We need European regional units

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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I love how we’re getting so many regional units to give civs more localised flavour and hopefully one day we will end up with proper regional skins even for all the generic units, but this also is now creating a situation where European civs are now some of the most generic in the game and other than access to generic units don’t have anything going for them to give them a regional flavour.

As it stands, we have camels for a lot of Middle Eastern and African civs, Elephants for South/South East Asian civs, Eagles for American civs, Steppe Lancers for Nomadic Steppe civs, and we are also getting Fire Lancers for a bunch of Asian civs but nothing regional for European civs.

You could argue that all the generic units are European regional civs because well all their skins are European, but all the other civs also get access to those so that argument doesn’t work. There is also The Winged Hussar and Paladin which you could argue are regional units, but they are regional upgrades to otherwise generic units and not an entire regional unit line.

What are some units that could be given to the various European civs as a regional unit?

Here are some of my ideas, I’m not gonna speculate on the role of the untis, or their state and all that, I’ll leave that up for discussion since you’ll have to take a million different things into consideration so I am just gonna base this on what units I feel would fit which regions:

Axeman - Given to the Goths, Teutons, Vikings, and Franks.
Genitour - Given to Spanish, Portuguese and Berbers
Cossack Mercenary - Given to the Poles, Lithuanians, Cumans, Tatars, and Slavs.
Pavise Guard (an infantry equipped with a shield that can for an impassable shield wall) - Given to Magyars, Bulgars and Bohemians
Venitian Merchant Galley (a regional ship that can trade like a trade cog but also defend itself, it generates less gold per trip to compensate for the fact that its armed - Given to Italians, Sicilians and Byzantines.
Hobelar (A cheaper/lighter light cavalry, maybe with extra LOS and speed) - Given to Britons, Celts and Burgundians.

Discuss.

EDIT: In light of other people’s suggestions I think replacing the Hobelar with a mounted Xbow unit is probably more interesting.

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One could argue the paladin is now an european RU, now that the Persians replaced theirs by the savar.

And as the tech tree is mainly based on Europe so european civs will feel more standard than other continents… quite a lot of generic units and techs should be regional units.

Some that could be used to replace the cavalry archer are :

  • mounted crossbowman : slower rate of fire but partly ignores pierce armour
  • mounted longbowman : 2 modes like the ratha : medium melee cavalry when mounted, when dismountes uses its bow. So they can quickly move to a position to then use their range (it was used by countries like France and Burgundy starting in the HYW)

Pavise crossbowman as an alternative to the arbalester : much better protected by slower rate of fire.

When did Cossacks appear ? This feels more appropriate for the 17th century, I wonder if some strategy game set in that period could feature them. Possibly developped in Ukraine.

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Here’s one that could fit many european civs : Holy Order Knight (HOK)

Representing the Templars, Hospitalers, Teutonic Knights, Knights of Santiago… an alternative to the knight line (left untouched in the stable), which gets upgraded as you research the cavalier and paladin.

  • 33% more expensive to produce (80f, 100g)
  • produced in the monastery, requires a stable
  • similar stats to the knight (matches the cavalier and paladin upon upgrade)
  • slightly increases other military units’ speed and attack speed within a short radius (4 tiles) by +2% per HOK within the radius, up to 5 knights having their effect stack. Also increases conversion resistance within the radius.

This would represent going on a crusade by inspiring devotion on other troops.

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Some of the eastern europe civis can use the stepp lancer.Genitour and Condo is anyway available for any allied civi.

Vikings slavs byzantines can have a unique champion replacement called a varangian guard.

Mounted xbow unit as a replacement for cavalry archers and heavy ca for some of the western central europe civis.franks celts britons etc.

Unique archer unit replacing the xbow and arb for meso civis.

Make the boyars a knight line replacement for slavs liths bulgarians.

More unique versions of ships for none europe factions.eg xbec ships for ME civis

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First let’s see if byzantines don’t get the legionary.

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The entire base game units are European ones…

Don’t be greedy.

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Minus the camel rider (middle eastern) and horse archer (steppes & similar terrain, not much use west of Hungary)

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There is such a change?

If the legionnaire is going to be shared might as well give them to goths and huns too(fedoratii).

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Some people theorize the change because there is a legonary shield on the new Byzantine castle
Is probably just an eye candy reference that they are the Easter Roman Empire, since such change would have been in the tease changelog otherwise

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The new Byzantine castle features a legionary shield. That’s some clue.

Good idea to give it to the Huns and Goths, and it fits the period better than a zweihainder.

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I’d love to she them as a generic counter Infantry unit that is available to all regions (but not all civs) so the Milita Line can actually be reasonable buffed without becoming OP.

