Let them research Masonry and Architecture.

Not only it makes logical sense from a Historical Standpoint.

Byzantium was the only place that still had the Roman Concrete Recipe. So they did had good Masonry and Brick Makers.

And Byzantine Architecture with their Icons and Orthodox Style is Famous, so famous that the Slavs adopted the Orthodox Style from them. Even the entire Religion.

So yeah this Buff is all Byz needs.

On Arena they would be monsters. As their Walls would be the Theodosian Walls. Since they should keep their Base Civ Bonus together with Masonry and Architecture.

And besides there is so much more siege equipment and anti building damage units, that the buff is not as crazy.

Sure if you are against a bad siege civ, yeah Byz is basically unsiegable. But that should be the players fault for not picking properly or the team for not drafting properly. This is a competitive game. That Byz is unsiegable if nobody picked a good siege civ is entirely on the other person or team. Its not the Byz player's fault that he picked Arena, where Byz with this buff would be Top 3 easily with that alone.

They would still be pretty meh in Arabia 1v1. You would probably see people do weird Housing Strats with Masonry an Architecture, but its so late game. That it would mostly be playing from behind hoping a comeback. So its not that great. Its good if your push failed though. As you could then research Masonry and Architecture to try and save your fail attack on the enemy.

Which is kinda doing your own Manzikert and then having to play defensive. Very Historically Accurate and very Byzantine feeling. Good army and tech, but no real bonuses other than spamming trash and a very good but expensive elite unit that can win against anything, but its way to expensive and losing them = GG.

And you can now throw a few Varangians with your trash to hopefully recuperate some Gold. Very Roleplaying as basically thats what the Varangians became later in the Byzantine Empire history, just glorified mercenaries allowed to pillage to get funds back since maintaining the professional army was way too expensive.

So yeah retreat and wall up. Like real Byz did.

there is so many tools now to deal with walls and they have been nerfed in HP compared to the past, that i see no problem.

This is all the buffs Byz needs, and it also makes sense historical.

The Theodosian Walls were the only thing that allowed them to last until 1453.

And also the Venetians not screwing them, but that's another story.

I was just watching the How to get gold in the Early Economy Art of War and I realized that the guy doing the video was queuing up 14 villagers with only 8 food. How are they doing that?

How to get Gold in Early Economy Art of War

Man, Cataphracts really fell from grace. My beloved cataphracts, in AoK, they used to be the elite cavalry behind frankish paladins. Now, they melt to every cavalry unit in the game. I saw a post suggesting bumping up their attack to 14 while negating their bonus damage by 2 and uping their melee armor by one. At first, i agreed with the statement. It seemed like a great idea. Better against heavy cav while still weak to ranged. But then, I came across a video on YT that gave the catas blast furnace and bloodlines. Which is essentially the same as those adjustments for melee. https://youtu.be/kfk8Tzw8Tqs?is=rFwZICfPBzKrm980

And in the video, they MELTED every heavy cavalry in the game. Even frank paladins, even leitis, even centurion or smth. That is terrible. I would like them to trade better against them, yes, but not alternate the core concepts of the game. Maybe give them only +1 melee armor, so they still lose to heavy cavalry, but at least trade better. But honestly, if the unit is unchanged, then I am fine with it. They still melt infantry, and win against most cavalier. Maybe thats enough. Maybe they were a product of their time, and now their time is up. But GOD does it pain me to see them in this light. They feel like they were forgotten. All the cool cavalry units were added in the game, and catas got no cool toy to play with. Leitis doing crazy damage, coustiller having charge attack, monaspa with great stats and extra attack, tiger cav who are basically op. I feel like most of the old civs are forgotten, and many new ones get all the attention. Like, give some new units to the old civs, or at least buff their existing ones, so theyre interesting again. Tell me about teutons, or goths, or huns. They've been power crept by something new and flashy. Anyway, I would like the cataphract to have +1 melee armour. But I dont know if thats possible, or even better, playable.

They’re inferior as scouts, inferior in melee vs MaA, inferior to the militia line against shock infantry which are becoming very prevalent, and I only a couple of them are FU units in imperial age.

what if the whole unit line upgraded free in each age for every civ, just as a feature of the unit rather than a civ bonus? If you were to slow down production time by several seconds in dark age I don’t think you’d have a sufficient mass to be OP upon hitting feudal to be oppressive, and I don’t think it’s strong enough at any later stage to need any further nerf beyond Dark age.

