What would you think if Mercenaries made coin for every building they destroyed, and Outlaws made coin for every unit they killed?
Looking at the game from a historical perspective, Mercenaries are known to plunder enemy lands, often when they are victorious in battle. Outlaws are known to often kill people for their money. Therefore, Mercenaries in the game must earn coins for each building they destroy. In the game, Outlaws must earn coins for each unit they kill. In this way, the game can approach historical realism.
I was thinking of a new category of civilizations that would come from every continent - Looter civilizations. They would be: Ukrainians civ, Barbary Pirates civ, Haitians civ and Javanese civ (or Wokou). Despite the differences in civilization, they would share a common mechanic - plundering expeditions. Each unit killed and enemy building destroyed would generate three standard resources (depending on building type and units). They would have given units adequate for this. Besides, they wouldn’t stand out from other civs from their continents.
This might be ok for some old outlaw like renegados with terrible stats.
But lets not take borderline op at a minimum mercs and outlaws of DE era and make them more dumb by being able to recover value. Desert archers getting coin at 24 range in age2? Angry thinking about it lol. Royal horsemen would be disgusting. God bosniak shipment now instant win tier vs civs that rely on light infantry. African civs would be so toxic lol
God italy XDXD
In short this would only be ok on units that terrible like wokou or renegados and even then might still be op. 95% of mercs or outlaws would need significant, significant nerfs for this to be ok.
I don’t really mind if they get appropriately balanced/nerfed around it, but I dont feel it is very healthy for the game (diversity). I am not a fan of historical accuracy/realism related changes in aoe 3 to begin with.
A unit generating coin per kill/destruction should be balanced around the fact that they MUST kill to be worth it, if they dont kill they should provide way less value than the regular unit.
For instance, letting the outlaw cost +5c and generate +1c per kill.
Haitians were a revolutionary civ and not looters, though I think you may mean the buccaneers and flibustiers of Tortuga and Hispaniola which I’d label Brethren of the Coast or just Sea Rovers to be all encompassing.
The Ukrainian Cossacks Hetmanate / Zaporozhian Sich would fit well with this though I’d not call them looters - to avoid modern connotations. I’d just say that these civs get a Raiding mechanic.
One day I need to put my ideas down on here from my Google doc - I’ve got an entire Caribbean Sea Rovers civ (well, anti-civ) that works on having a Plunder mechanic, with the idea that the Barbary States and Cossack Hetmanate share this trait.
You can always do a Caribbean themed DLC with two civs: Haitians and Caribbean Pirates (but that shouldn’t be the priority right now).
I know. I just didn’t know what to call this mechanic. Such ukrainian civs would be a typical European civ (with unique items of course), but they would just have the ability to raid.
In terms of contemporary issues, I think a DLC adding Ukrainians civ would be great to have some of the proceeds from this DLC go to charity.
Alternatively, another Asian civ that would have the ability to raid would be the Tatars civ - a civilization based on the Mongolian and Turkic peoples who together formed powerful states in Central Asia.