The ultimate Persian re-design thread

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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Ok I have been reading a lot about the various ideas on the forums about what to do with the Persians to make them a bit more interesting, and I wanted to take my favourite ideas and put them in one place and present a sort of comprehensive redesign idea for the civ. I am not expecting this to be taken up by the devs, so its mostly here for my own amusement but hey I didn’t expect some of the other ideas I had regarding other civs (Poles and Bohemians) to make it into the game either and somehow they did so one can hope…

Anyway, here goes:

  • Unique tech change: Get rid of Mahouts

Pretty much everyone who has commented on this seems to agree that mahouts is such an underwhelming tech and that War Elephants without it are kinda useless. And it feels like a ripoff that Persians have to pay for all these techs on top of an already expensive unit before they can even get something usable out the door. Not to mention the whole idea of elephants being slow in the AOE universe itself is very strange. Since elephants can definitely run faster than people… but I digress… so yes get rid of mahouts, and just make the war elephant faster from the get go. If that is too offensive a change for some people, give it a staggered effect, maybe give half the effect to the War Elephant, and the other half after unlocking the Elite War Elephant upgrade.

  • New Stable unit: Steppe Lancer

The Persians are a natural candidate for receiving fully upgraded Steppe Lancers both for historical reasons and also for civ-identity/gameplay reasons. When AOK first came out, the Persians were the only civ that were intended to have access to all the fully upgraded stable units which at the time was the light cavalry line, the knight line and the camel line. That was part of their CIV IDENTITY and one of the attractive features of the civilisation. However as time went on we had more stable units added to the game and this arguably indirectly nerfed the Persian stable and also took away one of the defining features of the civ, which was having access to all the stable units. While I think giving them battle elephants would be overkill and would overlap with their War Elephant UU, they should still be given the fully upgraded Steppe Lancer which would once again make them have access to the full range of melee cavalry units if you consider the War Elephant as a substitute for the Battle Elephant. So they get light cavalry, knight line, steppe lancer line, camel line and their own unique version of the elephant line. Also they deserve to have them for historic reasons as they employed lancers from Turkic and other backgrounds in their armies so that could be represented by giving them access to the unit.

  • New unique unit: Royal Cav Archer

So this would be something like the Vietnamese’s Imperial Skirmisher or the Hindustani’s Imperial Camel Rider, basically an additional upgrade to the Heavy Cav Archer unit in the Imperial Age. I am not 100% sure about the numbers but something like costing 1100 food and 650 gold. It would give the unit +10 HP, +1 attack, +1 melee armor, while keeping the range the same. This would allow the Persians to have decent late game Cav Archers whithout giving them bracer to buff their skirmishers and trashbows as well. Also they still lack the +1 range that bracer would give them so they still have some potential weakness against longer ranged units. The upgrade is also fairly expensive as I think it would have to be so that they can’t just have access to all these tanky units like Paladin, Royal Cav Archers, and Elephants etc… This basically just gives them another choice to tech into if they don’t want to go Paladin which is basically currently their only ideal late game option.

  • New unique unit: Qizilbash

I imagine this unit as a sort of fast and cheap shock troop infantry swordman that is available in Imperial Age at the barracks but you can only train 10 at a time and then they go on a timer and you can’t train them again for another 2 or 3 minutes or something. They have average HP but very high attack. They cost only food to represent the fact that the real Qizilbash were given land instead of payment from state treasury. Also they do not get any upgrades from the blacksmith so their base stats are basically “good enough” straight out the door. In real life they were tribal mercenary recruits who reneged their allegiance to their tribes and pledged allegiance to the Safavid Shahs instead and this could be represented by them not taking up any population space (but you can only have 10 on the field at any given moment).

  • New Imperial Age unique building: Shrine

So this is a bit of an experimental idea that I had. What if the Persians had a new unique building that cost gold and stone and wood to make (maybe 100 of each?), called Shrine which is a reference to the many holy shrines that existed in Persia/Iran in the Medieval period. These are often sources of revenue with people visiting them for pilgrimages. The in game effect of this could be somthing like this: for every villager that is working within a certain radius of the building the player would earn a small trickle of gold. This would have to be balanced properly obviously but it only works while the villagers are working and not idle, and only within the building’s range which should be fairly limited as well. This could help in the super late game to allow the Persian player to stay competitive in the late game with so many of their units being really expensive to tech into and to field.

