Siam Civ Design

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
1

Features

  • Has better export exchange rates at the Consulate.
  • Setting up Alliances in the Consulate Provides a Foreign Advisor.
  • Town Centers have a one time muster of Elephant Workers.
  • Starts the game with 3 Villagers, 1 Elephant Worker, 2 Pig-Tailed Macaques and 2 Wandering Monks.

Technology Tree

  1. Town Center - Trains
  • Villager - Regular costing villager with no unique features, basically the same as the chinese one.
  • Elephant Worker - Only 1 can be called per Town Center, like Minutemen. They work at thrice the work rate of a normal villager at a fraction of the cost, they are however less efficient gathering natural resources (meaning they exhaust them faster), and expire on their own after a while. (Think of the as Starcraft M.U.L.E.S)
  • Wandering Monk - Siamese unique hero. Refuses to harm others, thus, has no attack. Although it can still stun enemy units. Can build ChēdÄŤs and passively heals all units around them.
  1. Barracks - Trains
  • Ātthamāt (อาทมาต) (II): Siamese Hand Shock Infantry. Armed with a sword on each hand, they attack faster than regular hand infantry, and they specialize in dealing with other infantry. Basically, behave as Ethiopian Shotel Warriors, although more durable. Edit: Apparently these were cavalry historically, although in pop culture are mostly remembered as these cool infantry warriors, I can imagine they could work like Daredevils or Highwaymen, transforming from one into the other. (II)
  • Kong Saeng (กองแซง) (II): Expensive, heavy Siamese hand infantry. Good all around, but specialized against cavalry, similar to an Age II Halberdier (or a Doppelsoldner/Samurai without the area damage.) They can change stances to have different types, not only of armor, but also attack, following the same line as the Pavisier/Line Infantry/Desert Warrior. (II)
  • Kingsman: Those fancy looking musketeers you see in period movies. Stronger than your regular musketeer, but not to Soldado/Janissary/Ashigaru levels. They have a sharpshooter-like ability that allows them to deal immense damage to cavalry at long range, like the trickshot from that one movie., but it takes a lot to charge. Edit: I lied the real source of the name is here. (II)
  1. Kotchasathān - Trains
  • Chāngsuek (ช้างศึก): Heavy melee elephant cavalry that can only be trained in batches of 1. Has multiplier against infantry, but in reality, is just good in general. Can do a one time muster (per Changsuek) of four Chatulangkhabāt (จตุลังคบาท), actual halberdiers units that are good against cavalry. (III)
    Elephant Musketeer: High Hit point ranged elephant cavalry that’s very good against artillery and other cavalry. Same deal as before, trains 1 by 1, can call guards. (III)
  1. Castle - Trains
  • Krom Khlōn: The all female bodyguard of the King, has a long ranged attack that’s good against skirmisher units, sort of like a Schiavone, and at closer ranged/melee/siege behaves like a regular-ish Grenadier. (II)
  • Gatling Elephant: Strictly speaking, the Siamese army only used elephants to carry Gatling Guns, they never actually shot them from elephant-back. But in a post Gatling Camel world, who cares at this point. Unit is exactly what you expect, Gatling Gun attack, but with the durability and speed of an elephant. (IV)

  1. Store House - Unique Siamese House + Market building. Same cost, double the building, slightly less space efficiency!

  2. Chēdī - Unique Siamese Building. Herdable units can gather from it to fatten. Heals nearby buildings and units. Boost nearby villagers export trickle. Trains

  • Pig-tailed Macaques: Siamese Pet unit that can gather berries, has an attack that’s good against treasure guardians and pretty much nothing else.

  1. Rice Paddy - Literally the same Rice Paddy as every other civilization.

  2. Dock - Trains

  • Fishing Boat - Same as always, probably Indian model (?)
  • War Barge: Siamese lighter ship, equivalent to the Caravel.
  • Royal Barge: Siamese tanky ship, equivalent to the Galleon.
  • Samphao: Siamese heavy ship, equivalent to Frigate.
  • Fire Engine:Siamese siege ship, functionally the same as the Ironclad of USA/Mexico.
  1. Consulate - Allies

  • Portuguese: Same as the ones available to other civs. Foreign Advisor - [Domingo de Freiras]

  • French: Same as the ones available to other civs. Foreign Advisor - Claude de Forbin - Wikipedia

  • Italian: Provides econ buildings. Foreign Advisor Gerolamo Emilio Gerini - Wikipedia

  • Italian Expeditionary Company: 8 Genoese Crossbowmen (Consulate Pavisiers)

