New civ concept: the Afghans

Hey everyone, Anatarion here for AOE2 Civ Concepts LLC and today u/ChuKoNoob and I are back with a new civ idea: the Afghans. We hope that we have continued to improve our clarity of formatting, civ synergy, rationale and of course our ideas; and that this idea promotes healthy discussion of the current game balance.

I'd also like to acknowledge the contribution of u/UsacDynastic in constructing the feel of the civ and in providing some ideas. Their idea published a few weeks back is similar to ours in some respects, and that is why.

This is also the last of our civ ideas, 16 in all. I've been making some progress in recreating our ideas as ingame civs for HD using the AGE editor. 3 civs are already functional, although not well polished with regards to text and architecture and UU graphics. It is my understanding that when modding civ's on HD, it is impossible to introduce an additional civ to the set, and you are required to modify/remove an existing civ to experiment with one of your own. If this is not the case please let me know.

Afghans (balanced civ, specialists in adjusting quickly and countering

Throughout the middle ages there were many dynasties in the region dominated by the Hindu Kush mountain range, and many potential invaders to the north, east and west. You must be flexible and use your knowledge of the local terrain if you are to lead your people to victory against all your enemies.

Spoken Language: Pashto

Architecture/Ship design: Indian

Civ Bonuses:

• Universities cost -100 wood

• Technologies research 15/20/25% faster (not age-ups) in feudal/castle/imperial

• Infantry and cavalry armour techs merged (cavalry armour techs removed, their effects are redistributed to the infantry armour techs)

• Battle elephants can cut trees

• Barracks/Stable/Range units +1 los in Feudal age

• Team bonus Stone piles are revealed

Missing techs

• Barracks: Eagle scout

• Range: Heavy cav archer, Parthian tactics

• Stable: Hussar, Paladin

• Blacksmith: None

• Siege: Siege onager, Bombard cannon

• Monastery: Faith, Heresy, illumination, theocracy

• Economy: Gold shaft mining

• University: Bombard tower, heated shot

• Dock: Fast fire ship, Heavy demo ship, Elite cannon galleon

• Castle: None

Unique techs:

Castle age: Quarries - Stone miners work 30% faster

300 food + 200 gold

Imperial age: Insurgents - Mangonel line and Trebuchets +35 attack vs siege

400 gold + 600 food

Unique unit:

Light trebuchet, cheaper/weaker trebuchet alternative

Costs: 200 wood + 120 gold, Elite - 700 food + 700 wood

Combat stats: 80(100) hp, 60(80) pierce, 10(11) range, 0/7 armour, 8 rof, 100% accuracy against buildings, 15% accuracy against units

Attack bonuses: +80(120) vs buildings

Hidden armour: none

Classification: siege weapon, unique unit

Other statistics: 0.8 movement speed, creates in 50(40) seconds

Wonder: Minaret of Jam, unique in all the Islamic world, quite impressive More info/image

Synergy/design rationale

To reflect the Afghani history as a people surrounded by superpowers in a rugged landscape, we have constructed this civ to be a defensive civ with bonuses designed to assist with flexible transitions between unit compositions.

Cheaper universities, faster researching techs, additional los to all infantry/archers/cavalry obviously assist with those transitions. Now to describe how the infantry/cavalry armour thing works, all techs are still available, but the benefits from the cavalry armour techs are gained by researching the infantry armour techs. The infantry armour techs are also researched slightly faster and are slightly cheaper, so that's helpful also. This bonus is particularly useful in any scenario where you are using infantry and cavalry simultaneously, but also helps with a transition later in the game.

Allowing battle elephants to cut trees should provide some interesting sneaky castle age strategies, with a single elephant able to provide entry to a fully walled base for maybe a crossbow or knight army without creating any alarms.

Finally stone piles being revealed should help with an offensive trush, and scouting an opponents trush.

With regards to the tech tree, some key power units are missing such as viable hca, Paladins, BBC, SO and most late-game naval units. But importantly there is no obvious weakness to the Afghans, with good infantry, arbalest/hc, very well rounded cavalry - being the only civ to have all 4 standard cavalry units available, a full blacksmith, monks with block printing and redemption.

To be honest, the UU is probably the thing that fits least well with the civ. It should be balanced and provide interesting siege options in the castle age, although all civ's castles can retaliate after bodkin arrow; but we are happy to take suggestions for alternate UU's that fit the civ better. The only caveat is that they must not be too similar to existing UU's in both the live game and our other 15 ideas.

I think the 2 UT's are pretty straight forward, with the castle age UT being a bit of a filler but possibly helping with an imperial age keep spam, and the imperial age UT helping the mangonel line and both types of trebuchet's against other siege. Allowing them to kill opposing siege in fewer hits.

We see the Afghans as a really frustrating civ to play against, able to counter pretty much everything quite nicely, but perhaps a bit prone to drawn out games. Not so much because the Afghan bonuses are aligned to the late-game, basically every bonus comes into play before the imperial age, but because the Afghan win condition is usually to just take cost efficient trades over and over again, and ultimately have a stronger economy with many possible strong army compositions that can be tailored to your opponents civ.

Previous Civ Concepts:

Bantu

Caribs

Chola

Dutch

Georgians

Helvetians

Iroquoi

Kanembu

Khazars

Mississippians

Nepalese

Nubians

Polynesians

Tartars

Thai

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