Also I think there should be a limit of how many of these you can build but I am not sure how many, someone smarter than me can do the math and work out something appropriate. Also you would be able to house relics in this building as well but not produce monks from it. The advantage could be that this building could have some additional hitpoints making it harder to eject relics when it comes under attack.

  • Kamandaran Unique Tech

Move this tech to the Imperial Age instead of castle age where I think it will get more utility. If you are making knights and villagers in the castle age you are rarely ever going to have the food and gold spare for this tech and you will have more use for a trashbow unit when all gold runs out on the map.

  • New Castle Age Unique Tech: Avicennian Medicine

This tech would give monks the ability to heal all units within a small radius of their position rather than heal one unit at a time as is currently the case. This would be a representation of the many great physicians that existed in Persia during the Medieval period. The healing speed and radius would obviously have to be adjusted so that it isn’t too crazy but in practice this should help with keeping the expensive units that the Persians need to field alive.

  • Architecture

Also not exactly gameplay related but for the love of god give them the Central Asian architecture which is exactly what Persian Medieval architecture looks like.

That’s pretty much it, I tried to introduce some new ideas instead of just adding stats to existing units and moving existing techs around. You may not like all these ideas and some of them might be a bit out there but happy to hear everyone’s thoughts and suggestions.

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Like the idea of Mahouts, Steppe Lancer and Royal Cav Archer

Qizilbash is a fun design but I think it is somehow duplicated with Condottiero + Shotel Warrior.

Overall I think Persian is really too old and need to be re-design

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Yes similar but still different, limited number, no blacksmith upgrades, no population space requirement and not the anti-gunpowder specialty of condos. Might need some other specialty to differentiate it even more…

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Now that an AoC unique tech has been replaced, I guess it’s time to replace Mahouts. My objection to the idea before was based on the concern that replacing everything from the original game would make it an entirely new game, but since we’re already down that rabbit hole, might as well replace Mahouts.

New unique technology: Aswaran (Heavy Cavalry Archers receive +2 anti-archer bonus resistance, +3 damage vs infantry)

New bonus: Heavy Cavalry Archer and Cavalier upgrades free

Finally, the effect of Mahouts is rolled into the Elite upgrade automatically.

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You mean boiling oil? Wasn’t that a forgotten empires UT?

This is cool too but I like the idea of giving them a link related UT to give a reason for them to make monks. Plus I feel giving them a whole new unique upgrade to the CA line in the form of the Royal CA that I suggested frees up the second UT slot for something else. But that’s all a matter of taste I suppose.

That would be way too op I feel.

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You mean its ancient :smiley:

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Berserkergang was replaced in the newest patch.

Maybe just one of them then? I’ll go with Heavy Cav Archer.

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I generally don’t like the idea of free upgrades of power units like cav archer or knight line. I think it’s too oppressive.

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It is highly unlikely if not impossible to have such a big overhaul of a classic civilization. We will hopefully get a new UT replacing Mahouts. And if we are really lucky, maybe one more civ bonus.

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Yes I already stated I doubt these will get added. It’s still fun to speculate. Don’t be a party pooper :joy:

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I like the idea of Persian getting Royal Cav-Archer but it seems very underwhelming. Usually you would get Bracer first thing in imperial age. If you have Royal CA would have to be research after Heavy CA which cost 900f 500g and takes 50 seconds So even if Royal CA and bracer had the same cost Ignoring the non CA related benefit would still prefer Bracer for the timing alone. Lastly there is the issue of trading 1 range for +10HP and 1 MA. Melee armor isn’t that important for CA because they can outrun most Melee units and there even then hit and run tactics can mitigate the amount of hits.

