For years, there has been substantial demand for Age of Empires to have its balance updated to reflect the imbalances revealed by the development of the metagame. The last official balance patch was 1.0c released in 2001 (although one of the game's developers revealed that there was an additional balance patch scheduled for release in 2002). Numerous unofficial balance patches have been designed since (one of which I worked on), but none caught on until a rather unusual development; Age of Empires HD and its expansions was made portable to Voobly through the Wololo Kingdoms mod and since, the HD expansion changes have become a de-facto balance patch with acceptance in addition to incorporating the expansions themselves. This has helped to solve certain balance problems, but others remain and new ones are created. This post will outline the most important and identify plausible fixes. I refer to Wololo Kingdoms in the thread title because its balance is inherited from HD.
General
The biggest weakness in the expansions balance ethos is that it looks to balance individual units and maps rather than civilisations. Since Age of Empires uses asymmetric balance, a civilisation can be weaker than another on one map while being stronger on another without it being considered a balance problem. It has to be accepted that some civilisations are going to be weaker on certain land maps if they are stronger on particular water maps and vice-versa, so long as when all maps are considered, all civilisations are decently represented. On land, Wololo Kingdoms currently has a decent balance, but the strength of units and civilisations depends strongly on context, which varies with the map. As hybrid maps are played more in tournaments, imbalances that are concealed on land maps will become more noticeable.
Indians
This civilisation has been pass around like a hot potato since its inception, being a sister civilisation to both the Saracens and the Persians, but never managing to achieve a parsimonious fusion of their strengths and weaknesses. The original concept of the Indians was very solid: a camel civilisation that could field their main unit effectively on land maps without having to boom to the late game. The former weakness of camels to ship damage and their lacking ring archer armour made their late game too weak relative to their villager bonus. These two were strengthened in African Kingdoms, which gave a pay-off for their need to boom; however, they were also given an even bigger villager discount on top of that, making them strong at all stages of the game. Arbalests were removed in a later patch, but this is window-dressing and blurs the lines between Indians and Persians which now have very similar technology trees.
On top of this, we know that Indians are strong on land maps, as they are a top pick in the recent land map tournaments; but since Age of Empires is not just land maps, the Indian shore fish bonus cannot be overlooked. This makes Indians even stronger on hybrid and certain special maps where shore fish are valuable early game food source. Even before the Indian villager discount was increased, they were being chosen in HD show matches between Germany and Brazil. As Wololo Kingdoms tournaments are expanded to include genuine hybrid maps, I expect the fusion of these two early game bonuses to become very evident. To balance Indians while still keeping them distinct from other civilisations I recommend reverting their villager discount to 5%/10%/15%/20% and giving them arbalests again.
Burmese
Here we come across a civilisation whose execution has diverged very heavily from its conception. Their free wood upgrades and infantry attack bonus gives them a strong men-at-arms rush while maintaining competitive advance times to later ages. Their elephants are the best armoured in the game, which gives them access to a very powerful late game unit composition; which is why it is a pity that the Burmese have in practice been a one-unit civilisation. Since arambai can nuke units in a way that puts conquistadors to shame, there is very little point in them having their infantry bonus. The problem is indeed that arambai deal very high damage yet have a reload time of 2 seconds: for perspective, conquistadors have a reload time of 2.9 seconds and janissaries 3.45. Their projectiles may be inaccurate, but they can still close the gap between targets very quickly and achieve a higher hit rate with missed projectiles doing half damage to another unit. They have already had their attack reduced to 17/19, but this is simply undetectable in the kind of fights arambai take.
The Burmese also have 50% cheaper monk technologies, which when combined with free wood upgrades gives absurd savings in the castle age. They may not have heresy, but with arambai, they don't need it. Any civilisation with early game economic bonuses has to have more conservative discounts elsewhere to compensate. It is one thing to save wood and food on discounts, but it is another to save gold in 1v1s, especially when they also see the generating locations of relics. The Burmese general play is fine, but their monk/arambai combination is where they spiral out of control. A better combination would be to reduce arambai attack to 15/17 and their monastery bonus to 20% cheaper.
Malay
This is another civilisation which started out with a load of ideas but turned into one-unit armies. At first the concern was that they would win almost any trash war with two-handed swordsmen costing no gold, but karambit warriors showed themselves to require much less of a boom to unleash. Since tournaments have been land-based, it might seem that their problem lies in the infantry themselves, but once again, Age of Empires is not just land maps. Their age-up bonus is most strongly felt on water and hybrid maps (or any map where you can't rush).
