21:00 In the late game this bonus will actually be proportionally weaker. With the farming upgrades, the farms get reseeded less frequently, so the time lost reseeding then become less significant.
Thanks for doing another Elephant civ. I really liked the Imperial Battle Elephant idea. Really liked the elephant bonus damage reduction. Would be surprised if that was clunky in testing. In general, it's good to have a mixed army and this is a perfect civ bonus for that. Uparaja effect could be added in game in a general way, kind of how they added auto seed and auto scout as a life improve of the game. Maybe limit what AI could control but could be useful when playing vs hard com since computer can do several actions at the same time. I hope to see Cannon elephant in future civ build. That unit in AOE3 for Indians is awesome.
Hey! Thank you so much for saying so! Really glad you think the bonus damage thing will work out, I was a little nervous about that. An AI advisor is actually a really interesting idea as a broader addition to the game. Especially for lower level players in casual matches who don't want to worry about messing around with micro! Such a cool suggestion man.
Noice! So glad you did the Thai! They’re so long overdue. It’s bizarre to me that they didn’t add them with Rise of the Rajas. They’re literally the only civilization in the region that didn’t get included and they are one of the most prominent and important ones. I suppose if we were to include one more from the Southeast Asia region perhaps the Hmong/Miao might be a potential future choice, even if I don’t know too much about them. Well done as always bro.
The big potential civs in the area, by my reckoning, would include the Cham, Mon, Shan, Thai and Lao. Probably some others I'm forgetting, most likely in Burma. Hmong, Miao, and so on would be the ethnicities that would be the reason to rename Chinese to Han imo, as they would fall into the mainstay Chinese cultural sphere.
@@Crossil Dang, I didn't even know about these groups. I guess there's way more than I thought there were. But yes, I agree. So much potential and history to explore in this region.
Thanks for saying so smaoproducts! Really glad you enjoyed my friend. And a very good analysis Crossil, I think that's pretty much identical to my own list
@@robbylavaa new suggestion for Siamese civ Castle age unique unit -Elephant arqebusier Barrack unique unit- Phrom Krong Chok an unit that can increase the attack of all elephant units by +3 no upgrades available in caste age Stable-Imperial battle elephant after researching White elephant
Heya Robby, Thanks for another great build! You just keep coming up with new and distinct ideas. I especially like the combined arms bonus encouraging using units together. The heavy elephant focus is also nice. Just a few other things to note: 1) Signaler Elephant: Sounds interesting. I like support units, so it's nice to see more of those. It'll especially help armored elephants, since they are so slow. Also, maybe it should have healing > fighting instead? 2) Phrai Luang: Always good to see the TC get some love. I'm not sure how useful this one is, though. Since they lack the final mining and wood upgrades, maybe they should get +10% work rate from this. (Also, minor note: I believe ph is pronounced "p" in Thai, as opposed to "f" in English.) 3) Imperial Elephant: Another thing that's always welcome: unique upgrades to units! This also fits well with the Imperial Skirmishers of the Vietnamese. I imagine this one to be rarely used, though, since the price is so steep. But cool to see nonetheless! 4) Jaturungkabart: I think this would also fit nicely as a unique upgrade to either the spearline or swordline. With the combined arms theme it wouldn't be out of place for them to have two unique upgrades either. 5) Uparaja: You mean we could utilize god-tier AI micro against human opponents? Yup, probably better left in the tabled section. 6) Sakdi Na: Sounds like a cool concept. Definitely one to be used at some point in a build.
Hey Bjarke ! Thanks so much for the feedback my friend! I'm certainly glad my bills continue to deliver in your eyes, and I'm particularly please do felt the theming landed well on this one! I would definitely agree that the Imperial Battle elephant might be too expensive, I was trying to kind of match the paladins price tag, but since cavalier is so much cheaper than elite battle elephant that might not have been a great comparison. What would you recommend I reduce it to? As for the Jaturungkabart, I would have 110% gone with it had it fallen within the time frame, but it seems unlikely that it existed as a military unit before the late 1600s. I really hope I'm wrong about that though! Thanks as always for taking the time to watch and comment my friend.
