Some (optional) balance suggestions for June

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

So since January and the hotfix we don’t have more balance changes yet, buts still that doesn’t means that some balance suggestions are going to be ignored anyway, so let’s start (Remember, all of this is purely optional)

General
Steppe Lancer (Standard and Elite) gain +4/+6 attack vs villagers and trade units.
Elite Steppe Lancer upgrade food cost reduced to 700, gold cost unchanged.

With the upcoming gold discount for them, these changes would make them more filled in a more consistent niche.

Eagle Warrior food cost to 35
More nerfs for mesos are fine.

Berbers
Maghrebi Camels food cost reduced to 600, gold cost is the same.
Compared to Zealotry, Maghrebi Camels is a bit costly yet less effective to be realistic.

Burgundians
Either reduce the Stable or economic techs discount to 33%, or make the eco tech available as normal civ.
Most people don’t believe it, but Burgundians has a chance to be really broken at TGs, combine that with their team bonus and the Burgundian Vineyards effect on farmers, is completelty a snowbally effect, especially with earlier paladins.
Flemish revolution now allows to turn villagers into Flemish militia rather than converting all villagers. (To just make this tech more on line of AOE 2 gameplay still being the reference of AOM Norse gatherers).
Coustilier speed to 1,4. to be on par with other cav UUs.

Burmese
No idea on how to improve this civ, the Arambai alone is an awful concept in its current state (either to niche or too OP) and I’m not fan of 100% damage of missing shots, is kinda too rewarding an unit for little micro in a big way.
Arambai wood cost turned into food cost, Missing Shots only do 80% damage.

Byzantines
Free Town Patrol, the community won’t be happy until this is done. :smiley:
Elite Cataphract training time reduced to 17 seconds.

Free Town Patrol is obvious 11, and if you compare to other heavy cavalry units in its elite form (Coustilier, Leitis, Keshik), the Elite Cataphract training time is rather slow.
Cataphract speed to 1,4.

Celts
Strongholds now affects Town Centers.
Tech thematically incomplete, and Celts lack Bracer anyways.

Chinese
Everyone discuss on how nerf civs that don’t need nerf but none talks about China, this civ is too overpowered, the higher level you get, the more broken they are, their UU is clearly OP but all are conservative on nerfing them.

Chu Ko Nu cost to 50 wood, 45 gold.

Cumans
Huntables contain 30% more food.
Elite Kipchak ROF to 2.0 (from 2.2).
A thematically fitting bonus for their nomadic theme, Cumans just need some dark age bonus, while their feudal TC is more like their booming bonus.

Italians
Another tricky civ to buff without making them OP at closed maps and water maps.

Koreans
War Wagon (Standard): reduced attack to 7, building damage extra attack reduced to +3.
Koreans lose the wood discount, replaced with: Each Lumbercamp technology grants +3 carry cap to Lumberjacks.
The former wood discount to war wagon and turtle ship are now default.
Currently the 2 castle WW is nearly broken on Arena and need adressing, the wood discount, compared to gold discount, is weak, plus that proposed eco buff still fits the theme for wood heavy units.

Lithuanians
This civ is perfectly balanced, but people still feels them too strong (Cough…Cough Ornlu), so to give them a weakness in fedual age, move the extra speed of spear/skirm to castle age, in this sense their feudal age is the same as others but still with top tier scout rush, plus is harder to them to take map control to get the relics.
Another thing is remove Champion and Elite Cannon Galleon, they weren’t know for their foot soldiers and navy, plus their infantry is already weak without supplies and last armor upgrade.

But TBH, Lithuanians are fine as they are.

Mongols
BRING BACK THE 1.45 SPEED FOR ELITE MANGUDAI!!!

Mayans
Longer lasting resources reduced to 10% (from 15%)
Archer discount reduced to 10% in feudal/15% in castle/20% in Imperial.

At 2k ELO, Mayans are still absolutely top tier civ and need nerf.

Malay
Battle Elephants now cost 35% less in Imperial Age (was 40%).

Malay Battle eles now cost nearly the same as a Steppe Lancer…

Portuguese
Now they can build only one Feitoria.
Currently the Feitoria is broken on water maps yet unused on land maps, you just can only make one at the end cuz you need pop space for military and villagers.

Saracens
Mameluke cost changed to 75 food, 60 gold
Mameluke (Standard and Elite) training time reduced to 18 secs and 16 secs.
Compared to other ranged units like Arambai, Mameluke is really expensive and hard to mass properly.

