Hello everyone! ChuKoNoob here from AOE2 Civ Concepts LLC, and u/anatarion and I are back with a new civ: the Polynesians! As always, we try our best to make them at least somewhat faithful to history while still having unique civ bonuses, a distinctly aoe2 play-style, and of course, a balanced power level. We hope that feedback on previous civ posts has improved our designs and promoted a healthy discussion of civ balance.
Before we start, I know that Polynesians has been a rather controversial civ idea in the past, and that several other concepts have been posted on AoeZone and Reddit. However, we did not draw from them in designing, starting largely from scratch.
Polynesians (Naval Civ, specializes in colonizing, rushing, and hybrid land-water maps)
Isolated from the rest of the world for centuries, the Polynesians have spearheaded the last great expansion of humankind, colonizing the last uninhabited regions on the planet. Advancements in ship and navigation technologies have helped them reach the far corners of the earth, but with great opportunity has come great risk. Contact with the outside world puts them on a collision course with other strong maritime empires, even as European encroachment appears on the horizon. Will you expand your lands and preserve the heritage of your people forever? Or will your empire be forgotten?
Spoken Language: Samoan
Architectural/Ship Design: Polynesian (concept art for houses here)Civ Bonuses:
- All non-renewable food resources gathered 10% faster
- Town centers 2X attack, benefit from blacksmith range upgrades
- Galley line has +3/8 attack vs buildings in Castle/Imperial age
- Galley line +1 range in Imperial age
- Unique Unit (Town Center): Settler (economic expansion unit, available in the Feudal Age)
- Cost: 75F
- Stats: Identical to villager except for unique traits
- Unique Trait: Can build economic buildings (including TCs) 150% faster - multiple builders reduces build time at the same rate as with villagers, +15 attack vs rams
- Performs all other tasks identically to villagers
- Elite Upgrade Cost: N/A
Team Bonus: Transport Ships move 20% faster and have +4 LOS
Missing Techs
Missing Building: Stable
- Barracks: Elite Eagle Warrior
- Archery Range: Cavalry Archers, Hand Cannoneer, Parthian Tactics
- Blacksmith: Cavalry Armor Techs
- Siege Workshop: Heavy Scorpion, Bombard Cannon
- Monastery: Fervor, Block Printing, Theocracy
- Economy: Crop Rotation, Guilds
- University: Siege Engineers, Bombard Tower
- Dock: Cannon Galleon, Heavy Demolition Ship
- Castle: None
Unique Techs
Castle Age: Cannibalism, Villagers return 25 food when killed
Cost: 300F, 100G
Imperial Age: Kaʻaila Kino: Infantry +2/1 armour
Cost: 600F, 300G
Unique Unit (Castle):
Maori Warrior, fast raiding and anti-economy unit
Cost: 50F, 30G
Combat stats: 45 hp (55 elite), 6 (8 elite) melee attack, 0/2 (0/4 elite) armor, 2.03 rof
Attack Bonuses: +10 (+12 elite) vs villagers and trade units, +10 vs standard buildings
Classification: Infantry, Unique Unit
Other stats: 1.2 movement speed - Creation Time: 14 seconds
Elite Upgrade Cost: 700F, 360G
Wonder: Hoa Hakananai’a (Easter Island statue)
Civ Design/Synergy/Balance Blurb
As with a few other designs, we starting from scratch by looking at the history of the civ and working from there (I spent a couple of hours on a crash course of Polynesian history and military 11).
The main problem was the sheer size of Polynesia: one could argue that each major island grouping (Maoris, Hawaiians, Samoans, etc.) each could have their own civ. However, we decided they were close enough historically and culturally to make a broad umbrella civ called the Polynesians. However, I especially wanted to avoid a repeat of the Slavs, which was meant to cover a large grouping of peoples but ended up basically being just the Russians in terms of their civ bonuses and gameplay. So, we wanted to have a trait that reflected each of the major people groupings of the Polynesians.
