Some balance change ideas

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

Here’s a list I’ve been editing for an extended time, most ideas have been devised during discussions about balance with friends. These are the changes which I believe would be nice for the game. Most of them are minor because I believe the game balance is very good right now. Possibly some additional tweaks are needed for Burgundians and Sicilians as well. Curious on opinions though.

Edited the list after seeing the upcoming changes in beta patch (and I consider them as included here even though I am not listing them)

General

  • All building foundations’ armor reduced to 0 melee armor and 5 pierce armor, goes back to previous values when completed (castles and town center foundations are unaffected by this)

  • All steppe lancers reload time changed from 2.3 to 2.1

  • Supplies tech research time from 35s to 15s

  • Time taken for monks/missionaries to switch between healing targets improved (currently after they fully heal a target it takes them like 4 seconds to start healing a new one)

  • Fix legacy bug where garrisoned chu ko nu, kipchak, and skirmishers provide almost no extra damage to a garrisoned building

  • Fix mangonel shot doing more spread damage when deleted

  • Fix mangonel shot ignoring hill bonus when deleted

  • Onager shot shouldn’t be heard in the fog of war

  • Felled trees shouldn’t be seen in the fog of war

Berbers

  • Maghrabi camels regeneration effect buff from 0.25hp/s to 0.33hp/s
  • Kasbah now affects allied Kreposts and Donjons too

Bulgarians

  • Konnik reload time from 2.4 to 2.3

Burgundians

  • Flemish Revolution also makes Spies 33% cheaper (just a flavor change, sorta bringing back the old effect of Huns Atheism)

Burmese

  • Arambai affected by Parthian Tactics

  • Elite Arambai +5 HP

Cumans

  • New civ bonus: steppe lancers attack 18% faster

Goths

  • Non-Elite Huskarls melee armor from 0 to -1
  • Gain Thumb Ring?

Huns

  • Elite Tarkan reload time from 2.1 to 2.0

Incas

  • Villagers now receive +5 HP for every infantry blacksmith tech instead of armor and attack

  • Fabric Shields UT also affects Villagers

  • Andean Sling UT also gives +1 attack to slingers, costs +100 food

  • Team bonus: Farms built 100% faster and Mill upgrades 100% faster

Indians

  • Shatagni UT also makes Hand Cannoneers move 15% faster
  • Some change for the stable armor bonus?

Italians

  • Pavise UT also affects Hand Cannoneers

Lithuanians

  • Relic bonus reduced to +3

Malians

  • Elite Gbeto +1 melee armor

Mayans

  • Hulche Javelineers UT nerf

Mongols

  • Nomads UT also affects Castles and Town Centers

Saracens

  • Mamelukes cost 5 less gold
  • Madrasah UT percentage from 33% to 40%

Spanish

  • Missionary heals 25% faster than a Monk

Tatars

  • Silk Armor doesn’t affect Hussars

Teutons

  • Bonus melee armor only affects knight-line and militia-line

Vietnamese

  • Paper Money also grants allied trade carts +50% HP
3 Likes
2

Agreed, that tech is currently underwhelming

To be Honest, Arambai just need a WHOLE rework, their current state is still silly and broken.

Super agree with this

No, Their steppe lancer already move faster and create faster, extra attack would just be a huge overkill.
Kipchak buff yes is needed.

Negative melee armor is bad tbf, but Thumb ring yes so you can play Goths with MAA-Archers-Huskarls, so a good buff.

Tarkan buff is kinda unneccesary, they are supposed to be bad at melee to offset their power vs builidngs.

Shatagni effect should be reserved to a new gunpowder civ, Shatagni could give a much stronger buff to all Indian gunpowder, but not sure what one.
Indians yes need that stable bonus reworked.

Silk road should be a team UT TBH, and yes the buff is good.
Reserve the extra armor for gunpowder to a new gunpowder civ.

WTF with this one 11

Yes is welcomed.

