The latest new civs look fun

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

Just to pay my respect to the devs:

I think the latest additions to AOE2 -poles and bohemians- have fun design.

Poles who have dirt-cheap knights but only after a UT, which then upgrade into no-plate cavalier. And UU Hussars with trample damage but also no plate barding.
Those Polish Winged Hussars contrast beautifully with the new Lithuanian Winged Hussars with full defensive upgrades but no forging.
Incidentally, giving Lithuanians Hussars with +2 attack and a few other improvements was a very nice way to compensate for removing forging.

Bohemians with gunpowder & HC in Castle age should be interesting, and having a UT that changes the cost of other technologies (replacing the monastery’s tech’s gold cost with food cost) provides great strategic choices.

The only aspect of the expansion that looks (somewhat) un-fun is the Polish Folwark. But even there the implementation as “mill which harvests food off newly-build farms” is much more fun than the thing I first imagined when I heard “mill that improves farm rate”.

All in all, this expansion looks much better than the previous one, and I look forward to seeing these civs exploited in tournaments.

(Of course there will need to be balance tweaking, and I’ve seen a ton of posts about what people think needs to be changed, but I have no desire to talk about that myself.)

15 Likes
2

Folwark ressembles a better slavic farm bonus but it doesnt apply to TCs. Thus, it encourages 1 TC all-in sttategies, and this is fun.

1 Like
3

they are still both very different bonuses like saying franks resemble berbers because they both go knights.

with 39 civs something is going to remotely resemble everything else, but i think they did a really good job in giving poles a unique eco, that has its drawbacks… (namely the size and sprawl of your base and vulnerability to raiding, unlike slavs)

i really like how they did the poles in general, i think its fine their super late game might arguably suffer in certain match ups, but they do still have a wide variety of tools until then, and the glass cannon nature of their hussars is very unique, and coupled with their incredibly fast food eco and much larger gold pool, should make up for the lack of armour with sheer numbers

and i think their UU is really cool… the infantry we always needed but never had…

i like that hand guns were all buffed to make the bohemian HC an attractive choice on some scale… been asking for it for years. i dont like their UT , it leads to no brain monk spam in the super late game, resulting in unsatisfactory late matches against them… but then ive always been against trash wars anyway…

they will likely increase the food cost of the monks, and or increase cost of the tech, or some other nerf

1 Like
4

Honestly bohemians are maybe even weak now. They seem strong but HC is still quite niche unit and they don’t have any strong option in castle age. And their imperial is only saved by trash monks, which is very situational in lot of games (it is often to late to use it). Poland needs the last armor for cavalry but i would like to see nerf to their UT.

5

Genuinely think the Poles’ Late Game is one of the weakest among all civs.
Let’s ignore their Dock in Imperial Age and that Monks without Illumination seem subpar.

They miss Hand Cannoneers, Siege Engineers, Siege Onagers, Ring Archer Armor, Plate Barding Armor, Paladins and Halberdiers - basically the most important techs if going for one clear late game strategy. Makes them even worse for team games.

There’s no power behind most of their late game units which always lack something and the civ having no specific strength makes them rely mainly on trash units or Obuchs, which are hard to mass up from Castles.

6

Poles have some extremely efficient units and they’re going to have an extremely good long-term army because of how little gold you need to invest. The fact they get even more gold than a normal civ as a result of their stone mining bonus is just extra. Obuchs seem hard to mass, but going for an early castle and getting the gold for castle age incidentally is currently meta. You want the castles as it’s just free gold on the side, which makes an Obuch option far more feasible, and that unit is incredibly effective. Poles are very solid.

I think Bohemians are going to have a place because of a rather quality Smush. It doesn’t look like a lot, but they actually save 200 wood just from the Blacksmith (for Siege Workshop) and the Monastery, and they get every monastery tech. Fervor affecting villagers is a unique eco bonus which is surprisingly effective, but beyond that they lack punch, the Hussite wagon being a far superior meatshield than a downrange threat. Bohemians, in my estimation, could use a tiny little bit of help.

