That said, setting livestock on fire and using them to stampede elephants is not a Tamerlane only thing, but the camels might be.
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I disagree. There are other civs without early eco bonus, but militar bonuses to compensate:
- Magyars: cheaper scouts and free melee attack upgrades give a deadly scout rush even with a standard dark age
- Koreans: they have cheaper archers/skirms/spears and free archer armor upgrade and can hold their own.
- Byzantines: cheaper skirms and spears make them an obnoxious civ to play against, even at high level.
We can argue that Berbers have nothing going for them until castle age, where the cheap cavalry spam starts. 10% faster villagers do not bring much eco.
Then you have civs like Chinese, Vikings, Huns, Bengalis, Teutons, who technically do have a lead growing over time, but is null when they reach Feudal age. So resource-wise they are not ahead and going aggressive force them to invest into military, where the aggressuve civ saves resources.
Even worse than them is Tatars, whose bonus is to delay farming. And with the current meta of dear pushing, other civs still have sheeps upon feudal age. So their benefit did not kick in yet.
And some other civs like Saracens, Turcs, Bohemians, Poles are that great in early game either.
I think that no eco bonus but good military bonus is a good design, it is just that the current bonus is not strong enough in the early game, either because the discount is too small or because the blacksmith 150w is too expensive to afford (and make use of) or because the milicia line is too weak.
The design weakness is that we usually do not invest more than fletching for archers and archers armor for skirms in feudal age, unless we plan to stay longer in Feudal age. But it is fine for a civ like Bulgarians to stay long im Feudal age jusy like it is fine for a civ like Berbers to go to castle age as quickly as possible.
When a civ struggles in early castle age, the two go-to balance possibilities are:
(1) to buff the early game so that their opponent mid game advantages only mitigate the early game snowball of the buffed early game,
(2) to buff the early castle age so that the mid game is not as weak anymore
I am fine either way, but it feels easier to buff the existing bonuses in Feudal age than buffing the castle age only, because lacking xbows (or knights) in the current meta means they lose tempo anyways.
My favorite alternatives are (1) buffing the blacksmith techs availaility, or (2) bufing the konnik play (buff the unit or its access)
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Not a suitable bonus. A better way to buff Bulgarians is Blacksmith and siege upgrades cost -50% food should become something like -50% (so cheaper in terms of gold as well) or all military technologies -50% food (75 food 100 gold bloodlines, 50 food husbandry etc).
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Nice!
I was thinking of bonuses and not really units or techs ā I guess we could also include Corvinian Army and Warwolf as well.
By the way the Songhai people trained herds of long-horned bulls in the imperial stables to charge at the enemy in battle. It seems to be a common strategy for them. The horns coming in a high speed can be dangerous to the footmen and the mad war bulls would not stop easily just by hit by few arrows. When facing the invasion from Morocco they had still let the war bulls charge first at the beginning of battle.
Sorry for off topic.
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Honestly gergians always were strong, people just struggle to figure then out since they were just out, but It was clear as day their winrate was not reflecting their strenght. Infact, pro players already picked them or ban them in tournaments even before their buff.
Itās a very different situation then bulgarians honestly
Only because of the Monaspa.
And if you just give them a free barracks at the start of game without pretty heavy nerf like Monaspa, youāll create the most OP civ of the game.
The difference between me and other civ designers, including the devs, is that I always try to think of historical accuracy first, and then make balance changes around that, rather than consider gameplay first. The few times Iāve tried to shoehorn in a preexisting bonus to a civ that it wasnāt designed for, the results have been underwhelming. AoE2ās main appeal to me has been and probably always will be the history, not the gameplay. It is this game and this game alone that is responsible for my interest in history.
That said, I could never play AoE4 because its gameplay is too different from AoE2ās, so thereās some level of familiarity driving my preferences as well. Iāve tried playing AoE3, but it only really works on my parentsā computer, and I no longer live with them. Even the few times I played it, it wasnāt fun. I guess AoE2 is my jam.
Ironically AoE3 and AoE4 have batter historical accuracy than AoE2.
Yes, but they are more complex and harder to pick up, and Iāve played AoE3 and itās just not as fun. I also think the medieval period is way more interesting than anything after it.
Small but useful bonus:
The first Barracks, Stable and Archery Range cost 100 less Wood.
This is essentially a 300 Wood bonus in Feudal Age and makes switching between unit types easier.
Also no impact on late game performance at all.