I agree with their worrying and sentiment. Some aspects of balance change recently is questionable. Devs want to ‘give every civ really powerful option’ to balance work out. Which end up making civs 1-dimensional.
Why Warrior priest, Keshik, iron pagoda and Flemish militia buff nobody ask for?
Jurchens are low winrate but keep buffing Fire lancer, steppe lancer and Iron pagoda would be questionable decision. Make civ really strong when get this units and underwhelming otherwise. My personal take is giving them arbalester and make them another option of open archer, not making them opening scout into steppe lancer every game. (Also East Asian civ like Chinese Korean mongols all have arbalester)
Flemish militia can cost effectively beat knight and longswords. Then what is the point of making swordsman line as Burgundians? They even don’t require any upgrade.
Also Burgundians are lower side of winrate but top tier closed map civ. If they want Flemish militia meta. The gunpowder unit attack bonus need to be nerfed to 15% or something.
Any many other things, poles farming rate revert back to 10% is strong evidence of power creeps.
I hope devs balance wisely to give more options for player, not making give really strong one option for every civs.
The devs seem to be increasingly accustomed to giving a civ a clear and strong option for being the civ’s “identity” just for the sake of making it feel special and unique. As this approach is repeatedly applied, the strengths given to a civ become stronger and stronger, compressing other aspects. Not only reducing historical accuracy, but it’s also detrimental to gameplay and balance.
In my opinion, the Jurchens should have melee cavalry as a steady option throughout the game, with flexibility in the early to mid game to choose archers or cavalry archers, and then transition in the late game into their powerful and unique gunpowder unit lineup which is the civ’s identity. Therefore, I have consistently argued to swap the UUs: Iron Pagoda should be changed into a Stable unit, and the Grenadier into a Castle unit, with their stats tweaked accordingly.
With the lack of Thumb Ring and Parthian Tactics, leaving archer units with limited usefulness in the late game, I agree they deserve the Arbalest and I’d like to replace Fortified Bastions with a new UT that grants gold discounts and 100% accuracy to the Archer line and Cavalry Archer line. This should allow their usefulness to extend and help the transition.
Besides, I would even consider limiting the attack bonus to horse-mounted units only, so keep it just at 20% faster should be sufficient, and in this way we could give gunpowder units a new bonus , such as increased movement speed instead of attack speed, to better synergize with mounted units. (As for the Chinese, accordingly change the Fire Lancer speed bonus to +1/+2 additional projectiles for gunpowder units, echoing the characteristic multiple projectiles of their UU and reflecting the three-eyes gun.)
In addition, I personally would also like the Jurchens to gain the Hand Cannon and Fast Fire Ship, to reflect the Heilongjiang hand cannon and the Toi invasion respectively, possibly in exchange for losing the Bombard Cannon.
Flemish Militia should not be accessible at Barracks by default at all; doing so does nothing to help balance and diminishes its uniqueness.
Given that this unit’s design is inspired by AoE3, I personally suggest it should be accessible only at TCs from the Castle Age by default, be of strong stats and nice price, and train extremely quickly (like just only a few seconds) but its HP would gradually decrease over time down to 1 HP. This way, its purpose clearly remains defensive rather than offensive. Then, the Flemish Revolution could additionally allow the HP decay of Flemish Militia to stop at 50% and enable them at Barracks and Castles.
There is a trade off between diversity between civs and diversity within civs.
If every civ is flexible then every civ will feel the same. But if every civ is only good at one thing that playing each civ is boring.
Not every civ can have a generic bonus since there are only so many generic units, generic technologies and generic resources. If you have 5 different gold collection bonuses then they won’t feel that different anymore.
Regional units add some ways to make a set of civilisations play different from other civilisations without having to give each of them lots of unique units. Maybe regional technologies could help making civs feel more interesting while not having to focus too much on unique aspect of each civ.
For example all American civs could have a shared set of unique blacksmith upgrades, which would allow those civs to be interesting without each of them being one dimensional. This would also fix the current issue of them having technologies that are completely historically wrong. Their armour upgrades could be split by melee and pierce armour instead of Infantry and Archer armour (this would also make Xolotls more usable).
