What do you think of these balance changes?

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

General:
Fish Traps can be built in the dark age

Georgians:
Free mule cart bonus removed

Britons:
The Britons have been terribly powercrept. In the past, they only had to worry about Huskarls and Eagle Warriors. There were only 4 civs that could make those. Now, Savars, Hussite Wagons, Organ guns, Ghulams , Elephant archers and many other units can threaten them.

Yeomen : tower attack buff removed.
Yeomen: foot archers +1 range, longbowmen (strictly, only longbowmen -20% reload time (+25% fire rate)
New civ bonus: archer and defensive technologies cost -10 / -15 / -20%
Warwolf cost changed from 800 wood, 400 gold → 600 wood, 325 gold.

Optional: Get Elite Cannon galleon. This is purely for historical accuracy rather than balance but doesn’t make a huge difference either way.

Get bombard tower OR bloodlines.

I’m more in favour of granting Bombard towers because it suits their gameplay style more. They even start with Bombard Towers in the Joan of arc campaigns.

defensive techs are town watch, town patrol, fortified wall, masonry, ballistics (also applies to archers), architecture, guard tower, keep, heated shot, treadmill crane, bombard tower.

archer techs are fletching, bodkin arrow, bracer, padded archer armor, leather archer armor, ring archer armor, yeomen, elite longbowman, crossbowman, arbalest, elite skirmisher

These buffs would help the Britons in general but slightly risk making them too good on maps like Arena and BF where they’re already good.

Spanish:
Gunpowder fire rate bonus applies to Bombard Towers
Gunpowder units fire 18% faster (25% faster for cannon galleons and bombard towers)
Elite Conquistador +1 range (non-elite conq still has 6 range)

Right now, the FU Elite Conquistador is a unit that gets outranged by castle age crossbows, mangonels and scorpions.

Portuguese:
Get illumination
Lose husbandry

This is to emphasize their decreased mobility.

Khmer:
Lose hussar

This is to emphasize less mobility and be more like the Bengalis

Ethiopians:
Free pikeman changed to Free Spearman-line upgrades (so, free halberdier too)

Gurajaras:
Shrivamsha rider base speed changed from 1.6 → 1.35 (same as a knight)
Non-elite Shrivamsha rider Base pierce armor changed from 1 → 0

Shrivamsha rider can’t block ranged melee attacks (Mamelukes, Mangonels, Bombard Cannons, Throwing axemen, etc)

Huns:
Get Steppe Lancers and Elite Steppe lancers.

Burgundians:
Gunpowder unit attack bonus removed.
Flemish Revolution tech removed and replaced with a tech “Improved gunpoder” (name should be changed, of course) which increases attack of gunpowder units by 25%. This buff does not affect Cannon Galleons
Flemish militia exist as a unit that can be created at the Barracks.

Teutons:
Unique Paladin upgrade called “Crusader Knight” (name can be changed). Cost is the same.
Moves 5% faster → I do know that this goes against their slow theme
Has +5 cavalry armor (to partially negate anti-cavalry bonuses)
Cannot be converted.

So, comapred to a generic paladin, a crusader knight gets +2 melee armor (from civ bonus), resists anti-cavalry damage a bit, moves 5% slower and can’t be converted

Bohemians:
Lose Siege Engineers.
Houfnice base range changed from 12 → 13, anti-siege bonus increased from +20 → +40
Houfnice cost changed from 1100 food, 800 gold → 1300 food, 1000 gold
Cannon Galleons are unaffected by Wagenburg Tactics.

Bulgarians:
Blacksmith and Siege Workshop technologies cost -50% food changed to Blacksmith and Siege Workshop technologies cost -50%.
New civ bonus: Barracks and Siege Workshops cost -50%

Not a balance change:

Persians:
Architecture set changed from Middle Eastern to Central Asian

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If anything we need less reasons to do fish boom in Rage Forest/Rage Arena.

No, don’t take away what makes their start unique, just give less wood at start, Georgians need more nerfs than just Dark Age.

Hot take, once you nerf the top civs in the game, there isn’t any need to buff a civ that once was subject of complains even by pros.

Applying the bonus to Bombard Towers is fine, but def not on increasing it for certain units, Spanish don’t need late-game buffs.
If anything, non-elite Conquistadors need more nerfs.