Slavs
Boyar cost changed to 65 food, 70 gold.
Other heavy cavalry units got the cost modified to be more viable but Boyar don’t

Spanish
New Bonus: Ballistics and Chemistry don’t cost gold.
Conquistador affected by the fast firing Bombard Cannon/Hand Cannoneer bonus.
Compare Spanish with other gunpowder civs (Turks get free chemistry and the Jannissary is affected by both a civ bonus and team bonus, Portuguese research both Ballistics and Chemistry faster, and the Organ Gun is affected by a civ bonus and unique technology, hell, even Italians have cheaper gunpowder and cheaper ballistics and chemistry.), they don’t have tha thematic characteristics.

Sicilians
Receive Thumb Ring
Sicilians will continue to be very weak until they receive Thumb ring.
First Crusade no longer grants extra resistance to conversion and free serjeants. But now makes every destroyed military building to spawn 3 serjeants.
Scutage no longer grants the extra gold per military unit, but rather makes killed infantry to return 35% of their food cost.

Is simple, those techs have only one use, not worthy to investment, plus the First crusade conversion effect is just a poor copy of the Teutons TB.

Turks
Elite upgrade of Jannissary and the Artillery tech affected by the cheaper gunpowder techs (Base cost of both increased to balance it).
With the upcoming change of Chemistry and Cannon Galeon, the bonus will be utterly pointless (Basically the elite cannon galleon and bombard tower techs will be the only ones affected… is sad) plus another buff to Jannissary is welcomed.

Vikings
Warships discount in feudal age reduced to 10%
Team Bonus reduced to 10% cheaper docks.

Currently Vikings are too strong, especially on water and need nerf.

2

Where is your buffs for Goth civ?

2 Likes
3

How is it obvious that byzantines deserve town patrol for free? It is not obvious in my head.

And also, the italians granting 60g per upgrade is downright broken in feudal age. That’s 1,3 archers free of gold cost.

That’s 1,3 free fire rafts.

That’s “double bit axe + horse collar + idk, town watch? = no need to mine gold to get to castle age” that’s 3 mins of villager worktime granted for free.

Usually eco-techs have a payback time where you lose resources for doing the upgrade. This can be around 5 minutes for the lumber upgrade with 10 on wood, and with the +60 gold it is taking away 3 minutes of penalty.

2 Likes
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Because its a minor bonus that only them can get and fits their identity.

1 Like
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It is imo op to have free town watch, because most people get it in imp if ever, and to have it in the start of castle age will render all sneak against byzantines useless.

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If it was a really strong civ it would maybe be strong, but Byz are mid tier at best so it will be fine. Yeah its a really convenient bonus but its mostly just good to allow you to mobilize vills and units more efficiently thanks to seeing units coming from further away. And saying that its OP because its not viable normally doesnt make much sense, even if it may be OP for other reasons

3 Likes
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Maybe he means that only University techs give 60 gold, otherwise its totally broken.

8

I like the upgrade discount, and I agree to give them a bonus against something so they can get a niche.
But not against vills or trade units.

They don’t need a bonus in dark age. Their dark age is average like most civs.
As other users on this forum and pros already said, their problem lies in feudal age. Devs just need to fix their second TC. Others suggested normal contruction time, making it cheaper, placing a limit to the vills production, separating it from the first one, etc.

Oh god no.

1 Like
9

Make the CKN more expensive and difficult to mass.

I don’t think that they are broken now, anyway maybe it would be better to wait a bit and see them tested properly.

Improve their ranges by giving them the second archer armor and consequently adjust the arambai PA accordingly.

That’s a 100f more per boar, plus 42 more food per deer. It isn’t a bit too much food for a fast gathering resource in the dark age?

I instead would suggest a new bonus that all eco buildings give +5 pop.

I wouldn’t touch the wood discount, it’s not the koreans problem in my opinion. The new bonus is good though, so maybe if you leave the wood discount and adjust the extra carry capacity at +1 per wood upgrade it may be fine.

For WW the changes are fine.

Those are fine, I agree with them.

I don’t really see how receiving gold for techs should represent the renaissance, it seems kinda random from an historical point of view onestly.

As for balance, well it may be broken onestly. Basically after researching loom, you have more gold than before. With double bit axe and horse collar (both that cost just food and wood) you have enough gold to click to caste age without even gathering gold. In the meantime you can go for scouts and again, if you research forging and the first armor, you get 120g for nothing.

I wouldn’t buff them this way, in my opinion some ideas are:

  • giving them a SE affected by the uni discount (this one is the more important one)
  • a bonus of free infantry armor upgrades (no BS required)
  • give condos a +1 or +2 bonus damage vs eagles (this one is more of a fix…)
  • Maybe a cheaper university (the building)
10

This doesnt fit the current civ at all.

Honestly I think that working around the discount bonuses reducing one of the water ones in exchange of buffing the cheaper age ups would make the most sense. You dont even need to add any new bonus

11

Yeah because Italians doesn’t have a infantry UU that requires doesn’t upgrades, and archer civs don’t often open with a Drush into M@A…

Personally, I think that if you apply this 2 changes:

The civ is fine, and needs no more, but if there has to be added something more too, then I prefer something small.

