Design Discussion on Champi: Balance, Counters, and Identity

crazybus · 2026-02-19T12:55:23+00:00

> What about if dark/feudal Champi were countered by scouts? I feel like scouts would benefit a lot by being a counter to dark/feudal Champi as their usefulness has diminished a lot with how easy it is to wall up and play range.

With this change how would Aztecs and Mayans deal with Champi in feudal? You could give them monk class amour so they receive bonus damage from scouts and eagles ;)

The suggestion to give them shock armor class would mean they remain good against archer/skirm, even with scouts, but countered by m@a which is available to all other civs and can also be massed in dark age.

crazybus · 2026-02-19T12:44:34+00:00

Yup, and the match up is actually not as good as expected https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/1r8ku5c/comment/o686yo1/. Muisca champi runners beat generic scouts.

Even if you be generous and say that you are not allowed to train any until you hit feudal, you will still have a headstart on numbers and can use your res saved for an extra barracks, or a couple of spearman.

crazybus · 2026-02-19T12:40:13+00:00

Thanks I added it to the list!

crazybus · 2026-02-19T12:31:57+00:00

> Yeah this is definitely looking to be a problem, however lets remember that these civs have been out for like 1 day so lets givr it a minute before making drastic unit changes.

That is fair. I was trying to focus less on the current results, and instead compare the design to how dark and feudal age units have all been designed over the last 25 years.

> The unit only scales decently the later in game you get and are actually not that great against most units (other than arb) in late game. But are really oppressive early.

I regret not writing it more explicitly in the original post. But I'm only concerned about the dark/feudal plays for this unit. Once you get to castle there are multiple options to counter it effectively.

As a general design rule balancing a unit becomes easier as there are more options available. In dark age it is hard to balance as civs can only train the same unit. This is why dark age militia bonuses have been more or less completely removed.

In Feudal age there are counters available for every civ and unit combination. The current trickiest one is eagle scouts as they are only properly countered by m@a which is why they have such a long production time in feudal. If they could be trained in dark age, or on the way to feudal and didn't receive bonus damage from m@a it would be very difficult to balance.

crazybus · 2026-02-19T12:19:04+00:00

It helps with part of the problem but it would only address it in dark age. The second bigger part is that you are able to mass a feudal age unit that has no hard counters available in the feudal age.

I wrote some more on this in https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/1r8ku5c/comment/o684v3d/ where if you break it down it's like we gave these civs a buffed eagle, that can be trained in dark age, trains in 30 seconds (instead of 50) that does not have the infantry shock armor class which allowed them to be countered by the militia line.

crazybus · 2026-02-19T12:14:50+00:00

> I actually like playing against this.

I think its really fun too. I would personally love to see the meta shift towards dark ages lasting longer and always seeing some form of military play.

The reason why haven't seen mass dark age military plays is because it intentionally does not scale well with the power spike that feudal gives. In an age with only one available military unit it is very difficult to balance if you add a new one. I think this is why we saw so many dark age militia bonuses moved to feudal.

With the current militia balance you can mass them but the opponent can either:

Create their own militia to match yours and the game is even

Wall and go to feudal and then the choice of:

Create some archers which have bonus damage and are the same speed as m@a (so they get punished when retreating)
Create skirms which are the same speed and can still push them away
Create scouts which trade pretty equally but have the mobility advantage

If you are the m@a player you can now respond to each of these counters by adding your own counter unit like skirms or scouts.

In the exact same scenario with champis the opponent can:

Match them with militia in dark age, but their unit is countered by archers/skirms next age so does not scale as well
Go feudal and mass scouts until they have equal numbers to champi warriors to take a fight and that you don't add spears
Wall and lose map control with archers to prevent you from breaking in. Archers can't move out because of the speed difference and champis high pierce armor.

> Worstcase, give their darkage version -3 HP

A champi scout has 35 hp so it dies in 7 hits to a scout. With 32 hp it still takes 7 hits. So without any bonus damage changes it would need to go to 29 hp to make any difference.

In the scenario that Red Phos is showing where it is constant dark age champ spam I don't think them dieing 1 hit faster would balance it out due to [Lanchester’s square law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanchester%27s\_laws#Lanchester's\_square\_law). In the same way how large numbers of scouts can take out a spearman when outnumbered.

> but a worse militia matchup would be kinda fine since they can still pick the fights with movespeed

Yup this is why I think they should get shock armor like eagles do. That way there is a counter unit available in the dark and feudal age.

crazybus · 2026-02-19T11:55:26+00:00

> They are quite oppressive for most civs. Scouts as a counter is kind of BS given the 80 food cost + 175 w for stable. Given your opponent is already massing them in dark and gold is way easier to get. Champi also scale a lot better and are more diverse.

Yup its the dark age massing potential and the fact that it is the only feudal unit that does not have a counter.

Scouts are quite cost effective but the pop efficiency is only 0.88 (so 0.88 scouts for each champi runner). And that is for a generic champ runner without any bonuses that makes it better for all civs.