Just remove the gold discount from Monks and reduce team bonus from 25% to 15%, right now they are top 10 Arabia, top 5 Arena, top 3 water in both 1v1 and TGs and they lack any drawback at any point of the game, so by making the civ weaker on closed maps in castle age is a good way to make the civ more balanced.

I’m tired to see this suggestion, just remove blast furnace and buff Tusks Swords from +3 to +5 attack, easy, no more reasons to go Cavalier and spam Hussars in Post Imperial, and push their Battle Elephants as their main option as shock Cavalry in late game.
Also, Khmer scorpions are really problematic now, need change as well.

No, there isn’t any need to overbuff the civ like this, Free Halberdier upgrade was removed because it made any Cavalry play unviable vs Ethiopians, let alone the absurd gold savings you get. Then again if you nerf the OP civs Ethiopians will see action again.

It could be fine but Huns have good WR and good use in tournaments now.

Burgundians are OP on closed maps because their eco, if there’s more need to nerf them, tone down the discount to 25%.

Teutons currently are fine, and they are an infantry civ, not another Cavalry civ that uses a Cavalry UU when Infantry is their main strenght, nerf Bohemians and Burgundians then Teutons will see more action on closed maps again.

First if we remove SE from Bohemians, Houfnice doesn’t need any compensation (Elite Hussite Wagon yes), right now Houfnice have better HP, better attack and attack bonuses, better PA, better blast radius, same range as other SE Bombard Cannons and after UT they move faster as well, is just too much, without SE other SE Bombard Cannons would gain a chance to deal with Bohemians in late game. Also, Bohemians still need more nerfs, their all-ins in castle age are stupidly OP with all other bonuses they have.

Yes Bulgarians need a buff and cheaper Barracks and Siege Workshops is a good one that targets their early and mid game, but def not on buffing their already big BS and SW tech discount.

Also, where are the nerfs to Malay, Incas as well?

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That sounds fun.

Free mule cart is Georgians identity.

Today Britons are all-rounder for noobs. Their good archers and skirms help noobs being better. Their knights and infantry is available.

Your buffs are too much, “Britons’ archery range works 20% faster (other teams’ only 10% faster)” is
good buff enough to get back Britons.

That sounds fine. I wanna see imperial conqs conquering.

It’s good.

I think Khmer hussar is significant unit in tournaments.

I wonder why they don’t get free halb upgrade. Can anyone tell me the reason?

Shrivamsha is a breed of horse that can move smoothly even on desert. So their mobility can’t be nerf. Their dodge ability may also comes from it.

Gurjaras without no gold are useless. They don’t need any buff or nerf.

That sounds fun.

Flemish revolution seems to come from the Dutch Revolt in 16-17th centuries. Flemish militias were from 12-13th centuries. So this change sounds good. However I wanna change “Flemish militia can be made in town center in imperial age”.

Sounds good, but it’s like Cataphract. As Crusader Knight, “Cannot be converted” “+4 melee armor (from civ bonus+2)” “-1 pierce armor” are suitable.

I agree the change of Wagenburg Tactics. Idk about others.

Bulgarians need early blacksmith buff. I wish I could reserch all blacksmith techs at the same time.

Fast blacksmith as team bonus is fine.

Exactly.

4

BS. The stupid design has been around for an year.

The civ’s cav line has been due for nerfs for so long. Their team bonus is far more consequential currently.

Agreed

Their stone bonus is quite unwarrented. Maybe give that to Bulgarians;

5

Imp Conq with +1 range sounds great.

6

I guess that also works. Agreed that Georgians need more nerfs than just what I suggested.

Well, there’s a lot of civs that need massive nerfs if we’re gonna go that route. A simpler change would be to buff this one.

Agreed with non-elite Conquistadors needing a nerf… maybe like -5 HP for non-elite Conquistador. So, it ends up with 50 HP (70 with bloodlines).

Elite Conquistador ends up with 90 HP, 18 attack, 7 range, 2+3/2+4 armor. Significant difference.

That would suck.

This, I agree.

Also works but kinda makes them achieve their strong battle elephants with 1 less research.

Totally!

Well, their age up free resources can be buffed… like 150 food, 150 gold for castle and 200 food, 200 gold for imperial.

Also true.

True but this change would make them more of an economy-focused civilization… where they need to pay to improve a unit that counters something that counters their main units. They don’t get the +25% attack for free.

Right now, they can take advantage of their bonuses and power spikes to the point they actually would end up with better gunpowder (until like super late game) than the Bohemians because the latter has to pay to get their bonuses.

