Just my 2 cents on how I think the romans should be balanced to be a civ in line with the rest of the roster. Post your ideas and opinions below.
Civ bonus:
Villagers gather, build, and repair 5% faster
Careening has 4x the effect (+ 20 carry capacity on transport ships and +4 pierce armor on ships
Blacksmith armor upgrades provide double effect
Scorpions cost -25% gold and benefit from Ballistics
UT:
Ballistas - Scorpion and Galley-line fire 33% faster
Comitatenses - Militia-line, Knight-line, and Centurions train 50% faster.
Tech-tree changes:
Loose:
Blast Forging
Bloodlines
Chemistry
Ring archer armor
Chain barding armor
Plate barding armor
unit changes:
Centurion:
Now an infantry unit:
Cost: 55F 60G
HP: 90(110)
Attack: 13(15)
MA: 2(3)
PA: 3(3)
Movement speed: 0.9
Attack Rate: 2.2
(Threated as a monk in formations → always in the back)
New unique upgrade:
Clibanarius (Upgrades from Cavalier for 600 F 600G)
HP: 150
Attack: 13
MA: 2
PA: 5
Movement Speed: 1.35
Attack rate: 1.8
I brought down their naval bonusses to bring them from a top-tier possibly the best navy in game to just an average navy, where their bonusses just cover to some degree or another their missing techs.
Their Galleons will have -2 attack, - 1Range and -15% movement speed compared to generic, but fire 33% faster and have +3 PA. However they powerspike hard in Castle and drop off significantly in imperial.
In fact a powerspike in castle and a less stellar Imperial age is the general theme I’m going for here, reflecting their peak in ancient times and steady decline from there.
Also I’d take away the charging attack, as it seems like a gimmick just for the sake of it. Not sure why they should have it. Also I’d take away blast furnace and make the centurion infantry, not only for historical reasons, but also as a response to SOTLs latest vid demostrating, that both Legionaires and Centurions are cost effective or even better units compared to their generic counterparts even without the aura effect, so I think you should have to use the aura to relly trade favorably, especially against other infantry civs.
I think Legionaires by themself shouldn’t be able to cost-effectively beat Japanese or Aztec champs for example. No charge and no blast furnace ensures that is the case.
Also I toned down the Scorpion discount, as well as took chemistry away, to make their scorpions not as exessively powerful compared to others.
To double down on their CA peak I extended their blacksmith bonus to all armor techs, not only because I quite nerfed them on other fronts, but also to save them some resources in their now neutered imperial age.
I also gave them a new Knight upgrade, especially to reduce their archery vulnerability, especially as their skirmishers are now quite horrible.
Just realized the civ doesnt have chain barding. Yeah I kinda doubt the knights would see any use without bloodlines, and it just seems way too complicated of a bonus that even requires Romans to have a third unique unit.
You have to see this in the context of the civs tech tree. As most of the armor upgrades is compensated for by their civ-bonus (which I’d apply to all blacksmith techs in this proposal), as well as the other techs being accounted for by civ bonusses and or unique units particularly high stats.
You were right. I edited my post in response to your comment and wrote one to reflect that change, but since you deleted your comment I deleted my response to it.
In general where I’m going for here is the DoI approach to civ creation, by having a quite spotty tech tree but compensating for it by giving particular strong civ boni and Unique Units, as I think that is at this point a better approach to make new civs feel different and interesting.
With your changes how are they supposed to deal with xbow or cav archers civ on castle age? knight lack bloodlines, there’s still extra armored skirm and cheaper scorp but both can be destroyed by mangonel.
Basically a considerably worse version of bulgarians/drav or celts, ie strong power spike(weak in your case), reliance on siege, with a weaker to terrible imperial age (even more so in your case)
You tried to make them interesting, but your UU knight is almost literally a burg paladin with a reskin. The civ is slow AF, with no real composition in imperial, and you nuked legions “because”. I think you’ve watched too much mikeempires and believed all the knee jerk hype on how effective roman infantry is, instead of actually understanding how poor it still is, specifically with it’s lack of support, and in your case, even worse raiding potential.
You mean the part where 2 civs were OP AF, and 2 were literally useless? Well then you did it perfectly. Or did you miss the part where these civs are still complained about, and 3 of them arguably still have balance issues.
What’s the point of tankier skirm when generic ones already has a ton of PA and this weakness can be easily covered by one mangonel. As for knight without bloodlines they are not cost efficient enough.
When i see your changes. there is nothing appealing about their gameplay.
Archers line have ton of armor but lack damage since Bracer, chemistry and TR are missing.
Infantry, their militia line is not worth to invest until you get legionary, but that problem was still there even without your changes. Now you want to remove blast furnace, (which is also a nerf to their halb btw) nerf centurion, and somehow the UT is also nerf since unlike goth you dont have a discount on legionary. So they wont be as easy to spam like them.
cavalry, same thing as infantry not worth to invest until this new paladin replacement.
Siege is probably the only exception with scorpion, but compared to others siege civ like slave or celts or even siege bonus from dravidian, bulgarian being applied to other siege units. This look like a bit meh.
Centurions 110 (140)
Attack 12 (15)
Armor 2/2 (2/3)
Aura effect halved
10F and 10 G cost reduction a 100F and 100G upgrade reduction
Legionaries no changes
UT
Ballistas 20% faster from 33% to both galleys and scorpions
Commitatenses: militia, knights adn centurions train 40% faster and gets extra 10 hp, no charge bonus