I'm really surprised you didn't mention Cuman Mercenaries (team members can create 5 free Elite Kipchaks per Castle)! It is entirely worthless in ranked 1v1s and barely worth it in team games unless you have a significant economic lead.
One slipped through the cracks! That should have definitely made the list ahaha. It is possible to use in 1v1s though, just applies to your own castles.
I think the mercenaries cost 50 less food, and 50 more gold than just creating them in a 1v1, so it isn't terrible to get as they are elite. I guess in theory getting Elite ones without having to get the upgrade when you are trying to close out the game could be nice in theory. I get it in team arena games.
A strat that I've seen talked about is if all players on the team go Cumans, go fast Imp with as much stone for castles as possible and then everyone gets Cuman Mercenaries, resulting in each player getting 20 free Elite Kipchaks per castle.
If the mercenaries didn't take up pop space that might be pretty fun. You can't train them again after they die so it's not like it's a permanent advantage. It can be a bit of an edge to crush your opponents. Which is what you would want mercs for historically anyway to round out your regulars and levies.
Cool video.... Might I suggest a complementary "The 6 Most CRUCIAL AOE2 Unique Techs" video? The techs that have the biggest difference on how well a civilization does.
I hope aetheism gets a further buff to like 80% reduction, or something. That would take even a 5-0 relic game to more like a 1-0 relic game, which sounds very helpful to me even for 1000 res
The point about Nomads isn't only about losing houses. It's more about deleting houses yourself and the space it provides. Very helpful on closed maps like Arena or Black Forest where your bases can normally become pretty cramped, but with Nomads you don't need houses and can have all the more space for farms, production buildings and trade routes.
The only use case for andyan sling I have found is that it allows your slingers/skirms to kill onagers from minimum range as to not allow it to fire. Normally you can get them in, but then they cant attack
I feel that most of the problems on the techs listed here could be alleviated by simply reducing the cost. Most of the civs listed here are already strong, so reducing the tech cost would make the techs to be "okay it's not that useful but it's very cheap so why not" stuffs that would not affect the balance too much
@@srijitmajumder99 this tech is not so useful to Dravidians since their elephants are not resistant to conversion unlike Bengalis’. May be Med Corps should apply to all Dravidian military units.
I agree it does have niche uses in TG but it's not super good or anything, at most you are saving some resources that you use to sling your allies that has more useful units.
Even then, 20 hp/minute seems pretty negligible. To actually get a solid amount of hp back, those ele archers would have to sit untouched for a loooong time (by AoE standards).
Stronghold is fun if you're using the cheat (or a mod) that lets you research techs 256 times. Once you've gotten about a dozen stronghold researches your towers start firing laser beams.
I would keep the Stronghold tech but add a damage buff of +2 attack to towers and castles to compensate for lack of bracer, as well as halving all damage done by siege against towers and castles to compensate for lack of architecture as well as reflect the inaccessible locations of celtic castles. This way the Celts have insane towers and castles in castle age, but lack the range of other castles and towers with bracer while only doing the same damage except at a faster rate. Stronghold would make the Celts an excellent defensive civilization which would reflect Celtic history of retreating to inaccessible mountain ranges and forests.
honestly, nomads IMO is an ridiculously underused tech, at least at high mid-elo (1k2- 1k5, which is my elo range, consistently inconsistent player here), but also quite some Pro games I've seen, I think would have been flipped by Nomads. It can help incredibly well against all in pushes when you yourself are not yet setup for pushing, have some res floating and would have everything to defend that push, yet they focus your castles and houses and you die with res not used or a hundred unit queue not moving. Especially with mongols and their strong earlygame, weak midgame and strong lategame, I've noticed that time and time again in my own games but actually as well in pro games. You have to hold with mongols, until you magudai +/ siege mass and hussar spam can kick in with good upgrades. If your opponent knows that and has a more midgame oriented civ and go all in once you've hit imp or they see you starting with mangudai or smth, there were many games which would have likely had a flipped outcome if nomads was researched, both in games I've won vs Mongols, lost with mongols, and seen by hera, viper, daut, and the god of being housed ofc, MBL. Especially as its so cheap, it'seasy to sneak in when just a bit of res is floating in many situations.
I think the best way to change the nomads tech would be to give the Mongols max pop cap after researching it and have the cost scale depending on how much pop space they have (similar to how spies scales with the number of enemy units)
Or give the mongols additional 20% of the wood costs back when you delete your own buildings (except farms). Replacing the lumberjack give you 20 wood back.
Not to be that guy, but Corps is pronounced "core" not "corpse." From the latin "corpus," meaning "body" or "body of people." So it's like "Medical Group" or "Medical Unit." English is a frankenlanguage.
My thought has *always* been that Medical Corps isn't for Battle Elephants, and that it's generally better to ignore them. Medical Corps is for their Siege Elephants and Elephant Archers, both units that are in many cases meant to soak up lots of damage, and especially in the case of Elephant Archers which are more back-line than most of the Dravidian army, can actually realistically get quite a bit of benefit from regenerating health. Is it a *good* tech? Not really, but it's better than people give it credit for because they only ever look at it from "well Dravidians have shit Battle Elephants".
It can be combined with the Byzantines' team bonus of faster healing, to keep slow and expensive units alive on the battlefield (and be ready to convert them back if opponent uses monks). The monks would still be very vulnerable, though. I guess that used right, they can be as annoying to the opponent as villagers repairing siege weapons. (Repairing with villagers requires a lot of micro-management, though. I wish repairmen would automatically repair stuff, especially the unit they had been tasked with, once it took another hit... And that priests could be tasked with "guarding" the faith of a unit, or going on "aggressive" mission...)
@@mauer1 It seems to me like the AI units have more "soul" than human-controlled units, which are more like mechanical tools for the human player. It almost makes me sad to kill all those units that really do their best to stay alive... (except when they walk right through a rain of arrows without reacting... 😵)
@@RennieAsh How can you do it "earlier" with nomads if nomads isn't even available before you get a castle up? We see players placing random houses as early as feudal age, simply because it is never worth the enemies time to destroy them anyway. Nomads does not change that.
The idea I had for stronghold was to buff both the fire rate and give towers and castles both +1000HP and remove hoardings. That would make their towers unique and could help for treb wars as you can research an extra HP buff while advancing to imperial. By the way: I once played a game on Arena vs. Burmese where strongholds made sense. Since Burmese have bombard cannons, arambai, excelent monks with redemption and better champions, I thought my only trick would be to use crossbow in imperial and it worked against the arambai.