Water maps may not be galley wars any longer, but the rush for fire galleys is if anything even worse because slower civilisations lose their fishing ships immediately and can't hope to steady themselves with better micro. Mongols may go up quickly, but their saving is once-off; the Malay on the other hand are faster up to feudal, to castle and to imperial and on top of that, they build up a villager lead because of less town centre advance time. This is very similar to what made Vikings so imbalanced in The Conquerors, because they had free wheelbarrow as well, so they were always ahead, no matter what stage of the game it was.
The connection back to land maps is that the Malay advancing bonus has a strong economic impact because they sacrifice less to advance ages. I would speculate that the developers thought they would be weaker in the late game and so would need a stronger mid-game to compensate (like Vikings). It's clear however that the Malay have very good late game options, with cheap elephants in addition to their two big infantry options. I think it is probably appropriate to reduce their advancing bonus to 65%.
Koreans
Like Indians, Koreans have become more one-dimensional, losing their mangonel team bonus to something more useful in lagfests than in an actual game while having the one thing they didn't need help with strengthened further. The Korean tower bonus doesn't make them more balanced on Arabia: it just means that if they gain the upper hand in a tower rush, they'll never relinquish it. In The Conquerors you could at least stall them and make it a more tactical game, but faster building towers makes it difficult to stop their towers once they've got one or two up. As a bonus, it barely differentiates them from the Spanish, because who builds stone walls anymore?
More generally, the Korean mangonel team bonus did used to be a problem, because it ended up being abused by Celts and Mongols, two civilisations that didn't need their siege to be any stronger. Replacing the mangonel bonus sacrificed a crucial part of Korean identity. A more appropriate solution would have been to make the mangonel bonus an individual one, switching it with the villager line of sight bonus: this would keep them standing out on closed maps while also giving them something concrete to contribute on nomad starts.
Khmer
The Khmer building bonus is easily the most inconsistent bonus in the game. It benefits them the most on maps where they need it least (such as when they need to boom). Any wood they get from skipping buildings is on loan: there's only so long you can play without a blacksmith or a siege workshop. There are glaring vulnerabilities in skipping the barracks on open maps, such as being forwarded while scout rushing and leaving their woodlines undefended while raiding. Some civilisations will be unlikely to exploit these, but others will do so mercilessly. The strength of the Khmer lies in their late game, so they don't really need a head start on booming on boom maps. It would be better to give them a consistent wood discount on military buildings, say 20%, so that they have a better chance of seeing the late game on maps where they need it.
Vietnamese
It's clear that something is off about the Vietnamese, but it's difficult to pinpoint. They have a decent unit composition, but don't have any economic bonuses, so they're on the defensive with little way to break out. I would speculate that their weakness is having no solution to siege onagers, so a potential fix is to give their monks redemption. Archer civilisations generally have economic bonuses, so they tend to have weaker monks to compensate: a good monastery would differentiate the Vietnamese somewhat while being consistent with civilisations with weaker mid-game strength having decent monasteries. They still struggle against the siege ram-halberdier combination, so it is unlikely to make them overpowered against the kind of civilisations they're struggling against now.
Condotierri
Condotierri read like a unit straight out of League of Legends, starting out weak, then being improved until people complained about them being too powerful and then reduced to a niche unit with specific application. Although condotierri as a team unit sounds like a plausible team bonus, it should have been obvious that (just like the Korean bonus) this unit would be much more useful to civilisations with infantry bonuses than to the Italians themselves. Recent patches may have unbroken Gothic and Japanese condotierri, but the difference between Gothic and Japanese infantry compared to almost all other civilisations has always been massive. Italians now have very little reason to make their "unique" unit, one of the things that made them a unique 1v1 civilisation in the first place. Italians also have a fishing ship discount: this would be a suitable bonus to switch into a team bonus.
Eagle Warriors
I never understood the logic that eagle warriors were underused and needed to be made stronger. Eagle warriors and monks dominated in arena for years and they have attack bonuses/resistances to a significant proportion of units in the game. Eagle scouts have become part of the feudal age meta and continue their power into the castle age. For all that Meso-Americans get out of them, they should no longer be so cheap: 30 food and 50 gold would make it possible to field swordsmen as a counter without falling behind in advancing to the castle age. Meso-American civilisations were given generous economic bonuses by the developers to compensate for their lack of gunpowder and cavalry; keeping up in unit production should not be a problem for them.
Summary
At a glance, I think these changes would make Wololo Kingdoms better balanced for full random maps, which is the way the original developers intended the game to be played.
