Polynesian Mini-Expansion Idea [long]

Ideas for new civs/expansions are everywhere and only occasionally productive, and yet I felt inspired to type up this monster of text after recently playing a game of the Civ4 mod RFC: Dawn of civilization. It draws a number of previous discussions of this topic (links provided if you'd rather see their thoughts!) but hopefully adds something to the topic as well and broadens it into a complete, Polynesia themed mini-expansion.

Personally, I'd love to see something like this as an official expansion to the game. Not likely, but who knows, maybe our overlords at Microsoft are listening....

Idea for a Polynesian Mini-Expansion:

Add 1 civ: Tu’i Tonga (to represent all Polynesian groups, including those on Hawai’i, New Zealand, Rapa Nui, as well as the Tu’i Tonga empire. Much as the Slavs civ represents a broad number of areas.) Similar to, but not based on a meso civ template!

Historical Justification: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu%CA%BBi_Tonga_Empire

Campaign: ʻAhoʻeitu: unify islands & found the Tu’i Tongan empire. Then voyage to discover Hawai’i, New Zealand, and/or Rapa Nui to build the Moai statues. (Enemies will be other Tongans in the unification scenarios, then competing Polynesian settlements and mother nature in the exploration scenarios)

New Map ideas: Atoll = struggle on a thin ring of land surrounding a lagoon within a bountiful ocean. The ring of land would be thin enough at some points to allow ships to cross into the inner lagoon. Rapa Nui = fight over sparse wood lines and depleted fish on an isolated island with rich mineral resources. Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga and New Zealand and Hawai’i = possible real world and/or campaign maps.

Civ specifics: Tu’i Tonga. Infantry/Naval civ. (Language: Samoan)

Wonder: Moai statues. i.e., Hoa Hakananai’a.

Architecture set: Polynesian (would be unique to this civ. I remember seeing some good models/pictures of what this could look like somewhere on this reddit)

Bonuses:

— Wood and Fish resources last 30% longer

— Receive wood/stone upon aging up: +25/25 > 125/125 > 225/225 from feudal>castle>imperial

— Ships & buildings only cost ¼ wood to repair (instead of ½). Repair rate [hp/s] and gold & stone repair costs unchanged.

— Farms size reduced to 2x2. Farmers only gather from a 2x2 patch of the farm anyway, so this primarily just allows for more tightly packed farms. [This could still increase gather rates of farms touching a TC/mill so a small negative modifier might be needed to reduce the work rate to be like normal civs.]

Team bonus:

— All ships, infantry, buildings +1 line of sight

Unique techs:

— (Castle) Haka: Maori warriors can train at barracks. [150/150, food/wood]

— (Imp) Kaʻaila Kino: Archery range units and Maori warriors +2/0 armor [600/300, food/gold].

Unique unit(s):

— Waka (ship, built from dock starting castle age). Weaker, but faster & cheaper than war galley/galleon. Can transport/garrison 5 units that add to the arrows fired, like a tower. Affected by all normal dock/blacksmith upgrades. Elite = 700/500, food/gold.

o Something like [normal>elite]: 100>120 hp, 6>7 attack, 5>6 range, 2/4 > 3/6 armor, bonus attack: +8>10 vs. ship, +8>10 vs. fishing ship, +5 vs. buildings & rams. 1.6>1.8 speed. LOS = 9. Rate of fire = 2.55. Cargo = 5 [affected by careening]. Cost= 70/25, wood/gold. Training time = 32s.

— Maori warrior (infantry). Replacement for eagle warrior/cavalry & serves as starting scout. Slightly slower than eagle warrior, but stronger, & same line of sight. Armor class would be the same as eagles, so champions, etc. would have a bonus vs. these. Elite = 1000/550, food/gold.

o Something like [normal>elite]: 55>75 hp, 5(+3 in castle age)>10 attack, 0/2 > 0/3 armor, +2>4 bonus vs. cav and siege (camel bonus+1>2). +8 vs. monk. Conversion resistant. Speed = 1.0 [in dark/feudal] --> 1.1 [in castle age] --> 1.2 [with elite]. Cost = 45/35, food/gold. Training time = 20>18s at castle, 30>22s at barracks.

Tech tree (only missing techs are listed [unless otherwise noted]):

— Barracks: eagle warrior.

— Archery range: Cav. Archer + Parthian, hand cannon.

— Stable: entirely unavailable. [Conversion = a meme unit with poor stats like the xolotl warrior….?]

— Blacksmith: cavalry armor upgrades.

— Monastery: atonement, faith, fervor.

— Siege workshop: siege onager, bombard cannon.

— University: bombard tower, siege engineers, architecture, guard tower.

— Dock: Fire ship [only fire raft available], careening, elite cannon galleon [normal cannon galleon is the only gunpowder unit left to this civ, could be removed but is very important for late-game water fights].

— Eco upgrades (TC, lumber camp, mill, market): two man saw, gold shaft mining.

Civilization bonus, UU, UT, names & ideas in large part drawn from:

https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/8ogik5/new_civ_concept_polynesians/

https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/8e8kw5/new_civ_concepts_nepalese/ (2x2 farms!)

https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/92wt7g/civilization_idea_polynesians/

https://steamcommunity.com/app/813780/discussions/0/2260186248404533309/?l=latam

Many of the ideas for the civ & its bonuses are similar/overlapping/borrowed from these and the historical justification for each bonus would be similar. So, my civilization proposal is more of a synthesis, with a few new ideas…

Why only 1 more civ? Who still wants more civs anyway?

