Spirit of the Law came out with another of his “AoE2 vs. History” videos, covering the Britons. It is a excellent video, and I recommend checking it out when you have the time…but that is not exactly why I am making this post. Britons: AoE2 vs History - YouTube
This post is to explore ways of buffing the Britons.
The Britons are a pretty powerful civ when it comes to archers, and they are decent in the infantry and cavalry category. Their Siege and Naval rosters are not bad either. But, I think that Britons can use two buffs just to make their civ bonus stand out a bit more:
(1)Give Britons a better herdable bonus or give them something to make more use out of it. Since the Tartars were introduced, the Britons have been overshadowed by them in terms of herdable economy as the Tartars get a very good bonus of 50% more food generated from herdables. This difference has been even more pronounced when Tartars in the 2020 November patch received another civ bonus of 2 free sheep generated per Town Center constructed. I suggest that the Britons get a similar bonus of free herdables–or, in order to not just give the Britons the exact same bonus that Tartars get, make it so that Briton herdables lose no meat decay when Shepherds are harvesting the meat. My point is to make their bonus of Shepherds work 33% faster more meaningful.
(2)Make the Yeoman Unique Upgrade’s +2 attack bonus to Briton Towers more useful by making Arrowslits free for Britons. Yeoman is a must-have upgrade for Briton archers because the civ’s main strength it in its archers. But the “+2 attack to Towers” part does not make much sense. The Britons do not get powerful bonuses to their Towers like the Koreans do, and they do not even get reduced cost to building towers like the Incas do, or extra arrows fired like the Japanese’ Yasama UT . This part of the unique upgrades bonus seems to me to be the devs decision to buff the Britons’ tower is some way to compensate for the fact that the Britons lacks Bombard Tower. But +2 attack is not really much. So I propose making Arrowslits free for the Britons. It costs only 250 Wood and 250 Food, so it is not really that game-changing for the Britons, and it mostly just saves some time bothering to do the research time at the University. Other ways to make the Yeoman’s bonus to tower’s more meaningful is to maybe make Briton Towers have +1 range (simulating how Briton archers also get +1 range from Yeoman).
So that is it for my proposed buffs to Britons. Feel free to let me know below what you think about such proposed buffs or whether or not there are other buffs that you think the Britons should receive.
I thought I was clear in why I think they need a buff: I said it was because I find their current bonuses to be not as “useful” as they could be, namely the herdable work rate bonus and the +2 tower attack bonus from Yeoman.
As far as win-rates for the Britons and other civs…I do not think that the Britons are in a bad place if that is what you are asking. I am just merely commenting on my own personal experience playing the Britons, as they are one of my favorite civs to play in AoE2, and I have been playing them for quite some time.
I understand everyone want buff for their favorite civ, but that is not the reason we got balance changes. I see no reason to buff them. Like you said: They arent in a bad spot. I have think they are in a good spot. They are one of the best flank civs in TGs.
It’s fine for a strong civ to have 2 weak bonuses.
True, Tatars may have better Shepherds, but they need it because they are a CA civ, thus needing a better economy than Britons do.
True, the way the UT effects towers is a bit weird, and Koreans have better towers than Britons, but again it’s ok because Britons have archers with +3 range, whereas Koreans do not.
It is a bit weird that the UT effects towers differently than archers (+1 range for both would have been my expectation), but it doesn’t really do any harm in the big picture
I haven’t played much for Britons, but I think it’s necessary to develop the uniqueness of civilizations, not primarily of course, but these suggestions can find a place
Im the cases where 12/11 range archer are good they are broken good, especially against ai. When faced with open area with cav it’s almost useless bonus.
12 range archers is just too much, like Korean onagers were too much back in aoc. Pls change it!
I would like to see the towers buff, it makes sense and doesn’t really change how the civ is played in any large way but does add some utility - heck, I wouldn’t mind 14 range keeps for the britons in imperial age and would make perfect sense to be the only towers to outrange the turk bombard towers and bombard canons.
14 range instead of the longbow’s 12 simply for the fact that the archer is shooting from higher up and should reach farther.
I like the lack of decay idea for the britons while under villager use and that they still decay if left alone.
I’d give Britons a better bonus to their trebs, the extra splash damage is detrimental when aiming to use the trebs to defend your units due to this.
For instance:
Trebs +20% accuracy,
Trebs are 100% accurate
Trebs gain +4 pierce armor
Or however much needed to make it useful
Trebs gain +?% movement speed
Trebs fire 2-3 projectiles(scattershot, each one does 1/3-1/2 dmg)
Let’s just give Korean towers on steroids to an already very strong defensive civ. It shouldn’t change how they play. Players will surely be nice to each other and not overuse an overpowered building. They will only build 1 or 2 of them them every game to keep things balanced.