Indians
-revert villager discount to 5%/10%/15%/20%
-receive arbalest back
Burmese
-arambai/elite attack 15/17
-monastery technologies 20% cheaper
Malay
-advance age 65% faster
Koreans
-revert fortification build speed
-switch villager line of sight bonus to team bonus
-+1 mangonel range reverted as individual bonus
Khmer
-replace required building bonus with military production buildings cost -20% wood
Vietnamese
-give redemption
Italians
-revert recent condotierro changes, but switch with fishing ship discount as team bonus
Eagle Warrior Line
-cost 30 food and 50 gold
General
The biggest weakness in the expansions balance ethos is that it looks to balance individual units and maps rather than civilisations. Since Age of Empires uses asymmetric balance, a civilisation can be weaker than another on one map while being stronger on another without it being considered a balance problem. It has to be accepted that some civilisations are going to be weaker on certain land maps if they are stronger on particular water maps and vice-versa, so long as when all maps are considered, all civilisations are decently represented. On land, Wololo Kingdoms currently has a decent balance, but the strength of units and civilisations depends strongly on context, which varies with the map. As hybrid maps are played more in tournaments, imbalances that are concealed on land maps will become more noticeable.
Indians
This civilisation has been pass around like a hot potato since its inception, being a sister civilisation to both the Saracens and the Persians, but never managing to achieve a parsimonious fusion of their strengths and weaknesses. The original concept of the Indians was very solid: a camel civilisation that could field their main unit effectively on land maps without having to boom to the late game. The former weakness of camels to ship damage and their lacking ring archer armour made their late game too weak relative to their villager bonus. These two were strengthened in African Kingdoms, which gave a pay-off for their need to boom; however, they were also given an even bigger villager discount on top of that, making them strong at all stages of the game. Arbalests were removed in a later patch, but this is window-dressing and blurs the lines between Indians and Persians which now have very similar technology trees.
On top of this, we know that Indians are strong on land maps, as they are a top pick in the recent land map tournaments; but since Age of Empires is not just land maps, the Indian shore fish bonus cannot be overlooked. This makes Indians even stronger on hybrid and certain special maps where shore fish are valuable early game food source. Even before the Indian villager discount was increased, they were being chosen in HD show matches between Germany and Brazil. As Wololo Kingdoms tournaments are expanded to include genuine hybrid maps, I expect the fusion of these two early game bonuses to become very evident. To balance Indians while still keeping them distinct from other civilisations I recommend reverting their villager discount to 5%/10%/15%/20% and giving them arbalests again.
Burmese
Here we come across a civilisation whose execution has diverged very heavily from its conception. Their free wood upgrades and infantry attack bonus gives them a strong men-at-arms rush while maintaining competitive advance times to later ages. Their elephants are the best armoured in the game, which gives them access to a very powerful late game unit composition; which is why it is a pity that the Burmese have in practice been a one-unit civilisation. Since arambai can nuke units in a way that puts conquistadors to shame, there is very little point in them having their infantry bonus. The problem is indeed that arambai deal very high damage yet have a reload time of 2 seconds: for perspective, conquistadors have a reload time of 2.9 seconds and janissaries 3.45. Their projectiles may be inaccurate, but they can still close the gap between targets very quickly and achieve a higher hit rate with missed projectiles doing half damage to another unit. They have already had their attack reduced to 17/19, but this is simply undetectable in the kind of fights arambai take.
The Burmese also have 50% cheaper monk technologies, which when combined with free wood upgrades gives absurd savings in the castle age. They may not have heresy, but with arambai, they don't need it. Any civilisation with early game economic bonuses has to have more conservative discounts elsewhere to compensate. It is one thing to save wood and food on discounts, but it is another to save gold in 1v1s, especially when they also see the generating locations of relics. The Burmese general play is fine, but their monk/arambai combination is where they spiral out of control. A better combination would be to reduce arambai attack to 15/17 and their monastery bonus to 20% cheaper.
Malay
This is another civilisation which started out with a load of ideas but turned into one-unit armies. At first the concern was that they would win almost any trash war with two-handed swordsmen costing no gold, but karambit warriors showed themselves to require much less of a boom to unleash. Since tournaments have been land-based, it might seem that their problem lies in the infantry themselves, but once again, Age of Empires is not just land maps. Their age-up bonus is most strongly felt on water and hybrid maps (or any map where you can't rush).
Water maps may not be galley wars any longer, but the rush for fire galleys is if anything even worse because slower civilisations lose their fishing ships immediately and can't hope to steady themselves with better micro. Mongols may go up quickly, but their saving is once-off; the Malay on the other hand are faster up to feudal, to castle and to imperial and on top of that, they build up a villager lead because of less town centre advance time. This is very similar to what made Vikings so imbalanced in The Conquerors, because they had free wheelbarrow as well, so they were always ahead, no matter what stage of the game it was.