I went through a period where I was creatling lots of civ draft ideas, and I've got something that could replace the Huns "Atheism" One of these civilisation drafts is for a similar raiding civilisation known as the "Vandals", and their unique technology "Apostacy". If researched, enemy monks upon successfully converting a unit have a 33% chance of dying. It's not exactly a mainstay of their playstyle, but could give them a niche against civilisations like the Aztecs with their infamous Monk spam, and some of the other insane Monk civilisation draft ideas I have, like the Muisca and Umayyads.
Nomads might be kinda useful if you just delete all of the houses yourself (i don't actually know if this works. i haven't tried it yet) . That is if you're playing a game where you don't have much space to work with.
@@RennieAsh I actually hate the spanish tech for that. Even in normal games it's pretty useless and in those games it's just too overpowered if you're really commited haha
Easy solution for Celt's Stronghold- Make it also apply to town centers. Sure it's not too huge, but it does provide some raiding defense. "In ancient Celtic Lands, TC EAT YOU."
contains spoilers Imo, one big issue with nomads is its research time. Normally, you would want to get it as your opponent is starting to wreck your houses but if you do that, most of the houses will already be down before it is completed. This makes it even harder to use that technology than it would otherwise be already.
Andean sling is mostly a buff for dealing with Spearmen line, if you get into a trash war, having your skirms able to hit halbs at close range means the halbs are utterly destroyed, allowing you to take more aggressive fights or even bunch skirms in a small spot without having 20+ unable to hit. Yeah it sucks against gold units, but it's for anti halb, and better dealing with light cav.
This tech is best used against low pierce armored melee units, something along the lines of Mongol Hussars or Goth Champions. Not a total counter, but a visible increase in DPS.
Atheism would've been useful back when T90 was running those 'god mode' community games. A hun player should've researched atheism, then spent the rest of the game claiming T90 doesn't exist and ignoring everything he says.
The other issue with faster firing castles is that generally castles are just area denial. Skilled players are largely trying to avoid getting shot by castles at all unless they are trying to take them out with something like rams or Teutonic knights. But mostly castles get avoided until they can be trebbed down.
2:20 It means that it takes around 40 mins to pay itself back IF each opponent has at least 1 relic. So usually you're just shooting yourself in the foot.
Hey T90, Bohemian native speaker here, when you try to pronounce houfnice don't go for "hoofnice", try more like "h-oh-fnice". Also the singular and plural are the same. You could also use the word howitzer, which is an english equivalent originating from the word houfnice. Love your work.
Nomads lets you delete all your houses, so it buts you roughly 120 tiles of space. Not that bad a real estate deal. 14 farms worth of space. Nothing outstanding, but it can make the difference on closed maps.
The biggest problem with Atheism is that is was specifically designed with the final Attila the Hun mission, and attempting to replace the useless main benefit of it would mess with the flow of The Fall of Rome.
Celts could have a tech that reduces friendly damage from siege, medical corps could be changed to something that let you garrison about 5 elephants on stables and heal them, not THAT usefull, but could be used like khmer houses for shennanigans, incas could have a little aoe damage effect on their unique tech, at least for slingers, atheism could change victory conditions debuff for a damage buff against monks, and keep the relic debuff thing, and to make it viable against early monks, make it researchable in stables
You could buff atheism but make it dependent on how many relics you hold yourself, say a 75% penalty of gold generation but this percentage cuts in half for every relic you own. So, it's a good tech if you're behind in relics but when you conquer them, you must weigh your options, how desperate you are for gold. Do you bring the relic back to your base and guard it outside your monestary or do you place it inside and allow your opponent more gold access for more of your own. I think that would be fun.
Not really - consider the opportunity cost of spending all your wood early game on houses. Even if the tech 'remembers' each house you put up after they get destroyed, you're still sinking wood into a bonus you won't be benefitting from until imp. If you can get value out of blocking off enemy resources then it might be worth it, but at that point just play berbers and vil rush easier that way.
Mongols should be a bit more like Huns imo, maybe starting with 50-75 free pop before they could get housed. And then you can have the destroyed house thing later, either through the tech or a passive bonus like you've suggested.
@@neildutoit5177 That's true. Mongols are strong already. Alternatively they could give Nomads an instant benefit by giving some extra population through the tech itself.
Gonna have to really disagree with the Medical Corps argument. It wouldn't be all that great if they weren't elephants, but if you get 20-30 elephants, its easy enough to micro the one being targeted without it dying, and let it heal from behind the rest. Combined with healing siege elephants to soak up fire, you have an late-game death-ball that produces an insanely good KD versus only a handful of civs. Of course, it is a death-ball scenario and the challenge is always getting there, but if you mix in a monk or two, you never need to retreat to heal up.
"corps" is pronounced like "core".. You're welcome. Your life will now be enriched thanks to this knowledge. Jk, it's just a pet peeve of mine when I hear someone pronounce it like "corpse".
Bohemians I love the Bohemian build, the waggons do exactly what they did in reality, act as a mobile barrier to protect their Halbs, HC, Crossbowmen and cannon from incoming projectiles. As well as Hussite reforms although if they tweak it, I won’t complain. The innovation of the Bohemians is wonderful. The only change I would give them would be to help solidify the use of defensive wagon, Halbs, HC, Crossbowmen and cannon squares. Bohemians should get a castle age buff but an Imp nerf. They lose arbalesters but their castle age crossbows get +1 range and or attack. Celts. I love that the Devs used Brave Heart as inspiration for the celts and went with the early to high middle ages build and not high to late middle ages. I also love their UT strongholds, to represent the hillforts they made extensive use of. The only way I would alter the DE2 Celts are as follows: UT imp:Furor Celtica Ram +40% HP and increased Ram speed. Stable Light cav No knight available in castle age but upon reaching imp you can automatically train cavalier (Same goes for Gaels/Irish) To show their lack of heavy cav until the Hospitallars set up a branch HQ in Scotland in th 1200’s AD. AR Archer - Crossbowmen (But wielding a regular bow) (Same goes for Gaels/Irish) Elite skirm should have +1 Melee armour and also benefit from the Infantry move 15% faster bonus. SW Siege ram Mangonel Scorpion
I like to build every one of my houses in a single Black Forest choke point. Leaves an option to, late in the game, research nomads, delete them all, and run through.