Because it would make the game more realistic which is waaaaay more important than balancing.
Now let’s buff their trebs, because them being by far the best trebs in the game IS NOT ENOUGH!!! I NEED MOOOAAAR!!!
Now I just wanted to show you that I have no clue what I am talking about, because if I had, I would know that upgraded Briton trebs already are 100% accurate…
Giving them 154 instead if 150 pierce armor seems to be a good idea though. Helps a lot in those 256x tech games where my opponent researched Fletching 150 times.
or make a more complicated version of what they’re doing now, while still being less usefull.
Okay, let’s stop here. Serious question: How often in your life have you hit a ram with a trebuchet? I’ve played this game for hundreds of hours and I’m pretty sure I’m at 0. Inca farm bonus would be glorious compared to this.
I hope you can take the irony
I just thing most of your reasoning is straight up wrong and the ideas would be very bad for the game. Your treb changes woulkd actually make sense to some extent if you wanted to nerf Briton trebs (which would be more appropriate than buffing them anyway^^)
Britons are like THE archer civ, how aren’t they standing out.
Not at all. If the Tatar bonus had to buffed and not the Briton one, it’s because more food sure is nice, but turns out it’s worse than faster food.
Do you realise that “not losing meat” is not “similar” but way weaker than getting tons of sheep? How can you not understand the game to the point of claiming those two ideas are similar?
Then why would free arrowslits make more sense?
Once again, not at all. How do you think those towers fire arrows? Because there are archers inside. So it makes sense as an archer bonus. Historically, you can justify it with the fact England has its fair share of castles.
Koreans anyone?
Let’s replace a bonus that needs skill and focus to use with one that automatically give elite longbows double the damage against elite huskarl or briton arbs +25% damage against paladins. We don’t have the same definition of “too much”
LOL balancing a civ because of AI matches 11111111111111
I agree. The Britons ARE one of the best flank civs in the game. But my proposed buffs are not really meant to make the Britons more powerful or give them a higher winrate essentially…my buffs are just meant to make the current civ bonuses of the Britons more useful.
Yeoman’s +2 attack to towers is not incredibly useful…I would like to see it be more useful in some way. Free Arrowslits for Britons would not be making them too powerful…just that it would encourage some tower strategies maybe, and make Yeoman more than just a simple buff to archers.
As for my proposed buff for sheep, it is just that I would like that bonus to be somewhat more useful than just Dark Age economy.
I honestly do NOT want to make Britons into a powerful tower civ, like Koreans. But I jsut want to see thier tower bonus more reasonable in usefullness.
Yes, Britons are fine the way they are at. And if nothing changes in them? I am totally fine with that.
Honestly, I sometimes feel that the game devs should not change anything. Like, no more buffing or nerfing…just leave all civs are they are and only add new seasonal events and scenarios and other tweaks to the game like debugging, etc.
I did make a post a month or two ago where I warned against having the videogame be plagued by TOO MANY buff/nerf changes. So this post here that I made about buffing the Britons sort of goes against what I was warning against. Lol.
While a part of me is nervous of buffing and nerfing getting out of hand…another par of me wants to see some changes happen. I mean…who doesn’t? Whether it be a favorite civ that you play or a hated civ that you despise playing against…each and every player wants to propose their own list of buffs and nerfs to this game, because a lot of us love this game.
I also made this post partly out of a curiosity to see if there are others like me who think that the Britons could use a little bit of nudge in buffs.
What britons needs is to lose their team bonus to unique civ bonus, then give them a new team bonus comparable with the inca team bonus, something unique that doesn’t hurt anyone, what about build houses 20% faster.
Britons don’t need a buff. Quite frankly I keep seeing buff ideas to compensate for buffs elsewhere… this is not balance, it’s inflation. A buff to one civ is a nerf to all other civs.
Briton herdable bonus is actually very powerful as it allows Britons to go one extra villager on wood instead of food early on which compounded with archery ranges working faster results in a very unnoticeable but meaningful impact to their archer production. As for Yeoman - it’s one of the most powerful unique techs if not the most powerful unique tech in the castle age. Just because it affects towers doesn’t mean Britons need to suddenly become a tower civ on top of them being a supreme archer civ.
The only change to Britons I would like to see is a also buff to Yeomen because of the quite high cost. I actually personally really like the extra +2 attack to towers. I’d hate to see that part lost. I would like to see Yeomen changed to
Yoemen (+1 foot archer range, town centers spawn 1 villager 1 longbowman 1 farm upon build completion, +2 tower attack)
The cost can be increased further to compensate for the buff.