I had a horrible losing streak and went all the way down to 900ish from 1050ish, (I hadn't played 1v1 much for a few weeks and for some reason everybody seems to have a perfect build order when I play now, so much resources and perfect uptimes whereas I struggle with 19 vil uptimes).

Well anyways three matches today people call me a smurf, so I've gotten to telling them to cry about it while sniping their villagers. What else should I do when I'm winning the match and they start Smurf cope.

Idc. It’s a waste of my time and mentals. I don’t find anti-cheese meta fun, and everyone I fail at it I literally stop playing the game 2-3 days because it’s just stupid and truly sucks the fun out of them game. Can we nerf this because I truly don’t think anyone enjoys playing against it. It artificially bumps up their elo and their ego too.

Muisca (me) x Varangians on arena.

Jarls being a very big problem mid game, had the idea to mass xbows and later arbalests.

Muisca arbs are great, more armor and speed.

Late game Jarls were dying fast.

Vietnamese received a lot of changes with Vikings Saga DLC. While they did get masonry, they lost the 20% HP bonus applying to Cav Archers and Fire Lancers. They also still miss blast furnace and also don't have Gambesons.

All other civs with fire lancers have some type of applicable civ bonus. I understand the unit can be hard to balance, but do you think the Fire Lancers deserve some type of bonus for Vietnamese?

The Varangian Guard occupies the Shock Infantry class for the Vikings, Danes, Varangians, Saxons, and Byzantines and all 5 of these civs have either a unique tech, civ bonus, or both that apply to the Varangian Guards.

If a civ has a special regional type unit such as Fire Lancers for East Asia, Varangian Guards for Northern Europe and Byzantines, Slingers, Champis, or Eagles for America civs, and so on. Should those civs that have these unique regional units always have a civ bonus or unique tech applicable to them?

I did not mention Three Kingdoms but Grenadiers have a bonus for Jurchens, Xianbei and Jian Swordsmen for Wei and Wu. And Chinese, Wei, Wu, and Shu all have some type of bonus or unique tech for Lou Chuans and Traction Trebuchets.

So is this Fire Lancer change for Vietnamese really more about the unit being hard to balance? And perhaps they are planning to add something back?

DM Michi feels like a chess match against multiple people.

Pure late-game glory from the jump where it’s relaxed at the start, very explosive at the end and way more team-oriented.

The community is chill apart from one youtuber, the games feel epic every single time and you get to experiment with crazy compositions and base designs you never get to try in ranked.

You start off building 25+ towncenters and 10+ markets, there is a race for 'winning' the stone & reaching 400 pop the fastest. 'Taking the stone' is a reaction timing test to see who is the fastest at placing down the market & buying up the stone before anyone else.

All the players racing for it wait anxiously for the loading screen to finish, and it is painstakingly nerve wracking when the loading screen takes forever. Maxxing your pop is #1 priority during treaty time, you want all 400 villagers booming.

Then it's down to structuring your base; Where you place your houses, military buildings, walls & towers.

Finally you battle & try to exploit your opponents weaknesses while showcasing your strengths.

Some players choose to solely boom & sling, here are some other strategies/terms players utilize in DM Michi

• Wood War - Trying to obtain the most wood possible
• Booming - Continuing to gather resources post treaty
• Slinger - Boomers who share resources thus teammates can have bigger army pop
• Rusher - Players ready before the treaty aiming to catch their opponent off-guard
• Micro - Manual use of Siege Onager/Bombard Cannon/Flaming Camels/etc
• Waller - Multiple layers of walls with gates to ward off opponents
• Pusher - Players who gradually push & take control of the map
• Protector - Players who defend/wall/etc for their ally
• Deathball - 250+ pop army composition that farms opponnet
• Commander - Tells his teammates what to do, where to push, etc
• Surging - Deleting villagers/trade carts to produce bigger army
• Ganker - Supporting your teammate attacking his opponent
• Tanker - Holds off big army, sometimes 2+ people

The strongest civs in the game are the following:

• S Tier: Teutons, Saracens, Tatars, Spanish, Celts, Persians, Khmer, Gurjaras
• A Tier: Bohemians, Hindustanis, Bengalis, Mongols, Slavs, Ethiopians, Jurchens, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Incas & Danes
• B Tier: Khitans, Bulgarians, Varangians, Chinese, Turks, Georgians, Dravidians, Romans, Franks

If you want to see DM Michi gameplay you can click here

Maya get no cavalry and they have no real unique bonuses to Infantry.

