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Back to the topic, heleopolis name totally needs to change.
About the names, some another idea:
** Swordman, Heavy Swordman, Noble Guard, Sword Infantry.
This is more a cultural/social one: Is like a development of the equipment until it becomes an elite limited unit, and then a name to label the professional armies with swords like Legions. Maybe is the last name is weird.
The cataprhact could be renamed to Lancer too (but it would need a visual change also)
Please fix the Academy units. All civs getting Greek Hoplites, Macedonian Phalanx and Roman Centurion doesn’t make sense. Maybe rename them and make Hoplites and Phalanx for the Greeks and Minoans and restrict Centurions to Romans.
Same thing with the Legion unit.
But whatever changes the devs make, I think it’s best to keep things as historically accurate.
And please do not include a lot of new and obscure civs, just include relevant ones, such as Nubians, Mitanni and Indians. Do not include ambiguous civs like Kassites, which are Babylonians or Scythians, which are not really historically relevant as an “Empire”. The original civs are good enough, just need slight reworking.
Well the Academy units should be called smth like heavy infantry, Royal Guard or something and then the greeks get hoplites and romans get centurions, which are slightly stronger. Beating greeks with hoplites is epic tho.
We can get flexible here, maybe some civilizations will get unique techs, other get unique units and the rest get only unique bonuses and balance them out. Greek for eg are quite a weak civ and could use an OP academy unit, it will make the game more historically accurate. It will be realistic, because only a handful of civilizations in the ancient world actually invented something and every time it was a giant breakthrough in development. Actually, the Sumerians invented the wheel and writing, Egyptians invented Irrigation and the Hitt ites invented the Iron. These are pretty much all the inventions in the ancient world, adding an unique tech for every civ would be a bit of a stretch.
I had an idea that Macedonian hoplite line which includes phalanx which is suppose to be probably phalangite, gets tech which gives those lines +1 range so they would act more like Macedonian phalanx.
It’s a complicated issue to balance out this old game tbh, let’s hope the devs know what they are doing I think I have run out of ideas, but I will still contribute with things that I noticed are wrong with the game, having played it for decades.
But in general I think it should remain uncomplicated and historically relevant. It will never be AOE 2 in terms of gameplay, it needs to be adjusted and made into the jewel that started off the history RTS genre. I like designing campaigns and recreating historical events, so my opinions stem from this standpoint.
The naming of the hoplite line in AoE1 makes no sense. The hoplite is a Greek soldier, the phalanx is a military formation and the centurion is a rank in the Roman army.
If the Hoplite is turned into a UU, its upgrade should be the Elite Hoplite.
Phalangite could be used as a name. For me it’s generic enough, represents hvy spearman in closed formation
Spearman>Phalangite or (Phalanx) > Pikeman
Funny fact: In the spanish translation of RoR, Scythed Chariots were translated as Scythian Chariots. They fixed the bug for the unit, but not for the tech that enables them in the temple IRC.
After reading some of the responses that I got from my previous post, the name [Long Swordsman] might not be that bad of a name, but I am always open for other name ideas which could potentially suit the 3rd Swordsman line upgrade better. Perhaps the “Heavy Swordsman” name which you suggested could replace the current name of the [Long Swordsman] upgrade.
This is only based on a quick look that I took when reading about the “Spatha” on Wikipedia, which was an ancient sword used by the Romans and other people who got their hands on it, and when the Spatha gradually became a standard heavy infantry weapon this resulted with the Gladius being relegated as a light infantry weapon.
And instead of having the name “Sword Infantry” as the final Swordsman line upgrade it could maybe be called either “Expert Swordsman” or “Imperial Swordsman”.
Many friends of mine in Vietnam start testing it from today to Nov.7. But I don’t see any registration card for insider program.
I wonder if this DLC is for Vietnamese only ?
I’d like to see the model of late Roman empire soldiers in Attila campaign and Alaric campaign as a barracks unit in the new DLC. Besides, don’t make Roman centurion carry a large round shield. Either a rectangular scutum or a oval shield widely used in late empire.
The model a of the Sogdian Cataphract could work well as a replacement for the AoE1 Cataphract model.
This is a campaign only unit so people won’t confuse it with the Byzantine Cataphract and it also looks more neutral and less Roman.