I kind of agree with Hussite Reforms, however on long team games that the opponent can mass things like ballista elephant or SO’s it can be very strong
With Dravidians, I love using Urumi + elephant archers, thus Medical corpse is a good tech for me. What I would change of the Dravidians is the following: Dravidians I would love to see the Dravidian ‘’Skirmishers attack 25% faster’’ bonus go to a new Mapuches/Tarascans civ that forms part of a New DLC Tribes of the Tropics DLC Taíno/Arawak peoples / Carib kingdom/Tupi Zaputechs Mapuches/Tarascans. Toltecs Polynesians/ Tuʻi Tonga Empire. In turn the Dravidian Urumi gains the ability to build/repair docks and faster firing BBC/hand cannoneers. Burmese. +1 attack per age for infantry bonus should go to Byzantines and instead Burmese gets Elephant archers that are also cheaper. (Strong expensive Battle elephants and Cheap elephant archers) Inca Should gain a UU in archery range : Quechua Bolas Warrior (Shared unit with the Mapuches) Quechua ranged infantry that hurls bolas for a wide area of effect. The bola slows down/ensnares enemies and does slight area damage (mostly against archers). Good against cavalry. Receives a free Chasqui each age. Chasqui - Inca scout with a great deal of utility. Can build outposts. When attacking, the Chasqui uses its quipu as a weapon.
Maybe the Nomad tech can be used in a weird strat in which you build a lot of houses early on as a wall and then you don't need to worry for the rest of the game about building houses.
what I noticed: alot of these unic techs are usual on civs, who are already strong, who already have a winning thing, like a civ bonus, a other tech or a unit AoE2 has really a nice mix of: civs, who relay on their unic techs or who let them stand out, like the goths but then, their are already good civs, who get small bonus from their unic techs, like the mongols or so
It is so sad Huns don't get 50% cost spies anymore 😞Best unique tech for FFA to be honest because FFA games tend to go long enough to have the 15k gold plus also gold for army... and given Huns fast moving army (and with Tarkans, basically fast-moving siege too) they become good at that point despite how much you would maybe better off spending that on army itself. It can be strategically better.
If a civ has strong passive bonuses, it makes sense for that civ to have weaker unique techs. On the flip side, Goths, for example, have no eco bonuses whatsoever, but have two extremely strong unique techs. I don't think civs should be balanced around every civ having similar power spikes from their unique techs. I think you did a good job explaining that in this video
Maybe if stronghold increase attack speed by 50%, nomad decrease the house cost by 50%, atheism make enemy monk generate faith 50% longer, andean sling increasing range or attack speed, and medical corps have the same regen as berserk with berserkergang, then maybe it's somewhat useful.
Medical Corps is great. Makes your Elephant Archer Death Ball stronger. You can shoot and scoot fairly decent (even without husbandry) with them just with the rate of fire.
Andian Sling feels like a team bonus. Maybe it could give some other buff like +1 range. Idk if that's good, too good, or bad. Nomads feels like a civ bonus - and not the important kind. Thankfully, they don't really need help. When I saw Magyars, I thought you were gonna say that Corvinian Army should be removed and the cost set to food only by default, but it was Medical Corps. :D (Btw, it's pronounced "core" since it's French in origin. Given its limited application, maybe calling it a corpse is appropriate though.) They might end up buffing the healing rate, but I think fixing elephants in general first makes more sense. I know you didn't propose changes, but I just can't help myself. I want as many things in this game as possible to be useful. The devs have already done a good job dealing with this as you said, I just hope they keep doing it. Thank you for providing more opportunities for discussion.
Hun atheism should be changed to make hunnic units unconvertable. Its expensive imperial tech in a castle so it wouldnt break castle age or early imperial age aggression, it fits the name, and huns dont have onager or bbc to be op with.
Main problem with Hussite Reform is its expensive cost. Rather impractical to research. Doesn't worth quite well compared to just researching the techs in gold.
Atheism is one of those things that it's going to be really awkward for them to change because the last mission in the Huns campaign was built with it in mind. Sure, it's not necessary at all in order to beat the mission, but it's a way to ease back the timer a bit. Sadly, because of this, unless they adjust the campaign mission to have you trigger it some other way it's likely never going to see a total rework.
that's how you spot an overpowered civ. If it has a useless unique tech, it's already too strong and the devs didn't want to make it too overpowered. also a strong unique tech is worse than if a civ get's something for free. Because you have to get to castle age or imp even first, make a castle and then research it so that's time and res spent.
Aside from maybe celts and dravidians, even the bad unique techs kind of end up having a weird niche, so I like them. Monks costing food is a really compelling effect, but that and something like atheism are probably my least favorite kind of thing. Techs that generally take too long to pay off just seem poorly balanced. Although, I guess black forest type of games are a good argument for creating something out of that type of advantage.
I'm surprised to see Hussite Reforms on this list. It's niche, but not useless. Late game 1v1, gold becomes a limiting factor as it becomes harder to access with safer piles being mined out (And market prices tanking due to both players selling extra Wood/Food/Stone) Monks are always useful against siege (Also, elephants) as well as being decent versus Kts/Cav/Pala. Being able to make Block Printing + Redemption Monks in addition to your Arbs/Houfnice/HC's using the resource you have in abundance can be useful in certain situations. Of course, teamgames it's not as useful because trading allows for infinite gold.
Don't mind my theory crafting but I think that Atheism as a tech can be completely reworked. First off, since the tech references the board, I'd recommend a buff of relic gold to the Hun economy instead of nerfing the board. +15 gold per minute trickle (Or a 30% boost) would be a starting point (Trial and error can balance this number), though this can be adjusted. Sure it's a weaker boost, but remember that the Huns sacked relics and took it for themselves, and even took Honoria from the Western Roman Empire as a tribute for marriage. Next is the monastery and relating to speed. Have your team receive a work buff of 25% as a starting baseline as opposed to no speed. The monks coming in faster will be useful as a team bonus tech just so that your allies can push faster in late game if needed. Your techs coming in faster along with faster relic gold means more options and less reliance on the markets in the late game for some gold. Maybe use the gold for some pretty awesome costly units. The final bonus would be the relic and wonder victory, though this one needs not to be changed. Cost: 600 Resources at 40s Research Time at Imperial Age (This can be changed later)
Atheism should be an upgraded version of Faith/Heresy, making any unit completely invulnerable to monks. Of course, this would be really expensive and you need a castle to get it. Andean Sling should be instead a starting civ bonus: "No minimal range for Archery units", making incan archers+squirm combo very scary at feudal age and would give them a new identity. As for the castle tech, they should bring back "Couriers" but instead of Eagles it affects militia-line and villagers.
