UUs only being made at Castles. Is that good game design?

[YouTube_HeBroGaming]

@Quasibrodo

but I don’t see any historical justification for the castle only producing UU.

Byzantines Flamethrower

[casusincorrabil]

@TougherTrack508

You name Mangudai. In most games where I play Mongols, I do actually use Mangudai. Because they’re worth it.

Rattan archers are also often worth it.

I wish we had stats on which civs do what units at what stage how often.
Ofc separated for different maps and elos.

Then we could see which UUs don’t see much use.

I actually currently see the Tarkan as the unit seeing the least use, at least in 1v1s. Weirdly enough it’s one of the few UUs that can be made from a different building after a UT
The most over all maps is potentially the Huskarl as it’s such a crucial tool for Goths. But it’s hard to say.

[SirWiedreich]

@Quasibrodo

UUs only being made at Castles. Is that good game design?

Generally, yes, I’d say so - or at least I’d say it’s fitting for AoE2, and something that positively distinguishes it from the AoE1 and AoE3 eras. But of course issues arise when some (mostly infantry) UUs are rarely powerful enough to make it worth the castle investment, or even to train when you have castles.

@TommoChocolate

On the other hand, owing to the high cost of castles, the current design works best for the more powerful unique units, like conquistadors, janissaries, mangudai, war wagons – units that it’s worth building a castle for. As a result, many less strong unique units are rather niche. If I were redesigning AoE2 from scratch, I’d suggest that every civ should have a krepost-like building

You’ve expressed this idea before, and there’s something to it, but as you’ve suggested it’s too disruptive to change at this point. Bulgarians can have kreposts because they have no eco bonus and their UU is kind of unremarkable early on, but for civs that can comfortably FC around ~13:00 (e.g. Khmer, Malay) have an excellent UU (Spanish), or both (Mongols), having access to a Castle-Lite would require a pretty deep rework of the civs and UUs. But I agree with the sentiment that (in a hypothetical alternative initial design for AoE2), it’s cooler and more interesting to have a lot of civs that can make mini-castles. Although I feel the same way about some other bonuses that seem odd as the unique bonuses of one civ (e.g. Khmer house bonus).

I also don’t think increased accessibility does enough to solve some of the problems of UU viability/overlap with generic units. Like if Japanese got “Kreposts,” I don’t know that you’d see Samurai much more often, because swordsmen still do the job 90+% of the time, and the flexibility of being able to add in pikes is a must-have in most cases.

[DemiserofD]

The only issue I have with castle production is the way it limits earlier UU use. Some civs have UUs that could be really potent early on in smaller numbers, but due to the castle investment you never see that.

I’ve suggested before a ‘mercenaries’ tech that allows you to conscript unique units at a higher cost. That could be a valid way to do it.

Maybe have it available from the Market, since you’re ‘buying’ them. They’d cost 1.5x to 2x as much as the unit from the castle, so you could pay a premium to get a few units early, OR be patient and get more from the castle later.