Some idea for individual units mentioned in the video/post:
Warrior Priest: Increase Food cost and reduce Gold cost. Makes them more expensive in Castle Age but better in Imperial Age.
Flemish Militia: Add Shock Infantry armour class to give them a unique weakness and a real downside compared to Militia Line.
Jurchens: They do have exactly what people want, generic and flexible bonuses like Siege and Fortification technologies cost -75% Wood and Meat does not decay but they power spike too much in Castle Age with their +25 attack speed. Maybe that should be 10/20/30% through the Ages.
Jian Swordsman/Xianbei Raider/War Chariot: Just give them an Elite upgrade like basically any other UU instead of being too good in Castle Age and too weak in Imperial Age.
No it’s not. You can have many more civs and still have diversity within them, that’s what having a large tech tree helps with.
What this is, is the devs trying to make the game “flashier”. So when people watch big tournaments, it’s only the UU models on screen. Not the “generic” stuff. This isn’t to benefit the game, or players. Just to try and draw in players in the short term.
Things were fine up until the 3K, then suddenly the devs seem to have lost their minds and changed how they balance the game. In a way nobody seems to like.
I think regional content is the best way to make a game like AoE2 work with a long list of civilisations.
On one hand it’s very hard to make a lot of variations of a limited set of generic units and technologies.
On the other hand it’s very hard to come up with more and more unique units and technologies
But if you only have a relatively small number of civilisations that share a common regional feature it’s much easier to differentiate them from all other civs and between each other.
Some civilisation can built Camel Riders and some civilisations can build Paladins but only 2 civilisations can build both (Byzantines and Cumans) and those 2 are very different.
We will see 3 new American civilisations in the next DLC but even if they all get Eagle Warriors it won’t be hard to make all of them feel unique since there are currently only 3 other Eagle civs in the game.
There are barely any regional buildings (3 that are only shared by 2 civs each) and no real regional technologies (with the exception of unit line upgrades) so there is a lot of potential here too.
It feels like they took all the wrong lessens from Dynasties of India. The Indian civs have a lot of regional and more unique units compared to most older civs so they thought they had to do the same for the Chinese civs too. Was the Hei Guang Cavalry really necessary? Just giving military units regional skins would have probably been better.
i haven’t seen a good civ addition since vanilla DE, so I’m skeptical.
agreed
you don’t think that stuff like flemish revolution, shrivamsha riders, monaspa, etc are part of the same problem?
this moves aoe2 further away from the core principle of “all civs have access to the same base units”. I think in the case of elephant archers vs CA this was done reasonably well. but if this just boils down to “region A has heavy cav with +5 hp and -1 melee armor”, I don’t think this is in the spirit of the game.
I still agree that this is the smaller problem when compared to janky and OP unique units.
agreed, at least I can disable that with options/mods
I think introducing a deluge of new mechanics at once. Regional units that serve no functional difference from their replacements and making civs one-dimensional and hyper-focus on their UUs is a problem.
Almost all regional units are cavalry. The only regional units that don’t take bonus damage from Spearman are Rocket Carts and Traction Trebuchet.
The two infantry regional units are both shock infantry.
The only archer regional units is a cavalry (elephant).
Camel Riders, Eagle Warriors and Battle Elephant are certainly very different compared to the Scout or Knight lines and definitely make the civ that have access to them play significantly different.
Steppe Lancers are kinda unique enough I think but Hei Guang Cavalry behaves very much like a Knight in almost all matchups.
Give us more regional Archers and Infantry:
Mounted Crossbow (heavier version of the Cavalry Archer)
Axeman (maybe anti Infantry or anti armour)
Recurved Bowmen (more range but less damage then Crossbow)
“Hoplite” (Infantry that is stronger in formations)
for 3 1/2 new civs DoI introduced:
mode switching, magic shields, building auras (caravanserai), berry bush spawning
pointless regional unit: siege elephant
hyper focus on UU: ghulam were basically uncounterable after launch, Shrivamsha riders
or at least the mountain royals
for 2 new civs:
relic spawning, unit auras, moving buildings, whatever the hell warrior priests are
both civs are hyper focused on their UU: georgians on the monaspa, armenians on warrior priests
in comparison. 3K introduced for 5.5 new civs:
snares, level ups, damage over time (fire/bleed), lingering damage, heroes
4 regional units
haven’t played the new civs so I don’t know which are hyper-focussed on their UU.