Hard to say. At the very least flip the food and gold cost. 1200 food/1000 gold might also be good. It'll probably almost exclusively be used in drawn out team games anyway, so maybe it's not that big a deal.
Since we talk about S.E.Asian, I really want Malay got overhauled like India, turn em as new region, i mean Nusantara (Indonesian/Malay archipelago) have its own distinct architecture than "Cambodian" style south east asian building style we had We can had at least 4 new civ based of Malay: Sumatran/revamp Malay (Sriwijaya empire), Javanese (proper civ for Majapahit campaign), Bruneian (Brunei kingdom) and Malaccan ( sultanate of Malacca) And having harbor as and karambit as regional units
@@robbylava Gonna chime in here because Indonesia is one of my fav regions in general. I think Javanese would work the best. They were very distinct from the Malay, especially in terms of gunpowder weaponry. At the zenith of Javanese power, even fishing ships were often armed with cannons (called cetbangs, which could be a UT or maybe a UU both on land and water?). They pioneered the craft of firearms, Java Arquebuses were regarded as the best in the world for a while (maybe this could be a good UU, something like a conquistador but long ranged and on foot). Maybe they could get some nice skirmisher bonus too, it could even reflect how they crushed the cavarly archer civ (Mongol) invasion.
@@robbylava Javanese tho, because as Indonesian myself, the Majapahit campaign play as Malay is felt wrong, ethnic Malay and their identity more towards Sriwijaya kingdom, Malaccan, Bruneian, etc, is bit awkward for Indo and Malaysian bros seeing Gajah Mada, THE Javanese warlord, but you play as Malay civ. And force levy is legit the most old medieval Javanese warlords will do to their own people, Also revamping already exists Malay also fits for new "Sriwijaya" civ, with little bit tweak toward monk, instead fast age progression, because in Jambi, Sumatra, they have old ruins of medieval era Buddhist Academy run by Sriwijaya en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muaro_Jambi_Temple_Compounds
@@ahmicqui9396 i know The perfect UUs for Javanese - Bhayangkara: elite Majapahit royal gueards Excel in both archery and spearmanship (today in modern Indonesian "Bhayangkara" is formal name for police force) -Jong ship: Big tanky warship, but low attack and clunky due it's size, can carry units like as transport ship
The Thai, my beloved! I absolutely adore Mesoamerica for sure, but SE Asia is a close second. I rarely point this out under aoe vids, but the Khmer is actually pronounced something like "K'mai". You do a lot of actual history here though so I mention it. They avoided not only the Mongol conquests but European colonialism, arguably the two most devastating events in world history. The Thai really are something, eh? The bonuses and UUs you created for them are extremely interesting, I love that. They'd probably be extremely op though... not that I'm complaining haha
Excellent to hear Ahmicqui ! I'm delighted that you liked it! Hopefully they wouldn't be too OP heheheh Another commenter also mentioned the pronunciation issue, I'm definitely going to look into that and address it in the next recraft. Thanks for mentioning it! Great to hear from you as always my friend. Thanks for taking the time!
Hey Robby, A unique unit I had in mind was a cataphract-boyar elephant which was a battle elephant which had high melee armour so it can defeat other battle elephants, also did bonus damage to infantry and also took no elephant bonus damage but still takes the cavalry bonus damage. It would also have super low pierce armour, so archers can counter it, and gave you a reason to use your own battle/imperial elephants to tank archers. Also, one of their unit techs could be elephants deal more trample damage at a larger radius, basically cataphracts with logisitca but elephants instead. So the Thai army composition would be both battle/imperial and uu elephants to deal with archers, infantry, cavalry. While bombard cannons to deal with siege and hussar to deal with monk or remove hussar, so they have a weakness to monks. I also think they shouldn't get armoured or archer elephants to stay consistent with the other south-east Asian civs. Anyways, thanks for reading.
35:29 I'd like to point out that a bonus that increases the amount of food farms produces is a "slow burn" wood bonus more than a food bonus. The food production rate isn't increased, what you get is that you spend less wood reseeding farms, after you got all the food from it, so only after quite a few minutes.
