It’s a question that bothers me for a long time already. Especially the European Civs don’t seem to fit the standards of modern civs anymore. They are too slow and have exploitable holes in their tech trees.
So it’s a directional question. I’ve thought a long time about re-establishing their “old identities”. But this can’t work really. Because some of them were just too broadly good on certain types of maps before we got the new “Hamster Meta”. Which I don’t want to tackle here, I just have to state that eg a civ like Franks isn’t really a “Hamster Civ”. Yes, the Knight Rush is still good, but it’s just one single timing that also goes away quite fast.
I don’t think it’s feasible to bring them back there with 50 other civs fighting for the spot. Especially with civs like Khitans, Wei, Shu and Tupi who are exactly designed for optimal Hamstering. To make the old civs excel there it would need either a complete overhaul or Buffs that would make them just generally broken.
My conceptional idea now is to give them new nieches whilst trying to maintain as much as possible from their traditional bonusses. Though ofc it won’t be possible to keep alll of them as new bonusses would just make them too strong otherwise.
As I don’t want to overload the opening post of this topic I will share these concepts at a later stage. I just want to share that one idea I already promoted on several other occasions is to introduce a new regional trash unit (that about 1/3 -40 % of civs should get). The Shieldman. It’s actually a historic early Medieval armament used in the so called “shield wall” formation. The Shieldman would be an Infantry arrow sponge specialised against Skirmishers (and ofc also solid against all kinds of ranged units by just tanking a lot of shots).
The shieldman as a mostly (northern/central) European regional unit could solve their issue against Skirms (and in parts Archers/CA( partially. It would in general help against the current tendency of games culminating into Skirm battles with often no real way out (until heavy Siege or Castles).
Ofc the Shieldman can’t just “fix” all of the classic civs, but it’s a tool I like to see for melee heavy civs like Franks ot Teutons, giving them alternative ways then going for their own subpar Skirms. Some of these civs like Teutons, Celts, Vikings, Goths… already have interesitng Bonusses for them, others could receive specialised ones (Franks eg could get a “Francisca” charge).
This could especially neat if we indeed get a norse expansion. A Shieldman added to Norse Civs would be an amazing touch, as they were mostly known for using this battle tactic.
This is ofc jsut one special touch of my concepts I want to share with you later, for now I would be interested in what direction you would see the classic (AOK/) civs developing.
Reduce the damage of Skirmishers and Elite Skirmishers by -1 (maybe also Imperial Skirmishers) and increase their bonuses by +1 to compensate.
OR, big changes:
Add resistance from Skirmisher attacks to the Militia-line (and Champion-line?) starting from the Man-at-Arms (-1 damage for Man-at-Arms, -2 for Longswordsmen, -3 for Champion).
And, for the Scout-line (and Eagle-line?) add bonus damage vs. Skirmisher class.
I’m torn between minor reworks or something bigger (giving them a second UU or unique upgrade like the Vikings, Persians, and Chinese so they can compete against the newer civilizations?):
Britons: Yeoman/Heavy Pikeman (Imperial unique upgrade for the Pikeman)
Celts: Gallowglass (Imperial unique upgrade for the Champion)
Franks: Royal Paladin (Imperial unique upgrade for the Paladin)
Goths: Hirdman (Imperial unique upgrade for the Pikeman)
Teutons: Crusader Knight (unique upgrade for the Knight starting in Castle Age)
Byzantines: Varangian Guard/Heavy Swordsman (unique upgrade for the Long Swordman starting in Castle Age)
Saracens: Camel Lancer
Turks: Sipahi (unlocked in the Castle after developing the Sipahi Castle Age crown)
Japanese: Ninja
Mongols: Kharash (replaces the militia line) and maybe get the Traction Trebuchet like the 3K civs
What should happen in the long term for all older civs is:
Give them a second UU or a unique Building.
Give them a regional Unit/Building.
Continue to nerf civs that really need it and keep the winrates within a 5 percentage point difference from the lowest to the highest winrate%. i.e. 47.5-52.5%. Nerfs are needed urgently for Romans for example.
all civs should have exploitable holes in their tech trees. the issue is that too many of the new or reworked civs are too good at too many things.
I think the only way this can be fixed is major nerfs to the new power creeping civs.
I think most of these recommendations miss the mark, as
a) they only reinforce what the civs are already good at, which doesn’t help them combat the more generalist new civs
b) many of these are imperial upgrades which come in too late to help the civs
why? this goes away from the core of aoe2: 1 unique unit at the castle (+maybe a unique naval unit)
Have you had a look on the stats?
They are “balanced” rn.
The only of these civs that could receive a direct buff is Britons. But that’s actually old news, Britons were for a long time already one of the low performing Arabia civs.
That’s why I made this topic BECAUSE from a sheer balance perspective they are actually fine. They just lost their “spots” to some of the newer civs. (On the other hand, some of the civs that replaced them like Georgains actually would - from a sheer balance perspective - some buffs…)
Perhaps we can remove Elite Skirmishers/ Leather Archer armor for new civs with powerful cavalry units. Make them to rely on siege or cavalry against xbow.