The spoken language is Samoan, since it covered the widest area and remains the most-spoken Polynesian language today. Additionally, the Castle Age UT reflects a period in their history in which cannibalism was widely practiced (it was also practiced on Easter Island, and may or may not have occurred on Hawaii and New Zealand as well). New Zealand, being arguably the most successful of the Polynesian colonies, gets the Castle Unique Unit, the Maori Warrior. The Maoris were known for their fierce fighting skills; however, they preferred to avoid direct combat on the field, instead besieging fortresses or raiding villages; hence the Maori Warriors' specialty as a raiding unit, balanced by being rather poor in a straight-up melee fight. Additionally, the Maori's penchant for forts and sieges gives the Polynesians decent siege, getting siege ram and siege onager. Hawaii is represented by the Imperial UT. Literally translating to "body oil," this tech refers to the Hawaiian practice of smearing coconut oil on warrior's bodies prior to a battle, making it harder for enemy soldiers to grapple with them and harder for melee weapons to land. Because of this, the tech boosts the melee armor of all infantry. While the Maoris were not known for their archery, the Hawaiians were adept at ranged support as well as having fearsome infantry, so the Polynesians get a full tech tree for standard infantry and archers.
The civ bonuses are much more generalized, not referring to any particular Polynesians.
Their first bonus is non-renewable food is gathered 10% faster. This applies to berries, boar, deer, sheep, AND fish. This gives them a strong early game both on water and land maps, allowing them to get out warships early, on water maps, or to rush more easily on land maps. This also reflects an interesting aspect of Polynesian history. Despite modern popular images of Polynesians as harmonious with nature, they were actually exceptionally rapacious on the islands they occupied: fossil data can trace exactly when Polynesians arrived at any particular island by tracking when a mass extinction occurs. To reflect this, they are given a bonus which makes them chew through a variety of resources faster, and they lack Crop Rotation, forcing them to use more wood for farms and balancing their early eco strength. Additionally, this bonus heavily encourages outward expansion, since moving on to fresh lands renews the eco bonus's effectiveness by getting new sources of food.
Their second bonus is primarily a defensive one (and makes this civ top-tier for Sudden Death), allowing the Polynesians to defend on land while they focus on economy. However, it is also useful for forward TC colonies, an aspect of their gameplay which is further discussed below.
A major challenge of this civ was that, if it's in any way going to be accurate, it basically has to be a Meso civ in terms of tech tree, missing out on both cavalry and gunpowder. However, it is unlike a Meso civ in that we wanted it to have a strong navy (even without Cannon Galleon), and not have a focus on eagles like other Meso civs, hence they lack elite eagle warrior (although Castle Age eagles is still a viable strategy, and believe it or not can be historically accurate, reflecting the birdman cult of the Easter Islanders). Anyway, making a Meso civ with a top-tier navy, as we intended to do, proved to be a challenge without cannon galleon. To compensate, their last two bonuses buff the galley line and make it semi-viable vs buildings.
+1 range means not only that they can take much more favorable fights in the late game on water, but also allows them to outrange Castles without Bracer and inflict more damage from the shoreline. Additionally, galleys get an attack bonus vs buildings which adds up quickly, given that galleons fire faster and are generally in much greater numbers than Cannon Galleons. Effectively, these two bonuses are meant to make large groups of Galleons quasi-replacements for the Cannon Galleon without making them OP vs other warships.
Their team bonus buffs transport ships, fittingly for a civ which rapidly expanded to many islands across vast distances. 20% faster is chosen because it makes Polynesian transport ships outrun all other ships in the game except for the Berber demolition ship, making this civ really nice for rapid expansion to islands (Migration, Pilgrims, and of course Pacific Islands maps) as well as for Regicide games on water.
Finally, their second unique unit, the Settler, gives them a boost with their boom. Their food price is a little hefty, but they can build TCs like no one else can starting in Castle Age. Building forward TCs to expand eco and take advantage of the food gathering bonus is a part of this civs' strategy, and the Settler does this very well, along with the civs' TC bonuses. The TC range allows them to ward off mangonels, and the Settler gets an attack bonus vs rams to help defend forward TCs. For best results, load a couple Settlers in a speedy transport to quickly build an entire city on another island. Good for relocating destroyed bases as well.
So there you have it, a Meso civ which is designed to be competitive on water maps, that reflects the history and strengths of the Polynesians, and that represents the different factions as an umbrella civ rather than just one or two. Apologies for the super-long post (the more I worked on the civ idea, the more I got into it), and if you managed to read to the end, I salute you and look forward to your feedback!
Cheers!
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