  • Italian Expeditionary Force: 6 Genoese Crossbowmen and 3 Papal Lancers

  • Italian Expeditionary Army: 6 Papal Lancers and 1 Papal Bombard

  • Italian Brigade: 12 Papal Lancers and 2 Papal Bombards

1 Trading Post Wagon
1 Lombard Wagon
1 Basilica Wagon

  • Swedish: Provides Arsenal Upgrades. Foreign Advisor Axel Johnson

  • Swedish Expeditionary Company: 8 Beväring (Consulate Carolean)

  • Swedish Expeditionary Force: 6 Beväring and 3 Leather Cannons

  • Swedish Expeditionary Army: 6 Drabants and 6 Leather Cannons

  • Swedish Brigade: 10 Drabants and 6 Leather Cannons

Infantry Arsenal upgrades
Cavalry Arsenal upgrades
Artillery Arsenal upgrades

EDIT: Foreign Advisors are units that behave similar to Japanese Daimyos stats and purpose wise, except that, rather than training units from your regular roster, they train the Expeditionary groups from their respective nations.

  1. Monastery - Same as always. Unique techs are:

Buat Nāk: Reduces the cost of reviving your Wandering Monks, and allows to train a third one (II)
Animal Sanctuary: Your Wandering Monks gain an aura that boosts the attack of Pet units. (III)
Wat Wisungkhammasima: Wandering Monks and Chedi boost the production of nearby buildings. (IV)
Thudong: Wandering Monks gain hit points from natural resources nearby, move faster and regenerate faster. (III)

  1. Walls. Yeah, they get walls and gates as normal.

AGE UP WONDERS

  • Wat Phra Kaew:
    Age up Bonus: 1/3/5/7 Khrom Klone
    Has the ability to convert any unit of yours into an Atsawarat. Ability reloads faster each age.

**Atsawarāt (อัศวราช, sanskrit. Ashvaraj) (II) Melee cavalry from Silver-Gold Armor Cavalry division under Atsawarāt Department. An elite heavy cavalry, later a cuirassier armed with a lance. **

  • Buddhas Footprint Shrine:
    Age up Bonus: 3/5/7/10 Pig-Tailed Macaques
    Boosts the export production of units working near it. Can retrain Foreign Advisors, if they have fallen.

  • Chaiwatthanārām
    Age-up bonus: 3/5/7/10 Wild Elephants (the huntables)
    Can summon the White Elephant, who can be gifted to an enemy. Passively boosts elephant attack, hit points and gather rates.

White Elephants behave like a herdable, except they can’t be killed and utilize 30 Population slots. They disappear after a while however.

  • Golden Mount
    Age-up-bonus: 1/2/4/6 Elephant Workers
    Provides each of your Town Centers with an additional charge of Elephant Workers, as well as having one that recharges over time itself.

  • Reclining Buddha
    Age-up-bonus: 2/5/9/14 Kingsmen
    Boosts all features of your Chedi (Livestock fatten rate, export trickle, healing rate, unit production after the Monastery tech) While also acting as a more powerful one.

23 Likes
3

Cool design. Just one question. Why the Italians and Swedes for the consulate? Is there any historical justification or just because there aren’t in other civs’ consulates?

They also don’t have artillery outside the consulate, right? Historically it’s true most of their artillery was imported from Europeans, but they also developed their cannons like the “Charong”.

1 Like
4

perhaps just make them normal musketeers with the charge ability? would accomplish making them a bit stronger without making them ashigaru level strong. also is the ability suppose to be click and select or is it more like a passive?

ehm, im not sure its a good idea having a faction that cant take treasures in the early game.

interesting concept. sounds like a nightmare to control in the lategame though, maybe have a card where its changed to happen when the unit dies?

very modern. out of interest are there any useable earlier siege units one could use? or mortars for the late game?

could imagine this faction has some issues towards the lategame.

so on one hand, unique building and take on houses, on the other hand, you only want 1 market but lots of houses, this seems like a buff for 5 mins and then a negative for the rest of the game.

so similarish to a cherry orchard? how does it work with herdables? does it run out at some point?

what are those?

so to begin with im not sure what foreign advisors are suppose to be, what do they do?

also, there is the option of having a danish consulate option. i know its not in the game but hey could be something more historically accurate than sweden and more interesting than the portugese.

also i know you dont like asian options but japan could be an option for these guys.

overall though i think this has some interesting ideas, but its a little hard without stats to say.

