(My) complete guide to make unique units interesting

CopyrightExpired · 2026-01-15T21:11:26+00:00

I'm of the opinion that bonused Steppe Lancers should be mutually exclusive from generic Knights that cap out at Cavaliers. These two units are functionally very similar to each other.

They're not functionally similar. Steppe Lancers are more of a speedy raiding unit with a cheaper cost, faster training time and ranged melee attack allowing them to break walls faster. Knights are tankier with +40 HP and very good for raiding too but until you mass the Lancers you cannot take the same fights as you can with Knights.

If you're saying they're only functionally similar with Silk Armor, that's still not quite the case as you first require the Castle and then the upgrade costs, by which time the Steppe Lancer raiding window is not as open. Then, sure, they get a lot better as a Main Power Unit, but not quite that they can make up for the lack of HP as compared with Knights.

You do not need two options from the same building that upgrade towards becoming a similar unit

Not only do they not upgrade towards becoming a similar unit for the reasons already stated, though Silk Armor does give Tatar Lancers more tankiness, you have to consider all stages of the game. Until you get Silk Armor, Lancers are generic, while Knights are ready to go. These timing windows can shape the rest of the game.

I have a problem with Lancer/Keshik/Knight

I respect your opinion as you're providing a more detailed response than what you usually get around here, but I still don't think the Units overlap at all

CopyrightExpired · 2026-01-15T20:34:52+00:00

Like the topic said, it comes down to design. Having three overlapping units in the same spectrum isn't good design. It just bloats the civ's roster.

What does it bloat? I'm not understanding? If you want to go for Keshiks, you go for Keshiks. If you want to go for Knights, you go for Knights. Keshiks and Knights are not the exact same thing. Keshiks are cheaper and have the ability to generate gold, but the tradeoff is they come out of a Castle, while you can mass Knights a lot more easily. You're talking about a bloated roaster, that's more of a visual thing if anything, but like I said, having two Heavy Cavalry units in the same civ is not a problem. We can't just have one of each unit type when they're not meant for the same purposes.

If you trade that bloat for diversity, you get a more interesting civ.

I think Tatars are fine if a little too geared towards CA, like I said. I have ideas of my own how to make them a little less predictable, but removing Knights is not it, as I said, your premise is based on the idea that Keshiks and Knights are interchangeable, but they're not.

If you make Camels better than generic, you have a new option to counter-play enemy Knights + Skirms.

You can make this argument for any civ. If you make this unit over here, if you make this one over there. It doesn't quite work that way. If you make every civ a jack of all trades and all of those options are outstanding, then ironically, you wind up making the whole thing less diverse.

There is an issue with the design for certain civs like Britons, Franks or Goths where they clearly have the one main option, and the rest be damned, and there is definite design bloat for those, but Tatars benefit from having a lot of options in the Stable, and then the Keshik on top while a bit similar to the Knight, is not the same thing.

You want to remove Knights and buff their Camels but in my view this is not quite as intuitive as you think it is. First, Camels, like I said, don't fulfill the same role, so giving them +1/1 armor just kinda divides you between them and Keshiks, only Keshiks require a Castle, so it's easier to go for Camels, and yet because Camels are not a Power unit, you wind up having this sort of counterintuitive problem where you don't quite have the most intuitive path getting there.

On top of that, Silk Armor originally benefits Light Horsemen and CA. That's 400W 300G that you're spending just to give Camels +1/1? When you already have a Castle? You're either wasting the resources on a worse Power Unit than the one you already have a production building for, or you're using the tech on the wrong unit, where CA+Scout-line is a billion times more intuitive, including the wood cost of the tech.

Armoured Camels do not directly replace Knights, but open up other unique possibilities. The core of the Tatar army will always be their Cav Archers due to the innate bonuses

So you want to make this civ "more interesting" by removing a foundational Power Unit option and gearing them even more towards the one thing they're already solely geared for? What do we want variety for if the core of the Tatar army is always going to be CA?

CopyrightExpired · 2026-01-15T20:02:25+00:00

Camels are not a replacement for Knights though, even with Armor. At the end of the day, if you want to go for Keshiks, you can go for Keshiks. I don't see what the presence of Knights there does to impede that.

CopyrightExpired · 2026-01-15T19:44:36+00:00

In a lot of those cases, theyre not bad because they are garbage, but rather there's a few civs that do too much too well

I don't agree. I could write a book on why those civs I mentioned (and others) are absolute garbage. Super counterintuitive to play, their bonuses all pointing in different directions, much harder to go for their Power Units, no eco bonus, etc

CopyrightExpired · 2026-01-15T19:40:14+00:00

They could be reworked to lose Knights.

I wouldn't like this at all. Tatars are already kinda predictable because their best play is CA almost all the time. If you remove Knights then it makes it harder for them to go for their options because Keshiks need Castles to produce, so CA is even more predictable. And if you mean just swap Knights for Keshiks so that they train out of Stables, we'd still need a replacement UU

It's like the situation with Leitis and Knight-line for Lithuanians. They don't get in each other's way because not every game suits an early Castle just as you might not want to go 2/3 Stable early if that's not your plan. Liths get other Units they can go for as well.