Now this is actually quite a fun civ! I do haven an idea though for a video or just in your free time. You could ask an ai like chat got or something to make a civ! It's really awesome
Well thank you for saying so Ozzy! And that's a really interesting recommendation, I've obviously seen chat GPT videos cropping up all over TH-cam but have never thought to do one myself. It could be cool to see how the bot tries to design a civilization I've already tackled myself, what do you think about that?
I could very easily be convinced! But I don't know a lot about them -- could you give me a super brief summary of the civilization to kickstart my research?
@@robbylava Here is a shortly described history of marathas They existed before the millennium but came to power with the rise of Shivaji Maharaj. The Marathas were a prominent regional power in India during the 17th and 18th centuries. They emerged as a powerful Hindu warrior caste and formed the Maratha Empire, which was founded by Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in the mid-17th century. The empire reached its peak under the rule of his descendants, particularly during the reign of Chhatrapati Shivaji's grandson, Chhatrapati Shahu. The history of the Marathas can be traced back to the decline of the Mughal Empire, which had been the dominant power in India for several centuries. As the Mughal Empire weakened, various regional powers started asserting their independence, and the Marathas were among them. Shivaji Maharaj was the key figure in this process and is widely regarded as the founder of the Maratha Empire. Shivaji Maharaj was born in 1630 and established an independent Maratha kingdom by 1674. He employed guerrilla tactics and innovative military strategies to challenge the Mughal Empire(currently Hindustani in the game) and other regional powers. He built a strong navy and a disciplined army known as the Maratha Navy and the Maratha Army, respectively. Shivaji Maharaj also implemented administrative and economic reforms in his kingdom, focusing on decentralization and the welfare of his subjects. After Shivaji Maharaj's death in 1680, his son, Sambhaji, succeeded him as the ruler of the Maratha Empire. Sambhaji faced significant challenges, including Mughal invasions and internal conflicts. He was captured and executed by the Mughals in 1689. Despite the setbacks, the Marathas regrouped and continued to expand their influence under the leadership of Sambhaji's younger brother, Rajaram. However, Rajaram's reign was marked by continuous warfare and Mughal invasions. In 1707, after Rajaram's death, his widow, Tarabai, assumed power and became a prominent figure in Maratha history. One of the most significant turning points for the Marathas came with the rise of Chhatrapati Shahu, the grandson of Shivaji Maharaj. Under Chhatrapati Shahu's rule, the Marathas experienced a period of political stability and territorial expansion. The empire reached its zenith during the reign of Chhatrapati Shahu's Peshwa (prime minister), Balaji Vishwanath, and later his son, Bajirao I. Bajirao I, often referred to as Bajirao the Great, was a highly skilled military commander and strategist. He expanded Maratha territories to the north, south, and west, effectively establishing Maratha dominance over large parts of India. Bajirao's military campaigns were highly successful, and he is remembered for his victories against the Mughals and other regional powers. The Maratha Empire continued to flourish under subsequent Peshwas, but it faced challenges from internal conflicts, rivalry between different Maratha chiefs, and invasions by external powers. The empire gradually weakened in the late 18th century due to a combination of factors, including the rise of the British East India Company and the third battle of Panipat in 1761, where the Marathas suffered a significant defeat against the Afghan ruler Ahmad Shah Durrani. By the early 19th century, the Maratha Empire had fragmented, with various Maratha chiefs ruling over different territories. The British capitalized on this fragmentation and gradually annexed Maratha territories through a series of military campaigns and alliances with local rulers. The Marathas played a crucial role in Indian history, challenging Mughal authority and offering a strong resistance to foreign powers. They left a lasting impact on Indian culture, architecture, and administration.
I knew that Lavo wasn't Thai, but I did read that it was a Tai kingdom, something of a precursor to the later Thai states. Did I get a bad source? If you can give me more information that would be very helpful!
