Stone mining upgrade new design, siege and few other suggested changes; discuss : ]

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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These ideas / changes have been living in my head rent-free for far too long so I would really appreciate if you let me release them right here and not be too critical : ]

These changes I want to propose here are focused on making game more enjoyable and interesting for everyone.
They would allow more variety in strategic approaches before Imperial Age, especially in Castle Age.
These changes would benefit all - new player-base, casual player-base and also pro-level.

I do not expect to be 100% correct or have all answers to all possible concerns.
I also understand that there are other ways to make the game more interesting and enjoyable to experience.
I keep in mind that most likely none of the changes I wrote down would be implemented in the game for various reasons (my opinion being unpopular or even something like developers already working on a different change that having been applied would interact with the changes I proposed here in an unexpected manner).

Without further ado, the ideas:

  1. General

  • Stone mining upgrades
    The new proposed change:
    Stone mining upgrades focus on preserving stone instead of exploiting it early (or never reasearching these technologies); Stone mining: Villagers preserve 20% stone when mining; Stone shaft mining: Villagers preserve 20% stone
    Instead of / Currently:
    Stone mining: Villagers mine stone 15% faster; Stone shaft mining: Villagers mine stone 15% faster

  • Rams
    The new proposed change:
    Battering Ram - not upgraded - becomes slightly closer in strength against castles and fortifications to Capped Ram (e.g. All rams get +50 extra damage against castles, +50 extra damage vs Walls & Gates, but attack bonus against Buildings is: Battering Ram 100; Capped Ram 100, Siege Ram 150)
    Instead of / Currently:
    All rams get 0 extra damage against castles, 0 extra damage vs Walls & Gates, but attack bonus against Buildings is: Battering Ram 125; Capped Ram 150, Siege Ram 200)

  • The whole Mangonel-line can cut trees
    The new proposed change:
    Requirement for a Mangonel-line to cut trees: Chemistry researched (not upgraded Mangonel with Chemistry cuts only one directed tree per shot)
    Instead of / Currently:
    Only Onager and Siege Onager can cut trees

  • Heavy Scorpions
    The new proposed change:
    Heavy Scorpion - upgraded Scorpion - 's projectile becomes slightly bigger (to be able to pass through more units than currently)

  • Petards
    The new proposed change:
    Siege Engineers: Petards deal +80% against buildings
    Instead of / Currently:
    Siege Engineers: Petards deal +40% against buildings

  • Siege Towers
    The new proposed change:
    Siege Tower is cheaper (e.g. 100W 100G) but have less HP and/or Melee armor (e.g. 120HP and -5 Melee armor)
    Instead of / Currently:
    Siege Tower for 200W 160G with 220HP and -2 Melee armor

  • Transport Ship
    The new proposed change:
    Transport Ship is cheaper (e.g. 100W) but have less HP or armor (e.g. 100HP and 4 Pierce armor)
    Instead of / Currently:
    Transport Ship for 125W with 100 HP and 8 Pierce armor

  1. Civ-oriented

  • Chinese
    The new proposed change:
    Military technologies -10% Feudal, -15% Castle, -20% Imperial Age
    Instead of / Currently:
    Technologies cost -10% Feudal, -15% Castle, -20% Imperial Age

  • Mayans
    The new proposed change:
    Resources last 15% longer (except food)
    Instead of / Currently:
    Resources last 15% longer

  • Malians
    The new proposed change:
    Buildings cost -15% (except TCs and Farms)
    Instead of / Currently:
    Buildings cost -15% wood (except Farms & Nomad starting TC)

  • Bengalis
    The new proposed change:
    Monks +0/+5 armor
    Instead of / Currently:
    Monks +3/+3 armor

  • Berbers
    The new proposed change:
    Genitour becomes available to Civs: Berbers, Turks, Persians, Saracens. Berbers team bonus becomes something else (e.g. herdable animals move 15% faster)
    Instead of / Currently:
    Team Bonus: Genitour available in the Archery Range starting in the Castle Age

  • Tatars
    The new proposed change:
    Flaming Camels available after entering imperial age
    Instead of / Currently:
    Flaming Camels unlocked by researching Timurid Siegecraft

If I haven’t listed something that you, personally, find crucial to be implemented in the game of Age of Empires 2, that doesn’t mean that I don’t agree with it. Even if our ideas seemingly contradict each other.

Nevertheless, I am happy to have my ideas heard and possibly inspire others to come up with their own ideas that may make our beloved game more interesting and fresh : ]

Kindly, RediRodion

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Im not going to stay anything about your ideas, i leave that to the more experienced Players.
But If you want a better discussion maybe post again after the RoR rumor hast settled.