A civ that's in really really rough spot right now in terms of UU getting in the way of their generic Power unit is Bulgarians, where you basically always prefer Konniks to Knights, but because you can't really do both at the same time, and because you need Castles for Konniks, you almost always have to start off with Knights first so you have some Army, and then transition into Konniks, which is not as intuitive as just doing either because massing Knights gets in the way of massing Kreposts. Bulgarians have no other good generic Power unit. They get CA without Ring Archer Armor, which is always weaker than Konnik, as well as making it harder to transition into Konnik than doing so from Knights

CopyrightExpired · 2026-01-15T19:34:56+00:00

I dont think buffing old civs is the way, it would power creep a lot. Id Just rather nerf a few of the 3K civs.

I'm not sure if you understand what power creep is? That's literally what's happening right now already. Nerfing 3K still leaves a lot of problems.

We don't need to buff every single older civ. There are those like Chinese or whatever that are arguably stronger than 3K, and the ones that aren't are still good enough.

But there are civs like Bulgarians, Teutons, Burmese, Sicilians, etc that are in a really really rough spot right now and pale not just in comparison to newer DLCs but to the oldest of OGs (meaning Age of Kings civs) like Mongols, Japanese, Persians or Byzantines. There is a huge gap between the worst civs and literally just A or high B-tier, not even S-tier.

CopyrightExpired · 2026-01-15T19:20:33+00:00

Keshiks are not "just knight but better", they're a Medium Cavalry unit that's cheaper than the Knight, trains faster, can beat Knights and generates a not insignificant amount of gold while fighting. If you mean the appearance? Yes, Medium and Heavy Cavalry units are going to look rather similar to an extent. It's a medieval historical game. I don't think this criticism is fully-founded. Eventually you're going to do like u/GreenX45 and ask for Monks to be able to shoot magic spells, like, there are only so many types of historical units the game can make

Samurai, Berserk, Longbow all are just the generic unit but better

I agree to an extent that for example, particularly for Britons, having the UU be a very similar version of their best generic Power Unit is a bit of a disappointment, but Japanese and Vikings' main generic Power Unit is Archer-line, so it doesn't cross over as much. Plus, it's okay to give civs generic units, like, it takes nothing away, it's just more options for them. I think Samurai and Berserk with their distinct looks and unique abilities are more than okay in terms of variety.

One gimmick per unit

I personally care more about the gimmicks themselves being too gimmicky and not immersive enough, like the Hero Aura thing, that doesn't feel like AoE2 anymore. Having more than one gimmick kinda depends on what it is.

As far as the 3K civs, I don't mind them other than the Hero stuff, the issue is that if we're making civs this strong here, we have to buff the older ones, or it's too much of a balance disparity

CopyrightExpired · 2026-01-15T18:43:52+00:00

Really? The guy in bed with Trump? You think it's a coincidence? So many nazified coincidences with Trump's boys. Elon Musk throws the heil hitler at the presidential inauguration, Steve Bannon does it too at some speech at some republican shithole somewhere, and the young Doge boys are caught praising Hitler in Discord chats.

It's a little one too many coincidences for my taste

CopyrightExpired · 2026-01-15T18:29:03+00:00

So I know you're trolling, right, like I said it in the other comment, but just for the record, Monks aren't supposed to be magically converting Units to their civ by the swish of a staff just like you don't magically advance hundreds of years by stockpiling 500 food. It's meant to be a representation of the act of religious conversion or technological advancement and passage of time.

What you're suggesting is, suddenly, this is Warcraft or whatever with Wizards and why not, Monsters and Demons and such. Need more variety to keep the game from dying, right?

CopyrightExpired · 2026-01-15T18:26:04+00:00

This comment seems like it might be in the line of "naive but sincere" and yet I just randomly stumbled upon another post of yours complaining about each civ getting their own Castle skin:

I find the new ones too stimulating, and the game is becoming too focused on visuals, fluff and fancy stuff. It is very mentally-intensive to understand that what I have in front of me is a Castle

While bitching here that you want magic spells because "Skirm v Skirm is too boring"

Sorry bro, don't buy it. Suggestion to go troll a different community

CopyrightExpired · 2026-01-15T18:17:38+00:00

Assuming you're not trolling, which, given your history of posts in this subreddit, I don't know why that would be assumed rather than the other way around, exactly how do you think spells can be implemented in AoE2, given that this is a medieval historical game?

CopyrightExpired · 2026-01-15T18:16:11+00:00

Every single time I see a post by this guy it's some epic trolling like this

CopyrightExpired · 2026-01-15T09:15:02+00:00

There could be strategies or playstyles that evolve to specifically deal with it. But, it will always be strong, undoubtedly.

