The Balkans have this really cool “all stars/clash of giants” period right after the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1450 - 1500 where these people lived and interacted with each other:
Vlad the Impaler (arguably the best medieval Wallachian ruler)
Stephen the Great (arguably the best medieval Moldavian ruler)
Matthias Corvinus (arguably the best medieval Hungarian ruler)
Mehmed the Conqueror (arguably the best medieval Ottoman ruler)
Skanderbeg (arguably the best medieval Albanian ruler)
I think that beside an upgrade to Dracula’s Campaign, to include the mission where the helps Stephen the Great:
There should be at least 1 more campaign in this time period. Perhaps either a Matthias Corvinus or Mehmed the Conqueror campaign.
I honestly just think the late medieval and early modern period are extremely overrepresented when theres so much interesting stuff across the entire timeline
Also both Magyars and Slavs civ design fit better the 9th to 11th century. I think thats the reason why despite there being many famous Turks I prefer an Ottoman campaign, it just fits their civ better, not to mention that they fought all across the easterm mediterramean which is also just very cool
I honestly think their designs could be tweaked slightly. For instance, if the Slavs got renamed to Ruthenians with a Balkan DLC, they would get a new UU, the Strelet, if the Boyar became a regional unit. Said Strelet would either use a hand cannon or a berdische. Streltsy are in AoE4, so it’s not that strange. The Ruthenians would also get Hand Cannoneers on top of that.
The Magyars could also get Hand Cannoneers, but perhaps not Bombard Cannons.
The Boyar is fine as a civ UU. It, especially the Elite, fills a Paladin-like role competently, allowing players to transition from the Cavalier.
I wouldn’t mind the Streltsy being introduced as the second UU in Archery Range. Perhaps it serves as a unique alternative to the Hand Cannoneer that requires not only the Chemistry but also the Conscription. In addition, It can have a higher cost and/or slower speed in exchange for higher melee armor and/or accuracy as features, reflecting that it has an ax that can be used for close defense and targeting.
I don’t think the Vlachs and the potential Sclaveni really need the Boyar as a regional unit, even though this may be historically reasonable. You can anyway find terms more specific for heavy cavalry to these civs. They should also be most likely not cavalry civs, at least should be versatile, otherwise the civs along the Danube, basically the whole of Eastern Europe with the exception of the Bohemians, will all essentially be cavalry civs.
Let their Castle UT affect their Hand Cannoneers too.
But it’s not exclusive to Russia. If we’re going to add Balkan civs who historically had boyars, then it makes more sense as a regional unit.
To me, I think the Strelet should be an infantry unit wielding a berdische that gains +1 attack for every kill, with a maximum of +4. This reflects the fact that it was a professional soldier with a lot of combat prowess.
Ew, don’t mention that name. I don’t want to be reminded of a totally unreasonable and unfitting suggestion from a user who clearly doesn’t like me.
Why not? More regional units is good, especially since Europe has none.
A recurve bow affecting a hand cannon? That makes no sense.
Eh, I still recommend it as a cannoneer unit to be consistent with AoE3 and AoE4.
The current Slavs already have strong infantry, so there is no need for more.
I would be more interested in giving the mechanics you mentioned to Berserks, Jaguar Warriors, Monaspa or UU of future new civs.
I mean, even if it makes sense in a historical sense, changing it to a regional unit isn’t necessary for game design. From a game design perspective, if you want to change the Boyar into a regional unit, the Boyar must have inherited some characteristics from the UU period. Even if it is no longer so heavily armoured, it must still be a sufficiently heavy, which can be reasonably inferred to be equivalent to giving those civs the equivalent to the Paladin. However, paradoxically due to the diversity of civs of region, it is best not to focus on cavalry for these civs.
Many UUs do not belong to only one civ in history. Put asides the Boyars, not only Spanish had had conquistadors, not only Byzatines had had Cataphracts, not only Hindustanis had had Ghulams, not only Huns had honored their elite warrior as Tarkhan, not only Bengalis had used chariots, not only Franks had thrown axes, not only Berbers had fired arrows on camel back, not only Maya had their archer plumed, not only Vietnamese had their warriors equipped with rattan armor…
Strictly speaking, the Paladin is an European regional unit.
If the Boyar is just a heavy cavalry unit that replaces the Knight line in Eastern Europe, but has a very similar role and niche, then I don’t see the need.
Regardless of who you are talking about and what he/she did to you, I did search for this term myself and judged it for myself as a suitable name for an umbrella civ. I always thought that at best we could have one slot for South Slav peoples as an umbrella civ, and more likely no slots. The Sclaveni, the early medieval ancestors of the South Slav peoples, did the job of covering them, and could properly ignore the differences between the Catholic South Slavs (Croats) and the Orthodox South Slavs (Serbs).
That was my oversight. I’m talking about the Castle UT, the Corvinian Army.
You replied too quickly, faster than I could correct it.