The connection back to land maps is that the Malay advancing bonus has a strong economic impact because they sacrifice less to advance ages. I would speculate that the developers thought they would be weaker in the late game and so would need a stronger mid-game to compensate (like Vikings). It's clear however that the Malay have very good late game options, with cheap elephants in addition to their two big infantry options. I think it is probably appropriate to reduce their advancing bonus to 65%.
Koreans
Like Indians, Koreans have become more one-dimensional, losing their mangonel team bonus to something more useful in lagfests than in an actual game while having the one thing they didn't need help with strengthened further. The Korean tower bonus doesn't make them more balanced on Arabia: it just means that if they gain the upper hand in a tower rush, they'll never relinquish it. In The Conquerors you could at least stall them and make it a more tactical game, but faster building towers makes it difficult to stop their towers once they've got one or two up. As a bonus, it barely differentiates them from the Spanish, because who builds stone walls anymore?
More generally, the Korean mangonel team bonus did used to be a problem, because it ended up being abused by Celts and Mongols, two civilisations that didn't need their siege to be any stronger. Replacing the mangonel bonus sacrificed a crucial part of Korean identity. A more appropriate solution would have been to make the mangonel bonus an individual one, switching it with the villager line of sight bonus: this would keep them standing out on closed maps while also giving them something concrete to contribute on nomad starts.
Khmer
The Khmer building bonus is easily the most inconsistent bonus in the game. It benefits them the most on maps where they need it least (such as when they need to boom). Any wood they get from skipping buildings is on loan: there's only so long you can play without a blacksmith or a siege workshop. There are glaring vulnerabilities in skipping the barracks on open maps, such as being forwarded while scout rushing and leaving their woodlines undefended while raiding. Some civilisations will be unlikely to exploit these, but others will do so mercilessly. The strength of the Khmer lies in their late game, so they don't really need a head start on booming on boom maps. It would be better to give them a consistent wood discount on military buildings, say 20%, so that they have a better chance of seeing the late game on maps where they need it.
Vietnamese
It's clear that something is off about the Vietnamese, but it's difficult to pinpoint. They have a decent unit composition, but don't have any economic bonuses, so they're on the defensive with little way to break out. I would speculate that their weakness is having no solution to siege onagers, so a potential fix is to give their monks redemption. Archer civilisations generally have economic bonuses, so they tend to have weaker monks to compensate: a good monastery would differentiate the Vietnamese somewhat while being consistent with civilisations with weaker mid-game strength having decent monasteries. They still struggle against the siege ram-halberdier combination, so it is unlikely to make them overpowered against the kind of civilisations they're struggling against now.
Condotierri
Condotierri read like a unit straight out of League of Legends, starting out weak, then being improved until people complained about them being too powerful and then reduced to a niche unit with specific application. Although condotierri as a team unit sounds like a plausible team bonus, it should have been obvious that (just like the Korean bonus) this unit would be much more useful to civilisations with infantry bonuses than to the Italians themselves. Recent patches may have unbroken Gothic and Japanese condotierri, but the difference between Gothic and Japanese infantry compared to almost all other civilisations has always been massive. Italians now have very little reason to make their "unique" unit, one of the things that made them a unique 1v1 civilisation in the first place. Italians also have a fishing ship discount: this would be a suitable bonus to switch into a team bonus.
Eagle Warriors
I never understood the logic that eagle warriors were underused and needed to be made stronger. Eagle warriors and monks dominated in arena for years and they have attack bonuses/resistances to a significant proportion of units in the game. Eagle scouts have become part of the feudal age meta and continue their power into the castle age. For all that Meso-Americans get out of them, they should no longer be so cheap: 30 food and 50 gold would make it possible to field swordsmen as a counter without falling behind in advancing to the castle age. Meso-American civilisations were given generous economic bonuses by the developers to compensate for their lack of gunpowder and cavalry; keeping up in unit production should not be a problem for them.
Summary
At a glance, I think these changes would make Wololo Kingdoms better balanced for full random maps, which is the way the original developers intended the game to be played.
Indians
-revert villager discount to 5%/10%/15%/20%
-receive arbalest back
Burmese
-arambai/elite attack 15/17
-monastery technologies 20% cheaper
Malay
-advance age 65% faster
Koreans
-revert fortification build speed
-switch villager line of sight bonus to team bonus
-+1 mangonel range reverted as individual bonus
Khmer
-replace required building bonus with military production buildings cost -20% wood
Vietnamese
-give redemption
Italians
-revert recent condotierro changes, but switch with fishing ship discount as team bonus
Eagle Warrior Line
-cost 30 food and 50 gold
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