1.0c is pretty broken in terms of civilization balance. That's pretty obvious to anyone who knows anything about the game. The imbalances cause actual strategy and variety to be replaced by repeated execution of build orders, and it's really hard to call this game competitive. Civ wars will always be there, but that's a very limited way to play the game, and not everything is 1v1. (Even in teamgames, there's a huge difference between flank and pocket so picking civs doesn't solve everything.)
There's also a lot of imbalance among units and within civ wars. Because of random maps, not all players have safe access to the same strategies. Nothing should be impossible to beat. There are always going to be dominant tactics, but we can at least try to make people play more strategically instead of executing a build order like a trained monkey and winning due to map luck.
These balances exist because Ensemble Studios was not making a competitive RTS. They were making a game that the majority of people would only play in single player. The primary focus was historical campaigns and games against the computer. They wanted to showcase their design of lots of civilizations, so they made different civs good at different things, but we are playing a competitive RTS where each map is about very few things. A strong navy doesn't help if the map is all land. A strong post-imp doesn't help if the map is about rushing. Being overpowered in some situations and useless in others does not achieve competitive balance for us, but it's fine for a singleplayer game.
So why not fix it? The idea sprang from an old thread, but nobody was really doing anything with it. I decided to try and fix this game before giving up on it. The game shipped with plenty of stuff, but almost all the maps are so one-dimensional and most of the civs are useless on most of the maps, so there wasn't a whole lot of strategy to it. There was also too much luck with maps themselves and with random civs. So there was a need to grow both the map pool and the civ pool for increased balance and strategy and competition. Maps are fairly easy to introduce. Some new ones have been quite strategic and competitive.
For balance, there's a limit to what can be done without making huge changes, but when you look at why civs are imbalanced you will realize that the biggest problems for competitive games simply stem from economic speed. The second biggest problem is overpowered units (factoring in strength and cost and counterability), but there are only a few of these. Most civilizations actually have strengths and weaknesses in the late game, but they never surface because they don't live long enough or don't really have a way to counter the top civ's units.
There's also a lot of imbalance among units and within civ wars. Because of random maps, not all players have safe access to the same strategies. Nothing should be impossible to beat. There are always going to be dominant tactics, but we can at least try to make people play more strategically instead of executing a build order like a trained monkey and winning due to map luck.
These balances exist because Ensemble Studios was not making a competitive RTS. They were making a game that the majority of people would only play in single player. The primary focus was historical campaigns and games against the computer. They wanted to showcase their design of lots of civilizations, so they made different civs good at different things, but we are playing a competitive RTS where each map is about very few things. A strong navy doesn't help if the map is all land. A strong post-imp doesn't help if the map is about rushing. Being overpowered in some situations and useless in others does not achieve competitive balance for us, but it's fine for a singleplayer game.
So why not fix it? The idea sprang from an old thread, but nobody was really doing anything with it. I decided to try and fix this game before giving up on it. The game shipped with plenty of stuff, but almost all the maps are so one-dimensional and most of the civs are useless on most of the maps, so there wasn't a whole lot of strategy to it. There was also too much luck with maps themselves and with random civs. So there was a need to grow both the map pool and the civ pool for increased balance and strategy and competition. Maps are fairly easy to introduce. Some new ones have been quite strategic and competitive.
For balance, there's a limit to what can be done without making huge changes, but when you look at why civs are imbalanced you will realize that the biggest problems for competitive games simply stem from economic speed. The second biggest problem is overpowered units (factoring in strength and cost and counterability), but there are only a few of these. Most civilizations actually have strengths and weaknesses in the late game, but they never surface because they don't live long enough or don't really have a way to counter the top civ's units.
This is intended to make AoC more balanced for competitive play, while unlocking the full array of civilizations and their associated strategies. It is not about fixing bugs or adding new units/civs or gameplay.