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These techs would become mandatory, Stone is difficult to obtain and castles are a great late game way to slow down attackers and buy yourself enough time to build an army or just protect your eco from raids. This is to say that this is a massive nerf to castle age, defensive castle play since you would have to get these upgrades first and you wouldn’t have the 15% faster mining that you normally get though the cheap feudal age tech.

I like the current castle meta, it feels like the castle age should revolve around the castle and their are interesting fights over good castle positions.

I think battering Rams do need a small buff, their wood cost is hard to justify in the castle age, Siege Rams don’t need a buff, The Siege Ram is considered the best unit in Death Match because it absorbs so much damage, has a massive bonus against Siege and is gold cheap. A lot of newer players undervalue the Siege Ram because they see it as a building killer, which is a job Trebuchets are better at, but Siege Rams have much more utility outside of killing buildings.

I also have an issue with making Rams kill stone buildings quicker. Stone buildings are designed to hold positions, you invested your rarest resource to delay your opponent, Battering Rams need to be faster and take less damage from Villagers, Castle and TCs, not kill buildings faster.

Looking at Khmer pick and winrate on Michi, I would prefer only the elite variant of Ballista elephants be able to chop trees rather than this. It would be way too easy to with minimal investment take down someone’s defences on Arena or black forest. Onagers cut down trees, but it is an Imperial upgrade that takes a long time to research, a mangonel can be made for a tiny amount of resources. This also makes the Siege tower obsolete.

Heavy Scorpions are very good in team games, especially in choke points, they are too slow to be used in 1v1, but mass Heavy Scorpions/Halbs have won me a lot of team games before. They rip though cavalry and infantry much quicker than you would think. Castle age scorpions are a lot worse.

This is a good idea, Petards aren’t useful in the imperial age and this would fix that.

the issue with making Siege Towers a viable unit that you can use to get over walls, is that they are so easy to counter. Simply put a house wall or palisade behind the wall and the siege tower can no longer hop over it. Any siege tower buff like this can therefore be read as a wall nerf as a siege tower rush could be used to punish a player without a double wall, so everyone would double wall. As it is, they take your opponent off guard but the wall is still useful without the extra investment.

This is a weird change in that the nerf isn’t equitable to the buff. Cheaper transport ships will make early landings easier and quicker, but the cargo is the always the main cost in the transport, giving transports less pierce armour makes castles more effective against them so that your opponents get surprized and lose the game because they had 10 knights in a transport and it tried to land where you happened to build a castle.

I don’t know if Castles need to be more effective against transports, on water maps you are better off investing in navy than defensive castles and in hybrid maps like four lakes, I have never used or had a transport used against me to my memory.

Maybe you could explain why you want this change?

I think this Civ bonus exists because the Chinese invented a lot of things in the game, like the wheelbarrow, the bow saw and the two and three field crop rotation system that was common in the middle ages. It takes away a lot of the favour of the bonus if they don’t get a discount for things they invented.

This is pretty much their entire dark age bonus, they get quick loom, but that only pays off in feudal. Losing this would make them a bad civ, likely much worse than pre-buff inca who got a small food bonus and needed less houses in the dark age.

I like this change, it is more consistent than the exception with Nomad change, it helps that Mali are the top 1v1 civ at the moment and need a few nerfs. It also means their bonus doesn’t overlap with the Britons bonus.

the +3 melee armour is useful in that it makes their monks take 1 more hit from knights before dying, Since Bengalis don’t get Camels, Eagles or Knights, they are very reliant on monks to stop knight raids so it makes sense that they have monks that are better.

Genitours, or Jinetes aren’t an Arabian unit, they are a Iberian unit used in history by the Berbers, Andalusians and Christian Kingdoms of Iberia (Spain and Portugal in game). The Turks or Persians shouldn’t have it.

I think that is a good idea, I don’t like the fact that a bunch of units are hidden behind chemistry as well, I remember that confused me when I was a kid. Units shouldn’t be unlocked by techs, they should be improved by them.

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Additional things I would like to propose:

  • Mayans
    The new proposed change:
    Hempstead Stables: Allows Mayans to make Stables, Xolotl Warriors +2/+2 (e.g. 400F 400G)
    Instead of / Currently:
    Hul’che Javelineers (Skirmishers throw a second projectile)

  • Cumans
    The new proposed change:
    Cuman Revolt: Siege projectiles travel faster - effect like that of Spanish Cannon Galleon (cost: 500F 500W)
    Instead of / Currently:
    Cuman Mercenaries (team members can create 5 free Elite Kipchaks per Castle)

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