2020 is in its final moments now and AOE1 DE by far only received 1 balance patch, which is great since it fixed all of the weakest civs and in some way nerfed the top tier ones, but still some tweak could be done here for units and civ bonuses:
Let me start:
General:
Melee Elephants trample damage blast radius and damage reduced.
Clubmen Line +1 LOS
Swordsmen line cost increased by +5 Food and 5 Gold
Greeks:
Give them Slingers and with bonus like firing 25% faster.
Minoans:
Replace that farm bonus to: Domestication, Plow and Irrigation upgrades for free
Extra range bonus straggered to +1 in Bronze and +2 In Iron Age and then affects all archers.
Persians:
Elephant speed bonus increased to 30%
Trirreme firing bonus applies to scout ship and war galley
New Bonus: Goverment center technologies cost -40%
Romans:
Lose Scythe Chariot
Receive War Elephant.
Shang:
New Bonus: Chariot Units move 10% faster.
Macedonians:
No longer get access to the Heavy Horse Archer
Receive Elephant Archer
The extra PA bonus of Academy units now includes Elephant Units.
If anything romans should get better towers at least guard tower. I think we have already too many elephant civilizations. Elephants in aoe1 are far more powerful than elephants in aoe2. Most of the time they fought against elephants but I think they used them maybe as auxilery units, because they have these units even in Rome Total War 2.
Do the Persians really require more buffs? I didn’t play them since the july update, but they got already major buffs in two updates (which were good imo)- one at release resp. already in the UPatch (in comparison to the original AoE 1 without UPatch) and in july.
Why should the romans lose scythe and get war elephant? You can argue, that scythe (and chariot) isn’t historical, because they only used them in chariot races, but war elephants don’t really make sense either, because rome never used them in noteworthy ways and numbers. So Romans should just keep the scythe or they have to receive something completely different.
Please no buffs for slingers. I don’t want players being encouraged to play these infinite tool age wars in 1vs1. The july patch gladly did changes in the right direction to make it less viable.
There are several good ideas there, and others that I didn’t like so much.
But I do agree that there should be an update before the end of the year.
Greeks:
They already have Slingers. A bonus for Slingers is dangerous, as it would put them at a great advantage in Tool. It could work if this bonus starts from Bronze.
Minoans:
Excellent.
Persians:
I think a 40% reduction is a lot, I would prefer 20-25. The others are fine.
Romans:
It is fine that they do not have chariots, but add elephants NOT. It is what differentiates Romans from Carthaginians or Macedonians.
Perhaps historically Rome rarely used elephants, but they weren’t regular.
I would prefer something related to infantry as a new bonus, as an attack bonus for swordsmen if a centurion accompanies them.
Shang:
Totally agree.
Macedonians:
Don’t give the Archer Elephant, having only ele mele is what makes them different. The other points are fine.
I would love some changes to civs that don’t make sense for them to have certain units or techs. I mean, I know AoE is a game, but it’s nice to have that feel of realism, for increased immersion.
Like removing elephants and chariots from the Romans! I know elephants were used once in a while, but not as widely that justifies their presence on this faction.
gold/stone increase to 800/450 per tile, or it will be quite unfair to civs heavily relying on gold units / defenses. Currently civs with good trash units gain upperhand easily, especially in mid-late game.
tower is tooooo weak as no human beings want to build it at all, its cost shall be lower, e.g. 125, and +1 attack in each age.
mounted melees (except scout) units need +1~2 LOS, or at least better than infantry, or they can easily miss their targets
scout shall auto-attack
Civs
Shang: they shall have access to some iron gov techs, and wall +100%HP
They already increased the gold and stone.
I often nearly run out of wood before gold. I think they amount of wood per tree should be changed. 40 isn’t enough. AoE2 has more more per tree and doesn’t have less trees.
Towers are a joke. Walls too. I mean elephants have more HP.
But there is nothing else you can do with stone besides building slingers but who wants them in Iron Age.
Stone mines are fine. AoE1 is less defence focused and AoE2 doesn’t have much more stone.
Gold is equally important in both so it could be changed.
Wood runs out so much faster in AoE1, especially because they already increased the gold mines.
They already increased the gold and stone.
I often nearly run out of wood before gold. I think they amount of wood per tree should be changed. 40 isn’t enough. AoE2 has more more per tree and doesn’t have less trees.
I know and it is just not enough, in 1v1 late game even 4people map runs out gold and stone easily, in that case no trash=gg
wood runs out faster mostly in islands
tree → 50~100 agree
AoE1 is less defence focused and AoE2 doesn’t have much more stone.
Disagree.
Stone is much more important in aoe1 for no garrison.
Compare to aoe2 the wall and tower are trash and no fortress, which makes it seems “less defence focused”.
Adding resources per tile can greatly make it versatile & entertaining in mid-late game, with little effect on gameplay before mid game
In addition, as alchemy is +2 for Helepolis and Ballista , it shall be +2 for Ballista Tower and Trireme for the same reason (compensate for lower ROF), and shall be higher for Catapults and Juggernaught
I believe the projectile speed for ballista weapons shall be a bit faster too, it is really frustrating to see AI dodging all of them AI shall not win in this way…
AoE1 is designed around a population limit of 50. That’s why the houses only give 4 population. You are not supposed to have 10 villagers.
Modern computer can easily handle more units. Even back than you could choose a population of 200.
AoE1 has fundamental design flaws that where fixed with AoE2 but AoE2 brought a different setting and a high defensive focus with garrisons in town centres and the addition of castles.
I’d love to see Ancient civilisations in a game with the AoE2 engine (or actually in 3D) but without the gameplay focus of AoE2.
AI shall not win in this way…