I need to clarify that higher number of total changes don’t mean a more significant change. For example, Incas new food discount is way more significant than all the changes Gurjaras have gone through.
Britons
Byzantines
Celts
Chinese
Franks
Goths
Japanese
Mongols
Teutons
Turks
Vikings
None
0voters
Britons - A lot of people still complain about Britons archer line having excessive range than necessary which made Longbowman just an alternative to regular archer line. Asking to change Yeoman effect is very common and after Georgians getting better version of the Tower extra part of the UT, a new UT for Britons is logical imo.
Celts - I won’t say they not having any good strategy on high elo apart from Hoang rush is the reason Celts need change. I think they should have more infantry bonuses. Just 5% faster speed on infantry doesn’t cut it anymore. Also old Stronghold UT was so weak that I asked it to be generic tech in University. Woad Raider and new Strongholds effects are okay. But a new UT Infantry +1/+1 armor would strengthen their infantry identity. Also history lovers will love this change.
Chinese - Minimizing the strength gap of this civ between elos should be a topic. They have some useless or niche bonuses like extra HP on demo ships and walls. These bonuses can be utilized better to reduce the skil gap between high and low elo. Also splitting this civ into 2 or 3 is a hot topic.
Franks - Ever since Ethiopians Royal Heir change, people has become more vocal about changing Uts that affect UU only. Persians Mahouts UT is about to be free and Magyars Corvinian Army is also about to change. Maybe Franks Bearded Axe UT can be fee as well so that we can finally remove faster working forager bonus from Franks. And then add a more useful UT.
Goths - I bet this civ will win the poll. Nothing new to say about this civ honestly.
Japanese - Samurai change is a topic of discussion. And Katapuruto UT too.
Mongols - Mostly because of the Nomads UT. Other than that, castle age SL play being too strong has been said a lot lately.
Turks - Getting SL or not has been discussed time to time.
I personally didn’t see any big vocal to change rest of the 3 - Byzantines, Teutons, Vikings.
I don’t get what people have against the tech (aside from maybe name?). Kataparuto Trebuchets are insane.
I voted for None, because honestly… I think the civs are good. There could be some smaller changes here and there, but nothing I’d classify as ‘significant’. I think some later civs to the game should be first in line for major reworks or changes.
Argument is “Since Japanese didn’t have trebuchets, they shouldn’t get a bonus for that unit”. I’m surprised you’ve never seen this argument in this forum.
A different UT will be somewhat significant. Maybe they will get BBC as a compensation. IDK
Maybe still won’t be as significant as Persians. But that will be something.
Celts could get a DLC honestly to rework them into Scots and adding other two or three civs among Picts, Irish, Welsh, Saxons and Normans. Britons would probably be reworked a bit too.
No, I did - I’m aware that people don’t like the tech, but I’ve just forgotten exactly what the problems were. Fair enough.
I feel like the faster firing Trebs itself is a really powerful tech and has become kind of the iconic feature for Japanese civ in the game. I’m not really sure what you’d replace it with, and I wouldn’t want to see the tech gone either.
We aren’t splitting civs that don’t need that because for one thing, they represent in smaller portions than the Indian subcontinent and also because there’s already so many civs in AoE2. I think the final civs to be added to AoE2 should be the Kurds and Pashtuns.
You could give the Aztecs trainable cavalry and give them really powerful cavalry bonuses, and then that would become an iconic feature for the Aztecs.
In my opinion, Kataparuto is both completely inaccurate and not often researched in Japanese games. It makes perfect sense to replace it with something new. The faster firing Trebuchets are interesting, but they just don’t fit this civilization. You can give them to other civilizations.
Don’t think anything much is needed to the AoK civs except nerfing Franks & making the Jaguar Warrior not completely useless, probably by making it an upgrade to the Long-Swordsman.
I would like to see a mild Byzantine buff (& Greek voicelines & new architecture) as they’re not even the best defensive civ anymore, but that’s it.
Celts could get a DLC honestly to rework them into Scots and adding other two or three civs among Picts, Irish, Welsh, Saxons and Normans. Britons would probably be reworked a bit too.
Normans are ‘Sicilians’, Saxons are just ‘Britons’ or rather the English (very stupid name considering Britons always meant the native Celtic population). Picts both too obscure & outside AoE timeframe, Irish never an independent power (although voicelines are Gaelic which is extremely similar to Irish), same for Welsh.
Also more justified to split the Italians, Spanish or Slavs.
Looking at the vote results:
IMO britons, chinese and byzantines are spot on.
Japanese, it’d be cool if they got some archer/cav archer samurai, something, but the civ is complete with out it. perhaps not as flavorful but compete. Admittedly the did just get +2 vs archers on their HCA. Until we get something more concrete, my head cannon is that japanese samurai cav archers are decimating archers.