This patch aims to achieve more balance on competitive maps by making the fewest changes to the technology tree and the way units behave. Almost all the changes are economic. Other than speed and maybe some cost concerns, civilization strengths and weaknesses are pretty much left alone. Every change is made to make civilizations and units fairer and more strategies viable. Additionally, I made all the changes unique like they are in 1.0c. It would be much easier to just duplicate bonuses, but this should ensure some extra variety. Because I wanted to minimize the changes, I had to weaken the strong civs and boost others. There just aren't enough unique bonuses to achieve balance while leaving the strongest civs untouched
Post-imp is mostly ignored (for now) for three reasons:
1) it's not as important because competitive games don't last that long
2) we first need to see where civs stand as a result of these changes to the early game. how civs transition into post-imp is more important than post-imp itself
3) simple tweaks will not balance it for the settings where it is most broken. The magnitude of changes required to make something like vikings picked on michi is just too great
There are some changes (like harder walling, weaker houses/TCs) that only make sense when you know that post-imp is not balanced. If someone can force a map to go post-imp and it's not feasible to foil those plans, then the game won't be balanced. So this isn't intended to balance things like BF/Michi.
Most of the reasons for the changes should be obvious to anyone with a decent knowledge of the game. I have added explanations for the less obvious ones. Because almost all of them are simply percentage tweaks, they are very flexible. I have picked values that make sense, but there might be some fine-tuning left to do ( hence, open beta testing ).
I'm more interested in people who are willing to test out the changes and help finalize the numbers and see if I inadvertently broke something by hacking with the game files. I'm less interested in delusional newbs who pretend that 1.0c is balanced and resist all changes or people that want historical accuracy over competitive balance. I'm also less interested in lamers who resist changes because it would invalidate an exploit that they rely on or a single overpowered buid that they can't play without. The game should be about real skill and strategy, not civ luck, map luck, game engine luck, and laming.
The changes:
ALL CIVILIZATIONS
- boar +50 attack vs cavalry/eagle ( no more winning by lucky scouting and stealing boars. get some skill )
- CA/heavy cost -8g
- eskirm upgrade -50w -60g (200w 100g). research time same as xbow
- xbow upgrade +75f +25g (200f 100g) . arbalest -75f -25g
- camel/heavy +2 base attack. camel +3 attack bonus vs cavalry (+13 instead of +10). heavy camel +2 attack bonus (+20 instead of +18). note: this is still way lower than pikes/halb
- bloodlines effects & cost & research time split in half (one in feudal. one in imp)
- eew get 2 pierce armor (instead of 4). separate tech for +2 (cost 200f 200g)
- longsword upgrade costs -120f. two handed sword up costs +120f
- trade cart / trade cog 2x population, 2x cost, 2x HP (cog 3x work rate, cart 2x work rate. land trade is still better). ( the game's pathfinding is really stupid. other than water trade rate, this should have no effect on gameplay while making up for some of the idiocy of our units )
- hunters carry +5 ( 3 hunters will be stupid enough to make a whole round trip to collect 2 food apiece from a leftover deer. let's make up for that stupidity )
- fast fireship move 5% faster. fast fireship & heavy demo ship dont require war galley upgrade
- monks recharge rate -75%. heresy cost reduced 33% and all civs get it. faith cost reduced 50% and moved to castle age. all civs get the teuton conversion resistance ( i cannot change the programming to make monks less luck-oriented and actually counterable in lag, so this is quite necessary for balance )
- House -400 HP . TC -800 HP
- walls/gates cost double