It would be interesting to turn that unit into a anti Camel unit instead of just a 2nd Skirmisher.
They would need to become a Gold unit though.

How would that work out? They turn into a building?
War wagons should do that instead of being fast hit and run units.

How about they are just slower? If they were the speed of a Trade Cog they would be the fastest military ship by far. So slowing them down would both massively reduce the income and also make them more balanced in combat.

I like the idea of this unit buy I would give them a different role:
Anti Cavalry.

I think that would be interesting since Europeans don’t have Camels. The bonus would be lower then Genoese Crossbows though.

I think the unit doesn’t need to be replaced just reskinned. There are enough Archers in the game already that are pretty similar to the xbow line so no one can really complain that it would be bad for readability.
A Briton Crossbow is much more similar to a Longbow then to any other Crossbow so if you don’t get confused by those 2 units then why would you over a unit that has the same stats as a Crossbow but uses a normal Bow?

They have European skins but that doesn’t make them European units.
Regional skins would completely fix that issue. And I’m relatively confident that we will see them in the game in the near future if we are looking at the last and next DLC.

Currently the none European civs are kinda treated like “exotic” civs. They are the strange out layers to the “norm” of being European.

Which is obviously a horribly perspective to have, but I think many people actually see it like that. Even if it’s subconscious.
When they play Aztecs, Chinese or Ethiopians they see an army composition that just looks wrong.
Jaguar Warriors next to Champions.
Knights next to Cho Ku Nus.
And all but one Ethiopian unit being white skinned.

Europeans don’t have this visual disconnect.
I’m optimistic that the popularity of none European civs will increase after they add regional skins to the game.

Logically yes but it would ruin the fantasy of them being the enemies of Rome.

Also many people have been asking for it since the new Romans came out.
Having a shared unique unit between East and West Rome just feels nice. The same way Poles and Lithuanians share a unique unit.

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First part of the goth campaign is them working for romans as fedoratii.Main problem I see with goths is they are the stand in for saxons and other german factions so legionnaire showing up in medieval german battles would look odd.

Huns are anyways odd so them being more odd is fine.

Thats one way to do it but kinda boring just to have a reskin with no additional changes.

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It’s not really about the campaign.
A large portion of players like playing Skirmish against AI (or with friends) and the often like to choose civs that make some sense historically. Maybe even play on real world maps.

Those people want to have to fantasy of being the barbarians fighting Rome of the other way round Rome fighting barbarians.

It might be theoretically correct but not what people want.

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The issue is we have the precedent of the genitour, Berber UU, that were actually christian troops who evolved tactics to counter them. So Goths who half the time fought for the Romans, in comparison…

But giving it to the Byzantines is safer.

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Actually crossbowmen is knida like a regional units of Europe. Oriental crossbow is quite different from european crossbow. The game is using arbalest for upgrade of crossbow. Besides, paladins is also mainly for European civs.

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Far too elaborate and there are many doubtful cases in between. It seems made to give everyone something without any logic. For example:

  • Jinete or Ginete, yes, the origin of the word is the same as Genitour, but the fact that they should be the same unit when the Jinete were fighting the Berbers is ridiculous. So only for Spanish and Portuguese.

  • Hobelar. It is the name of a light cavalry that used the Irish Hobby. So again, only for Celts and Britons, what the Burgundians have to do with it, I don’t know.

Practically it is.

EDIT. Currently 10 civilizations have Paladins. How many of these have a bonus?

  • Burgundians? Yes. They can stay.
  • Byzantines? No. To be removed.
  • Celts? No. To be removed. They will also have the Hobelar as a regional unit.
  • Cumans? Yes. They can stay, but Cumans would have two regional units.
  • Franks? Yes. They can stay.
  • Huns? No. To be removed. Also they may have Steppe Lancers.
  • Lithuanians? Yes. They can stay.
  • Magyars? No. Even if they somehow benefit from the civility bonus. Hard to remove, though. So they can stay at the end
  • Spanish? No. Also they would have the Jinete as a regional unit.
  • Teutons? Yes. They can stay.

This would result in 5-6 civilizations.

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The mounted javelineer has its roots in north africa. The jinetes developed to counter them later on looked more like the in game conqustador.

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Hôm, yes it must be. But I would like infantry for EURO. Because paladin is most perfect unit it regional of EURO

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I’ve long thought a mounted xbow for euro civs, to differentiate from CA for steppe-ier civs, would be cool. IDK what the unit looks like in practice. any time i’ve tried it ends up being quite conquistador-y, which felt a bit redundant to me.

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Organ Gun for Europe and give a proper UU to Portugal

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