Celts need like one tweak. maybe the upcoming addition of ring archer armor is it. hard to put my finger on it.
Goths conversely are kinda one trick pony. That’s kind of the whole problem with their concept. they’re stupid good at one thing, so not to make them OP, you limit their options, which makes the predictable. I haven’t the foggiest idea what to change, but for them to be “ideal” something’s gotta change and it’s probably more than a small balance change.
I just read their wiki and while all their AI names derive from Normans they’re all only the Normans that came to conquer Sicily and south Italy. Their voice lines are modern Sicilian dialect, that’s why you don’t play them in Hastings. Their wonder and architecture supposedly refer to Sicily. So they derive from Normans but they’re not meant to represent them. True Normans would actually have more in common with current Britons since after Hastings they would have rule and mix with natives creating modern English people (so I don’t know how, when and if Normans and Britons should be divided).
Not quite because Saxons were overrun by Normans after Hastings and that was the end of their rule and Britons refer to the native people living there before Romans (so not Saxons who were Germanic and invaded Britain only in mid 5th century). You can’t make Britons represent Saxons because the longbows were not a Saxon thing at all, they would work better as Welsh.
Picts are reported between 300 and 900 AD circa so not outside the timeframe at all. Iirc their fusion with Gaelic elements coming from Ireland would result in Scots which would make them a precursor civ but that’s the only way to keep the woad raiders in game since Picts were mostly pagan. I don’t know what too obscure means, you can find name of rulers and battles easily.
I don’t know anything about Irish but I know there are lots of info for them in middle ages and it feels better to have a civ to represent Ireland.
About Welsh they would take a lot from current Britons in terms of archer bonuses and it would feel better to have Welsh in Edward longshanks represented by something different than the same civ you’re playing (Normans? Britons?) since it was clearly not the same thing. Welsh were very fiercely independent lol they created the longest lasting sub Roman kingdom from Roman departure to longshanks, almost 1000 years resisting to Saxons and vikings the whole time! Sometimes they’re considered the last Romans in the west.
Make Longbowmen and Elite Longbowmen replace Crossbowmen and Arbalester as unique upgrades.
Tweak the stats of (Elite) Longbow to fit the new positions, such like having the range of 6 and 7 (elite).
Introduce a new UU in Castles.
Or…
Remove the range bonus.
Slow down (Elite) Longbowman’s firing speed.
Gain Thumb Ring.
Whichever, there could still be:
Yeoman changed to give +2 range to Longbow and towers.
Eupseong changed to give +25% rate of fire to defensive buildings.
Bimaristan also gives Monasteries a healing aura.
Replace Stronghold with Gallowglass: increase infantry units’ speed and/or armor.
How about losing something such like -50 wood, in exchange for +50 food when the game starts.
Maybe make their demo ships HP bonus change to Stone Walls HP bonus and get a new UT.
And, please give them the Hand Cannoneers.
It’s a big issue.
Excluding MAA + tower rush in the Feudal age, theoretically their infantry’s power peak should be late in the game, but they were killed before then.
Lose Cavaliers in exchange for Barding Armor.
Lose Bombard Cannons in exchange for Redemption and Block Printing.
Lose Heavy Cavalry Archers in exchange for Thumb Ring.
Lose Architecture and maybe even Masonry in exchange for basic Stone Walls.
That way at least there are decent Hussars, Monks and Elite Skirmishers to help out the Gothic infantry. I don’t know.
Anything new that can be used to help (Elite) Samurai can become the new UT to replace Kataparuto.
If that was Archer mode, it should have low attack, slow fire rate but still have a +10/+12 bonus against UUs.
CAs +2 attack against archers is a bit too good in my opinion and may require losing Husbandry if not losing Bloodlines.
I voted Japanese, but I have mixed feelings about them. I think gameplay-wise they’re mostly well-balanced, but apart from their architecture and dialogue, they don’t feel very Japanese. They primarily use crossbows/arbalests (weapons the Japanese didn’t use), have a UT for trebuchets (another weapon the Japanese didn’t use), and their unique unit is basically useless. At least the cavalry archer bonus should help a bit.
Honourable (or, I suppose, dishonourable) mentions: Britons often play as too much of a crossbow civ, and not enough of a longbow civ; Chinese are unbalanceable across even a reasonable range of ability levels, and I find their resource penalty to be a dissatisfying and inelegant compromise; Celts are ahistorical nonsense, but so much so that changing them to “fix” it wouldn’t be worthwhile.
Gothic architecture has nothing to do with the Goths. The name was originally used derogatarily by early modern Romaboos who knew less about the middle ages than they thought they did.