I agree with you that it’s an issue, I just think this issue has been around for a lot longer.
yeah, I agree up to here. I would also at the Savar to that list. “unique upgrade” but its differences lie entirely within normal variation (eg missing bloodlines, various civ bonuses/UTs giving extra armor)
I don’t agree with this. Massive changes to classic civs should not happen
I was mostly thinking about new civilisations. But I do think some old civilisations could use some more variety. The Forgotten civs in particular and HD civs in general are kinda mid in my opinion.
They kinda just feel like a fan mod because that’s what they originally were. Indians and Vietnamese have already been improved and Inca will likely be the next.
Italians and Portuguese kinda feel very similar and also kinda like the Spanish.
The African civs feel strange and could use some common identity.
Slavs make little sense now that we have other Slavic civs.
Burmese, Khmer and Malay are ok, but feel like less unique versions of the Indian civs now. It would be nice if they had some common feature that the Indians don’t have.
yeah, they aren’t my favourite designs either. But i just have no trust in the current devs. their idea of “interesting” is slapping charge attacks on anything that moves and call it a day. I don’t want more combat gimmicks ruining the game
imo aoe2’s simple and elegant combat is part of its core identity and it’s getting attacked and weakened with every update.
they are really far apart geographically, i’m not sure if this is a good idea
Most of those were exclusive to a single civ each. Not tidal waves on one (Khitans). And the mode switching was something that was originally planned for the game, but was technically impossible at the time, hardly some whacky new invention.
The berry bushes was post release in an update.
Ghulams were nerfed afterwards. And Shrivamsha Riders are now unusable thanks to people like you who never shut up about them.
I am going to say this one more time.
India.
Never.
Used.
Battering.
Rams.
Would you be ok with Aztecs getting stables and the Scout Cavalry line?
I think the eco is overbuffed for almost every civ in general for these years. And almost all civs revolve strategies around knights/xbow. Perhaps, we can have more regional units to have more diversity.
Having a “Posion Archer” for a civ like the Tupi that used a lot of poison historically makes a lot of sense but why does the Liao Dao need bleed damage?
The Fire Lance reflects the historic use of that unit pretty well. Firing of explosives before staring to engage in melee combat. But why does the Xianbei Raider need a random charged attack?
If you think about it some AoK UUs are already kinda gimmicky. Cavalry that resists anti cavalry attacks, unique unit with bonus damage vs. unique units, Infantry/Camel that does melee damage at range, Archer that fires multiple arrows that do 0 melee damage.
but that makes them worse. a gimmick on a single civ is more gimmicky, than it being a general mechanic
it being planned in aok, doesn’t make it any less janky. it’s extremely whacky, one of the worst changes of the game.
true, but doesn’t change that it’s a very strange bonus
yes, thankfully. I think my disdain for the 3K civs would also lessen if they nerfed their UUs a lot, i assume it’s the same for you. IF that happens is left to be seen. tbh I’m won’t be holding my breath.
good, that unit should never have been added to the game
I don’t think I get to take all the credit, but if i was in anyway influential on this: You’re welcome
It.
Is.
A.
Game.
Not a historical simulation. Trebuchets, Crossbows, and many other things never made it to the americas.
dishonest comparison.
if the Aztecs got a unique building (which costs about the same as a stable), which trains a unique unit (with cost and stats similar to a scout); THEN i’d prefer that they just get stables and scouts instead. if there are no or vanishing gameplay differences, the units should look the same and be called the same.
Everything else just makes the game pointlessly confusing. it’s not adding interesting complexity, but obfuscation
i see where you are coming from. I still don’t think it makes a lot of sense in a game like aoe2. aoe2 has an abstraction for all kinds of injuries: damage. why does poison deserve special status? especially if its implementation is functionally identical to bonus damage (the slight time delay is pretty irrelevant in most situations). if the damage took a lot longer to apply, it would be different. (this is assuming poison will deal
damage at a similar rate to the Liao Dao, which does over 7 / 9 of its bleed damage before the next attack anyway)
but throwing a spear before engaging in melee was standard practice for troops of all kinds. what makes the fire lance special? also those attacks going off randomly again mid combat is janky. + people use them to deal attack from range and skirmish with them.
in the same vein we could also change it so archers/crossbows have a (charged, ie reloading) ranged attack and a weaker melee attack. this is what eg stronghold does.