They have become a little insipid… like the Persians before their rework. But I agree that Burgundians and Bohemians are way stronger right now.

Yes but you’re paying for it. Siege engineers is way cheaper and improves all siege. The idea is not to be too outclassed by a Turkish one. It is meant to be a super cannon.

Right now, they have all that you said and siege engineers which buffs their anti-building attack even more. Agreed about their all-in Castle age attacks being OP. Those free mining upgrades help them a lot.

Well, fair enough.

We can tone them down a little. Like just give the tech discount and maybe the longbow fire rate. Forget about Bombard tower / bloodlines, elite cannon galleon.

Their infantry is fully upgraded. Their cavalry is average. No bloodlines, no paladin (fair enough), no hussar. If you removed plate barding armor, it would be below average.

I would suggest maybe a -5 HP for the non-elite conqustador.

So, the elite conquistador ends up with +20 HP, +2 attack, +1 pierce armor and +1 range.

I dunno about giving it to Turks. Would that mean their Steppe lancers also get +1 pierce armor and free elite upgrade? Their early imperial age is already too strong.

How about town centre and barracks?

Not that I meant. I meant basically it gets +2 melee armor from its civ bonus, +5% movement speed, +5 cavalry armor and can’t be converted. I don’t want to make it too strong or extreme in one direction like the Savar.

The cavalry armor is to make it withstand anti-cavalry a little better than regular paladins… and much better than Savars.

Paladins get hit hard by anti-cavalry. Savars get rekt harded by anti-cavalry. Crusader knights can withstand anti-cavalry a little. It should not compete with the cataphract for this specialty.

Absolutely NO to reducing the pierce armor. Crusader knights are much closer to generic paladins than savars are. Savars are an extreme counter to archers. Crusader knights are merely a better paladin.

Ok… fair enough but things that have been around for 10+ years have been changed / reworked significantly.

Agreed

yeah… and maybe give the non-elite conqustador -5 HP.

So, you actually get decent value for 1200 food, 600 gold.

7

That may be good. I said the suggestion in terms of history, so I also need to think in terms of balance change. For example “Imperial unique tech gives barracks an ability to train flemish militia”, this may be good change. Your plan “Only from barracks” also may be good.

Maybe need a little more thinking.

Oh, I mistranslated about the status (to my mother tongue).
I imagined Crusader knights as mounted teutonic knights, so my suggestion was specific to melee. Your suggestion seems better than mine.

8

…good lord no.

The Shrivamsha is a native horse breed noted for its exceptional speed. That’s the point of it.

And nerfing it? Really!? The Shrivamsha Rider has been decimated by all the nerfs, if anything it needs a small buff. Gurjaras don’t even have a good win-rate at the moment.

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The solution is to nerf civs that are too strong, while keeping classic civs as a stable anchor. If you keep buffing to keep up with power creep, it only pushes the can down the road.

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I agree with keeping classic civs as a stable anchor but how many civs do we nerf then?

Persians, Georgians, Bohemians, Burgundians, Incas, Mayans, Khmer.

The increase in cost for crossbowmen and arbalests along with nerfing their team bonus hit them too hard… which is why I proposed a tech discount.

Britons are one of the few civilizations that remained unchanged for a very long time.

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Arguably all here, (except, maybe the Mayans for now) need nerfs in some aspects that need to be toned down to lower the powercreep of the game

