Reworking the Burgundian Civ Bonuses

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
#1

Just gonna post some random shower thoughts here on the Burgundians. I’m a casual watcher of some twitch streams like nili, t90, and theviper, and have heard some common lamentations regarding the Burgundian civ. They seem too 1-trick pony, they borrow weird “revolution” mechanics from age 3 that not all like etc. They are not considered strong at the moment, so I was looking at their civ bonuses thinking, “how could these be tweaked and improved, but still keep the civ’s identity intact?”. So this is what I came up with.

*“Economic upgrades available one age earlier” replaced with Economic upgrades research 10/20/30/40% faster in dark/feudal/castle/imp
-Right now I think their current eco bonus is rather unused at high competitive levels. The meta seems to basically be, “well, I can research heavy plow on the way up” or something, because timing is pretty set in the meta for so many things, and having just one civ exist outside of that doesn’t work quite as well as hoped I think.

*Stable techs cost -50% (I would keep this one)

*Cavalier upgrade available in Castle Age
-This one could stay I suppose because it fits the theme, but I would prefer to just get rid of the whole “one age early” theme and instead change it to something like Cavalier researched instantly which would happen in early imp as opposed to castle, but still be a mid-game spike. Sort of similar to what you guys did with the Saracens, maybe because you don’t want to give bloodlines to the Coustillier, they could get a “Knight units +20hp” civ bonus. Since their cavalier would definitely be weaker being moved to early imp than it was before.

*Unique Technology-Flemish Revolution: I’ve seen a few comments on not liking how this feels like Aoe3 and it just being an “out of aoe2” type of tech. So how about a slight rework?
Flemish Revolution(Cost increase to 850F, 600G; Research time increase to 60s)-(Remove the upgrade to all existing villagers feature) Create Flemish militia at town centers. Also return 10% of a villagers food cost as gold when killed by an enemy (And only an enemy, not self-delete or gaia).
-So basically that last part I felt was a mechanic that was already in aoe2 (Madrahsah), but gave the burgundians something unique against late imperial raids. They already have an identity as a economic powerhouse, so why not give them something else in that food-gold theme that would force an enemy to take more consideration into late game imperial raids.

Anyway, just some thoughts on how to improve the civ.

Peace.

#2

For the eco upgrade, it seems strictly worse than the current bonus. Getting it faster only applies to the wheel/hc upgrade since those compete with villager time, and the reduction is too small to be meaningful.

Getting eco upgrades an age earlier is a weird bonus which needs to be played well to provide a bonus, so I agree changing it on the premise, but I prefer my suggestion more… so PARASITE MODE GO!

#3

This idea may be useless, but yours is overpowered. Your idea may have been okay on another civ but it would be broken on Burgundians if its totally free. Also loses a lot of the flavour of the civ as well

#4

I’ve explained about three times within the thread how it’s not, but as a summary, you don’t get Feudal age techs when you reach Feudal. You get Feudal techs when you reach Castle. This means, if you want to get the tech for free, you spend an entire age with your eco an age behind in efficiency. In closed maps, this is reasonable (you still wouldn’t skip double bit axe probably) but strictly worse in practically any evaluation to the Viking eco bonus of having Wheelbarrow for free in Feudal and Hand Cart for free in Castle. If this is broken the Vikings are absolutely insane. They’re quite good but they aren’t causing riots.

So, no, it’s not even close to broken, and on open maps it becomes less efficient if there’s an extended feudal war.

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#5

Saving ~1000 resources on fast castles is broken when you also get castle age cavaliers. Fast imperials are harder to pull off so its probably fine, but the fast castle would make Burgundians OP.

Vikings save slightly less and have bad knights and generic crossbows. Thats the big diference.

#6

875, assuming you skip on double bit in feudal (questionably useful because extra wood is usually more important immediately in castle over the 100 food and you’ll lose more than that 50 wood in lost efficiency during the uptime) and without it, it’s 725 resources, same as Viking with Wheel+Hand, and they are up the extra villager efficiency for all of Feudal, and they have the extra Hand cart efficiency all through Castle.