11, don’t get influenced by T90, the tech isn’t broken.

NO to lost of masonry but yes to Nomads change.

IDK but Mamelukes need the cost just more adjusted than that, and a TT reduction but yes they need a buff, Madrasah is a good one.

I would just reduce the stone cost, but the wood one is good.

Yes they need that.

OK, these ones is a big 2, Tatar Hussars are far from being broken (4 melee armor is only good against other Hussars but that’s it, and where are the evidence that is broken, Pros for example?).
Teutons are completely fine Extra melee armor on halbs is only good vs cavalry and other halbs, still wrecked by skirms, archers and siege, no more.

Any buff to Jannisaries is welcomed, but I would love the elite upgrade affected by the Gunpowder techs discount.

Overall all but the Cumans, Italians, Indians, Mayans, Tatars and Teutons changes are fine.

Also where is China? This civ is just absurd and needs a good nerf, their Chu Ko Nu for the dear love of God 11

1 Like
3

I think most of these changes would be nice. A few I think are unnecessary little buffs for already good civs (Berbers/Inca) but I those would be fine.

Elite Konnik are already scary and with stirrups in castle I think this might push them over the top.

Huskarls are already not great vs most melee units. I don’t see a need to make them even worse. Knights can easily beat them (even without bloodlines) plus Goths still need a castle so you should know if they are coming.

I think its still a little early to tell if/how much this needs to be changed.

I think a stone cost reduction would be better.

Why? Tartars aren’t that good after the sheep nerf. Yes it makes their Hussars really good but I don’t think they are problematic.

I don’t think the Teuton halbs need this nerf as they are still weak vs ranged units. Also who makes Teuton scouts vs anything?

Overall pretty solid changes.

3 Likes
4

TBF Bulgarians don’t have paladin and they are overall lackluster at team games, the Elite Konnik buff could be good to have more firepower here.

1 Like
5

What’s the problem with it ? Stop labelling as “fix” things that dumb down the game. Just because some mechanics were unintended does not mean they shouldn’t stay.

2 Likes
6

No man, you get a good position over a hill and then you lose it because a bug? Don’t you see the problem? It is a bug exploit…

1 Like
7

You don’t lose because of a bug, you lose because you got outmicro’ed

2 Likes
8

I like quite a lot of your proposed changes.

I also think the Mangonel delete-thing should stay though. It is a nice option for micro and the player on a hill still has a very good advantage. Logically it makes no sense, but gameplay wise it’s very cool that you can do something very risky (delete your own expensive unit) and possibly get a high reward for it. Definitely keep that option for outplay!
(and if you say it’s too easy: there are enough fail videos of pros deleting their stuff and getting nothing^^)

I’m just going to pick some changes that stand out to me.

Very good. It’s so annoying that you have to wait before you can even start to produce. The upgrading takes long enough anyway. I’d even go down to 10 seconds.

That’s a very dangerous one. I think Elite-Arambai are being slept on and in masses they’re stronger than before (vs units). I would not buff them right now. If you want to buff Burmese give them something else.

I think we can be even a bit more ambitous here. They’re way too expensive. -15 gold should still be fine. I want to seem them used :smiley:

There is not other Hussar with +1/+1 though?!
I think Tatars are in a pretty good spot and I would leave them as they are.

I also like that you’re focused a lot more on buffing rather than nerfing. Usually makes civs more fun to play :slight_smile:

9

Are you kiding me? The bug is literally anti-microing. If you microing in decent way, because of the bug you can lose anyway. Is a bug, acept it and if the devs are serious people they should remove it

10

That’s a lot, so I’m just going to discuss the “odd ones” for me.

Hmm why?

First part fair enough, but why bother with hoardings? Bulgarians don’t have the tech, in full tech tree mode you can’t get kreposts and in a scenario you can use triggers if you really want a tech that improves kreposts.

I’m also not too hot on buffing konniks after all the buffs the civ got. Especially since the blacksmith bonus makes them much easier to upgrade now.

