Proliferation of Civs with too many bonuses

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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There are discussions in the community that the game has too many civs, too many new gimmics, overuse of variants of same gimmick. One such a issue that has been bothering me is too many options being removed from their tech trees and more than 4 civ bonuses added to civs to make up. Criminal use of ‘AND’ word to put 2 bonuses as 1 instead of fixing existing bonus’s numbers. Case in point the last buff to italians just added +1/+1 to archers and condotieri to take the total civ bonus to 5. However italians already had 5 bonuses since Dock and University discounts were 2 bonuses just clubbed and written as one.

There is the other issue of new more powerful buildings and units which replace generic buildings and units not listed as a bonus such as the ‘fortified church’ which works as a krepost lite for a paltry +25 wood cost. The correct way to balance it should have been to have +25 stone cost to prevent spamming of the building. I give the ‘mule cart’ a pass since you can’t wall in vills with mulecart. However if that were to happen, then the civ might become busted. The civ currently does not play as oppressive since they lack siege engineers and BBC for late game.

Here is the solution, To start with, I belive we should remove a superfluous bonus from these kind of civs next patch:

Italians:

Removed Bonuses:

  • 20% discount on gunpowder

New Bonuses:

  • ‘Silk Road’ “Trade and gunpowder units 25% cheaper”

Armenians:

Removed Bonuses:

  • Galley-line and Dromons fire an additional projectile
  • Cilician Fleet (Demolition Ships +20% blast radius and +1 range)

New Bonuses:

  • Cilician Fleet - Galley-line and Dromons fire two additional projectiles
  • Add Treadmill crane(Optional)

Malay:

Removed Bonuses:

New Bonuses:

Dravidians:

Removed Bonuses:

  • +200 wood per Age (total +600)
  • 33% Siege wood discount
  • Team bonus: “Docks give +5 pop”

New Bonuses:

  • +10 wood per Villager trained (stops at Imperial Age)
  • Team bonus: “Ships and Siege weapons repaired 25% faster”

Bengalis:

Removed Bonuses:

  • Cavalry +2 attack vs. Skirmishers

Note - To compensate, Ratha can be made to benefit from cavalry Armour, archer armour and parthian tactics (if available in future)

Poles:
Modified Bonus:

  • Bloodlines, Husbandry and Scout Cavalry-line upgrades cost -50% food

Jurchens:

Removed Bonuses:

Teutons:

Removed Bonuses:

  • Monks have double healing range.

Modified bonus:

Saracens:

Removed Bonuses:

Modified bonus:

  • Camel units, Trade cart and Trade cog +20% hit points

Do you think making such changes will make civs simpler to understand and play?

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Teutons had the most number if bonuses since aok,no one found that confusing.

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Well, Teutons have some meh bonuses like double healing range, herbal medicine for free. Nobody can strategize gameplay using those. They have quite a wide tech tree for their infantry and cavalry. So they might as well not not have those bonuses.

I did not make an exhaustive list. Just some bloated band-aids that irk me.

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I personally like quirky civ bonuses and don’t want to see them changed. I like seeing civs with unusual and quirky abilities because it adds flavour to the combat.

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There are quirky bonuses and there are bonuses which have close to zero impact like Turks with their 50% cheaper gunpowder techs which affects only bombard towers tech and elite cannon galleon. Turks are goof without such bonuses.

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super broken bonus, basically 20% cheaper vills

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Problem is you’re changing all of the OG civs bonuses for the most part. The most quirky civs are the new ones, 3k. Also Jurchen livestock not decay bonus is one of the coolest ones in game. Don’t touch it.

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How? Villagers don’t cost wood.

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Turks are one of the worst civs in the game. Outside of Arena (or some other strange settings) they just simply die to cavalry.

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I opened this thread expecting rightful complaints about the 3K and Khitans. Instead I find…this.

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Its more like 15% in dark age reducing over time to 10% in post imp. Most food sources are way slower than wood in early game

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Wood is far easier and plentiful resource at the beginning. If you work the numbers, it is practically just 1 lumberjack working from start who does not upgrade over the ages. The numbers match the current 200 wood bonus. But front loaded which is a vital necessity for a civ like Dravidians with half of a viable tech tree. Compared to this Mayans +1 vill comes on top of 15% longer lasting resources. Goth get +1 vill due to instant loom and they get viable cavalry. So its a fairly balanced tech for Dravidians.

The game itself is not the OG game anymore. Its hard to keep track of of so many bonuses. If a civ had 3 bonuses, its easy to plan your game and then adapt based on how it plays out. But 5 bonuses just means you kinds have to play a rigid manner with memorized build orders.

The bonus ‘Gunpowder techs 50% cheaper’ helps building bombard towers and elite cannon galleon. It does not help against cavalry, elephants or camels. Just give +1 pierce armour to camel line as well and be done with it.

