As many of you might be aware, I’m a player who always abdicate for random civs. I think one of the most entertening thinkgs about AOE2 DE is the fact that you can choose between 35 factions, and all of them seems to be quite balanced in most aspects, or have a situation where they overshine almost every other civ… except, Koreans. as they have 2 very niche specialities: Water and Towers.
Koreans are, without doubt, one of the worst, if not the worst land civ. and why is that? well, I think I founded several points:
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They’re built arround a chessy/predictable strategy, that happened to be nerfed in DE: Towers are not what they used to be. They’re way weaker that they were in HD: And plus, Koreans no longer have the construction bonus. So the korean bonuses kicks in castle age… when the opponent already have siege to deal with towers. Only Korean bonus that helps to tower rush is Vils extra LOS
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They are a one-trick pony: Imperial age inftantry lacks blast furnance. And forget about stables, they’re useless. Arbalest is all you gonna play with them. And, Of Course, War Wagons. You can add some meh halbs in imperial age, and some good Onagers, but that’s it. It sounds like a good combo, which takes me to the next point:
3)Everything they do, others civs do it better:
Civs that plays arbalest and have better archers (This for civs have also better eco bonuses):
Brittons (have amazing trebuchets, FU halbs)
Ethiopians (have better siege and FU Halbs)
Viets (More versatile, can also play elephants, and have cannons)
Mayans (also can play eagles)
Civs that plays FU Arbalest, but have better eco bonuses
Japs (have also better infantry, cavalry, decent towers as well and decent siege)
Chinese (Have everything you might think of)
Vikings (amazing eco, better infantry)
And then there’s incas, with more flexibility in army (Eagles, FU champs) and arguably a better tower rush
When it comes to siege and pikes…
Celts
Slavs
And mongols, of course. Don’t have pikes but have, by far, a better siege.
In water: Italians and Viking dominates 1v1 Water map. But also, in tg, you might argue that Japs, Malay, and Portuguese have better chances of shinning. Koreans might only shine in late castle or imperial, when the turtle ships appear (which are great, and can turn the result of a match by themselves). All in all, Koreans are a good civ in water, but not THAT good to be that useless in land
- They bonuses all in all, sucks: 2 bonuses for tower rushing. 1 almost useless bonus. One eco bonus and one eco-military bonus that, while decent, are not enough. Faster stone minning is useless up to late feudal if you’re not trushing (and is has a good use because you will want to play WW with koreans).
The wood discount is nice, but applies only to 4 land units: Pikes, Skirms, Archers and Cavalry archers (Koreans don’t get Parthian tactics). the obvious comparision is againt’s portuguese gold discount, that affects: Archers, cavalry archers, Militia line, Knight line, Rams, onagers, scorpions, cannons, hand cannoneers, monks, trebs, petards, and trade carts, making them much more versatile. While Wood bonus might be a little better than gold bonus for naval battles, it doesn’t make up for the land difference.
As you might see, there’re a lot of reasons why Koreans need some buff, so I would like to hear some ideas. This are Mine:
-Move current team bonus as a side effect of shinkichon, and put vils extra LOS as a team bonus, and give them a new bonus: I would go for a military bonus, since they have pretty much none. As I suggested before, Free archer armors upgreade will be a good call
-Give them blast furnance, or bloodlines: They should have another viable option to play, besides Archers. Korean archers are not THAT good. Currently, they don’t have an answer againt’s a lot of civs
Other option could be extend the wood discount to siege, but again, that would’t solve the problem of them diying before getting to castle age