Maybe useless is a bit excessive for this but I think crenelations (Teutons) is a pretty bad one. First off, I've never seen a situation where someone would want their infantry inside their castles instead of attacking. And second, +3 range (more like only +2 because they lack bracer) is actually not too bad BUT for 600 food and 400 stone is too expensive, you can almost build another castle with this much stone.
i would like to see a counter for mass siege with the Celts. i go mass scorpions and it seems no one can ever stop it. usually 60 scorpions and the rest woad raider or pikeman depending on other civ and what they are producing with what upgrades.
I did not play online in a while but I always hated playing against Celts - I never saw mass scorpions with them though ( just ballista elephants of the Khmer) My intuition calls for BBC or SOs... but SOs loose to Celt SOs For me it is always the siege onager nightmare: the siege onager-halberdier-combination is just soooooo cost efficient against many other units And if you try to go SO as well their SOs have more HP and damage output So i only managed with very carefull bombard canon gameplay or with Britons (100% accuracy trebs) or Japanese (fire-and-retreat trebs + superior halberdiers) and while they can just spam produce units you have to micro quite well to catch the SOs and not lose your more expensive siege units >_< It just feels like some civs get no chance against Celts in post imp ?Maybe some kind of "avoid/distract SO deathball gameplay" and counterattack somewhere else? Or you try to win before post-imperial or deny a critical mass of SOs ...But then again I only press buttons and sometimes I win and sometimes I lose in Aoe2 ^^' I usually dont watch the meta gameplay too much and tend to tinker with solutions myself so I might be completely off - feel free to correct me
perhaps some unique technologies could exist only for campaign missions where they do make a difference, like in Starcraft 2 where some very cool and strange techs were there for the sake of the mission to make it more fun.
I dont play AOE, but it really sounds like to me that at least some of those techs would be better-off removed AND added as a civilization bonus. This fixes the balancing dilemma for something that almost never get used or changed much and just makes the game more fun and varied.
Dude, I'm sorry but you're mistaken on Andean sling. Inca skirms are amazing in trash wars. You can spam them vs halbs or light cav and they trade well. They're especially good if you're in a situation where you can't pay attention to part of the map while you handle something else for more than a few seconds. You can set five to ten ranges to spam skirms on a gather point and ignore it for a while. And for Nomads, it's situational but when you need space it's SO valuable. Also if your base gets raided and smashed, you don't need to worry about rebuilding houses. In a team game that lets you rebuild and rejoin the fight a lot faster than normal.
Spirit of the T90 Official
T90 of the Law
Wow, Spirit of the Law sure sounds different, and there seems to be much less math. 🤔
Joking aside, that was a neat little video. 👍
I'm really surprised you didn't mention Cuman Mercenaries (team members can create 5 free Elite Kipchaks per Castle)! It is entirely worthless in ranked 1v1s and barely worth it in team games unless you have a significant economic lead.
One slipped through the cracks! That should have definitely made the list ahaha. It is possible to use in 1v1s though, just applies to your own castles.
I think the mercenaries cost 50 less food, and 50 more gold than just creating them in a 1v1, so it isn't terrible to get as they are elite. I guess in theory getting Elite ones without having to get the upgrade when you are trying to close out the game could be nice in theory. I get it in team arena games.
A strat that I've seen talked about is if all players on the team go Cumans, go fast Imp with as much stone for castles as possible and then everyone gets Cuman Mercenaries, resulting in each player getting 20 free Elite Kipchaks per castle.
If the mercenaries didn't take up pop space that might be pretty fun.
You can't train them again after they die so it's not like it's a permanent advantage.
It can be a bit of an edge to crush your opponents. Which is what you would want mercs for historically anyway to round out your regulars and levies.
Tbh it's one of the worst techs. I don't even think that anybody even uses those kipchaks
Cool video.... Might I suggest a complementary "The 6 Most CRUCIAL AOE2 Unique Techs" video?
The techs that have the biggest difference on how well a civilization does.
Magyars - Both their techs are critical to their play
The most CRUCIAL unique techs?
....it depends
@@scarymonster7765 Hahaaa! Yeah that's the answer of course of course.
The Tech of Imperial of the Malayan is fundamental to play correctly.
Im 100% sure that atheism tech gonna be mentioned on this video
The Huns fans are already preparing
#CheckmateAtheists
It's actually a lot better than stuff like range on TCs.
Have some faith
Not only that, it's literally the first one mentioned lol
I used Nomads one time in an Amazon Tunnel 4v4 game - letting me clear out houses for trade and base space was super helpful!
That's the real plan. Not for losing houses opponents, but to your own sprawling economy.
Nomad tech is super usefull. Nothing worse than getting nonstop housed in imperial age.
I love Nomads tech as I always build houses as walls, late age when my walls destroyed I won’t be housed 😉
Yeah I use Nomads quite a bit in tight packed maps closed maps
I actually use nomads all the time in ffa games with low building space.
I hope aetheism gets a further buff to like 80% reduction, or something. That would take even a 5-0 relic game to more like a 1-0 relic game, which sounds very helpful to me even for 1000 res
Make it 100% to make it really impactful
Should be renamed "shamanism" or "tengrism" to fit Hunnic religions
Well if you have another opponents thats also huns, wouldnt their atheism tech stack agaisnt you?
Just change its effect completely tbh
I feel like it should make units unable to be converted because of it's name. But I'm not good at this game and a dumbyhead.
The point about Nomads isn't only about losing houses. It's more about deleting houses yourself and the space it provides. Very helpful on closed maps like Arena or Black Forest where your bases can normally become pretty cramped, but with Nomads you don't need houses and can have all the more space for farms, production buildings and trade routes.
Gold everything?
Great Tech in Forest Nothing!
Never considered this - good point
Bingo, makes space on your map, added bonus is it removes likelihood of you becoming housed later in the game
I would still leave the houses protecting the walls, making walls with the houses.
"Medical corpse" 🤔
zombie
And I thought "silk roads" was bad.....
Good metal band name
The only use case for andyan sling I have found is that it allows your slingers/skirms to kill onagers from minimum range as to not allow it to fire. Normally you can get them in, but then they cant attack
I feel that most of the problems on the techs listed here could be alleviated by simply reducing the cost. Most of the civs listed here are already strong, so reducing the tech cost would make the techs to be "okay it's not that useful but it's very cheap so why not" stuffs that would not affect the balance too much
Medical corpse seems like an oxymoron
Medical corps (core)
oh wow hahaha
Dravidians Elephant archers are pretty good, specially in team games… that tech is intended for them, not the melee ones
Yeah that RoF in mass is bonkers specially in BF........just fall back and watch your Elephant mass regen at the chokepoint.
