So, lets showcase the great variety of mystics that age of empires COULD draw from!
Mongolian throatsingers/ energy manipulation/ extra consciousness etc.
Aztec human sacrifice!
Bhuddist enlightenment!
Christian ascetism! (although monks already have this sort of covered)
African mysticism
Islamic Mullahs.
Shinto/ancestor worship.
Ok, so here are a couple of ideas:
The south american high priest. This unit is unique to aztecs, incas and mayans. This unit can click another one of your units, and when it does, it will insta kill your own unit. But it will buff all your other units. So, whats a good example of a buff? For example, when you get a bunch of scout cavalry charging your vills, the high priest could sacrifice one villager. In return, all your other vils gain armor, health, move speed, and regeneration for 30 seconds.
Mongolian/tibetan Shaman. This unit excels at vision. They can channel on a town center to increase its vision range significantly. (3-4x)
Bhuddist monk. This monk seeks enlightenment. This monk has the robes of a bhuddist monk, and ensures that members of the community contribute to good karma! This spiritual leader can channel on town centers in order to allow villagers to ignore collision while near it.
Shinto priest. These priests in shinto are expected to keep a good relation between the spirits and the humans. You only want one shinto priest, but they can channel on their monestary in order to buff all nearby workers. Perhaps a +5 hp buff to nearby workers?
Bishops/Mullahs. These units can channel on a market, and allow nearby tradecarts to ignore collisions.
The theme here is that each of these units are a religious leader that the civilization creates. You only need/want one of them, but they provide important bonuses for the home turf. Having these religious leaders creates high value targets. This means that attackers have an important unit to hunt down and kill even when regicide is not a thing.
I could totally see people going with a light cav to assassinate the religious leader of the enemy.
I like the idea of give religion more influence in AOE2, but a don`t think that should be neccessary to add more units, the monks are already there and give them more mechanics focused on late games could be more reasonable.
" Ascetic life may include nakedness symbolizing non-possession of even clothes, fasting, body mortification, penance and other austerities, in order to burn away past karma and stop producing new karma, both of which are believed in Jainism to be essential for reaching siddha and moksha"
- monks lose health but convert much faster
this kind of stuff can go in aoe4 thoughā¦ thereās tons of room for these thingsā¦ and ttoo much resistance in aoe2 ābut its never been like thatā until devs add itā¦
The thing is though, if you never added new mechanics and stuff, games would become stale. Thatās what makes some of the new civs they have added so interesting and unique. The Konnik, leitis, polish folwark, sicilian searjent, bulgarian krepost, Hussite Wagon defense mechanic, there might be more that Iām not thinking of right now. Should we scrap all those civs and units and such because they arenāt how Age of Empires 2 was made? Imo, if it can be done ingame with triggers through the scenario editor, it should be allowed ingame
Yes because look how successful we have been in adding aoe3 mechanics to aoe2. Resounding success right? Everyone loves the one off unique techs like paper money and Flemish revolution? Oh wait. Widely despised. The leitis you mentioned? People still want to nerf it and hate it
The krepost is literally judt a smaller castle. Not that revolutionary
If something was reasonably close to an existing mechanic I would he all for it (like missionaries picking up relics). These though? These ideas are worse than flemish revolution
