If I were reworking American civs I’d make plumed archers a regional unit, replacing crossbow and arbalest, then give Maya a new castle unique unit. Obviously plumed archers might need some cost and stat adjustments to make this work well, but it would solve the problems of American civs having crossbows/arbalests and of the gameplay overlap between the archer line and plumed archers.
Well, no Paladin replacement would be needed because no Islamic civs have them, so perhaps make Timarli → Kapikulu replace Knight → Cavalier.
These are just names though, not unit concepts, so it’s less even than the kitbashed sprites from Reddit..
The harsh truth is, ideas are easy, ideas are worthless.
What matters is being able to see what others can’t see, patience, testing, understanding of gameplay, track record, communication skills, and execution. Because ideas are a dime a dozen, but execution is not.
The world is full of “if some random executer had trusted me out of thin air, spent all his time executing my masterfully created gazillion ideas impeccably, and taken all the risks on my behalf, then we would all be fine.”
I learned about these people the hard way when I was working on developing another game. You can’t really communicate with this kind of person who still hasn’t learned that this is not how things work in real life.
Now, let’s get back to the topic:
As for new regional units, it’s not as easy to implement as it looks due to several problems:
You wouldn’t want it to overlap too much with existing units or be almost a copy of one.
You wouldn’t want it to be too niche or redundant.
You also wouldn’t want it to change the civ’s identity or the general balance overall.
Steppe Lancers, for example, were a great addition. Even then, Tatars ended up with six cavalry units, which is too much, in my honest opinion. Having fewer but more distinctive units is better than having too many that overlap with each other too much.
For me currently I would really like the Shieldman as a regional unit for (northern) european civs.
They could counter skirmishers, but also kinda archers but be terrible against basically anything else.
For some of the civs like Teutons they would be the main anti-archery unit, but especially useful to break the tendency of a lot of matchups on archery favoring maps to go into a full skirm war. And it would be sufficient if the unit is only given to a part of the civs cause the chances of one of these civs being in the game would be high enough to break that tendency without having to change it for all civs.
A lot of civs that get it could even in return lose eg the elite Skirm upgrade like Vikings, making their playstyle be way less focussed on spamming skirms with superior eco and stuff
I addtition to that the shield formation was actually, especially in the early middle ages the most common form of warfare in northern europe and something like a javeline throwing foot soldier didn’t even exist since the roman republic. So it would be the way more accurate unit AND would allow to break the stupid Skirm war strategic bottleneck that currently this “same type counter” unit creates on generally archery favoring maps.
Especially the Swordsman Line could become the main counter, finally adding a useful role for that unit in the midgame.
A fast skirmisher can cause problem for Mens at arms if he have more speed (like the bowmen before April 2025). We need another concept. Visually looking better than the present western european skinned skirmisher.
Slingers
I disagree with this because I think than the Slingers must be a regional unit for the Andean civilizations (alongside with another one ranged unit the bolas thrower who slow down enemy units). But keeping the actual slingers as an unique upgrade for the Incas is good because his shield is the emblem of this civilization. Also I think than the shield must be a square ecause the final upgrade have a square shield.
Staff sling (mangonel replacement)
Obsidian archer (scorpion replacement)
Archer with high damage and low attack rate and who revive the obsidian arrow technology : I say good !
Portable ram (ram replacement)
Good concept this three one except in putting two population spaces for the portable ram, I think than all the units in this game must cost only one population space.
War canoe
Good thing for the mesoamerican civilizations but maybe the andean civilizations can have a regional ship who look like the Chincha raft of Age of Empires 3 or the reed canoes of the Inca home city of Age of Empires 3. Also if an andean architectural set is created the andean civvilization need a new type of sail (just search Inca sail in a search engine).
New architectural set
Good to see new architectural set because the present one is a mayan architectural set is barely acceptable for the Aztecs but are awful for the Incas, definitively we need an andean architectural set.
Maceman Runner (eagle warrior replacement)
Yes the Inca need an unit who look like this because this type of mace was in use in this region. Maybe not as a scout (another one the Chasqui will be the scout). The only who can be better is putting them a square shield who better differentiate him from another region (one time the devs put a skin for eagle warrior with an inca square shield). Also for his weapon : stone mace in Feudal age, bronze mace in Castle age (like the three mace on this picture of the lord of Sipan) and a bronze star-shaped mace in Imperial.
Holcan spearman (eagle warrior replacement)
Maybe with a ranged charged attack (In AoE 3 the Holcan spearman have a little range)
Yeah, maybe just reskinning existing units for various region should be considered. And stat change or new unit should be considered if only it brings something new to the gameplay.
A civ with too many unique or regional units might give “out of place” vibe.
The most different civ is currently Khitans with 2 UU + 4 regional unit + 1 unique building. 8-9 unique or regional unit for a civ is way too much considering how few unique or regional units get the other civs.
At this point, Camel Rider is barely a regional unit to me. It is more like Hand Cannon/BBC imo. Something you have as an extra option. But I get what you are saying.
Paladin is more exclusive than Heavy Camel Rider now. 12 civs vs 10. And if you count Cumans with just Camel Rider, it is 13. This is one of the reason I’m thinking about splitting the unit into 2 will be good. Something like Knight vs Hei Guang.
I’m actually huge fan of them and Legionary, and W.Hussar. Wish we had more. Especially more regional upgrades like W.Hussar.
New unique upgrade. Cumans and Huns getting a new regional variant of Paladin will be my dream. Then we can also rework their useless Imperial Age UTs.
I don’t really have any specific ideas (other than turning the plumed archer into a regional upgrade for the archer and the slinger into a regional unit), but I really think NA civs need at least three regional units, whether that includes the eagle scout or not
They need at least their own counterpart to the cannon calleon/lou chuan
North Americans having Eagle Scout would be a stretch, unless it’s the US after 1776 to show their balled eagle which represents freedom and highest obesity rates in world. We already have 3k outside of timeline so why not USA?
Then maoe them REGIONAL. One savar or Legionary reeks of special snowflake. Like I dunno… Byzantine Legionary??? I fear soon enough every civ will have its own tech tree with no overlap and you might as well play aom or something where civs dont share tech tree
I propose Lancer, a thematic regional unit for western european, available only for Britons, Franks, Celts, Burgundian, Teutons, Spanish, and Italians. Elite version only available for Italians, Spanish, Franks, and Teutons.
The unit will have same cost, train time, and stats as Camel Rider with an extra 1/1 base armor but unlike camels, the bonus only affects Knight line instead of all cavalry. It will also have +2(4) damage versus unique unit.