This is one that I went in-depth trying to figure out appearances for before your video came out. To note, I also included the other Tai into this grouping, so Shan and Lao also were included in my speculation. Going broad, there are Shan in two first Bayinnaung scenarios,, alongside the all-Thai brawl of the fourth scenario (barring the Nat Enchantresses). In Le Loi there's a Lao state in the fifth scenario, which is Tai. Finally, there is a possibility of adding the Thais into the Suryavarman campaign, where i would personally make the enemies in Suryavarman 3 (hostile locals) be Thai as a sort of random migratory group you run into (they were in the area at this time, I think, and them being migrants is historically accurate), and of course the Lavo Kingdom of Suryavarman 5 being Thais as well. A correction, though, I think it was a Mon kingdom at the point in time when this scenario is happening, but I wouldn't mind it being depicted as Thai as long as the Mon aren't around. So using the Tai classification those are all applicable. Dividing them up divides them as stated. I wouldn't be surprised you have ideas of doing these other Tai groups and more. I do wanna say, though, that the civ placement in Bayinnaung is one of the worst in the game, overall.
37:13 I don't find it particularly clunky. Just like the monaspa gets attack from nearby monaspa and knights, the elephants can get anti bonus damage armour from being near foot soldiers.
Hi Robby. Nice video. And as you probably understand, I have also come up with a Thai civ.(though it should be said that I came up with all the bonuses before Dynasties of India) .Farms generate gold . Battle Elephant upgrades for free and immediately . Villager gets 1+ armor for each age (+4) .House +2 Line of Sight .T Elephants +2 attack vs buildings Unique unit Spear Elephant (think an Elephant version of the Steppe Lancer) Food 110 gold 75, Hit points 250=300, Attack 8=10, Bonus attack 6010vs Elephant and 5=5vs cavalry,Rif 2.0.. Melee Armor1 Pierce2=3, Speed0,8, Line of sight 7=8, Upgrade cost food 1000 glod 800. Castle Age technology White Elephant Food 350 gold 300 Battle Elephant 33% cheaper Imperial Age technology Sea gypsy wood 500 gold 300 Ships cost -10%and are trained 10% faster and +1 Range war ships
Interesting design! You also had a focus on farming and villagers I see. The small amount of navel stuff is quite interesting as well! So how did you come to your bonuses from a historical perspective?
@@robbylava Why I gave them the specific bonuses was mostly because they are not found in the game. And they fit an Elephant civ. And why the technology Sea gypsy Because apparently there is a group of people called that.And Unique unit Spear Elephant because you usually use men with long spears against those who drove the elephants (that's why they have an attack bonus vs elephants)
like the civ very much, another bengali with both battle elefants and elefant archers but with an actual focus in them. loved floatin rice, loved the UU, loved the imperial elephant, everything else kinda don't i would have focused in faster farmers in general, maybe even giving battle elefants in particular a slight armor bonus to see if they can resist spears a bit better even with the same weakness in the big picture, or an infantry bonus against spears, the hospital as a unique building like you said actually would work, a midly expensive building (i would say wood and stone or stone and gold) that will give a non stackable regen bonus equal of that of a monk healing that unit as long as the unit is in the aura of said building and giving an imperial unique tech to increase the speed and area of hospitals. -faster farms -battle elefants resist spear line better -imperial battle elefant as unique upgrade -hospital as unique building team: farms are seeded faster that's the only changes i would say, period. do their elefant archers get partian tactics? still with access to hand cannoners that isn't so important cause the rol they will fill is a way to kill enemy pikes and halbs to protects your battle elefants stampeding through your enemy forces. giving them nearly fully upgraded generic champions is fine to represent their infantry protecting their elefants irl without disrupting most interactions in game cause champions are already a somewhat good unit to kill halbs. also, keeping floting rice food regen slower than the farming rate of an uninterrumped thai farmer is very important so that farms do not become infinite sources of food with an only 1 time payment of wood. this is of the best civ build i've seen here, i actually see this happening very close to what you say and trully functioning without breaking the game apart
Wow! Thanks a lot Daniel! I am delighted and gratified that you think this one works so well! Don't worry, the floating rice replenishment rate is much slower than a farmer work rate -- I think it works out to somewhere between 100 and 150 bonus food, assuming zero interruptions. Hope you've been enjoying all the content man!