A good tech applies to usually all situations. One specific unit on a specific map with a team is not too ideal
@@srijitmajumder99 this tech is not so useful to Dravidians since their elephants are not resistant to conversion unlike Bengalis’. May be Med Corps should apply to all Dravidian military units.
I agree it does have niche uses in TG but it's not super good or anything, at most you are saving some resources that you use to sling your allies that has more useful units.
Even then, 20 hp/minute seems pretty negligible. To actually get a solid amount of hp back, those ele archers would have to sit untouched for a loooong time (by AoE standards).
Can we let the record show that it’s pronounced medical “core” not “corpse.” Slightly different connotation… 😅
I wonder how he pronounces US Marine Corps 🤔
Stronghold is fun if you're using the cheat (or a mod) that lets you research techs 256 times. Once you've gotten about a dozen stronghold researches your towers start firing laser beams.
although I perfer ICBM,but laser is cool enough
@@meifray why need icbm, if you have multiple rocket silos, who can snipe everything on the map with enough bracers and stronghold
It's more like your tower is peeing on the enemy town center
Honest to god I read the title and thought this was Spirit of the Law for the first 10 seconds
I like that Skirmisher at 3:49 getting into the test, uninvited.
There's a skirmish happening without his permission!
this video greatly confused me in the beginning because, from the title, I expected this to be Spirit of the Law
I would keep the Stronghold tech but add a damage buff of +2 attack to towers and castles to compensate for lack of bracer, as well as halving all damage done by siege against towers and castles to compensate for lack of architecture as well as reflect the inaccessible locations of celtic castles. This way the Celts have insane towers and castles in castle age, but lack the range of other castles and towers with bracer while only doing the same damage except at a faster rate. Stronghold would make the Celts an excellent defensive civilization which would reflect Celtic history of retreating to inaccessible mountain ranges and forests.
But the British have already +2 attack through their UT. Let Stronghold also affect the TC and/or give the TC extra attack
honestly, nomads IMO is an ridiculously underused tech, at least at high mid-elo (1k2- 1k5, which is my elo range, consistently inconsistent player here), but also quite some Pro games I've seen, I think would have been flipped by Nomads. It can help incredibly well against all in pushes when you yourself are not yet setup for pushing, have some res floating and would have everything to defend that push, yet they focus your castles and houses and you die with res not used or a hundred unit queue not moving. Especially with mongols and their strong earlygame, weak midgame and strong lategame, I've noticed that time and time again in my own games but actually as well in pro games. You have to hold with mongols, until you magudai +/ siege mass and hussar spam can kick in with good upgrades. If your opponent knows that and has a more midgame oriented civ and go all in once you've hit imp or they see you starting with mangudai or smth, there were many games which would have likely had a flipped outcome if nomads was researched, both in games I've won vs Mongols, lost with mongols, and seen by hera, viper, daut, and the god of being housed ofc, MBL. Especially as its so cheap, it'seasy to sneak in when just a bit of res is floating in many situations.
I think the best way to change the nomads tech would be to give the Mongols max pop cap after researching it and have the cost scale depending on how much pop space they have (similar to how spies scales with the number of enemy units)
I think as long as the tech takes far less time to research, aka don’t impede manguadai production, it will be fine
Or give the mongols additional 20% of the wood costs back when you delete your own buildings (except farms). Replacing the lumberjack give you 20 wood back.
Not to be that guy, but Corps is pronounced "core" not "corpse." From the latin "corpus," meaning "body" or "body of people."
So it's like "Medical Group" or "Medical Unit." English is a frankenlanguage.
Through french, hence the silent P.
My thought has *always* been that Medical Corps isn't for Battle Elephants, and that it's generally better to ignore them. Medical Corps is for their Siege Elephants and Elephant Archers, both units that are in many cases meant to soak up lots of damage, and especially in the case of Elephant Archers which are more back-line than most of the Dravidian army, can actually realistically get quite a bit of benefit from regenerating health. Is it a *good* tech? Not really, but it's better than people give it credit for because they only ever look at it from "well Dravidians have shit Battle Elephants".
the monk upgrade sounds perfect for the ai and just going monk solo at a certain point.
It can be combined with the Byzantines' team bonus of faster healing, to keep slow and expensive units alive on the battlefield (and be ready to convert them back if opponent uses monks). The monks would still be very vulnerable, though. I guess that used right, they can be as annoying to the opponent as villagers repairing siege weapons. (Repairing with villagers requires a lot of micro-management, though. I wish repairmen would automatically repair stuff, especially the unit they had been tasked with, once it took another hit... And that priests could be tasked with "guarding" the faith of a unit, or going on "aggressive" mission...)
@@EliasHasle well yeah
something like that
but thats why i added ais into the mix
because a computer can easily micro 100 monks
@@mauer1 It seems to me like the AI units have more "soul" than human-controlled units, which are more like mechanical tools for the human player. It almost makes me sad to kill all those units that really do their best to stay alive... (except when they walk right through a rain of arrows without reacting... 😵)
@@EliasHasle well in a way they have.
But only if you wanna see an ai as a soul
hear me out: town patrol + nomads and then you spam houses everywhere like they're outposts with more hp that don't cost stone
Couldn't you do that without nomads to almost the same effect?
Lol good luck wasting time of villagers
@@randomcommenter494 you can do it earlier with nomads I guess. Other civs need a back storehouse of houses
@@czczi you only need one or two to build them. It's not a wonder lol
@@RennieAsh How can you do it "earlier" with nomads if nomads isn't even available before you get a castle up? We see players placing random houses as early as feudal age, simply because it is never worth the enemies time to destroy them anyway. Nomads does not change that.
Hey T90, former army here. Corps is pronounced like core. It’s a French word. Sorry, it was hurting me.
The idea I had for stronghold was to buff both the fire rate and give towers and castles both +1000HP and remove hoardings. That would make their towers unique and could help for treb wars as you can research an extra HP buff while advancing to imperial.
By the way: I once played a game on Arena vs. Burmese where strongholds made sense. Since Burmese have bombard cannons, arambai, excelent monks with redemption and better champions, I thought my only trick would be to use crossbow in imperial and it worked against the arambai.