I remember Vikings used to be really bad. But now they are really good.

I feel just that change alone would make Maya very good again.

I mean they are still very good at Booming and their Archers are Elite, But i remember when you could actually do strats with the Eagle Warriors.

Not anymore.

So either give them more HP, or open Holcans to the entire Barracks Line.

This would make their Two handed swordsmen decent and their Halberdiers truly good.

And since they lack cavalry is not an unfair buff.

Besides this just open strats. The Plumed Archer or Arbalest Strat is still viable. This just opens a Halberdier and Eagle Warrior Strat and even make the Two Handed Swordsman a good unit to get to deal with trash that can affect your Archers.

Is there a way to create new structures? Like how there is a star wars mod, is it possible for anyone to create a new structure (like a historical building) that isn't in the game already? Or a unit that isn't there? Or is this something left to the mercy of the devs?

Incase the question is too vague, basically I'm asking if it is possible for anyone to create like.. a leaning tower of Pisa or statue of liberty and use it in a new scenario.

I'm still relatively new to the game, and I can't figure out how to find other players' Steam profiles, either during a match or after the game ends.

Is there a way to add someone as a friend directly through the game? And is there any option to send private messages to players, or do you have to find them on Steam first?

I'd love to meet some people to play with instead of always playing solo. Any tips would be appreciated!

I scout rush, i kill 2 or 3 vills, than idk what to do, and uncertainty (having no game plan) kills me, i find myself producing random bull crap trying to respond to hindustanie random bull crap that they throw at me, (they tend to produce some camels some skirms some ghulams some hussars, i almost feel like they are trying to bait you into commiting to some unit.

Should i go for 2 range CA or knights+pikeman or xbows+1 castle magyar hussar? Or knights + scorps?

Ppl are saying that CA is bad choice in this matchup, but CA should counter camels no? Not sure how does CA perform against imp camel mixed with ghulam tho. Probbably not well but if you have like 40 of HCA with recurve bow and you throw in some random meat? Idk

I feel like when going for knight+pike im not utilizing any bonuses what so ever and it feels like hand canons will clear me in imp.

If going for knight+scorp i feel like im on timer bcs of BBC + scorps suck and always die for no reason. 11.

I suspect magyar hussar + xbow might be the right choice here, but idk if i gonna be able to produce enough magyar hussars, and save stone for enough castles...

edit:

you go full CA, it turns out you destroy ghulam in late game as recurve bow HCA deals 4 to elite ghulams, not 2 as i tought

Hay everyone, for all the good people playing this beautiful game in PS5, I am experiencing some bugs and would like to be sure is not just me. I play with keyboard and mouse:

1. Ungarrison does not work most of the time! Vills doesn't go back to work and is a heavy pain. Mostly happens to me when going back to farming, vills return to the farm but does not restart farming.

2. Mouse pointer dissappears from screen after finishing a game. Then I have to guess where the mouse is to exit to main menu or selecting stats I want to review.

3. Sometimes when I start the game, all of the system config are reseted as if the game was just installed. Then I need to reconfig all my settings. I've noticed this mostly happens when I turn off the PS5 after a game without exiting to the main menu.

Thanks everyone!

I've run into a couple of bugs with the collectible treasures:

-Sometimes it just doesn't "save", as in I collect the treasure, select a choice, and then complete the mission...and then the campaign page still just shows nothing was collected on that mission. I think this was "The Hard Ruler" mission #1.

-Treasures showing up on the wrong missions, sometimes even being swapped for the opposite choice. On "The Last Viking" #3, I picked the choice that gives Harald melee damage reflect, but now for some reason, that treasure is showing up on mission #1. And in another mission, I selected the military building speed treasure, but now it's showing the opposite choice, the civic building speed treasure, also on the wrong mission.

Happens at around 27 minute mark where I (yellow), place a castle and my opponent is able to see it.

Game link : https://www.aoe2insights.com/match/516512280/

Edit: yeah he was cheating, reported him. Haven't heard of this cheat before though where they can kill your buildings before even placed.