39:39 Or you first build the farms and then the mill. You don't keep the bonus for reseeding it, but get an immediate economy. But I don't think it would be very practical.
Hey man you have an outstanding ability to craft civilizations and I good knowledge of history. You should get in touch with the guys working on the Romae Ad Bellum mod. A total conversion mod taking AoE2 into Antiquity. Probably runs 700BC to 300 AD. You could really help them out I think
Jeff my friend, that is genuinely one of the most touching compliments I have received about my work on this channel. I really appreciate you saying so and I'm very grateful that you hold my silly projects in such high regard! I will admit, I have thought about reaching out to them, along with all manner of Age of Empires TH-camrs, to see if I can pick up some traction. I suppose I just don't know how well received such an outreach attempt would be, do you reckon they'd have any interest in giving me the time of day? And if you happen to know how to contact them, that would be fantastic information as well! I don't know if they have a TH-cam channel or anything, let alone an email address I could shoot a message to. Either way, thanks again for your kind words. I really hope you continue to enjoy the content my friend, and I look forward to seeing you in the comments section more going forward!
44:26 I just thought of a bonus that I don't know how strong would be, but could be funny. Since they planted rice on flooded lands, those farms would be more annoying to run through. So the bonus would be that enemy units move slower when walking over your farms. 😂 I can even imagine someone making farms in the middle of the battlefield, specially on choke points just to make the enemies slower. 😂
My pleasure, I hope you enjoyed! Lanna is absolutely on my list, which would be split from this one of course, but I don't think I've ever heard of the Lan Chang before. What were they like?
@@robbylava Lan Chang Province was named after the ancient Lan Xang kingdom, to which the area had once belonged. Its name means a 'Million Elephants'.
@MammothSaltyGachaponOfficial very cool! Do you think it would be more appropriate to have a Lan Xang civ instead, since Lan Chang was only a sub province within that greater Kingdom?
Absolutely, I'll give it a whirl sometime! My to-do list is quite long, so I apologize in advance if it takes a while to get to them, but I promise I will eventually.
Campaign recommendation - The Tai Ahoms. Establishing a state in Modern Assam (India). You can Fight Burmese and Manipuris in the beginning. Then, campaign goes on to fight the Mughals beating them and finally ends with figthing the colonial powers.
I'm really surprised why. The developers didn't add "Thai civ" in AOE2. The way they have a cool history and are related to other Southeast Asian civilizations
I might add 1 more potential campaign if you want some diversity. Queen Jamadevi a former princess of Lavo and the founder of the Haripunchai kingdom in northern Thailand. The story focuses on her expedition from Lavo to the North, war with the Lua kingdom, and ruling Hariphunchai. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camadevi
A wonderful idea! A friend told me that I might actually be able to add Lavo as a civilization as well, so my inclination is to save her for that. Do you think that sounds feasible?
I think her story fits Lanna kingdom as a standalone civilization more but yeah. I'd love to see your theorycraft in that ones. Even though Lavo is an important kingdom, it is not mentioned much in our history lesson but even after merging with the Ayutthaya kingdom it is still be very important stronghold city for Ayutthaya and became the unofficial capital in some reigns. If you need some candidates for Lavo. I think King Ramesuan, the 2nd and 5th king of Ayutthaya (Yes, he has 2 reigns) son of Uthong might be fit. He rules Lavo as a prince. He has the war of succession with his uncle and his nephew and also has war with Lanna kingdom in the north and war with Angkor in the east. Very much a potential candidate. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramesuan_(king_of_Ayutthaya) @@robbylava
@@pongtepsrikanta6304 great suggestion as well. Do you know of any good demonyms for the peoples of Lanna and Lavo that I could use for the names of those civilizations?
