The reasons why Korean Still sucks

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:

  1. 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

  2. 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

  1. 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

4 Likes

They excel in late-game. Second-best deathball in the game. In Team-Games they can be very useful and fill different roles.
Maybe a bonus in their defences would make them more viable as a “turtle ship nation” in 1v1 :D.
Tower rush is eather too strong or too weak, almost impossible to balance.

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The Team Bonus of Koreans is OP, you must not change it!
But yeah they need a buff.

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Hey, don’t stole bonus from the Italians :joy:

However, in general I agree with you, moving the -1 min range to the UT, but consider that +3 LoS on vills as a team bonus, while better overall, they would lose that good synergy with other siege civs.

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Yes, but they gain the “anti trush” sinergie with every civ.

And BTW, i don’t want to sound cocky here, But I think it was me who came with that idea, and it was originally meant for Korean :stuck_out_tongue:

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So you remove the utility of their siege to put it behind a tech that is darn expensive and usually only acquired after siege engineers? What? No thanks.

Halbs with - 2 dmg really aren’t that bad. They’re still doing a ton of bonus dmg and thats what makes them scarey enough to murder cavalry and eles.

I agree korea needs a buff. But their WW and siege are awesome with almost perfect halbs.

Low armour hurts halbs a lot more than lower damage. And multiple civs either miss halbs or miss armour (looking at tatars…)

Mmm I recall that the idea came out some months ago talking about the Italians, then stick with them…

However, both civs have other options too, so it’s not a big deal until both het buffed.

And don’t worry, I was joking :rofl:

More than an anti trush bonus they would improve all Trush strategies in team games.

Imagine incas villa with more LoS… not OP, but still…

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  • Buff the underwhelming Turtle Ships by making them cheaper and Panokseon should give 25% extra speee

  • The discount bonus should be extended to siege

  • Fortifications are not affected by the Feudal Age HP penalty

  • Shinkichon wood cost halved

  • Potential tech tree buff: give them Elite Cannon Galleons because Turtle Ships aren’t good against Fortifications anyways - give them Bloodlines, but lose Hussar, EWW - 20HP, this is good in the Castle Age because they would have fully upgraded Knights (Koreans had strong Cavalry and Cavalry Archers) - Blast Furnace

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Defo agree. Atm they have terrible cavalry archers even if they are discounted.

And considerably worse cavalry than britons without having much to make up for it

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I’d use this bonus :slight_smile:

TBH I think Turtle ships are fundamentally broken. I’d give them double the durability of fire ships, double the cost, the same TT, and the same speed. They already have the same damage output against most targets, but remove the splash damage.

Elite TS could have the same upgrade cost as FastFire, still double the durability & same damage output as FastFire, and a range-boost instead of a speed-boost.

It would give TS a niche where they are more pop-efficient then Fireships and more production-efficient, but less resource-efficient. It would allow Koreans dominance on small ponds, like 4Lakes, and decent utility on pure-water maps.

Tbh I wouldn’t buff koreans on water. I’ve tested the new 20% wood discount several times and they seem very solid.

Elite turtle ship upgrade cost needs a big decrease though, very hard to get, and also way more expensive than any other imp upgrade for ships

Besides that I don’ think there are any problems with the turtle ships, using them as a tank, or in other words putting them in front of your war galleys or galleons is a pretty strong strategy

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Koreans are Okey on water. They suck on land

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How about eco building grant 3 pop space, so lumbercamp, Mills, maybe even market.

Maybe extend the wood bonus to siege, if op in lategame then cut it back to 15

Just expand Koreans Wood discount into Siege.

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Even then it’s only the wood discount. Slavs not only have an amazing food eco, but also the siege discount. AND on top of their great UU and amazing infantry late game(arguably the best grouped infantry in the game) .

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But it would be a Wood discount on EVERY unit, which is honestly a good bonus. It would allow Crossbow + Mangonel, and make Siege Ram + Halb pushes very efficient.

Yeah defo. But the point was it can’t be OP when we compare it to a civ with already a superior bon bon on top of other bon bons

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No bonbon (it is written together) can be very good while it touches too many units.

Flat 20% Wood discount on all units, would be great, and very powerful at the same time.

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I saw the idea aimed for koreans originally.

Mayne they were two paralel original ideas since the beginning

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Could work, it would be worth it even if it would be less than 20%.