Already said by other but I can only say it again, pls no.

That’s sooooo weird. And like if you think it’s needed why not just give it minus one damage or something?

why does everyone want gbetos buffed

This tech is a meme no need to nerf 11

Nah this needs to have a whole new effect, this UT just sucks too much.

Well the problem is the Indian bonus, not the Tatar one. So if the Indian cav gets changed again, the problem would (hopefully) disappear.

I wouldn’t be against removing it from scouts at least. Like sure we had fun with scouts that can beat Korean hussars (lol) but it makes no sense for the civ and it’s too good for Teutons to have that on Arena on top of the conversion resistance.

11

especially the fix of the Mangonals is welcome. This exploid is allowed but shouldn’t stay.

The highest priority has the new civs. I think this should be balance first.

12

I can see the good intention behind many of your proposals but I think most of them don’t bring balance to the game overall.

Let me make an example:

→ that sounds fun. Especially since Berbers are not that great in the lategame since they lack Paladin or special upgrades for other post imp units…

Except Berbers are already a civ with a high winrate. There are supposed to be bad in the lategame since they have such an huge powerspike from early castle age to early imp…
Therefore a buff is completely beside the point…

On the other side you give Sicilians (one of the civs with the lowest winrates in the game) a completely niche and minute buff that probably won’t change their winrate at all.

Don’t get me wrong, many of your ideas sound great. But I would say you should be more considered about whether a civ really needs a buff or rather a nerf. And if so how impactful the buff or nerf should be to achieve balance between the civs…

13

Most are fixes or minimal changes, so ok…

Berbers are already strong, I don’t think that this would make them OP, but neither it’s a priority.

Either way, the cost should be adjusted if you buff the effect.

The kabash buff is minimal, so it’s fine, but the konnik buff it’s really unnecessary.

Konniks are already 2 units for the price of one, and they can be trained at cheaper castles (kreposts), they are already a strong unit, so the slow attack is to balance them.

The arambai should be balanced with baby steps, so either you try first the +5HP, or the armor, not both at the same time.

And why not just give them the second archer armor, so you fix their main weaknesses (their skirms)?

Cumans SL are faster, and it’s a good bonus, since it means that they can raid and kill vills better, which is the only thing that they are good at.

Really the cumans have other problems…

It wouldn’t solve the goths problem, they would still be a laming civ in the dark age, and a spammy civ in imp.

They already have good knights and decent xbows up to imp, the problem is that they don’t have any eco bonus to back them up.

Huns are fine, they really don’t need any buff, and their UU is a good one.

Agree on the changes, boths aren’t OP, and the second one is really needed.

That’s not the problem of Indians HC, more range already means more shots. Problem is that the HC have low accuracy, and at a wider range this is exacerbate even more.

Shatagni need to proportionally adjust the accuracy, and maybe a cost reduction.

As for the stable bonus, it’s actually fine, it’s their UU that it’s useless.

Neither help them in a meaningful way. The trade UT is already good, in TG it allows you to save a ton of resources.

Pavise is also fine, and more armor isn’t needed on HC.

What italians need is having siege engineers, and being affected by the new uni discount.

I onestly don’t understand why, it’s a pretty simple bonus, neither buff or nerf are required.

To me it doesn’t seem that gbetos needs any buffs, nor malians…

I don’t really think that the new mayans UT is broken, for sure not more than obsidian arrows. And mayans still sucks in post imp trash wars.

I don’t see why they should loose masonry, that help their castles, which are very precious for mongols.

And the UT would still be useless, it needs to unlock the 200 pop huns style to be somehow useful.

Both could be higher, and madrasah could even have another effect.

Ok, but not what drags sicilians back (their limited tech tree, vulnerability from Trushes…), or the problem of the donjon cost, which is the stone cost.

Ok, but it’s not what spanish needs.