I went through a period where I was creatling lots of civ draft ideas, and I've got something that could replace the Huns "Atheism"
One of these civilisation drafts is for a similar raiding civilisation known as the "Vandals", and their unique technology "Apostacy". If researched, enemy monks upon successfully converting a unit have a 33% chance of dying. It's not exactly a mainstay of their playstyle, but could give them a niche against civilisations like the Aztecs with their infamous Monk spam, and some of the other insane Monk civilisation draft ideas I have, like the Muisca and Umayyads.
I love the Monk only cost food tech, sooo fun in team games to just spam monks like it is hussars
I bet your teammates hate you though lmao... they want to win, not see mass monks
@@machete660 Obviously i only do it vs elephants/knights/siege, and it is always what wins us the game
That tech is soo great. Unfrotunately kinda uselessor very very situational in 1v1s
@@machete660 imagine thinking monks are bad, i guess you just have to learn how to micro
Nomads might be kinda useful if you just delete all of the houses yourself (i don't actually know if this works. i haven't tried it yet) . That is if you're playing a game where you don't have much space to work with.
I would love a follow up video of "most useful techs in x256 mod"
The celt one is gonna be up there for sure then haha
@@arthurreede4478 that said most people seem to end up making extreme villagers or other too fast to hit military unit that does 1M dps etc
bengalis- mahayana could be fun (probably break the game though) but its always range and speed techs that dominate
@@RennieAsh I actually hate the spanish tech for that. Even in normal games it's pretty useless and in those games it's just too overpowered if you're really commited haha
"Or Herbal medicine" - vicious takedown of medical corps there.
Easy solution for Celt's Stronghold- Make it also apply to town centers. Sure it's not too huge, but it does provide some raiding defense.
"In ancient Celtic Lands, TC EAT YOU."
contains spoilers
Imo, one big issue with nomads is its research time. Normally, you would want to get it as your opponent is starting to wreck your houses but if you do that, most of the houses will already be down before it is completed. This makes it even harder to use that technology than it would otherwise be already.
Andean sling is mostly a buff for dealing with Spearmen line, if you get into a trash war, having your skirms able to hit halbs at close range means the halbs are utterly destroyed, allowing you to take more aggressive fights or even bunch skirms in a small spot without having 20+ unable to hit.
Yeah it sucks against gold units, but it's for anti halb, and better dealing with light cav.
This tech is best used against low pierce armored melee units, something along the lines of Mongol Hussars or Goth Champions. Not a total counter, but a visible increase in DPS.
Atheism would've been useful back when T90 was running those 'god mode' community games. A hun player should've researched atheism, then spent the rest of the game claiming T90 doesn't exist and ignoring everything he says.
Love seeing illustrated vignettes of certain technologies at their most useful / most disadvantageous scenarios, Could be a good series.
The other issue with faster firing castles is that generally castles are just area denial. Skilled players are largely trying to avoid getting shot by castles at all unless they are trying to take them out with something like rams or Teutonic knights. But mostly castles get avoided until they can be trebbed down.
2:20 It means that it takes around 40 mins to pay itself back IF each opponent has at least 1 relic. So usually you're just shooting yourself in the foot.
Medical Corps is underrated now. Their elephant archers just chug on forever.
Hey T90, Bohemian native speaker here, when you try to pronounce houfnice don't go for "hoofnice", try more like "h-oh-fnice". Also the singular and plural are the same. You could also use the word howitzer, which is an english equivalent originating from the word houfnice. Love your work.
Hey guys, Spirit of the Law here. Today we're gonna take a look at the 6 most useless unique techs in Age of Empires 2.
I think most of these techs could be better represented as an additional Civ bonus
great video format and effort. keep it up!
Nomads lets you delete all your houses, so it buts you roughly 120 tiles of space. Not that bad a real estate deal. 14 farms worth of space. Nothing outstanding, but it can make the difference on closed maps.
The biggest problem with Atheism is that is was specifically designed with the final Attila the Hun mission, and attempting to replace the useless main benefit of it would mess with the flow of The Fall of Rome.
Celts could have a tech that reduces friendly damage from siege, medical corps could be changed to something that let you garrison about 5 elephants on stables and heal them, not THAT usefull, but could be used like khmer houses for shennanigans, incas could have a little aoe damage effect on their unique tech, at least for slingers, atheism could change victory conditions debuff for a damage buff against monks, and keep the relic debuff thing, and to make it viable against early monks, make it researchable in stables
What if medical corps just made monks heal faster? And maybe they could heal from slightly further away, as well
I get Atheism every game. It is an absolute must have no matter what. I do only play relic nothing though.
You could buff atheism but make it dependent on how many relics you hold yourself, say a 75% penalty of gold generation but this percentage cuts in half for every relic you own. So, it's a good tech if you're behind in relics but when you conquer them, you must weigh your options, how desperate you are for gold. Do you bring the relic back to your base and guard it outside your monestary or do you place it inside and allow your opponent more gold access for more of your own. I think that would be fun.
If Nomads were just a passive civ bonus, would it be broken? You could wall in opponent's resources with houses early on at almost no cost.
Not really - consider the opportunity cost of spending all your wood early game on houses. Even if the tech 'remembers' each house you put up after they get destroyed, you're still sinking wood into a bonus you won't be benefitting from until imp. If you can get value out of blocking off enemy resources then it might be worth it, but at that point just play berbers and vil rush easier that way.
Mongols should be a bit more like Huns imo, maybe starting with 50-75 free pop before they could get housed. And then you can have the destroyed house thing later, either through the tech or a passive bonus like you've suggested.
@@ageofstrange657 You'd have to nerf something else then because they're already the fastest scout rush. It's 90 wood saved before you click feudal.
@@neildutoit5177 That's true. Mongols are strong already. Alternatively they could give Nomads an instant benefit by giving some extra population through the tech itself.
@@ageofstrange657 now that would be insanely broken. Hun late game is weaker for good reason. And mongols are already one of the stronger civs in game
Gonna have to really disagree with the Medical Corps argument. It wouldn't be all that great if they weren't elephants, but if you get 20-30 elephants, its easy enough to micro the one being targeted without it dying, and let it heal from behind the rest. Combined with healing siege elephants to soak up fire, you have an late-game death-ball that produces an insanely good KD versus only a handful of civs. Of course, it is a death-ball scenario and the challenge is always getting there, but if you mix in a monk or two, you never need to retreat to heal up.
Sorry but, according to the code, Mongol Nomads ONLY affects houses
"corps" is pronounced like "core".. You're welcome. Your life will now be enriched thanks to this knowledge. Jk, it's just a pet peeve of mine when I hear someone pronounce it like "corpse".