  1. Increase by dmg 2
  2. Make it functions as a replacement for For heavy Cav-archer similar to winged-hussar.
  3. Decrease cost of the Royal Cav Archer
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I think Persians should get another unique unit. For instance:

  1. Move elephants to stable, adjust their stats and price if necessary.
  2. Put another unique unit in castle.

This way we will save iconic unit (War Elephant) providing some useful unique unit in castle.
I’d prefer to have archer unique unit for Persians or some fast infantry (similar to shotels).

P.S.
I don’t like Steppe Lancer for Persians for historical reasons. Steppe Lancer is nomads’ unit, Persians weren’t nomads.

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Reasonable.

Introducing the Steppe Lancers is a bit of a stretch.
The Iranian plateau, where the Persians (West Iranians) lived, does not belong to the Eurasian steppe. They were settled rather than nomadic very early on. Even the Hindustanis representing the Afghans doesn’t get them, so the Persians (West Iranians) will be even less suitable.
In addition, this became an obstacle for the Sogdians (Eastern Iranians) to become a new civilization, because the Persians having steppe lancers will emphasize that they also cover those Eastern Iranians who lived in the Eurasian steppes and Transoxiana.

I don’t think they need a strong CA unit in the late game, especially with decent Paladins and a good economy. Imperial CA is more suitable for a new civilization designed around it.

Instead, the Persians should have more options in the Castle Age. If I were to make their CA more usable without bracer, I’d try to make Parthian Tactics available to the Persians in the Castle age. Allowing it to be used earlier is also a way of paying homage to the roots as this tech’s name.

Why would you rather not do something for their Longswordsmen, and instead just introduce new infantry units?

Qizilbash is rather late. In a way, it’s at odds with the current Persians’ emphasis on fairly early periods (use of war elephants, many Sasanian elements, etc.).

You are actually going to give the Monks an aura effect.
So far the aura effects in the game are all buildings, which will display the range and can not move, so it is easier for players to accept. I’m not sure how a moving aura will be considered by the community but I do know that a UT that only improves healing can easily either be very very rare to research or be so powerful that it gets nerfed.

No problem.

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No more area-of-effect effects, please. They feel so gimmicky and unlike AoE2.

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This seems like a valid criticism. The timing of the techs is not something I gave a lot of thought too. I am somewhat assuming Cav Archer won’t be the main line of play for Persians but its nice to have as an option or maybe to support a Paladin army, or something. But the concept could definitely be tweaked.

True, but I suppose this would make microing them a bit easier and more forgiving? That’s gotta count for something… Or if it really is that bad, then maybe an extra pierce armor instead of extra melee armor.

I don’t personally have an issue with this. I thought skipping Heavy Cav Archer all together would be too OP, but hey I wouldn’t say no to it…

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Persian armies were full of lancers and cataphracts. They had many Turkic and Caucasian nomadic mercenaries in their armies in the Medieval period. Look at the Safavids for example who ruled Persia roughly in the time frame that the Imperial Age of AOE2 is set in.

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See the post above. 20 characters.

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Yea but we already have it in the game, I feel the more civs that get something similar the less “gimmicky” it’ll feel.

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Every region with cavalry has records of the use of lancers. Persians were not special in this regard.

Turkic warriors served in Eastern Europe, West Asia, and China.
I don’t think Persians are any more special than Poles, Lithuanians, Slavs, Bulgarians, Byzantines, Turks, Saracens, Hindustanis and Chinese to be able to access to Steppe Lancers.

The unit is called “Steppe” Lancer, which gives a clear definition — Eurasian steppe.
I think this principle is best maintained, otherwise it could easily slip to the point that all civilizations that have historically had lancers can access to them.
Of all the existing civilizations, I only see the Huns as worthy of Steppe Lancers. They were out-and-out Eurasian steppe peoples.

Safavids (1501-1736) only exist in the last century of AoE2’s timeline.
I think the Imperial Age is far earlier than the 16th century.
And, as I stated, the theme of existing Persian civilization mainly focuses on early medieval Persia.

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But Iran did contain nomads that lived in a steppe-like environment, who made up a varying proportion of their military. Especially during and after the Parthians, who introduced many horse nomad styles of warfare into the Persian army.

I get that plenty of civs had lancers, but the Sassanian army had units that looked literally identical to the Steppe Lancer model (save for lack of the Cuman faceplate).

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