The Boyar would be an anti-cavalry unit like the Camel, but it would accomplish this by being heavily-armored rather than cheaper than cavalry.
I really don’t think we should have an umbrella for all South Slavs. That is as bad as having a general Slavic umbrella. There’s no reason that separate and distinct kingdoms of the Balkans can’t be separate civilizations. As long as they all play differently without overlap (which I recently strove to accomplish), we can include them as separate civs.
Yes, that makes more sense. However, trash Hand Cannoneers sound too strong, so I’m guessing it will just be a flat gold decrease.
If I had to pick 1, I’d pick Mehmed the Conqueror, as you get to fight all other 4 on some occasions.
Perhaps Boyars would work best as a regional replacement for the Paladin with Elite Boyar (renamed to simply Boyar) in Balkan civs.
Civs that had Boyars:
Ruthenians
Romanians
Bulgarians
Serbs
Lithuania
They have less HP but more melee armor. Being slightly better vs Halberdier and Camels (still losing but not as bad as Paladin) but slightly worse vs ranged units.
This would also allow the Slavs/Ruthenians to have a new truly unique unit.
This raises an idea, what if the Romanians had a similar Castle technology like the Magyars called “Small Host”, where your UU no longer costs gold? It would fit the theme of large host (professional army) and small host (peasant army), but this was no simple peasant army, every peasant forced by law to be trained by his lord once a month, was required by law to carry a weapon with him all the time, even when working in the field, and those that refused were put to death.
So they won’t cost gold because they are peasants, but they will be better than the average peasants because they were trained.
Something like Calarasi Range&Melee Light Infantry, Portar Halberdier, Strajeri Infantry, Plaiesi Archers or Lef (adding space so forum won’t censor) eg (adding extra space so forum won’t censor) ii Handgunners would work here as they were all Small Host elements.
Here is a picture of the trash Hand Cannoneers who shall not be named:
##############################################################
In this way, no. Feel that these civs would be weak against archer civs and pretty rely on skirmishers, while the cavalry civs might be hard to against them if the regional Boyars could counter knights and be not such affaird of anti-cavalry units.
Maybe when one or two civ share it it can be balanced through the design of each civ’s tech tree, but that’s going to be difficult when as many as three or four civs have it. But then again, I feel like only the Vlachs can have a clear chance of being introduced, so maybe having it shared by Slavs and Vlachs isn’t entirely such a bad thing.
In general I would still rather have the generic knight line, as the generic knight line represent heavy cavalry for every culture after all. Those most famous Boyars were Russians so the Boyar is reasonable to be unique in the game. The insistence that Boyars exist in multiple game civilizations is not necessary in the first place. By the same logic, one could insist that multiple civilizations have Cataphracts, Throwing Axemen, Turkhans, Keshiks, Rathas, Stirups, Recurve Bow, Ironclad, Silk Armor, etc.
If we want to provide a new UU for the Slavs, we can simply consider introducing a second UU in other buildings.
Introducing the Boyar as a regional unit would be a good idea not only because it was used by multiple Slavic nations, but also because it would add variety to the new civs, which is important, as most European civs have access to the same kinds of units.
I think @UpmostRook9474 does raise a good point. While it would make sense historically, and personally would have liked it, it could mess up the balance of the game real badly.
I’m so used to Player870583437 trying to add three more Romanian campaigns to the game that I’m starting to get mad at anyone else suggesting any three campaigns on this channel. I hope there’s a fix to that.
@SungAlpaca64683 I’m mostly against adding more European civs (I’m only fine with Romanians because they already have a campaign) and I still agree with them that you’re barking at the wrong tree.
Yes, that’s why I think they should eventually divide the Slavs, at least one last time…
Yes, Mehmed II for sure, but you need 2-3 more campaigns to sell the DLC, at least like DoI or TMR…
Yes, make the boyar a regional unit and give the Ruthenians the Strelet as a replacement for the hand cannoner, making a more natural connection with the Russians/Rus of AoE 3 and 4…
Yes, I agree… in the end it should be Serbians, Croatians/Albanians, Vlacs, Slavs reworked into Ruthenians and that’s it, we won’t touch Europe again for the next 5 years…
Vikings just got a campaign’s worth of levels in V&V. Hell, combine that with Historicals and they have more individual levels than any other civ.
Romans are a DLC civ, their situation is muddy at best. You could potentially make a campaign where you can play as them even if you don’t own RoR (like with the Gurjaras). But that situation was because of the situation that “Indians” were in beforehand and what the DE team were left with after the Forgotten campaigns were added.
Yes, the Vikings in the game already have 6 scenarios (2 in HB and 4 in VaV)… the only ones missing are the Romans, who would have their campaign in another expansion like Return of Rome, but they would have to include the Celts and Goths in AoE 1 and add a campaign for the Romans in AoE 2 (in addition to porting the Rise of Rome campaigns to AoE 2)…
If I remember correctly the last dlc had a persian campaign that was locked even tho you had the civi from the base game.Same thing could be done for other dlcs as well.