- free cartography ( the reality is that not everyone speaks the same language. we need more people playing so we can get more games, not limit them to wait hours and hours for a team they can talk to. there isn't any other way to make things fair. communication will still help a lot, and you'll need it to play at top levels, but it shouldn't be the massively huge advantage that it is right now )
- tribute fee 40%. coinage -10%. banking -25%. imp age -5%. ( related more towards communication than to limit slinging, but even if everyone spoke the same language and could notify that someone is slinging it's not a bad change )
- squires to feudal age . costs half
- transport boat available from dark age ( water is probably the most broken thing in aoc, and when the game is about just making 1 unit, 18 civs aren't going to be balanced. With build order grush, even slight imbalances will surface. this change is to make it less likely to beat better players just because of civ luck, while adding a layer of strategic depth to pure water maps which are so bad in their current form )
Aztecs
- TC work rate -5%
- Team bonus: trade units cost 15% less wood
- lose military creation time bonus
byz
- all ages 15% cheaper (instead of imp 33%)
- trash bonus is -12.5% (instead of -25%)
brits
- get cannon galleons
- yeomen unlocks thumb ring
celts
- wood chopping bonus reduced to 13% (from 15%)
- galleon upgrade -200f -200w
- furor celtica boosts hp by 25% (instead of 50%)
china
- TC +10 los (only in dark age)
- farm team bonus reduced to +20. other +25 is self bonus
- can farm without mill
- docks created 50% faster
- not part of the patch, but any real map that can be taken seriously for competition should not be about sheep luck. this will help China
franks
- free bloodlines (instead of knight bonus). knights/cavalier/paladin +5% hp
- galley line +15% HP
- ranges cost -50 w
- get squires
goth
- infantry cost bonus reduced to flat -20% (instead of -35% after feudal)
- free bit axe
- get japans fish gather bonus
- no more +10 pop in imp
hun
- CA cost -10% castle / -20% imp
- age advances take 25s longer
- no heavy plow
- tarkans move 10% faster
japan
- no more fishboat gather rate bonus
korea
- villagers cost 10% less
- warships created 20% faster
- free padded archer armor
- knights cost -5f / -5g
mayans
- team bonus reduced to -25% (so net amount saved is same)
- el dorado gives +25 HP (instead of +40)
- no heavy plow / crop rotation
- archers cost -5%/-10%/-15% (instead of -10/-20/-30)
mongols
- hunting bonus to +33% (instead of +50%)
- e. mangudai upgrade costs +400f, +325g
- mangudai and e. mang cost +5w/+5g
- wheel / handcart cost 50% less food
persia
- archers / skirm / CA +2 los
- sc/LC/Hussar cost -10%
saracen
- barracks costs 50% less
- villagers constructed 1 sec faster
- get aztec military production bonus
spain
- fishboats cost 10% less
- houses cost -10 wood
- foragers work 15% faster
- trade bonus down to +15% (from +33%)
- regular conq -1 pierce armor. -2 attack
- regular and e. conq. cost +5f/+5g
teutons
- galley line 15% cheaper. no shipwright
- team bonus replaced with buildings +2 LoS
turks
- houses / docks provide +5 population support (so houses provide 10)
- janissaries/elite cost +10f
- start with -50w
vikings
- cheaper docks only apply to self
- remove cheaper warship bonus
- get shipwright
- team bonus: fishing boat / transport ship +4 LoS. sheep +2 LoS
- longboats move 15% faster. cost -10gold (100w/40g)
- get +10 pop in imp
- get fireships
CUSTOM NOMAD MAPS (these won't apply on other maps)
- persia -50 wood
- maya -25 wood
- hun +50 wood
Download Instructions / How to play on Voobly:
This does not interfere with your 1.0c installation. Put the download in Program Files\Voobly\gamedata\aoc\mods\ directory ( create the necessary folders if they do not exist ). Unzip the folder.
The final directory structure should be \Voobly\gamedata\aoc\mods\pre_1_0f_beta1\empires2_x1_p1.dat
Host a room on Voobly. Select the mod in the room settings. All players must have the mod, or they will not be able to join.
Additional info about mods at: http://www.voobly.com/pages/view/289
You can play it outside of Voobly too, but you need to clone your AoE2 installation and just replace the dat file. (this is good for watching recs without launching through voobly)