I actually think the camel rider may need two upgrades in Iron Age to keep matching the heavy cavalry line. The elephant archer could also have an upgrade, considering the regular elephant have one, but it may be too powerful.
I don’t think two Camel upgrades are needed.
Heavy Cavalry is not much stronger then normal Cavalry, only the Cataphract is a lot better.
AoE2 also only needs Heavy Camel Riders to fight Paladins cost effectively.
The Iron Age version just needs more bonus damage relative to the base damage, like in AoE2. Camel Riders go from 6+9 to 7+18 in AoE2.
Archers also generally need less upgrades because there are very little ways to improve Pierce armour and Archers scale better with large numbers, which are easier to get in late game.
Elephant Archers are very powerful right now.
Problem with bowman upgrade is it cannot be same or better than improved bowmen which costs gold. Unless bowman upgrade does something which improved bowmen does not. Only possible solution to make bowman upgrade is, if it gets only better bonus vs inf and base damage is same and its going to be worse vs anything else beside infantry compare to improved bowman.
That were my thoughts too. Make the Bowman line into an anti Infantry (maybe including Hoplite too unlike Cavalry) specialist.
Though the Improved Bowman itself is already a rather useless unit. Making the Upgrade for the normal Bowman equal or stronger then the Improved Bowman is not really an issue unless you set up the techtree wrong.
Every civilisation that gets an upgrade to the Bowman does either at last have the Composite Bowman or doesn’t have the Improved Bowman line at all.
The technology to upgrade Bowman should also be more expensive because the unit itself is cheaper.
You could argue about giving the Improved Bowman the stats of the Composite Bowman and move that to the Iron Age. Only people that currently have the Composite Bowman keep the new Improved Bowman.
There are only 3 civilisations that can train the Improved Bowman but not the Composite Bowman. I assume none of them will actually use it.
I mostly voted for one upgrade, apart from chariot archer, which I think is very powerful in Bronze Age and should be less powerful in Iron Age for both gameplay and historical reasons.
I think the most important of these is camel riders, since they have a very narrow window of usefulness, and pretty much melt to heavy cavalry. I think camel riders could probably do with a buff anyway, since they don’t seem to counter cavalry as well as I think they should – although I haven’t done any tests. (Also, on a historical note, camels countering cavalry is presumably inspired by the Battle of Thymbra in 547 BC – definitely after the Bronze Age, and arguably after the Iron Age!)
I’m not sure what to do with the cost of slingers. Replacing the stone cost with a wood cost makes more gameplay sense, but keeping it or replacing it with a gold cost makes more physical sense (if you consider gold to represent any type of ore, in this case lead ore). It also depends what and how good the upgraded slinger would be. If slingers upgraded to a javelineer/peltast, then changing the stone cost to a wood cost could be part of that upgrade – but javelins didn’t replace slings, so I’m not sure about that.
One possible way to handle this is for the bowman upgrade to become available in the Iron Age rather than Bronze Age. I think this would be my preference, because it preserves the fact that Bronze Age unit lines outclass Tool Age ones. I think the main purpose of adding upgrades for Tool Age trash units is to give civs without chariots better trash options in the late game, and for that they wouldn’t be needed before Iron Age anyway.
I think Javelin Thrower should be a new unit line.
They were much more common in ancient times then in Medieval ones, yet they are in AoE2 but not in AoE1.
They should probably have a different role though.
I think Slingers should either be good or cheap.
Maybe they can be both but for different civilisations.
Make the Technology that removes the Stone cost mutually exclusive to the one that turns them into Heavy Slingers.
One of my ideas was to give all 4 Tool Age units an Iron Age upgrade.
If they had a Bronze Age one they would be too powerful in Bronze Age and probably useless in Iron Age.
Especially the Axeman. Infantry needs very good stats to overcome the inherent weaknesses of no speed and no range.
A middleground would me to give them very expensive Bronze Age upgrades.
So it’s usually not worth it to research it in Bronze Age but you have the option, especially when your civilisation has a discount.
For the Bowman situation.
I think no civilisation should get an upgrade to the Bowman and also have access to the Improved Bowman line.
I think civ-specific upgrades would be neat to see. They could be the “Unique Units” for those civilizations. For example, you could have the Egyptians upgrade the Short Swordsman to a Khopeshman.
That would be useful to represent, if they were added, Germanic tribes whose numerous axe-infantry, instead of the swordman line, kicked in after Europe already surpassed iron age.
If you have never seen that then you should read my posts.
I suggested giving the Improved Bowman the Composite Bowman stats (and research cost) and move the Composite Bowman to Iron Age and give it better stats.
Every civ that doesn’t have the Composite Bowman now loses access to the Improved Bowman, not like they use them anyway.
Not sure if those armies should ne represented by a trash unit.
I think it would be better to add a new Gold Infantry for that instead.
I kinda agree with reworking the improved bowman. It just feels like a useless unit you replace right away. If you moved the composite bowman to the iron age, it’d make more sense.
As for the tool age units, even if they upgrade in the bronze age they should still feel like trash. They should just be better trash. The new Bronze Age units should be vastly superior, but the offset is that they cost gold.
As for the slingers…Aoe 1 doesn’t have castles so there’s way more stone available. The slinger should be a strong unit, but you’d have to choose between building walls and tower or massing slingers. It is essentially a choice.
Everyone cares about the Improved Bowman but everyone forgets about the poor Short Sword that has exactly the same fate.
Maybe the Improved Bowman Line could be a soft counter archer line. With a little pierce armour and a little bonus damage against other archers (only like +1 or +2) this way they would have a unique role in late game and a clear advantage over the Bowman Line.
The Short Sword Line could get bonus damage against Infantry (besides Hoplite Line) and therefor counter the Axeman. That would also give you a good reason to switch away from the Axeman.
The problem is that Archer are very powerful in late game (especially mounted ones) so I think there should be a good counter unit to that.
You can run out of Stone relatively fast but your opponent won’t run out of Food an Wood for their Chariot Archers.
I think that in general AoE 1 has a problem with unit lines terminating too early, all of them should rebalanced as to still retain some use even in late game. I was honestly hoping that they would address this issue in RoR, but alas…
Short Swordsman doesn’t have exactly the same fate with Improved Bowman, since DE. Because in DE they removed the related tech prerequisite from the Barracks, to make him.
You can start mass Short Swordsmen when hit Bronze age. Of course everyone invests right away to upgrade them, while producing Shorts… but Improved Bowman’s case is even worse with that empty of Bronze age units Archery Range, when you hit Bronze age.
I don’t know if it was intentional to remain like this, for some tactical reason.
Another option to Improved bowman dilemma and Bowman upgrade could be that Improved bowman would become bronze age upgrade to Bowman, which wouldn’t cost gold. Need to research Composite Bowman would still remain and that would also get Iron Age upgrade.