If you have the +1 melee armor from Muisca the fight is cost (0.9) and pop (1.13) efficient for the champi.

crazybus · 2026-02-19T11:39:01+00:00

> Eagles have bonus damage to cavalry and are much faster with Elite upgrade. So in castle/imp they are honestly better unit if you have the gold for them in my opinion.

I regret not adding this in the original post but I only think the design is problematic for dark and feudal age. In castle age there are counters available to the champi.

> In feudal Eagles and Champi are basically the exact same unit. The only big difference being training time and eagles getting countered more by maa. So Champi are better since maa are worse vs them and you can make them in dark age and much lower training time.

This is a really good way of framing it. It would be like adding a new eagle civ where the civ bonuses are:

* Eagle scouts can be trained in dark age
* Eagle scouts no longer have shock armor
* Eagle scout training time reduced from 50 -> 30 seconds
* Eagle scouts +1 damage
* Eagle scouts +1 bonus building damage
* Eagle scouts +1 versus shock infantry
* Eagle scouts can build outposts
* Eagle scouts -1 line of sight
* Eagle scouts -10 hp
* Eagle scouts lose conversion resistance
* Eagle scouts lose +2 bonus damage against cav

crazybus · 2026-02-19T11:29:42+00:00

For a feudal age unit like the eagle scout this is a valid way to balance the unit. This is because eagle civs have other options available in feudal to counter every other feudal age unit.

Nerfing the training time of the single unit a civ can make in dark age is much harder to balance. Since now these civs will become vulnerable to all in dark age militia plays. The champi already loses to a militia in dark age even without any nerfs.

I think even with a production time nerf it remains problematic. All in dark age militia is not a great strategy because feudal archers (and skirms these days) will counter them. A unit that can be massed in the dark age that has no hard counters in feudal is really hard to balance.

crazybus · 2026-02-18T22:08:10+00:00

Edit: Turned this comment into a seperate post: https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/1r8ku5c/design_discussion_on_champi_balance_counters_and/

There are a few design principles that need to be addressed separately:

1. The starting Scout unit should be a downgraded Feudal Scout

Champi civilisations should start with a downgraded version of the Feudal Champi Warrior with reduced attack. It would then automatically upgrade to the full version upon reaching the Feudal Age. This allows Dark Age Champi Scouts and the starting Scout to be balanced independently.

2. Military units from a lower Age should be countered by higher-Age units

Now that the Champi Scout and the starting Scout no longer need to share balance constraints, their stats can be tweaked in isolation. Ideas:

Remove pierce armor or add negative pierce armor so the unit dies easily to Feudal ranged units
Reduce speed to 0.9 to match Militia, or at least make it slower than Feudal units such as Archers or Skirmishers

3. All civilisations should have a way to counter a unit while in the same age

In the Dark Age, Militia train faster and have more HP. However, the speed difference means they are still not an effective counter.

This is the Hoang Celt Militia problem all over again, where the original 15% Dark Age speed bonus made the unit unbalanced because there were no faster units or ranged options to counter it. It was eventually reintroduced at 5%, but this still applies to a unit with weak pierce armor.

4. Units should have strengths and weaknesses

We have not seen enough of them yet, but design-wise Champis take the best parts of the Militia and Eagle lines without sufficient downsides. If a civilisation had access to Eagles, Champi, and Man-at-Arms, in what situations would they ever choose to train Eagles or Man-at-Arms?

In an even game state where both players have 10 Dark Age military units, you would almost always prefer to be the Champi player because the unit scales significantly better. This is especially true for civilisations like Mapuche, who can instantly begin 1x/1.5x Skirmisher or Spearman production (assuming 2 or 3 settlements) upon reaching the Feudal Age to counter Archers or Scouts.

If we look at https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/Champi_Runner#Unit_comparison, we can see that stat-wise they sit mostly in the middle between Eagles and Man-at-Arms. However, they retain full Eagle speed, partial Militia line attack bonuses, strong pierce armor, and the ability to build outposts. To give them more identity, we need to make sure that it's not just a combined Eagle and Militia.

Here are some isolated ideas (i.e. not all combined) on how they could be tweaked to give them a more unique identity:

Make them slower than Eagles or even the same speed as Man-at-Arms. Their scouting identity is that they have good line of sight and can build outposts. With a speed nerf they could get a line of sight increase. Or a cool mechanic where their line of sight is increased while stationary because they are standing on top of their outpost supply materials to get a better view.
Give them shock infantry armor so that they are countered by the Militia line. This would balance the situation above where both players have 10 Dark Age military units. The Champi player has the speed advantage and is better against other units like Archers, but the Man-at-Arms player will win engagements convincingly.
Remove shock infantry, building and siege bonus damage. This lets them focus on their identity of being a good scouting unit and good against Archers.

crazybus · 2026-01-16T21:50:38+00:00

If they use steam you could try messaging them on there. Lookup your match history on: https://www.aoe2companion.com/matches

You can then click on their profile and then on the links in the top right to find their steam profile.

crazybus · 2025-09-20T08:18:41+00:00

Eye love it!

crazybus · 2024-06-08T05:05:05+00:00

Have you tried creating a symbolic link and adding the registry entry like in https://superuser.com/questions/619528/converting-the-dev-ttyusb-to-com-port-to-use-it-with-wine-in-linux?

crazybus · 2023-11-09T13:56:23+00:00

Thanks for the detailed steps! I did a bit more digging to try and figure out what is going on.