As it currently stands, Aoe2 doesn’t particularly need any more civilizations (35 is already a lot…). New Civs are fun though! Probably, the game can only stand 1 more official civilization, if any, and 36 is good number to stop on.

Many, many good ideas have already been tossed around about new civs with their own bonuses, UU's, etc. Many of these ideas I stole, I mean synthesized from other people into one civ. But given the fact that the game is already crowded by civs, I think this could be amazing as the last addition to the official game:

1. Polynesia/Oceania is one of the only broad areas of the world still left unrepresented in Aoe2 that also had an empire within the proper time frame. (other proposed civs like Georgia, Muisca, Iroquois Haudenosaunee, etc. are EITHER geographically/culturally very near other existing civs, and therefore not as needed/novel OR they are outside of the time frame of AOE2)

2. This would allow the addition of new maps and a campaign (as already mentioned) as well as a groovy new architecture set to make a complete and Polynesia themed mini-expansion to the game.

3. Balance-wise it’s possible that this civ setup could officially be added and nicely fit into the existing 35 civs (with some tweaks, of course, to ensure balance, particularly of the specific numbers used) without overburdening the game with too many extra civs.

a. Its bonuses and overall structure of play should be quite unique, yet nothing in its
bonuses is foreign to existing game mechanics/bonuses in AOE2.

b. The civ could be capable on both land and water, playing similarly to a weaker meso
civ on land, while being stronger on water. [As a side note, compared to some other
(nevertheless excellent) versions of this civ, eagle warriors are not used, which I feel
might be a bit too ahistorical to use for a Polynesian civ.]

Anticipated balance/gameplay:

Lacking cavalry & having eagle warriors replaced with a castle unit severely restricts this civ’s land compositions, so it is given a medium-strong economy to compensate with wood/fish lasting longer and the wood given on aging up. These bonuses are focused to especially useful on water/hybrid maps which often have fish available, limited wood [islands], and limited space for farms [islands/archipelago]. On water/hybrid maps with fish the economy should be strong, while on maps without fish the economy bonuses should be merely decent. Also:

The stone on age up is also intended to help the civ get a castle up faster, helping them research the castle age unique tech and gain access to Maori warriors which are critical to the civ on land.

The farm bonus is only intended to allow closer packing of farms without significantly altering farming rate, at least for farms placed directly next to a TC/mill (second layer farms are intended to be faster with this bonus). A negative modifier similar to the one for Khmer might be needed to balance this. The bonus should still slightly increase gather rates for distant farms, allow for easier farming on tight maps like arena (or small islands!), and allow for safer farms closer to the TC on open maps.

The team bonus is a mild boost to the civ’s primary units of choice, and improves early game scouting for meso civs on the team.

The unique techs are quality-of-life measures for getting to and using the UU, as well as a small boost to their archers/skirms. The imp tech is probably marginally worse than the Italians +1/+1 armor bonus for the archer line, but it also affects skirms and the unique unit.

The unique ship serves a fast moving (if weaker) 2-in-1 alternate to galleys and transports. Surprise your enemies with fast landings and perform preliminary shore bombardments with garrisoned archers...

The unique unit is essentially just a stronger, but slower eagle warrior replacement. It may require some fine tuning to balance the strength of the starting scout, especially for drushes. However, since it cannot be trained before a castle and will be even slower than eagle scouts, it should not pose too great a threat to overall balance. In early imp and late game, it is probably similar to Elite Eagles because of its slower speed, -1 pierce armor, and comparatively underwhelming unique tech, despite +1 attack, +15 hp, and +1 LOS. However, it does cost less gold.

Overall, the early game through feudal on land should be strong/decent with the eco bonuses compensating the lack of scouts. Castle age and on should play with similar compositions to meso civs on land, with Maori substituting for eagles. Like mesos, their overall weaker units in the later stages of the game & the lack of cavalry and gunpowder would be partly compensated by good eco and the cheapness of the units available. The late post-imp would also be similar to mesos without hussar.

For countering on land, the civ would have:

Vs. Infantry: +2 melee arbalest, champions.

Vs. Archers: FU skirms, Maori, siege ram.

Vs. Cav: Halb, Maori en masse, monks in castle.

Vs. Siege: Maori and blocking printing/redemption monks

One obvious problem on land is the limited choices for the civ. Compared to other meso civs, Tu’i Tonga is lacking 1 unit (as in, mesos have eagles + their UU, while this civ only has one unit that fulfills both roles). This could be resolved by giving the civ another UU and shifting the Maori to the barracks, which would not be too hard. However, the way I currently have it does add to the uniqueness of the civ and also allows the Maori warrior to be stronger and more flexible to fulfill its double role.

On water, the wood & fish bonus should also provide a strong, smooth start. However, castle à early imp should be mostly standard as its more relevant water bonuses are economic / indirect and the waka shouldn’t shift the balance very strongly. However, in long games, particularly on islands with little wood, the wood & fish savings could be very strong and the limited land options of the civ would be less relevant.

Conclusion:

Age of Empires 2 DE doesn’t really need more civs. But if we could add 1, I think this one could be fun and effective as an official mini expansion! If you like it, and you probably do if you have made it this far, tell Microsoft that Polynesia could use a little more love…or make this a mod yourself, if you have that kind of skill!