Upgrades for Jian Swordsman, War Chariot, Grenadier, Xianbei Raider

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

Their needs to be upgrades for the Jian Swordsman, War Chariot, Grenadier, Xianbei Raider. This will help balance them to a degree since it will slow them down. Each elite upgraded is locked until the Imperial Age. This will vastly help balance them in castle age, and slow them down.

Shrivamsha Rider (and others like the Eagle Warrior) has upgrade, therefore all these units have their own upgrade tied to them. Of course their current stats vastly reduced until the upgrade. Mounted Trebuchet is an exception since it’s an alternative version of a bombard cannon, locked to the Imperial Age.

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Hera did a video on it.

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Analysis: Regarding the balancing of 3K unique units with no Elite upgrade
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I’ve got a way to solve the problem. Put the 3K civs in the bin where they belong.

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3

True!

Twenty-one characters.

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Contrary to what Hera said, there are some older unique units that lack elite upgrades. First is missionaries (basically like monks, which are a generic unit without elite upgrades, but with so many monk techs, I think monks/missionaries are fine). Second is Condos (an imperial age unit, like the mounted trebuchet - no problem here due to being locked behind imp). Third are slingers - an anti-infantry unit that is available in castle age and retains its anti-infantry role in imp. I don’t recall hearing complaints about slingers, and they’ve been this way for a while. Fourth is warrior priests, who have good utility in castle age, and benefit from a UT in imperial age. They’re good in castle age, but their main use is as a utility unit who can pick up relics and heal.

I think that Jian swordsmen could be improved by exchanging some of its gold cost for food cost. That would make it more expensive in castle age (when food is more valuable than gold), but make it more spammable in imperial age (where it falls off outside of its anti-archer role). Ideally, Jian swordsmen would be like slingers, maintaining a strong anti-archer role in imperial age, but their gold cost is pretty high. And unlike slingers, they don’t have the survivability advantage that comes from being a ranged unit.

Grenadiers benefit so much from thunderclap bombs that it almost acts as an elite upgrade (except an actual elite upgrade would improve survivability). Probably fine as is. If they did get an elite upgrade, it would basically need to be focused solely on survivability (probably something like +5 or 10 hp, and maybe a point of armor)

War chariots also benefit from a UT, but that is far less impactful (and an Elite upgrade would improve war chariot survivability). Probably the unit here that most needs an elite upgrade, since it has hard counters in castle age that just become harder in imp.

Xianbei raiders have parthian tactics, the melee armor UT, and an scaling hp bonus that all combine to make an elite upgrade less necessary (and Cao Cao’s aura can improve their attack speed). An elite upgrade might help them scale better, but I think it would mainly allow them getting weakened in castle age, and the upgrade would frankly need to be pretty insignificant.

But between the elite techs and the precedence of slingers, I think the only one that really needs an elite upgrade is the War Chariot. Jian swordsmen would also be fairly easy to balance through an elite upgrade, but I think they can be balanced without it.

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5

I don’t mind the the premise either, just balance those units so as to make it an interesting timing powerspike that doesn’t compete with a properly invested in, comparable unit in the long run. Condos are a great example, few civs are lacking a statistically superior infantry unit in the tech tree once the investment is made.

Having a tech tied to the improvement of units is hardly a necessary design aspect, and in reality it’s a design roadblock if it’s a trope you don’t disobey once in a while.

6

Me and many others voiced this concern before, even before the release of the DLC.

Especially the Jian Swordsman really doesn’t work.

What is wrong with just giving them an Elite upgrade? It is how almost all other units in the game work.
Why do they have to not have one. Why do they have to be so different?

Elite Upgrades also don’t even have to be that powerful, it can still be the UT that is more impact full.That is already the case from some current UUs.

It could look something like this:

  • War Charriot: - 5HP
  • Xianbei Raider: -1 Attack -1 vs Spearman
  • Grenadier: -10HP
  • Jian Swordsman (Unshielded): -10 HP

And in Imperial Age:

  • Elite War Charriot: +10HP +1 Attack per arrow
  • Elite Xianbei Raider: +5HP +1 Attack +2 vs Spearman
  • Elite Grenadier: +10HP +1 Attack
  • Elite Jian Swordsman (Unshielded): +2 (+3) Attack, +15 HP, +1/+1 (+0/+0) Armour +0 (+0.1) speed

Wu civ bonus changed to only Hei Guang Cavalry +2 attack in Imperial Age.

Just throwing out some numbers, don’t take it too seriously. I haven’t tested them.

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7

Having to pay money for new models.

Perhaps this was another corner-cutting measure in this DLC after all.

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It would be so funny and sad if that was true.

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9

I wouldn’t be a leap in consistency with this DLC to have cut more corners.

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Kinda wild to be doing unique models for like 50 UUs and then not having enough resources to do another 4?

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11

Kinda wild to do 28 unique voicelines then stop at the last 2 as well.

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12

That could be fixed by simply not giving them a new model with an upgrade. Just make up a unique tech that’s within the siege workshop for the chariot. Unique tech within the barracks for Jian Swordsman, unique tech for the Grenadier in the archery range, unique tech for the Xianbei Raider in the archery range. All these new non castle techs only researchable in the imperial age.