closer to 54%.

If you made MAA stronger, I think it’d get too powerful with civs that are actually good at MAA rushes long before it became decent with Dravidians. Their bonuses are just very poorly tuned for that playstyle.

Medical Corps is removed. New UT - Militia line +25% speed at a cost of 200 food, 200 gold. Lose Gambeson or Champion in return if necessary. With this UT, their LS will be as fast as EW while costing only 20 gold.

The problem is, this would come in at the stage of the game where infantry are at their most useless. It wouldn’t be enough to make them actually legitimate at raiding, because they’d still be slower and much worse than, say, Woad Raiders. All you’ve really done is recreate the Celts, but with a higher cost and worse bonuses.

If anything, I think what they really need is more encouragement to focus on their armored elephant line. With Medical Corps and Wootz Steel they have some of the strongest armored elephants in the game.

That’s why I feel like a bonus to siege repair/healing would be so neat, especially if it also multiplied Medical Corps. It helps them exactly when they need it. That plays directly into their slow playstyle, as well.

12

20-30 min is not the ideal time to check effect of early rushes. You need to check <20 min stats. That is only 53% for Dravidians at 1200+ elo Arabia. Celts is an outlier due to Hoang. And Malians actually have a negative win rate (49.29%) at <20 min at 1200+ Arabia. That being said, Japanese and Romans have 62% and 57% W/R at <20 min at 1200+ Arabia. This is really surprising to me because back in 2022 and early 2023, Dravidians actually had 2nd highest W/R at <20 min after Mongols as far as I remember.

Yes. But a strong UT like this will make them viable imho. Chieftain does make late Castle Berserker a viable play. And my proposed UT is way cheaper and doesn’t rely on Castle units. So I’m positive.

That’s wrong. Militia is way cheaper than Woad and doesn’t need to rely on Castle to produce. In fact I’m more concerned that this can be OP in Imperial as after Wootz Steel and combined with some BBC, they will be no counter.

They have the weakest Armored Elephant in the game against buildings. But strongest against units. With current wood discount on siege, there is little to no reason to train them over BBC and Trebuchet. And if you are training them to fight against units, you are probably trolling.

13

I was surprised as well, but it seems like my intuition was wrong. But as I think back on my own games, it does kinda ring true. MAA rushes, it seems, pay out in the 20-30 minute window in most cases. Romans are an obvious exception because they can just become basically annoyingly invincible, but for most civs, you aren’t going to actually win with the MAA rush, just do enough damage to make your win inevitable by the 20-30 minute mark.

I don’t see it. Remember, Chieftains is boosting a UU that’s already borderline overpowered. It’s got insanely good stats for the timeframe and is backed by an amazing economy.

Dravidians don’t have either of those. What you’re essentially creating is an Eagle Warrior variant, except locked behind Gambesons and requiring a castle for the UT.

Perhaps most importantly, Dravidians are intentionally a slow civ, so I’d be very surprised to see them implement anything to change that core characteristic.

That’s another good point, tbh. They’d still be quite weak to archers, since they’d only have 6 pa instead of 8 like an elite eagle, and they’d only move at 1.23 instead of 1.43, so they’d probably still be pretty bad at higher elos, but they’d be quite op at lower skill ratings.

Only weakest in terms of raw ttk. They’re by far the most versatile and long-lasting. They actually CAN fight, and after they fight, they heal. Every time I’ve used them or seen them used, they’ve worked remarkably well.

The problem is, the wood siege bonus directs players away from them, and the effects of Medical Corps are difficult to see directly. I really wish games had a ‘health healed’ statistic so people could get a better idea of how helpful that tech is. You’d be amazed how often a difference of even one hit can swing a fight one way or another.

14

I’m sorry. I thought the other way. Nobody is perfect. You do have a case of how to make elephants work. But the gameplay Dravidians have is geared towards archers. If it was cavalry, then regenerating elephants as a civ bonus may work. The miss even husbandry. So there is no amount of healing that can make elephants survive their counters.

We are all well qualified to air our views. Its not like the Devs always do stellar civ designs. For example, Georgians are supposed to be a defensive civ design. One defending I’ve seen people do is when they want to heal their OP cavalry.

Thanks! this bonus will make the Urumi faster too.

Anyway this could be included as replacement of medical corps?

Why do you think “Receive 10 wood per vill” is not a better version befitting for the civ?

Don’t think so since portugese have same bonus for gunpowder siege?

Yes, pro players can consistently abuse this bonus. But an average player struggling to push deer probably can’t given the small timing window.

Not just that. there are no bonuses to defend from raids either im gameplay.

MAA is only good if you reach feudal before opponent thats where this bonus comes “Receive 10 wood per vill”

Onagers make mince meat of non-cav units except probably Armenian champions.

true

No they are not/they did not lose squires. they don’t have any replacement of knight or cav archer line

A civ bonus to boost of militia is well balanced

Agree with @SMUM15236 , unit is not as good as it should be. A 40% discount on gold cost of siege units and techs will help though.

15

Just leave this civ alone for goodness sake. Can’t I enjoy a slightly unusual civ without people trying to make it blander?

1 Like
16

It is much stronger on onagers than on BBC. Someone wrote that it was originally intended as a bonus for the Koreans then discarded because it was OP.

I really don’t like the mechanics. It reminds me of the Sicilian launch, where they had “Scutage: The player and all allies receive 15 gold for every military unit (including Monks) that they own.” It has nothing to do with the spirit of the game imo. After years that DLC is still not fully integrated, see Flemish Revolution.

It could be.

17

In general, I’d say civ bonuses for militia have been controversial, at best. Romans, for example, are extremely frustrating at lower skill thresholds.

18

Seems like they are getting Husbandry. +2 attack on Urumi and some massive buff on militia line.

1 Like
19

Finally! Their elephants are on even ground speed-wise.

Its is +1 aatack buff

Yup! for late game and early game.

I don’t see the direct corelation. Wood collection i Dravidian bonus and there is no need to be two separate bonuses. Combine them into sinlgle economy bonus.

20

I was gonna say “You are right”. But now we are getting Husbandry.

2 Likes