I love Nomads tech as I always build houses as my walls. In the late game when my walls destroyed I won’t get housed 😇
Bohemians
I love the Bohemian build, the waggons do exactly what they did in reality, act as a mobile barrier to protect their Halbs, HC, Crossbowmen and cannon from incoming projectiles.
As well as Hussite reforms although if they tweak it, I won’t complain.
The innovation of the Bohemians is wonderful. The only change I would give them would be to help solidify the use of defensive wagon, Halbs, HC, Crossbowmen and cannon squares.
Bohemians should get a castle age buff but an Imp nerf. They lose arbalesters but their castle age crossbows get +1 range and or attack.
Celts.
I love that the Devs used Brave Heart as inspiration for the celts and went with the early to high middle ages build and not high to late middle ages.
I also love their UT strongholds, to represent the hillforts they made extensive use of.
The only way I would alter the DE2 Celts are as follows:
UT imp:Furor Celtica Ram +40% HP and increased Ram speed.
Stable
Light cav
No knight available in castle age but upon reaching imp you can automatically train cavalier
(Same goes for Gaels/Irish) To show their lack of heavy cav until the Hospitallars set up a branch HQ in Scotland in th 1200’s AD.
AR
Archer - Crossbowmen (But wielding a regular bow) (Same goes for Gaels/Irish)
Elite skirm should have +1 Melee armour and also benefit from the Infantry move 15% faster bonus.
SW
Siege ram
Mangonel
Scorpion
i strongly disagree with the bohemians. i had a michi 1v1 game against persians and this tech won me the game single handed.
Medical corps is pronounced like "core" not like "corpse." Blame the French.
I like to build every one of my houses in a single Black Forest choke point. Leaves an option to, late in the game, research nomads, delete them all, and run through.
How to fix medical corps : elephants regenerate 200hp per minute
I kind of agree with Hussite Reforms, however on long team games that the opponent can mass things like ballista elephant or SO’s it can be very strong
With Dravidians, I love using Urumi + elephant archers, thus Medical corpse is a good tech for me.
What I would change of the Dravidians is the following:
Dravidians
I would love to see the Dravidian ‘’Skirmishers attack 25% faster’’ bonus go to a new Mapuches/Tarascans civ that forms part of a New DLC
Tribes of the Tropics DLC
Taíno/Arawak peoples / Carib kingdom/Tupi
Zaputechs
Mapuches/Tarascans.
Toltecs
Polynesians/ Tuʻi Tonga Empire.
In turn the Dravidian Urumi gains the ability to build/repair docks and faster firing BBC/hand cannoneers.
Burmese.
+1 attack per age for infantry bonus should go to Byzantines and instead Burmese gets Elephant archers that are also cheaper. (Strong expensive Battle elephants and Cheap elephant archers)
Inca
Should gain a UU in archery range : Quechua Bolas Warrior (Shared unit with the Mapuches) Quechua ranged infantry that hurls bolas for a wide area of effect. The bola slows down/ensnares enemies and does slight area damage (mostly against archers). Good against cavalry.
Receives a free Chasqui each age.
Chasqui - Inca scout with a great deal of utility. Can build outposts. When attacking, the Chasqui uses its quipu as a weapon.
I wanted to say Tower Hills, but at pro levels it pretty useful so idk. (My fav civ is Lithuanians so I am biased)
"Oh cool, a new Spirit of the Law Video."
...
"Wait, what?"
Maybe the Nomad tech can be used in a weird strat in which you build a lot of houses early on as a wall and then you don't need to worry for the rest of the game about building houses.
imagine if Atheism was to allow the Huns gain 20% of enemy relic income, which would be in line with historical accuracy of the civ
what I noticed: alot of these unic techs are usual on civs, who are already strong, who already have a winning thing, like a civ bonus, a other tech or a unit
AoE2 has really a nice mix of: civs, who relay on their unic techs or who let them stand out, like the goths
but then, their are already good civs, who get small bonus from their unic techs, like the mongols or so
It is so sad Huns don't get 50% cost spies anymore 😞Best unique tech for FFA to be honest because FFA games tend to go long enough to have the 15k gold plus also gold for army... and given Huns fast moving army (and with Tarkans, basically fast-moving siege too) they become good at that point despite how much you would maybe better off spending that on army itself. It can be strategically better.
10:30 the speed with which they shoot arrows they look more like machinegun nests :))
If a civ has strong passive bonuses, it makes sense for that civ to have weaker unique techs.
On the flip side, Goths, for example, have no eco bonuses whatsoever, but have two extremely strong unique techs.
I don't think civs should be balanced around every civ having similar power spikes from their unique techs. I think you did a good job explaining that in this video
Maybe if stronghold increase attack speed by 50%, nomad decrease the house cost by 50%, atheism make enemy monk generate faith 50% longer, andean sling increasing range or attack speed, and medical corps have the same regen as berserk with berserkergang, then maybe it's somewhat useful.
Medical Corps is great.
Makes your Elephant Archer Death Ball stronger.
You can shoot and scoot fairly decent (even without husbandry) with them just with the rate of fire.
Medical Corps is great, but what about the tech T90 mentioned - Medical Corpse?
@@rainbowevil
Very useful tech as well.
Give Universities the Surgical Advancements upgrade and lets them heal units near them.
Andian Sling feels like a team bonus. Maybe it could give some other buff like +1 range. Idk if that's good, too good, or bad.
Nomads feels like a civ bonus - and not the important kind. Thankfully, they don't really need help.
When I saw Magyars, I thought you were gonna say that Corvinian Army should be removed and the cost set to food only by default, but it was Medical Corps. :D (Btw, it's pronounced "core" since it's French in origin. Given its limited application, maybe calling it a corpse is appropriate though.) They might end up buffing the healing rate, but I think fixing elephants in general first makes more sense.
I know you didn't propose changes, but I just can't help myself. I want as many things in this game as possible to be useful. The devs have already done a good job dealing with this as you said, I just hope they keep doing it. Thank you for providing more opportunities for discussion.
Hun atheism should be changed to make hunnic units unconvertable. Its expensive imperial tech in a castle so it wouldnt break castle age or early imperial age aggression, it fits the name, and huns dont have onager or bbc to be op with.
Hearing T90 pronounce it medical corps as "corpse" and not "core" was only slightly concerning...
Main problem with Hussite Reform is its expensive cost. Rather impractical to research. Doesn't worth quite well compared to just researching the techs in gold.