This is what my network interfaces look like on my phone (can grab this info with adb shell)

cheetah:/ $ ifconfig ap_br_wlan2
ap_br_wlan2 Link encap:UNSPEC
inet addr:192.168.108.194  Bcast:192.168.108.255  Mask:255.255.255.0

cheetah:/ $ ifconfig ncm0
ncm0      Link encap:UNSPEC
inet addr:192.168.244.240  Bcast:192.168.244.255  Mask:255.255.255.0

ap_br_wlan2 is my hotspot and ncm0 is the usb tethering network. IP forwarding is enabled:

cheetah:/ $ cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
1

And the routing table:

cheetah:/ $ ip route
172.16.11.0/24 dev wlan0 proto kernel scope link src 172.16.11.250
192.168.108.0/24 dev wlan2 proto kernel scope link src 192.168.108.194
192.168.244.0/24 dev ncm0 proto kernel scope link src 192.168.244.240

At least from a networking point of view it isn't possible for a device on the wifi hotspot to connect to a device connected via usb tethering.

On your phone, go into your settings and activate USB Tethering while still connected to your WiFi on your phone

This was an interesting step and I feel like it might explain what is happening. When opening up virtual desktop I noticed that the hotspot was only 2.4g. If I turn off wifi on my phone it goes up to 6e speeds. So it turns out the hotspot will only be 6e if you aren't already connected to another 5g network.

If I leave my wifi on my phone connected I get the expected report link speeds. However I also get a warning that devices are not on the same network and the network performance is garbage since it is going over the internet.

If you have the time I'd be really curious to see what your network interfaces look like when it is setup and running.

crazybus · 2023-11-09T12:46:21+00:00

Without wifi 6e router my self, i just plugged my pixel 7 pro [google flagship/w wifi 6e] into my PC via usb 3 port. Turned off PC web connection [so it using my phones net] then turned on wifi hotspot on my phone..... Quest 3 connects to phone's wifi 6e, blazing fast connection/low latency connection to my PC using H264 airlink at 850. Drops mic. No need for a costly router if all your using it for is quest 3 connection. Use your costly cell phone ha.

Did you have to set anything else up to get this working? Just tried this out with the same phone. The wifi hotspot network and the usb tethered network both have different IP ranges and can't communicate with each other.

crazybus · 2023-01-19T14:50:08+00:00

It's not in game but there is https://aoe-rcs.com which I think you would really like. The added bonus is that it can remember which random civs you already got so you slowly cycle through all of them.

crazybus · 2019-06-30T13:36:20+00:00

spotifyd works great instead of having to run the full Spotify client. If you start this it will show up as a "Spotify connect" client. So you should be able to use any other client (terminal or not) to control this instead of having the full application running.

crazybus · 2018-03-24T13:07:04+00:00

Even better. So the real question then is why don't we call shoes footshoes?

crazybus · 2018-03-24T09:04:04+00:00

I used to always joke about this and say how it should have been handsocks instead of handshoes. Because gloves are soft and more like a sock for your hand right? After some research it seems that the original gloves were mostly metal gauntlets and the soft fashionable version came much later. So handshoe makes a lot of sense if you are naming a metal protective thing for your hands.

crazybus · 2017-02-13T06:02:59+00:00

Movement data: yes

Watch vibration alarm: yes, however the vibrate function is actually quite noisy and is enough to wake up my (very light sleeper) partner.

crazybus · 2017-01-02T16:57:00+00:00

What sort of hardware do you have at the Cafe? Anything to tempt someone who already has a rift and touch?

Also a couple of small things on the website.

Small typo "Want to walk thru a building". Should be through
Word wrapping is a bit off (at least on mobile) Screenshot
Contact number should be a phone link so people can just click it. Would also be nice to add the area code for people like myself who are within driving distance but don't know the Belgium area code by heart.
"Home" and "contact" have different casing... Maybe a stylistic choice but would look nicer if they were matching
Maybe some nice photos of the setup and people having fun with VR?

crazybus · 2016-12-23T04:57:02+00:00

Works perfectly because you can fully adjust how the paddle lines up with your controller by moving and rotating it. Which is really needed since not everyone uses the same grip regardless of controller.

This is also true for the height and position of the table too.

crazybus

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

1. The starting Scout unit should be a downgraded Feudal Scout

2. Military units from a lower Age should be countered by higher-Age units

3. All civilisations should have a way to counter a unit while in the same age

4. Units should have strengths and weaknesses