That doesn’t count seeding farms before Horse Collar, and a lack of any meaningful dark age bonus, or the natural resource losses to inefficiency of workers. The later the bonus kicks in, the stronger it has to be, to be meaningful.

Also, on a closed map like arena where you expect them to be so potent, not having fully upgraded options in Imperial makes them dubiously effective in the lategame. That gives them a distinct window to apply lethal pressure in the late Castle, early Imperial age, and I fail to see what’s wrong with that. If anything, it makes the Revolution aspect even more meaningful, if we dare rework it but keep it.

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#7

First idea just sucks. It’s literally worse than Portuguese in first two ages (ig you count loom as an eco upgrade) equal in castle and barely better in imp.

The UT rework is eh too. Like it’s super expensive and just 10% refund on villagers is an incredibly weak effect in imperial age. If it was made cheaper and just unlocked flemish militia it would be simpler.

3 Likes
#8

Its still too good for a civ with cavalry on the level as Lithuanians.

Also, the paladins are still really good even if not amazing. Them taking one less hit isnt that huge when you have everything else, the weaker part is just the bad hussars

#9

Cavarly civs do not dominate Arena, Siege civs do. “Cavalry” civs that don’t provide a very mean-looking siege line do very poorly on Arena.

To say the Burgundian siege is lacking, and therefore might struggle on Arena, is probably being too generous to the Burgundians.

#10

I wasnt talking about Arena particularly. This bonus is strong in any map in which you can make a passable fast castle

Anyway, I didnt read your previous comment right tbh

#11

Yeah, a lot of people did. :stuck_out_tongue: It’s cool.

#12

Do you ever play the game?

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#13

I think it would be cool to start with +75 wood and food. Its enough to take advantage of the civ bouns of earlier tech without letting them do crazy tricky things. Then your relying on your eco advantage to get to castle faster to use caviller.

#14

Again that is essentially the same bonus for Lithuanians but weaker and a bad copy of the Persian bonus.
I would give Burgundians Berry Bushes containing 50% more food.

2 Likes
#15

I mean keeping the other bonuses. The idea is to let you actually access bit axe and horse collar before feudal. Adding more food to berries doesnt do anything for this fact. You would still be holdimg yourself back buying upgrades by a few minutes

#16

The thing is, Burgundians aren’t that bad as people want them to be, they just need some not that big buff and reworking the UTs as well then you have a solid civ able to compete with the Khmer or Lithuanians in open maps.
Also keep in mind the design, yes your suggestion is balanced, but do we want another persian-like civ? or something unique.

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#17

I wouldn’t use it in a similar manner as the Persians. You get strait to eco upgrades. Basicly when I see the civ I think wall up and out boom to a awesome castle age and try to win there. If your getting stellar resources you can lose all you vills to FR and follow up with a cavallier spam and reboom before your eco takes a large hit. To me that is a different enough to not be like another civ. You would want 3-5 tc first

#18

Correct me if I wrong. Burgundians is the only cavalry civ that doesn’t have BL. cough cough and Franks. Earlier access to Cavalier doesn’t seem to be a good alternative despite being cheaper.

#19

only cavalry civ. and thats because they get castle age cavalier and easy access paladin.

nah its more because they have no long term strategy and their eco isn’t all that good.

#20

My mistake.

That’s definitely an issue. Although I can think about one civ that does not have any eco bonus and still good - Magyars. Yes cheaper scout and free attack can be used as a economy bonus but they are more of military bonus. And they have better military options as well. Above average archer, one of the best CA and even UU is better than Coustilier most of the cases.

In the end, I think not having enough potential due to lack of both economy or military bonus to rush in early game (Dark and Feudal) plays a major role along with pure eco bonuses. Burgundians have very little advantage for an early rush. Magyars have one of the best scrush and very decent M@rush potential.