1 Like
5

The Danes would be a good option if they were a civ in the game.
Another option for the Siamese consule would be the USA. I don’t know if it’s considered unorthodox to put a non-European civ, but from a historical point of view it could perfectly be an option.

6

How about the Dutch?
They are the nearest European for Siamese via Dutch East India and a trade partner

2 Likes
7

There is historical justifcation!

What set Siam apart from its neighbors and peers in this period is that they actually went out of their way to send embassies and diplomats overseas, so even Back during the reign of King Narai they had already send a diplomatic mission, not only to France, but to Italy as well. (Or the Papal States to be more precise.) Then, during King Chulalongkorn’s reign, they did these things again, nearly 200 years later, of particular interest here, they did send experts and the King himself visited Sweden to study the timber industry.

As for having no artillery outside of the Consulate, yeah it is intended, if you look closely you’ll realize the entire unit roster has a lot of glaring holes, it’s meant to force you to rely on the Consulate to have a viable unit composition.

perhaps just make them normal musketeers with the charge ability? would accomplish making them a bit stronger without making them ashigaru level strong. also is the ability suppose to be click and select or is it more like a passive?

It’s meant to be click and select, it’s basically a very, very janky way to make up for the fact you don’t really get affordable Dragoons.

ehm, im not sure its a good idea having a faction that cant take treasures in the early game.

Oh, the Monks are still meant to be able to gather treasure, it’s just that you’ll have to kill the guardians with monkeys.

interesting concept. sounds like a nightmare to control in the lategame though, maybe have a card where its changed to happen when the unit dies?

Shouldn’t be worse than clicking the minuteman button imo, or just training units in general. Spawning more upon death sure is an idea though.

very modern. out of interest are there any useable earlier siege units one could use? or mortars for the late game?

Loads, but I wanted to give the civ a broken unit roster on purpose, and Gatling whatever units are always funny.

so similarish to a cherry orchard? how does it work with herdables? does it run out at some point?

Shouldn’t run out, it’s just very slow to gather from, although monkeys being free econ will help, they should have some sort of build limit, like 10 or so.

so to begin with im not sure what foreign advisors are suppose to be, what do they do?

In the hurry last night I forgot to note some things. Will get to fix it.

3 Likes
8

Updated with better unit name italization and some extra clarifications.

9

Well, it’s a creative way to include these two new European civs in the consule. I like it. What about having the US? Siam also had diplomatic relations with them?
Historically, the Danes also established relations with them, but unless they are added to the game, it doesn’t make much sense to include them.

By the way, do you know if the Swedes or Italians could also be added to the consulates of other hypothetical South-East Asia civs like the Burmese or Vietnamese? I mean, would there be a historical justification for that?

10

Really very nice proposal of the Siamese civ. I think they could appear in one DLC along with Burmese civ and Vietnamese civ.

obraz
obraz900×600 55.8 KB

Siamese civ flag

obraz
obraz1280×853 130 KB

Burmese civ flag (my favorite of the three!)

obraz
obraz1024×804 32.2 KB

Vietnamese civ flag

4 Likes
11

I’ll let you in a little secret: Which civ gets which Consulate ally is super random and seems to follow little historical logic. The devs at Big Huge Games were probably mostly concerned with just making sure all OG 8 civs were present somewhere.

Could you find justifications to include Italy and Sweden elsewhere? Eh… you probably can dig up some really obscure reference, but unlikely, although Italy may have a strong case for it here and there.

Same with the United States honestly, like sure, you could give Siam US Consulate, after all they did offer to send Elephants to fight in the Civil War lmao, so it’s definitely an option, but both Portuguese and French are very well justified themselves, so I didn’t see the need.

1 Like
13

First off, I absolutely love what you’ve done here. We have heard a lot of talk over the years about adding a Siamese civ, but I have never actually run into someone knowledgeable enough and interested enough to put together a proper suggestion with some meat on it, so we could discuss how it would actually work. So, thank you for doing this!

On the Explorer:
It is an interesting idea that you’d have use the pets exclusively. I’m not sure I like it however, and the reason is that if it can’t attack, once you’re a bit into the game and the treasure hunting phase of the game is over, this unit now just becomes dead weight. You can explore with it, but once you’ve revealed the map, it’s far safer to do that with an army. Would you make him into a combat healer, perhaps, so he has a role later in the game?