Overlapping of bonuses is inevitable, and this UT isn’t what makes tartars strong, so I don’t see the purpose.

The accuracy is fine, it could be even higher.

The faster RoF isn’t needed, since the unit already have an high attack.

1 Like
14

I like this change. It is quite dificult to ride Khmer with this bonus. With this change you still can protect most of your vils, but not all of them

15

The mayan modified UT makes their skirms to be really effective vs cavalry and rams, i have won games with those skirms and seen many other games in 2k level the same, so it is not a meme, in fact is quite powerful and breaks the essence of the unit.

In paper it doesn’t seem too powerful but in practice is a really cost effective tech/unit that now works vs things that weren’t in the original design, same like giving chieftains to the berseker and making an unit above their counters.

I am tired of balance changes but certainly that change went into a wrong direction that might cause another nerf for mayans and then make the civ unplayable.

2 Likes
16

Considering the nowday walling meta, it would change very little, since most of the times kmers’ houses are used for hopping between one side and the other of a wall.

17

Another more argument to change that bonus

18

It would be a waste of time and effort, since it would change nothing…

19

If you say it… 20 char

20

Suggesting this many changes usually doesn’t make sense. Sorry, but a lot of your suggested changes seem random, and not related to current problems in the game balance.

Congratulations, you just made most open maps completely unplayable and unfun.

One of the few good suggestions in the whole post.

Seem like more random assortment of changes. Why do you want these things? Steppe Lancer is not completely unviable btw, but just more situational than the knight line.

No. I think there should be some benefit in actively managing your army.

Good suggestion, but it is a bugfix, not a balance change :stuck_out_tongue:

I think this is a useful part of the game. I would not like to see it removed. It gives a marginal chance for defensive mangonels to hold off an attack.

Yeah, please don’t. A mobile ranged unit with healing is already very strong as it is, doesn’t need any more buffs.

I don’t agree with either of these. Kreposts already give an insane amount of utility to the civ, if the civ needs a buff, it’s definitely not the Krepost…

Don’t you already have a UT for Bulgarians that buff the attack speed? Seems unnecessary change here.

I like this idea, one of the few decent suggestions in your post. I would be very happy to trade away one of the garabge civ bonuses of the civ in place for this.

Idea in the right direction, but lacking bracer, the unit still sucks, so meh…

??? Nerf one of the weakest civs in the game? Why?

If Huns were to be changed, I’d much prefer to make them less of a one trick pony. Don’t think tweaking with minor values will do much for the civ.

Why? They’re not meant to do more than take out infantry, which they do very well now anyway.

One of the good suggestions in the thread. The Inca team bonus right now seems pretty much pointless.

I think the UT is just garbage, the UU is also garbage, the whole Castle tech tree for Indians honestly needs a bigger rework than minor tweaks. I would prefer a UT that would make the indian UU actually a viable/playable unit. As right now making Elephant Archers is pretty much never your best option.

I’d remove this UT, as it’s one of the UTs that is literally never worth researching. Would prefer something that can buff pikes a bit, or any of the meatshield trash units.

Sure, why not. Although I don’t think it’ll change much.

Why? Seems like an unnecessary nerf.

Not sure whether you are using the unit the right way based on this suggestion.

I much prefer this tech than Obsidian Arrows. It’s less OP for sure, but not completely useless.

Do Mongols of all civs really need any further buff?

I can see the reasoning, but I think it’d be better to tweak the Mangudai a bit than to remove Masonry.

Feel neutral about these. Don’t think either of these changes will impact the civ much.

I think it would make sense to make it cheaper in terms of stone than wood.

One of the few decent suggestions, sure, why not. Might make missionaries more viable.

Teutons are still a very weak civ, just too one dimensional in the sense of being able to crush anything in melee, but completely die to ranged units. I would not mind losing the +2 on some units in exchange for like any sort of help against being so obsoleted by range civs.

Not sure if this unit really needs buffs. It’s already very powerful as it is.

2 Likes