  • Persians: Savar upgrade cost increased from 1000f 600g to 1150f 650g. (Currently the upgrade cost is way to cheap for the stat boost you get on a very easy to mass unit, let alone Persians have top boom to get there).
  • Georgians: -30 wood at the start of the game, remove self regeneration from scouts and cavalry archers, Fortified Church eco boost reduced from 10% to 8%, remove the extra attack to Towers from Svan Towers (This civ was permaban on TTL, the civ lack any weak point on many maps, on top on having strong options at any moment of the game).
  • Bohemians: Remove Siege Engineers, Elite Hussite Wagon range increased from 6 to 7 to compensate, Gold and Stone shaft mining upgrades aren’t free anymore (Right now the civ is a major powercreeper on closed maps that prevents other closed map civs like Teutons to shine there, too strong on early castle age due to Wagons, free mining upgrades, complete Monks technologies and even able to throw in Castle age Chemistry and Hand Cannoneers, heck even their villagers are faster and more durable, and their spearmen do more bonus damage cmon… Like it wasn’t enough then be ready to face their Post-Imp army of Halbs and Houfnice than win 70% over other civs…).
  • Burgundians: Other than reducing the eco techs discount to 25%, not sure how more (same reasons as above but not as extreme, but their eco advantages still are too good there).
  • Incas: Make Slingers slower to mass in castle age, from 25 seconds to 34 seconds (Right now Incas have very opressive match ups vs Infantry civs in castle age because Slingers kill any Infantry play so hard to be unplayable, Slingers don’t need Chemistry and even cost less food due to civ bonus to train, why they need to be massed faster than Hand Cannoneers for instance? Also, they dominate other meso civs in castle age so hard as well).
  • Khmer: Remove Blast Furnace, buff Tusks Swords from +3 to +5, Change team bonus to Scorpions train 25% faster, move +1 range to Double Crossbow (Khmer not using Battle eles late game and instead spamming Hussars is soo wrong design-wise, and we saw in TTL that Khmer Scorpions are problematic as they can outrange non SE Onagers and have same range as SE Onagers without investing anything on a cheap unit that scales soo dramatically when massed, to make the things worse, Koreans for instance have to pay more resources for just a mere +1 range on Onagers…).

And that’s not even enough, currently more civs are bringing Powercreep too that not many people see right away:

  • Japanese: Remove the dark age fishing ship workrate, and nerf the fishing ship HP boost somehow (Not that this civ is too strong on other maps, but this civ is right now a must pick on Hybrid Maps).
  • Portuguese: Monks excluded from gold discount, Team bonus reduced from 25% to 15% (You think this change sucks but is for the best, Portuguese aren’t even labelled as Monk civ and still can do better Monk rush than other proper Monk civs like Spanish or Lithuanians, the fact they can get ore Monks out while also upgrading them faster than Lithuanians can is absurd, let alone they have absurd FCs with Organ Guns and those are insane because how easy they can add and upgrade Monks behind).
  • Malay: Plate Mail Armor isn’t free (This civ can do oprresive tech switching into either Karambits or Halberdiers in Imperial because of this and have age up advantage behind it, Malay have been overperforming on many maps at top level since that change).
  • Vietnamese: Either make the HP bonus to apply only on foot archers and skirmishers, or remove heavy cavalry upgrade (Most of the time going CA with Vietnamese is wayy too easy wih free HP boost + strong eco).
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This is Britons win rate.

Britons - 1v1 Random Map | ALL - aoestats

1v1 in arabia
overall low for all elo, but high in imperial age for noobs and pros, and middle players get good results in castle and early imperial age.

team in arabia
still very good except for 1600+ players. (I wonder this results)

1v1 in every map
high in castle age for pros, high in imperial age for middle, everytime bad for noobs, so overall very low for all elo.

team in every map
bad except in feudal age. (because of nomad?)

I don’t like nerf paradise so I wanna add a little or no buff for Britons.

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Don’t understand why only the non-elite one could be able to fire faster.
If the Yeomen no longer benefits towers, perhaps allow Yeomen to have their archery ranges work +10% efficiency in addition to the additional range. After stacking with the team bonus, the British can regain the +20%.

Like the Chinese bonus but specific to certain aspects.
If Yeomen also would not benefits the efficiency of archery ranges, then the second +10% could become a new civ bonus to be stacked with the team bonus.

I’d choose the Bombard Tower. The Bloodlines affects balance more.

You make up the Houfnice’s range but not the Wagon’s, so you want to nerf the Wagon but not the Houfnice?
I think it should be the other way around though.

I personally don’t mind Bombard Towers benefiting too, but rather than having Cannon Galleons fire even faster, I’d rather see some changes to their weirdly fast cannonballs. Make all Spanish cannonballs have the same speed of 7 tiles/s as the current Cannon Galleons’, or replace the fast cannonball bonus with free Elite Cannon Galleon upgrade.

Before that, make monastery units not benefit from the discount bonus first.
Maybe we could make Missionary trainable for the Portuguese, so that it could become a regional unit for the Iberian civs.

“Culverins”.

In terms of naming, Knight → Crusader Knight is better than Knight → Cavalier → Crusader Knight.

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Fewer than are currently powercrept. Look at the bloodbath in Ornlu’s latest state of the civs.