On the Elephant Worker:
This is an interesting idea, which has obvious parallels to the German Settler Wagon. You compared them to the SC2 MULE, and here’s my concern. You’re required to optimize the use of that unit to maintain economic parity. If you can only train 1, the player is effectively set up to babysit the thing. You have to always be watching it, ready to queue up another as soon as it dies. That’s just busy work that saps attention and APM from the player that should be going elsewhere. In SC2, you’ve got CC energy and you can use that for scans or MULEs, so the use of the MULE is strategic.

You mention a coconut plantation later in the game as your livestock pen replacement. Why not tie the elephant worker that? Each coconut plantation spawns 1 elephant worker which can work the plantation or harvest other resources. It stays forever. No timer. This way you encourage the use of this unique building, minimize the micromanagement required, and still have something unique and interesting.

On the barracks:
I’m seeing a shock infantry (melee), heavy infantry (melee), heavy infantry (ranged)/musk, but no skirm. This is a pretty big gap if you have to face a large infantry mass. You’ve got 3 anti-cav specialists, the Kong Saeng heavy melee infantry and the Kingsmen musketeers, and shock infantry are anti-cav by definition. There needs to be an anti-infantry option in here. Will you have some archaic (cost food/wood) and some regular (cost food/gold) in the mix?

If you’re going to have pets featuring prominently in their armies, which pets and how would you make the units combat viable?

On the Kotchasathan/Stables:
I’d suggest simplifying the guard call concept. Train the elephants like a Chinese banner army. You get the 1 elephant and say 5-6 guards, but you buy the whole group as one. This way you don’t have do an extra click to call the guards. They come standard. How would you design the guard unit? Would it just be one of your existing infantry units or something new?

What I’d suggest is the melee elephant be anti-infantry, siege and come with skirmisher guards and the ranged elephant be anti-cav, anti-artillery and come with melee heavy infantry guards. This way you have a balanced unit composition when you buy these.

On the consulate:
Others have mentioned thoughts about which civs to have as potential allies. I like variety, but also respect historical accuracy. I think it’d be interesting to see 1 or 2 of the 4 options be ones that aren’t already available to an Asian civ, like your Italian or Swedish option.

I do like the idea of having a foreign advisor unit to train a selection of allied units in the field. I don’t think you need to name them, just call the unit a “Foreign Advisor” or something. You can if you want though. I just know sometimes finding names can be tricky.

14

We call this the Asian Kingdoms maybe add Korea too

15

Also China. Honestly they are a tribute state of China.

16

i was thinking maybe for these ships, considering they are quiet small, it would be a better idea to simply just do a quantity approach similar to natives, that being that you simply get to recruit more of them rather than forcing them to be 1 to 1 with european ships.

btw did Siam not have any larger ocean going ships at all? these all look like rivercraft.

1 Like
17

I’m waiting for a future Asian civilization because I really enjoy their unique mechanisms compared to normal euro civs and I really like the passage of age with wonder it’s a very cool and strategic choice in the long term. It would be nice though to have korea as an asian civilization who knows an asian dlc where it includes siam and korea together, you could make a design for korea too it would definitely be a cool civilization to use. I wanted to see something like mongolia as well but the state was united with china so it’s not historically accurate then.

1 Like
18

Would you make him into a combat healer, perhaps, so he has a role later in the game?

Yeah that pretty much was the plan from the beginning. I gave some other uses through Monastery upgrades, but otherwise mostly that yeah.

Each coconut plantation spawns 1 elephant worker which can work the plantation or harvest other resources.

My concern is that this would effectively just turn Coconut Plantations into a way of spamming villagers, which would make the civ play very similar to the british and would most likely require the Coconut Plantation to get a build limit.

This is a pretty big gap if you have to face a large infantry mass.

Very much done on purpose. It’s meant to force you to rely on Consulate. Which is why you get Besteiros and Pavices as options. With the other two options also being decent picks. Alternatively, you can rely on the Khrom Klon from the Castle too, theorically.

Would it just be one of your existing infantry units or something new?

New unit, they are Halberdiers basically. training them in blocks with them is definitely an option, I can see how it’d make the macro simpler, although it’d dimish the novelty of the concept, I sort of wonder if the concerns about them requiring too much micro is actually that valid, since it’s nominally just an emergency unit to protect the elephants.

1 Like
19

I did link a document about the larger, seaborn ships of Siam, which is where the Sampan and the Fire Engine came from (Sampans are mostly Siamese adaptations of War Junks.). It’s just that the censor ate that one lmao.

@DayanG456 I made one, over a year ago. To be fair I could update it, since I have more updated info and a more concise design, but the thread is so old that I can’t be bothered tbh.

