Should more civilizations get access to regional units? It’s an interesting thought experiment.
ELEPHANT ARCHER + ARMORED ELEPHANT
1:20 Vietnamese
3:38 Burmese
4:58 Khmer
6:41 Malay
8:34 Steppe Lancers
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Game: Age of Empires II Definitive Edition
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I like this new Spirit of the Law lobbying for the right changes in the game, with more historical accuracy and balance. The force for good we needed 😉
And yes I mostly agree with all changes in the video, even though the Malay bonus should be lowered when including the other two elephants as its too large of a discount, for example.
Where's the bombard elephant?
Absolutely wish to see steppe Lancers in more civs.
should Bulgarians get steppe lancers? with their weak economy slight discount to 65f and 40g would be great
I'd be interested to know historically if SE Asian Civs employed cavalry archers/elephant archers or both? Also I was wondering if Western/Central European Civs should have Cav Archers removed – not really aware of these being used historically and in practice you rarely see those Civs use Cav Archers in games
African elephants are also a consideration
i'd like to see model update for units linke war elephants, balista elephants, and the siege weapons, it always kills me when i see no human rider or handler around these units
Great Video! I have also been thinking a lot about this recently and changed things around in the editor. For the elephant units I thought this:
– Vietnamese should get Elephant Archers, with elite upgrade and team bonus but without Chatras applying to them; also, no Armored Elephant, to differentiate them from the other elephant civs and better synergy with their woodchopping bonus, also kinda redundant because of the already tanky Battle Elephants
– Burmese and Khmer should both get the Armored Elephant and upgrade, with their civ bonuses etc. applying, but no Elephant Archers; I think this would give the Burmese a more distinct Cavalry Archer/Elephant identity (Cavalry Archers should also get some sort of bonus); for the Khmer the Cavalry Archer is more useful compared to the Elephant Archer, also this would still differentiate them a bit from the Bengalis, who I think would feel to similar otherwise (also both would have 4 elephant units each which would be nice and balanced )
– Malay should get Armored Elephants and also Elephant Archers with the discount, but no Elite Elephant Archer upgrade to lean more into their whole thing (they would also mirror the Dravidians which would be nice and balanced)
As for the Steppe Lancer:
– Huns should get Steppe Lancers, with both the stable creation time and cavalry archer discount bonuses, but without the elite upgrade (also Huns should be central Asian building set)
– I had never really thought about Steppe Lancers for the Turks before seeing the video but it makes perfect sense, I'd love to see the devs lean even more into their light cavalry identity
I think an easy way to keep them balanced as well as retain historicity for the steppe lancers for the civs you proposed is have them not get elite. All four of those civs were early hordes in the medieval period who eventually settled down by the high middle ages (bar the Huns, who just kinda disappear in the records). That would give them the early spike without the late game snowball. Maybe even Turks get a feudal age version à la Hindustani camel scout? Maybe a "steppe scout/raider?" My main concern for Turks is there massive early imp power spike, which should really mirror their early adoption of gunpowder weapons, and having two free stable imp upgrades seems pretty broken to me.
Giving Elephants to south-east asian civs makes sense, but what about african civs?
Most important should persians should have access to all elephant tech trees???
AoE de II team rn: “write that down! Write it down!”
There are other units too, imagine Aztecs & Mayans with slingers but obviously giving elite slingers to Incas. The 2 missile unique tech that Aztec skirmisher get could affect slingers while Mayan slingers can be the weakest since they have plumed archer as a very good ranged option or give slingers anti building bonus (more regional units being spread to otherfitting civilizations would be cool)
No elephant fact? :'(
Now imagine replacing the scorpion line to ballista elephants for all indians and south east asian civs, and giving khemer a new UU. Just thinking loud.
The option exists to grant the unit but not with any civ or team bonuses and the tweak them after the fact.
People are crying out for more visual variation things as well
I would be against replacing Malay´s rams with siege elephants. My favourite strategy with them is to flood as many rams as possible with karambit warriors and level someone's base
Okay, lets start:
1. Why not analyse Persians as well??? Battle Elephants sound very redundant with War Elephants, but the other two are totally fair for them. Elephant Archers would lack range and attack, but would actually be quite fast (1.287 tiles/sec after Husbandry and Mahouts), making good at hunting down foot Archers. Siege Elephants would be only a bit slower than Mongols Siege Rams.
2. Your Math with the Vietnamese is in theory correct, but we can already see that their 20% bonus only works with base HP, not Bloodlines. They would "only" get up to 396 HP in CA, 456 in Imp.
3. Indentity wise, Vietnamese should stay with CA instead of getting yet another anti-archer-archer at their disposal imo. They are already the most redundant civ in their own design.
4. Burmese Elephant Archer would have +1/+1 in CA, but would be behind by 1 pierce armor in Imp. Indeed, sounds very unexciting.
5. Malay would have Elephant Archers costing less gold than Arbalest. Even without Elite, they have the same attack as Arbs, slightly more speed and almost 6 times the HP. So, even without Elite, that would be a massive improvement. The Siege Elephant is actually the less concerning one imo. They would actually still take extra damage from melee attacks (just 1 though, which does not make them melt against Chu Ko Nu).
Yes, cheap elephants for malay please
I think Magyar Steppe Lancers having a percentage discount civ bonus AND a flat discount unique tech is inadvisable both for balance and for intuitive reasons. I also think that free Elite Steppe Lancers is qualitatively different from free Scout line upgrades. Otherwise I'd be for trying all of that.
I'm all for to. Both elephants and steppe lancers. What about Persians though? Could they make a case for more elephants?
Elephants shouldn't even be in the game. They're fucking horrible to play against.
im surprised Dravidians dont get elite battle elephants
Hi Spirit! Great vid but please can you explain why trebuchets can't convert sheep (not even Celt ones) while rams can? Aren't they both just sentient wood?
Might be good to put out a video on the questions you have asked/been asked over the years you don't have an answer for?
Keep up the great work!
First, though, maybe the developers should replace the Frankish unique unit with something that was actually used during the later Middle Ages, or at the very least make their axes look like real throwing axes.
nobody likes elephant archers anyways
I'm missing the intro 😊
lol, why delete that video, MF?
An elephant in the room i suppose
Huns not having steppe lancers is like Poles not having winged hussars. Like wtf?
Would love to see more/expanded regional units, and regional buildings too
Are you gonna redo some civilizations that have been updated?
Before all those, we should have ELEPHANT MONKS who can convert castles and TCs.
no they should have access to elephant skirmisher
All that talk about elephants, and only passing mention is made of the original elephant civilisation?!
These are great ideas, unfortunately probably never ever gonna be implemented.
I like it. This would distinguish knight, camel, elephant and nomadic civs from each other. Giving more regional character to them.
Given you are delving into this thoughtful and insightful speculative content, Spirit, it would be great to hear your thoughts on which civs could be included in a future expansion. I’d love to see more diversity among the Southeast Asian civs – the Javanese (historically very district from the “Malay”) and the Siamese should be included – and additions from elsewhere could include the Bantu, Yoruba, Hausa, Avars, Tibetans, Jurchen, Armenians and Georgians. The Polynesians could make for a really unique civ, along the lines of the meso civs added back in the Conquerors. Would thoroughly enjoy your thoughts.
They should improve the champions line by making them 20% faster for a short time, for example
More Americas Civis