2 Likes
7

their winged hussar is already better than the best hussar (magyar huszar) in melee, if it gets extra +2PA on top of that, how will some civs even remotely cope late game?

how would you nerf the UT so that it is still viable in castle age, but not oppressive in imperial with FU cavalier?

how is that a defining factor?? if you had said redemption then yes they would be subpar, but they have all you need out of a monk… redemption, speed, hp, range… everything else is nice to have but recharge speed? not a defining factor at all… did you mean block printing? (which they also have)

cracking food eco, gaining 50 food instantly per farm, 50% more gold than most civs, BBC, redemption +3 monks, the best melee hussars ig… their only real weakness is possibly the lack of siege engineers. but they have siege ram and obuchs which rip buildings to shreds…

really dont think they are close to the weakest… interested to see what stats say…

this is possibly the only part you are right, but then there are tons of civs that arent used in TGs anyway…

9s tt says otherwise… if slower training berserks are viable, then 9s obuchs are defo viable…

totally agree and you can always just keep mining stone for more and more castles. making obuchs even more viable as time goes by, unlike other civs where its a choice between stone or some other res for units

exactly, its a slight boost on top of the free mining tech, on top of a bunch of wood discounts… they get a lot more than some civs earlier on…

ive had a lot of success with them, but that might be more down to people learning to fight against them

they’re way better than say burmese or koreans in 1v1 on the current arabia, would love to see the stats on these guys and i might be totally off…

2 Likes
8

And how is that possibily a good thing sir?

I’d argue this point isn’t true, they lose against them 1v1 and are much more prone to Arrows.

9

Bohemians definitely need a nerf, and I guess next patch will bring it.

1 Like
10

yes because thats how battles are fought? 1v1? and i did say IN MELEE. you know what beats everything 1v1? war elephants. persians are the best. go persians! /s

so basically you are saying “i will not bother with this discussion, here’s a cherry picked response that doesnt bear much weight”

cool man, whatever im done with you

thats what im thinking as well, but some of it might be knee jerk reactions to new things… (like how people over reacted to serjeants, or coustiliers)

2 Likes
11

Like you said they are currently the best melee Hussars in the game right now - they can even stop champion spam and also can deal massive damage to halberdiers - I would really like to mention that Polish Hussar is doing really well against Arbalests in groups. Polish Hussar dies faster to archers than Lithuanian Hussar, but Polish Hussar kills Archers fast as well. It’s actually well balanced unit. He is good for fighting, but weaker for raiding, therefore Malian Light cav, Bulgarian Hussar, Turk Hussar, etc. doesn’t look bad.

Polish civilization is really well designed. IMO the only nerf they need is change Przywileje Szlacheckie to - knights 50% cheaper in Castle Age, 60% cheaper in Imperial Age.

12

I really like this idea
However, this will be the first time that an UT upgrade itself when you Age

13

Yes nice xivs i like it but broken the game,all lobbys are bugged

14

Still a bit unusual to have an UT scaling in Imp. Honestly, rising the cost will have a similar effect in most cases.

I would personally add Last Archer Armor to Poles. Obuchs are also a bit cheap and the gold from stone feels a bit strong.

Bohemians feel like a Gunpowder Byzantines/Incas (they have a souped up Gunpowder unit to counter everything, bar cavalry but then they have some of the strongest Pikes). They look a bit… Swissish ?

Anyway, the amount of changes needed feels far lower than LotW and even TLK.

But I won’t complain about LotW. It took a bit of time, bit now the civs are fine. Given the already high number of civs, it’s hard to complain about the Devs trying new stuff.

15

No
They lose in 1v1
Hell they even lose to Bulgarian Hussars, but the Polish one wins in massed battle due to trample damage.
The Lithuanian Winged Hussars are also in tie with Mongol and Tatar Hussars

16

Well you usually don’t fight hussars wars with just 1 hussar… so they are better.

Would be nice to know the numbers you need to have an advantage

Lithuanian Hussar is just a slightly better regular hussar… +5HP +1MA

17

ill leave this here again

at what cost though? mongols are boosted for free, and tatars share the boost across otehr units, on top of PA >MA, lith have to pay a heap just for the WH upgrade, which doesnt boost anything else (unlike say tatars going Hussar + BF for basically the same effect but also boosting every other melee unit)

and on top of that we need to consider synergy… lith have little synergy with WH, unlike every other contender for “best” hussar

no… apparently you do. apparently all these guys only ever 1v1 hussars… /s

exactly, PA is more effective than MA on a hussar

1 Like
18

I second this. Pierce Armor matters a lot more for raiding and anti-Archer units.