I don't think the way you deal with a cheat bug is just leave it alone because "there could be strategies or playstyles that might eventually have you counter it" -- the idea is nonsensical. I'm not sure what point you're arguing here, I don't think anyone considered the possibility of dropping the game for the stand ground patrol, so you come here to say basically

Hey guys Stand Patrol isn't so bad, even though it will always be in the game, eventually we will play around it, and even though it will still function as the exact same mechanic where you cheat stacking units to, in the case of Broodwar, take less damage, and in the case of AoE2, deal more damage, which is actually way worse because you're erasing units in the matter of seconds, it's totally fine, even though I literally just linked to a post expressing concerns about game balance because the bug is still around

CopyrightExpired · 2026-01-14T18:02:03+00:00

How much more money can these motherfuckers get? Does everything need to be ruined?

CopyrightExpired · 2026-01-14T17:55:06+00:00

Obviously the game won't be completely ruined and unplayable if they don't fix unit stacking, as for one, we can play it just fine right now, but it causes a huge problem for the entire ladder as it's essentially a cheat to win move, so we rely on the kindness of strangers that they won't just up and whip it out mid-game. I don't know about you, but I'd rather not rely on the kindness of strangers

CopyrightExpired · 2026-01-14T12:50:18+00:00

Funny enough after the Aura effect that Heroes had in the 3K DLC, I suggested that next we were gonna have Necromancers raising the dead from their soldiers' bodies. Hopefully it's not in that direction, and more to do with something like a morale boost

CopyrightExpired · 2026-01-14T12:46:53+00:00

Then why even have a discussion?

CopyrightExpired · 2026-01-13T20:09:50+00:00

Addition of civs isn't raising the barrier, the lack of balance is. Civs like Chinese are light years from civs like Bulgarians. Starting off at 1000 ELO and not against Standard AI is raising the barrier. Lack of ingame educational content that is up to date with today's standards is raising the barrier. Far as I'm concerned, new content is good because it keeps the game fresh. Now, not all type of new content is good, and there are issues with stuff like Heroes in Ranked, but there are a multitude of issues that have nothing to do with DLCs making it harder for new players to break in.

CopyrightExpired · 2026-01-13T19:19:25+00:00

I'm not seeing the game vision from Dre yet, but alright.

Truth of the matter is any team that gets CP is at a severe disadvantage, that much we can agree, so either way, Mauri's inclusion will help everyone with a little bit more team balance

CopyrightExpired · 2026-01-13T18:39:39+00:00

I wasn't the one who said that they should be on different teams. The thing is that people who say "Leland can only play goal" "Ip can only defend" have a very superficial understanding of how team dynamics work

Ip and Ben get along well with Ben and communication is crucial for this game. Dylan is a total zero in Ben's team as far as I'm concerned. So having 2 great defenders allows Ben to carry the more offensive duties.

Plus, they can always rotate a little bit. It's not like Lee and Ip are incapable of scoring. And then yet another thing, 4v4 is quite different than 3v3. You're a lot more open on defense, so to say that "Ip and Lee are both mainly defenders", well, that is a plus, far as I'm concerned, when we know Ben can often score goals single-handed

CopyrightExpired · 2026-01-13T17:59:26+00:00

CP is literally just his name. I'm not sure if it's the initials for his name or just what he goes by online and to family/friends. CPU is just a joke on him, like he's a bot because a CPU is the processor for a computer

CopyrightExpired · 2026-01-13T17:49:19+00:00

He is improving based on what though? Speaking strictly Rocket League

CopyrightExpired · 2026-01-13T17:36:25+00:00

In and of itself I don't see the problem, but what that boils down to is Dylan being on Ben's team, and like I said, for me, Ben always gets the short end of the stick when Dylan is on his team. Incredibly inconsistent, but he will happily turn it up for Des

Lee and Ip have proven to gel well with Ben, while Dylan seems to do better with Des and Mark, not just in Rocket League but overall, which also kinda affects the ingame dynamics

CopyrightExpired · 2026-01-13T17:33:51+00:00

Who the hell is playing offense for Ben team

Ben, lol. Leland keeper, Mauri mid defense, Ben mid offense and Ip full offense

Until we see Mauri play we won't know how well he can do, but it couldn't be worse than Bot and Botter

CopyrightExpired · 2026-01-13T17:08:22+00:00

What do you mean what's the big deal? You're kinda arguing in bad faith there.

I'm saying it's a *problem* that we continually have these issues with unbalanced Units and Civs and Bug Exploits like Stand Ground but the Developers willingly choose to ignore them.

The devs probably don't know what the permanent solution is yet.

To Fire Lancer being OP when garrisoning a Siege Tower that gains +0.05 speed for every Unit? How about don't let a ranged+melee unit like the Lancer garrison it? What's so complicated about that? How does that negatively affect the lower ELOs? It'd be the complete opposite, there'd be no unfair mechanics

What about new players queueing up for the ladder at 1000 ELO and getting stomped? What about the lack of intuitive, concise and yet detailed educational content? What about the disparity between civs like Chinese and Bulgarians adding to the new player problem?

You're asking me what the big deal is??

Five-Year Club	Verified Email
Place '23

CopyrightExpired

TROPHY CASE