The Sicilian have the ability to build castles 100% faster I don’t think this should exist. Instead of reworking this bonus the dev buffed it by giving them 100 extra stone. I propose decreasing this ability to 50% but expanding it to all other stone fortifications this will also not only nerf their castle drop but also buff their unique unit and building. I also purpose expanding the abilities of serjeant, This can be done by expanding allowing them to build and repair castles, I can’t justify giving serjeants stonewalls since the last thing we need is Viper with quick-walling infantry. alternatively we could give serjeants the ability to repair siege. If this is too powerful then the stone fortification build speed could be nerfed to 30% or 40% or only apply to villagers
I think serjeants should be able to both build and repair siege.
Yeah the 100% bonus on castles is kind of BS, can’t argue that.
The real BS is the 50% bonus damage reduction.
The TC and castle building speed is maybe a bit too much, but as the usage is very limited it’s not that influential in the wider context of the game. You still need to read the game properly to make efficient use of that bonus.
50% Is only broken situationally, against Indians who have no counter hauberk cavalier they dominate, against Teutons who specialize in brute force they get crushed.
I see your point, but I disagree with this example. Indians can beat Sicilian Cavaliers cost effectively with either their Camels or Halberdiers, despite both missing Plate Armor. This is one of the better uses for Imperial Camels, since their +2 attack is not bonus damage (although 1 of that is taken by Hauberk).
Indians don’t need Imperial Camels to beat Hauberk Cavaliers.
Heavy Camel already is roughly on equal footing 1v1 against Sicilian Cavalier, with more speed, much less creation time and resources needed.
Not sure how can Hauberk cavaliers dominate against Indian camels.
In castle age maybe Sicilian knights can give troubles to regular camels, and since Indians lack knights this can be problematic, but as soon as imperial age is reached, Sicilian Cavaliers don’t stand a chance against Heavy/Imperial camels.
I just commented this on a different thread. Just copy-pasting here.
Move 50% bonus damage reduction bonus to First Crusade replacing the 35 Serjeants spawn. Conversion resistance can stay. So First Crusade would be ultimate invisible defensive technology. You can never see this on units stats in the UI but will always work in practice. Serjeant cost reduced from 60f/355 → 50f/30g as no more 35 Serjeants at the cost 10.
I wish I could make a whole thread about this. But I’m not getting the time. Here is some additional bonus suggestions to compensate the missing civ bonus.
- Another universal military bonus - All military units upgrade cost 15% cheap.
- Similar universal military bonus - All military units upgrade cost 25% cheap on food.
- An infantry bonus - Free armor for infantry. Indirectly buffing Serjeants too.
- Another infantry bonus - Free Squires and Arson. This will be very weak bonus tbh.
- Infantry and Cavalry bonus - Supplies and Bloodlines cost no gold.
- Free Husbandry. Or Remove Husbandry from tech tree but Squires also affect cavalry.
- Finally Farm bonus swap with Franks. Franks berry bonus can stay at 15% as I’m not removing the bonus completely. I personally think this will be a very good way to balance Sicilians. Not so sure about Franks though.
As for 100% faster castle drop, I think lowering it to 50% is too much unless you also consider palisade wall and palisade gate as fortification. In that case they are fine. Also I hope this does not affect Donjon. They should stay at 90 seconds.
Yeah, but camels are worse in every other matchup except light cav.
Well, camels were designed to fight mounted units, so no surprise here.
But Indian Crossbows easily beat Sicilian Arbalesters in imperial age, because they lack Thumb Ring and the last archer armor, not to mention how hard are owned (the arbs) by even some low number of Elephant Archers.
Indian eco bonus is also way stronger than Sicilian’s one, I really don’t see Indians generally struggling against Sicilians at all.
Are you forgetting about the cavalier with 8 pierce armor that can counter archers and act as a meat shield
Are you forgetting the heavy/imperial camel that would eat that cavalier for breakfast?
What are you trying to say here because I’m honestly having problems in understanding it.
by eat for breakfast you mean trading equally with a unit that cost 20 more resources. while having 5 less attacks, 4/4 less armor, attacking .2 seconds slower and taking 10 more bonus damage from halbs which makes counter elite camel much easier. With imperial camel you are investing near 1800 resources for 20HP and 2 attack at which which is only a good investment if your opponent commits to making cavalier without any counter units like halbs or even switching out of cavalier entirely.
I don’t know why i didn’t lead with this but Indians have a 34.5% win rate against Sicilians
https://www.ageofstatistics.com/cohort_rm_solo_any.html#
https://www.ageofstatistics.com/cohort_rm_solo_open.html#
https://www.ageofstatistics.com/cohort_rm_solo_closed.html#
You’re talking about closed maps only. If we pick all maps things are a little different (Indians win rate is about 50-51%, so no “domination” by either civ).
And yes, Heavy camels trade well 1v1 for less resources, less production time and more speed.
If Sicilians can add pikes, so can Indian player, or, even better, thanks to superior economy can add even militia line and crush pikes.
If Sicilian add arbs, Indian can add xbows or just some elephant archer.
Obviously on maps like Arena Sicilian player can boom very hard uncontested, going for Hauberk+First Crusade.
But Arena stands at less than 7% of play rate in 1v1 vs 67% of Arabia.
So again, I don’t see how Sicilians can “dominate” Indians overall, except in some specific maps which help Sicilians to play all their strengths.
I got my data from aoe companiion Sicilians | Civilization Stats | AoE II: Definitive Edition | AoE Companion
Directly from your site
Data for Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition from 2021-07-14 to 2021-08-18. Updated every week!
So it’s just 1 month of data from 3-4 months ago, not really indicative, also the sample size must be really small to see 100% victory rate against some civs.
Also, Hauberk was introduced 10th of August 2021, so that data sample has only 8 days with Hauberk. I wouldn’t base anything meaningful on that.