Or remove halbs or even pikes to let old cav civs fight them
Britons → Archery ranges bonus buffed and moved to civ bonus
Celts → Would benefit from a secondary UU. Personally, I’d move the Woad Raider to the barracks.
You can give these two the Hobelars as a unique upgrade for light cavalry.
Franks → Better foragers bonus, the gap with Tupi is ridiculous. The first UT is a waste of space. Gbeto has the same range for free. There’s room here.
Goth → The only problem they have is gunpowder (I’ll die on this hill).
Teutons are fine.
And all the other civs are fine or great, and Turks are still OP on Arena after 26 years. It seems to me that we have a selective memory.
We can make a few other small changes, but they are minor changes. Like the Huns, who should have Steppe Laners rather than Paladins. Or Mongols, who might have Nomads swapped with the extra HP.
Almost nothing is necessary. However a lot of things can improve the game regardless of if they are really “necessary” and other stuff that was “necessary” can in the following make civs super annoying because it made them too generalist (example is the changes to Dravidian Siege - maybe necessary, but now we see this civ over and over again because it has that tool available, that was formerly “missing”).
In general I see a lot of proposals here that aren’t really “necessary” and not even the direction I would go. Often actually the exact opposite. But that’s why the thread is there, to exchange these ideas and talk about them.
Example:
You mean Mapuche. And you’re right the gab is ridiculous. However I think the Bonus is kinda wasted on Franks. I would like it to be taken off franks and given to an Infantry civ which main Infantry bonusses come in at klater stages of the game. I don’t think Franks need a super fast scout rush. They already have a very good one with HP Bonus. I would like if Franks would lean more into that.
Especially as when we reflect that the maps featuring lots of Berries are usually open land maps that require a huge expansion with often disconnected bases. Franks as a cav civ are already good there. Infantry civs have issues. So this would allow an Infantry civ to play a role on a Map Type that usually makes Infantry terrible.
Imo bonusses should complement each other and not stacking too much on certain settings. We see this on Civs like Bohemians on closed maps vs open Maps what this can lead to.
If we would give this to an Infantry civ which bonusses come alive later we could tune that up to values like up to 40 % or so, a major civ defining bonus rather than just one which is intentionally tuned down for franks just to “balance them”.
So I would actually take away the Berry Bonus for Franks in order to lean more into the Cav Bonusses instead (like tune up the HP bonus to 25 %) and also buff the TA.
Yes, I know, but well, they were ideas to make the civilizations a bit more unique… otherwise you could move the unique upgrades to Castle Age, but I think that would be a bit OP…
Not necessarily…Since AoK, the Vikings have had two UUs, as the Spanish in TC, the Incas in TF, the Portuguese in TAK, the Tatars in TLK, and since LotW, several civilizations have had a second UU too. So it would just be a matter of leveling the playing field a bit for the classic civilizations…
Yes, the Franks do need to gain an early lead. The entire civilisation’s design is geared towards power-leveling all the way to Paladin. Not least because, as it stands, they aren’t a civilisation designed for a heavy Feudal play (the Magyars are better) or heavy Castle play (the Berbers are better).
Yes, I still get them a bit mixed up.
Read Bulgarians. And for them, I’d take a huge gamble and give them a sort of feudal CA.
This I am about to say is aimed at everyone that thinks infantry needs more buffs:
People are looking at infantry completely wrong.
I see so often people arguing infantry should be a viable play on open maps (and hell, for Men-at-arms, it is) and honestly…no, it shouldn’t. Infantry are slow, but cheaper per unit. Their best case use is on maps that are tighter and more closed, where their weaknesses can be more easily ignored. Open maps is where cavalry should be the best, because these are maps completely built to the natural strengths of cavalry; wide open space to allow maximum use of movement.
If infantry is made viable on the kinds of maps where its very design is pushing it not to be good, then that’s a problem. As it now makes infantry insane on the maps where it’s better.
I know people see Arabia like Final Destination in Smash Bros, but it’s not. It’s a map with terrain that suits some units better then others, and it’s why we have multiple map types.
The vast majority of players who play ranked matches don’t study the map, don’t study the civilisations, don’t think about team composition, and then complain.
The infantry whining really gets my goat. I know this game is far from “perfect Middle Ages simulator”, but some aspects are functionally the same because the nature of units remains the same. Cavalry are fast and require space. Archers are better when massed. Infantry are slow.
Part of the “problem” is that open maps are usually the favorite ones (especially omni-present “Arabia”), so people want everything to be viable in the most common type map, and if infantry is not good for those they demand buffs, and the civs that are designed to be infantry or naval struggle because their bonuses doesn’t align with the meta.
I’ve been thinking about a “unique downgrade” (like Gurjara Camel Scout) for CA that’s available in Feudal and outruns normal infantry but is slower than Champis, Eagles, and Scouts.