But it would remove what makes aoe2 aoe2
yes, some AoK UUs are a bit gimmicky, but I disagree with your examples. I’d say something like the Viking’s berserk’s regeneration is gimmicky. It doesn’t really affect how the unit is played.
However the Cataphract’s ignoring of anti-cav bonus damage is its core identity and purpose. It is meant to be strong against infantry, including pikes. it needs to resist some bonus damage to do that.
what is gimmicky about that? these units fulfill a clear role in their respective armies, due to their uniqueness.
tbh this feels like a bug in development that became a feature. I’d prefer if they did pierce damage with some bonus damage against rams (if desired). But this is more janky than it is a gimmick.
Gimmicks are additions to a unit, which are meant to attract attention, but don’t significantly impact how the unit plays.
Axe men changed to do pierce damage => suddenly Franks need to research lots of different black smith techs, axe men start counting different units etc. So it’s not a gimmick.
Liao Dao changed to just to some extra damage to non-siege units (either through damage increase or bonus damage) => unit plays exactly the same. It’s a gimmick
Best examples of gimmicks: Keshik’s gold generation and Hussite wagon’s arrow blocking. quietly remove either of those and nobody would even notice until SotL or Survivalist do some testing with them
Not gimmicks, but features: Cataphracts losing their resistance to anti-cav attacks, people would notice instantly, because it’s core to what cataphracts are.
This one I actually think is well-executed, since it differs from rams in ways that fit with the original design of the game (most notably, it costs different resources and has different armour classes). To me it feels similar to the difference between chariots and cavalry in AoE1 (although some civs had both of those). In contrast, I think rocket carts are too similar to mangonels. (I otherwise agree that the mechanics bloat problem started with DoI though.)
Some of them are/were kind of bland, but I think some are very good, especially the Rise of the Rajas civs. I think Slavs and Italians are examples of civs that started a bit too bland, and have been improved over time without diverging from the original approach to civ design.
No. Here’s what Sandy Petersen said about it in an old Q&A:
Q) Why was the idea of units having more than one mode of attack abandoned? A) because it added a lot of complexity for only a little extra fun.
We decided the interface to let the players choose whether they’re going to shoot or not would be a pain, plus if the AI chose whether to shoot or not, it would always make the wrong choice because that’s what AIs do.
Nothing to do with it being “technically impossible”. Technically it would be no more difficult than trebuchets packing/unpacking: it’s a button to change from one unit to another and back again. The original devs made a deliberate decision not to include weapon swapping for gameplay-related reasons. You don’t have to agree with their reasons, of course, but claiming that the original devs would have included it if they could is just plain wrong.
i think regional units exist on a spectrum, with eagle warriors on the “this is a meaningful change”-end, and rocket carts/savar on the “what’s the fucking point”-end.
siege elephants are somewhere near the middle, but closer to the “what’s the fucking point”-end.
I agree with that. When the poison damage only lasts very short and just adds like +3 attack it’s pretty pointless. It would be a lot more interesting to have it damage units a lot slower over a longer time period. This way the way you use those archers would be different because you want to apply the poison to as many units as possible and then retreat while they slowly take damage.
If they add Romans to Chronicles I do expect them to have an Infantry that throws a spear before engaging in Melee combat.
The interesting thing about Fire Lance is that they shoot multiple low accuracy bullets that spread out and can hit multiple targets.
In AoE3 almost all ranged units also have a melee attack that they automatically switch to when engaged in melee. I think that is a good thing but I do understand why AoE2 can’t implement that. I think it’s sad that they never added it to AoE4, because it was like that in the beta.
Ah ok that makes sense.
Then the charge of the Coustillier and Urumi Swordsman are not gimmicks because they greatly impact the way you play those units.
I do agree with that definition of gimmick but my approach would be to make those features stronger in return for making the base stats of those units worse. So I think Iron Pagoda and Tiger Cavalry should have their unique features buffed but get worse base stats in return.