Yeah but I strongly disagree… I already read you suggestions, and you basically would annihilate them on water for giving them back 25 more food in feudal age…

The dock/uni discount and the age up discount are now balanced, they aren’t anymore overly dominant on water and they are solid on land, I wouldn’t throw this delicate balance out of the window.

Well, mine of free infantry armor is at least historically accurate, and it would have solid and not OP impact on the civ.

If people want a new bonus, let’s meet at the middle of the road and give them something that it’s not broken for sure, but more importantly something that in case it’s easy to remove or adjust, in case it becomes OP, because it doesn’t interfere with the balance of the other bonuses.

12

If Mayans had this bonus it would still be weird. They are missing halb and that just makes their infantry below average, UU or not.

It doesnt have to be the way I presented it (I already changed it either way). Theres diferent ways of nerfing their watrr

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Added and modified some ones…

14

Yeah, free armor for eagles would be such a waste…

But did they really need another nerf on water? On hybrid maps are already rarely used, and on full water maps now other civs can compete
against them.

So at best they need a small help on full land maps like arabia.

15

Tbh I would much rather have Mayan infantry over italian infantry, but its just like giving a civ that has bad cavalry a decent cavalry bonus that doesnt allow them to overcome their weakness. Buffing something to do it worse than most civs that arent focused on that is bad design.

If you give them 20% cheaper age ups they may become OP again. Anyway you just need to do really minor stuff like making the fishing ship bonus scale through the ages or exchange fast fires for heavy demos. Nothing too drastic

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It’s not about overcoming their “weaknesses”, it about giving them a bonus that help a bit here and there.

This has nothing to do with improving the infantry of italians, it’s just a buff for their Drush and for their condos, and a +4/4 condo *(potentially +5/5)*right out of imperial age it doesn’t sound that bad, even if they lack halbs.

Yeah, because switching FFS for HD or exchange an 11w discount with a 3w discount on FS aren’t drastic changes at all…

If with 20% cheaper age up Italians may become too strong on water then don’t change it and find something else… isn’t it easier, safer and better?

17

Eh, I still dont think it fits. Save it for civs with better infantry instead.

FFS are really good, but its just a nerf to early imp while buffing literally every other stage of the game (and also we are getting CG after chemistry so their early imp wont even be that terrible and you can even give them ), either way going from saving 11 wood for fishing ship to saving 8 seems balanced to me (it may make Italians not be the number one water civ but they would still be really strong). You can even buff their gunpowder discount considering they are currently saving the same ammount of gold as Portuguese

And no, unless you are forced to add something new to the civ because you cant balance them with the current bonuses I rather dont add bonuses randomly. Teutons, Portos, Koreans and Khmer needed a new bonus. I dont think italians are in the same situation as those civs

18

That moment, is such an important moment, and it’s not worth 5% more resources saved on 3 moments of the game.

Also, if that it’s not enough, it’s historically inaccurate.

That won’t change nothing for early imp… CG will still be trained only after you already taken control of water to kill docks and castle. If you lose water to FFS CG don’t do anything.

The change was made only for making some water TG a bit faster, when resources are scarce.

It not a little change, in the early days of DE, to nerf Italians, they change the discount from 15w to 11w. Further reducing the discount would make it worthless.

Onestly, this one seem just random… Italians problem for sure aren’t the cost of their BBC, if anything it’s the lack of SE and the fact that they die to any other BBC with SE.

Then please rather than that leave them as they are…

I too don’t think that you need to add a new bonus if you tweak the already existing ones, but you can’t either change the balance of their bonus that drastically…

19

Eh, I dont care. It may end up being balanced and thats what matters. I think it should just be tested, not saying that its the thing they should be definitely doing

Reducing it to 10% is making it equal to the Indian villager discount. Yes, cheaper villagers are better for booming but Italians already have an eco bonus that its much better on water than in open maps so reducing it may allow us to diversify them.

Never said that was the problem of the Italians. However I dont think its random, their gunpowder discount getting bigger makes sense when Portos overshadow them by this much. Giving them SE is another way of balance them simply because it makes them much better in closed maps but I would rather have them being better on open maps and also because that would be kinda stealing from Koreans uniqueness

I dont see nothing drastic on staggering the fishing ship bonus and increasing the cheaper age ups. Its just trying to diversify them on open maps.

20

I can tell you that the changes on pup make this civ very nice. I think it is just a matter of refining the build order and they will be strong in feudal extra strong in castle and goth in imp. I started getting wood upgrade first then hc going into feudal. Followed with plow. I had decent wood lead by then and the option to go any start i wanted. Someone better then me could easily take this in a good way and kick some but.