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Britons may not need buffs except arguably getting their 20% archery range work rate back for themselves. Nerfing some problematic civs they will be just fine.

This is fine, but not at the same time as getting 20% boost to archery range work rate. Either or.

Second this.

Unnecessary. Their camels got buffed too.

No to the first. Yes to the second. Might as well completely rely on dodging and mobility.

Second this, but perhaps make it slightly more interesting. Now it’s just old bonus with a price tag.

This might work, but maybe not all of them together.

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Interesting video

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It strikes me that part of the issue is giving buffs that make a unit easier to use, rather than raising its skill ceiling.

+30hp on Armenian Champs is kinda the worst case scenario. Get enough and they just become unstoppable, because champs are ALREADY easy to use, and Armenian champs are just a straight-up 50% better. Hindustani Hand Cannons are just incredible and much easier to use to boot.

They should focus on things that make them better WITH SKILL. IE, let scorpions attack ground rather than get ballistics.

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TBH this isn’t the best example as even having 100 HP, Champions still requiere more time to tech into and you can build your numbers earlier, and Armenains also are lacking in other areas and are classified as Infantry civ, so having stronger Champions is reasonable, without mentioning that mass Archers/Cavalry Archers and Hand Cannoneers still destroy them.

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Check this (I forgot his user here to give the proper credits)

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Its better to give a wood penalty while a mule cart remains free. Removing the bonus would imply no eco benefit until castle age. Goal is not to destroy new civs to a point where they’re extremely inferior to OG civs.

Savar isn’t a problem since its weaker against halberdiers than Paladin. Elephant archers are just ridiculously expensive and almost unusable situational units.

Britons have worse winrates vs celts, khmer. This is a consequence of introducing ballistics on scorps. Chinese, Mayans are other civs against which they perform poorly and those civs are overpowered. Balancing such powerful civs and some way to handle scorps should bring a decent positive impact. Definitely no need of an overbuff. They’re still a great civ on closed and passive maps.

These are extreme overbuffs and most of them don’t actually address their problem in a right way. Majority of the games don’t involve bombard towers. Can’t give a civ with 2 very strong eco bonuses nearly full tech tree on land units plus bonus on archers. I can understand people being a historic fan of Britons and wanting insane power levels for their favorite civ but that’s a terrible balancing idea.
I like the idea of Yeomen strengthening lomgbows but 25% firing rate boost is extremely high. I’d keep it to just longbow range and make it very cheap.
In a different thread, it was suggested to make foot archer production faster as a part of civ bonus. Those 2 changes along with some benefit on towers for free should be enough for the civ.
Something like towers +3,4,5 attack vs siege. (watch towers +3, keep +5)

Again this is a wrong way to go about balance. Conqs are ridiculously overpowered on Nomadic and closed maps. Sparing a few, many civs would simply die once a bunch of conqs are produced and devotion is researched in such maps. The problem with open maps is their lack of significant eco benefits and the inability to play archers in feudal to a significant extent.
Its ideal to increase the gold they receive by the age. Like 20 gold in dark, 30 in feudal and 40 castle age onwards.
General changes to boost towering should be another good way to balance the civ. If at all still needed gold cost of elite skirm upgrade can be removed.

Losing husbandry should be enough, i wouldn’t buff their monk play any further as long as they receive discount on it. If you’re taking this route I’d recommend substantial nerfs to Feitoria.

Bengalis are a weak civ and Khmer will become one too. Idea is fine when elephants become more playable. That will need general changes wrt Elephants vs monks.

It was their OG bonus, so broken on closed maps that it was rescinded to benefit only pikes. Maybe Royal heirs should increase to +4 for elite shotels and heavy camels and upgrade should get cheaper.

1.35 lol. That unit is no where close enough in strength to a knight. It just melts against melee units. Its a counter unit against archers as are all units of this civ and its niche purpose is mid game usage. Early game 70 food is hard to afford in large numbers and late game 30 gold won’t be spammable, so they’d switch to hussar.
Again a lot of people overhype this unit because it moves fast but that’s its niche advantage. Totally ok to drop speed to 1.55 and maybe increase training time by 3 seconds. Maybe even reduce its speed by 0.02 per projectile hit while its not fully charged (becomes 1.45 when it has no charge). But it shouldn’t be overnerfed to a point where its complete garbage. Literally no one will play the civ nor make this unit if your changes are implemented.

Interesting idea

Excellent set of changes.