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hindustanis have 8/13/18% food discount on vills in dark/feudal/castle (we can ignore the imperial one for this comparions sake since the poster above says imp the wood matters the least)

if you are telling me that getting 10 wood for every villager made is not at least of equal strength as saving 4/6.5/9 food in dark/feudal/ castle then idk what to say

also, this 10 wood thing opens up possibilities of 16 pop feudal timing for Dravidians or some super fast drushes (you dont need to gather any wood at all for feudal up, practically 150+ wood bonus in dark age, much better than persia or lith bonus)

and makes their eco very smooth

it would really boost them up to the top tier of arabia civs, top 5 handily, even despite having bad stable

And yes im aware that wood has a better innate gather rate, but if u compare then the 10 wood to the 4 and 6.5 food of hindus, it turns out to be equal-ish value. And then in castle age the hindustani bonus pulls away quite a lot since 9 food is much better than 10 wood.

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It’s not comparable. Villagers don’t cost wood.

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If you actually used the civs, you’d know it’s not even a watch tower lite. They don’t even fire arrows by default unless they’re garrisoned and even fully garrisoned, the damage is pretty weak. Stone cost suggestion for the fortified church is preposterous.

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I wouldn’t say they die, but yeah, generic Castle Age camels barely counter knights.

If the opponent has good eco and/or good knights, these camels do nothing to them. Like, it makes no sense to use them against Polish or Sicilian knights.

Better to go with cav archers and monks against them since they also synergize well with the gold mining bonus. And maybe Elite Janissaries against Paladins.

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I’m surprised you’d make Italian gunpowder stronger. I see neither reason nor benefit in this change.

Just cavalry and archer armor would be a total +6/8 armor, which would put non-elite Rathas at 9/10 armor (as opposed to their current 6/6 → 6/7 with Elite). That’s pretty ridiculous, especially for a civ that already has a strong post-imp. You could lower base armor, but that would weaken Bengalis in early castle age (not a good idea). The extra attack vs skirmishers was added to address a Bengali weakness - there’s no reason to remove it.

My favorite bonus in the game. It isn’t particularly powerful, and it is the Jurchens only eco bonus. Jurchen win rate isn’t doing all that well right now. So without a compelling reason, it really shouldn’t be removed.

No. The changes seem purposeless to me (and sometimes unbalancing). They don’t even seem loosely targeted towards making the civs easier to play (ex: extra dock LOS makes them spot more fish upon construction, making Malay slightly easier to play; Jurchen eco bonus especially is a beginner-friendly bonus).

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I am saying Mayans have +1 vill on top of 15% longer lasting resources and the games still remain competitive. So 10 wood per vill bonus whose numbers pretty much equal a lumberjack in raw stats will also remain balanced.

For a civ that relies on elephants and faster transitions to confront heavy cavalry civs, shoudn’t they get a bonus just as good if not better than Hindustanis who have bonus on camels to start with. My qualm with the civ is that it has three very differnt wood bonuses with very little flexibility.

If needed the bonus can be staggered as 8,10,12 across dark/feudal/castle age which would let them use the wood bonus flexibily. Wood gathers roughly 30% faster than food after walking is taken into calculation. But wood is needed in bulk early game compared to food and lumberjack upgrades give more productivilty than food and gold upgrades. So wood has to be far higher than food discount.

I want the civs to be simple enough to understand and play. If the civ were to play like vikings economy so be it, remove ‘thumb ring’, ‘25% faster firing skirms and elephant archers’, ‘hand cannons’ and ‘medical corps’ and replace it with a castle age unique tech
“Strike Corps” - Archery range units fire 25% faster

The bonuses will look like this

Civilization bonuses

  • Receive 10 wood for every villager trained.
  • Fishermen, Oyster gatherers, and Fishing Ships carry +15.
  • Barracks technologies cost -50%.
    Team - Fishing ships +4 LOS

Very similar to OG vikings

Civilization bonuses

  • Wheelbarrow and Hand Cart free.
  • Warships cost -15%/-15%/-20% in the Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age.
  • Infantry have +20% hit points starting from the Feudal Age.
    Team - Docks are 15% cheaper

A towncenter does not fire arrows by default either. Should we remove stone cost of towncenters too?
Just because nobody at the top level is able to abuse fortified church does not mean that it is balanced. It just shows how complex gameplay has become. IMVHO fortified church should be like ‘winged hussar’, the upgrade should be available only to armenians and georgians in their monastry costing wood and stone. This way they don’t become a bonus by default. But a technology that needs to be paid for. Currently folwark, camel scout, eagle scout, caraversari are implied as a bonus themselves.

Without Siege enginners, they struggle late game. A 25% discount gives them more staying power. I had to come up with a number than bridges trade cart discout with gunpowder. 25% seemed optimal.

The ratha thing was just a suggestion. If needed just remove their team bonus of trade generating food and repace it with +2 bonus vs skirms.

I have not played the 3 kingdom civs. This bonus seems to go against basic game mechanics. I was never a fan of khmer bonuses either.

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False equivalence, a TC is a central economic building. And without mining stone, you can’t place two TCs after castle age if a monastery cost stone. Spamming Church is only rewarding for Georgians, Armenians only get a glorified monastery

It kinda does, most balance changes are centred around high elo, not noob strats

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Resources are Resources

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