2 Likes
20

Maybe it would be helpful if you clarified exactly what you want this new building’s role to be? From your original, it looks like another type of mill where you let your monkey pets harvest for food. Do you want this to look more like the Japanese Cherry Blossoms or the Indian Wood Groves? How does it differ from what a rice paddy does?

All of the consulates offer the player the option of dedicating 0%, 5%, or 10% of their resources to making Export, the consulate currency. I think you this Siam civ should be designed to use any of those options, whether it is to rely entirely on their own units or go 10% export and rely heavily on consulate units. That choice should be made by the player rather than made for them by the designer. I don’t like the idea of having a design “force” a player to use only one strategy.

Also, consider early Age 2 pressure. That’s nearly always a strong infantry push. You simply have to have some anti-infantry options available at the barracks to deal with it. The Age 2 rush may not give you time to get a castle up for Khrom Klon or to get a consulate up, and build enough export to get foreign units to help. These Siamese units don’t have to be strong. They could be like the Russian strelets or Mexican insurgentes (both very weak units, but can be effective in large numbers). Whatever you choose to offer, there needs to be at least something anti-infantry at the barracks.

I’m never a fan of micromanaging buttons like this. In the middle of battle, you don’t always remember to go over, select this particular unit, hit the button, then get back to commanding your army. Rather than have it be an active button, I’d suggest that you make the “Call Guards” function be a charged function that triggers when the elephants enters combat and has a long cooldown, say 20 seconds or something. It would summon guards like Minutemen which lose life as they go. This way you don’t just stockpile free units if the elephant stays in combat for a long time. This would give you that unique feel of summoning the guards, rather than simply training them as a banner army (I still think this is the best way to do it).

What do you think? I’m looking forward to see what else you come up with!

1 Like
21

Maybe it would be helpful if you clarified exactly what you want this new building’s role to be?

It’s the Livestock Pen lmao, none of the above. I just realized the civ needed a Livestock Pen, and I wanted some way to make the “monk that refuses to fight” concept to work, and decided to marry both together, since I read about those monkeys that collect coconuts and found it interesting. Should definitely work more like Cherry Orchards than a Rice Paddy, but that’s not the main purpose, the main purpose is just to have a Livestock Pen.

All of the consulates offer the player the option of dedicating 0%, 5%, or 10% of their resources to making Export, the consulate currency.

Guess what’s literally the first line of text in the post. Design is very much inspired by the Swedes, who also have glaring holes in the unit roster to be filled up by mercenaries (theorically, in practice Caroleans ended up overperforming a bit.)

There’s many ways to adress early pressure, Strelet Mass should easily be dealt with by Atthamats who are, after all, just Coyote Runner variants. Kong Saeng could trade effectively with Insurgentes if, say, their Hold Ground stance gave them good armor against melee and a bonus against heavy infantry, just as an example. Maybe Siam just gets a very good age 1 Castle card just for these situations.

Like, I could give them an archer unit just in case (or move the Khrom Klon to the Barracks), but I like building quirky unit rosters, it’s one of the aspects of civ designing that makes you think, gotta compensate somehow the fact that this civ will probably have really, really good eco.

I’d suggest that you make the “Call Guards” function be a charged function that triggers when the elephants enters combat and has a long cooldown, say 20 seconds or something.

I mean, functionally it would be the same, wouldn’t it? Conceptually at least it’d be pretty much the same idea. I could definitely go with it. I was actually thinking that if I actually end up making the civ I’d probably go with the Banner Army model cuz I’m not sure whether I can code the Minutemen function in a way that respects population limits.

1 Like
22

part of good civ design is to give them a thing that makes them have to work around their weaknesses, one of the reason i loved sweden was this clear design that said “no skirmishers, no dragoons, use musketeers and artillery instead” and while it was a fair bit overtuned at least it was a very unique concept, that played different even from their relatively similar factions such as british.

sweden still stands out as one of the best designs we got, and IMO is the gold standard for new factions, not so alien it takes months to understand but also not just a rehash of what we have seen. the USA is sort of the opposite IMO, lots of interesting cards and age up mechanics but the fact you got 3 anti infantry units just became really stale really quickly, like the USA has no point for sharpshooters, you want long range you go gatling, you want a cheap skirm you go state miltia so why go sharpshooters beyond just trying to kite? it was too much of the same.

i like that you are trying to find some new ways of viewing units and not just giving them skirmishers, even if i think the faction does look a little too micro intensive going into the lategame, but that should be fixable with the right cards and ideas.

3 Likes