Atheism is one of those things that it's going to be really awkward for them to change because the last mission in the Huns campaign was built with it in mind. Sure, it's not necessary at all in order to beat the mission, but it's a way to ease back the timer a bit. Sadly, because of this, unless they adjust the campaign mission to have you trigger it some other way it's likely never going to see a total rework.
that's how you spot an overpowered civ. If it has a useless unique tech, it's already too strong and the devs didn't want to make it too overpowered.
also a strong unique tech is worse than if a civ get's something for free. Because you have to get to castle age or imp even first, make a castle and then research it so that's time and res spent.
SotL and T90 trading channels again
While Nomads usually never is seen on open maps, on closed maps where space can be tight, Nomads can actually be clutch!
Strongholds is one of my favorites when coupled with a x256 mod.
0:03
"... and usually what makes an Age of Empires 2 special is..."
I clicked this thinking it was Spirit of the Law. But I can stick around for some T90.
Elephant archers should have 2-3 archers on their back. Haradrim style.
Cool idea. They could even have an extra spawning unit upon death like Konniks.
Spirit of T90
What is this? Spirit of the T90Official
Why not let the Incas have the unique tech for faster firing towers?
Aside from maybe celts and dravidians, even the bad unique techs kind of end up having a weird niche, so I like them.
Monks costing food is a really compelling effect, but that and something like atheism are probably my least favorite kind of thing. Techs that generally take too long to pay off just seem poorly balanced. Although, I guess black forest type of games are a good argument for creating something out of that type of advantage.
FYI corps is pronounced like "Core"
I'm surprised to see Hussite Reforms on this list. It's niche, but not useless.
Late game 1v1, gold becomes a limiting factor as it becomes harder to access with safer piles being mined out (And market prices tanking due to both players selling extra Wood/Food/Stone)
Monks are always useful against siege (Also, elephants) as well as being decent versus Kts/Cav/Pala. Being able to make Block Printing + Redemption Monks in addition to your Arbs/Houfnice/HC's using the resource you have in abundance can be useful in certain situations.
Of course, teamgames it's not as useful because trading allows for infinite gold.
HOW DARE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Strong Holds is insanely OP
At least in 256 Tech mod it it is
and clearly we need this game balanced around 256 Tech mod :D
Don't mind my theory crafting but I think that Atheism as a tech can be completely reworked. First off, since the tech references the board, I'd recommend a buff of relic gold to the Hun economy instead of nerfing the board. +15 gold per minute trickle (Or a 30% boost) would be a starting point (Trial and error can balance this number), though this can be adjusted. Sure it's a weaker boost, but remember that the Huns sacked relics and took it for themselves, and even took Honoria from the Western Roman Empire as a tribute for marriage.
Next is the monastery and relating to speed. Have your team receive a work buff of 25% as a starting baseline as opposed to no speed. The monks coming in faster will be useful as a team bonus tech just so that your allies can push faster in late game if needed. Your techs coming in faster along with faster relic gold means more options and less reliance on the markets in the late game for some gold. Maybe use the gold for some pretty awesome costly units.
The final bonus would be the relic and wonder victory, though this one needs not to be changed.
Cost: 600 Resources at 40s Research Time at Imperial Age (This can be changed later)
Atheism should be an upgraded version of Faith/Heresy, making any unit completely invulnerable to monks. Of course, this would be really expensive and you need a castle to get it.
Andean Sling should be instead a starting civ bonus: "No minimal range for Archery units", making incan archers+squirm combo very scary at feudal age and would give them a new identity. As for the castle tech, they should bring back "Couriers" but instead of Eagles it affects militia-line and villagers.
Hey guys! Spirit of the T90 here!
Maybe useless is a bit excessive for this but I think crenelations (Teutons) is a pretty bad one. First off, I've never seen a situation where someone would want their infantry inside their castles instead of attacking. And second, +3 range (more like only +2 because they lack bracer) is actually not too bad BUT for 600 food and 400 stone is too expensive, you can almost build another castle with this much stone.
You uploaded to the wrong channel mate.... This is T90Official - Age of Empires 2 not Spirit of the Law
i would like to see a counter for mass siege with the Celts. i go mass scorpions and it seems no one can ever stop it. usually 60 scorpions and the rest woad raider or pikeman depending on other civ and what they are producing with what upgrades.
bbc or SO with their own meat shield crushes the scorpion/infantry comp easily
I did not play online in a while but I always hated playing against Celts -
I never saw mass scorpions with them though ( just ballista elephants of the Khmer)
My intuition calls for BBC or SOs... but SOs loose to Celt SOs
For me it is always the siege onager nightmare:
the siege onager-halberdier-combination is just soooooo cost efficient against many other units
And if you try to go SO as well their SOs have more HP and damage output
So i only managed with very carefull bombard canon gameplay or with Britons (100% accuracy trebs) or Japanese (fire-and-retreat trebs + superior halberdiers) and while they can just spam produce units you have to micro quite well to catch the SOs and not lose your more expensive siege units >_<
It just feels like some civs get no chance against Celts in post imp
?Maybe some kind of "avoid/distract SO deathball gameplay" and counterattack somewhere else? Or you try to win before post-imperial or deny a critical mass of SOs ...But then again I only press buttons and sometimes I win and sometimes I lose in Aoe2 ^^'
I usually dont watch the meta gameplay too much and tend to tinker with solutions myself so I might be completely off - feel free to correct me
@@klauskonig7981 any civ with decent gunpowder units would probably shred celts in late game.
60 scorps? It shouldnt take more than 5 onagers to clear it all very cost effectively :D
Nomads helps when you want to build offensive houses
perhaps some unique technologies could exist only for campaign missions where they do make a difference, like in Starcraft 2 where some very cool and strange techs were there for the sake of the mission to make it more fun.
I dont play AOE, but it really sounds like to me that at least some of those techs would be better-off removed AND added as a civilization bonus.
This fixes the balancing dilemma for something that almost never get used or changed much and just makes the game more fun and varied.
Dude, I'm sorry but you're mistaken on Andean sling. Inca skirms are amazing in trash wars. You can spam them vs halbs or light cav and they trade well. They're especially good if you're in a situation where you can't pay attention to part of the map while you handle something else for more than a few seconds. You can set five to ten ranges to spam skirms on a gather point and ignore it for a while.
And for Nomads, it's situational but when you need space it's SO valuable. Also if your base gets raided and smashed, you don't need to worry about rebuilding houses. In a team game that lets you rebuild and rejoin the fight a lot faster than normal.