For Lanna they are an ethnic group called Tai Yuan of Khon Mueng but basically, we call them northern Thai or Just call them Lanna same as their kingdom. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Thai_people en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lan_Na and for Lavo, I think you can use Lavo as their demonyms as well as their kingdom, Some might say they are Mon but Mon people also have great potential civilization of their own so I suggest that you call them Lavo it fits more. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavo_Kingdom . @@robbylava
This is been extremely helpful. Thank you so much for your input my friend! Can't promise it will be soon, but you will see these ideas on the channel at some point
Quick thoughts: -- Building rate boost is nice, but not certain how impactful it would be. I do like that is incentives more novel methods of constructing your base. -- Reduced bonus damage for eles + foot soldiers. I do like the historicity and the unique gameplay this would encourage, however again I'm not sure how impactful this would be (especially in castle age) since Bengalis already have -25% bonus damage (and conversion resistance), but without the need of additional infantry-micro. -- Insta-Farming: it is a small bonus, but a little helpful -- Speedy-Vils sounds quite fun, just a slight boost to safety for the most part. This also encourages forwards a bit, since (if you build a forward tower, for example) you can then run your villagers back home away from danger faster or send new villagers forward much faster. -- Gate-keeping: is interesting, but very small and probably not that important. If you trigger more than one gate though (i.e., walk through three gates in sequence) does it trigger more than once? I presume not, but if so, then it is probably OP haha -- I like both UTs, their effects are subtle helpful, but quite distinct from what exists in the game -- The signaler UU sounds fun, having true support units that you don't want to build many of is definitely not something commonly seen in AOE2, but makes a lot of sense. I do think that the speed boost for elephants likely should be a bit smaller (I think you have it at +15/25% regular/elite?), since it is superior to the khmer 10% for battle-ele-only bonus and mixing in 1 signaler ought be very easy to do, and getting 1.5X - 2.5X the khmer bonus for all elephants sounds a bit too much. -- The Thai super-villagers is also kinda fun, but I will say that teleporting garrison doesn't really appeal to me. That mechanic is both strange and not very realistic 11. As for the gather rate bonus, I'm not sure what number you might want to settle on, since 5% is just the roman eco-bonus, although a higher number would probably be too much. -- Imperial battle elephant is a good idea in principle, although I'm not certain that it would play well in practice. The existing battle eles are already in the class of super hard to reach, but ultra-powerful late game units, that rarely are seen because they cost too much, but then when they are seen can often be stupidly OP because of their absurd pop-efficiency. So I think that adding another massive-cost imperial upgrade will only intensify that aspect of the unit, which may not be very good. Their tech tree looks kind of bad, given all the usually important upgrades missing, leaving them mainly gunpowder and elephants -- both hard to reach late-game unit compositions. Their eco, I think, is also slightly overestimated in your ranking, since although they have a lot of nice bonuses related to economy, most of these are small, tangential, or locked behind UTs/UUs. Overall, I like direction of the design and I like a lot of the bonuses, but I think the civ as a whole would struggle a lot with a poor tech tree, their elephant-addiction, and their collection of generally hard to leverage / smallish bonuses
Another fantastic review as always! It's such a pleasure having you regularly in the comments section Simbelmynë. Very good catch about the gates! I can't believe I didn't think of that, will definitely fix that exploit. Your points about the teleportation and gather rate bonus are both good. I was actually strongly considering upping the gather rate, since nerfing the teleport is definitely in the cards. I don't personally mind it being similar to the flat bonus the Romans get since they come about it so differently and it's bundled with other benefits. Kind of like how the new centurion unit kind of steals the Japanese faster attacking infantry -- I have plenty of problems with the design, but that's not one of them. But also roughly sums up my feelings about the signal elephants move speed thing. It's definitely going to be better than the Khmer on average, but they will have it passively which will help with things like reinforcing, plus signalers are fairly easy to kill once you get on top of them. I have another thought on how I'm going to take that bonus, but in the meantime maybe a nerf to the aura's range could help? Definitely agree that the civilization is late game focused and will likely struggle early game. One consideration I had was swapping out the instant farms thing for a stronger farming bonus, such as the ones I mentioned in my tabled ideas. How do you like that idea? Great to hear from you! Thanks for taking the time
In regards to the Phrai Luang gather rate bonus: Because they miss the final eco upgrades (that increase gather rate), the only real benefit here is an increase to farming. Other than that they are worse off than civs having access to those. But they do have the advantage of having it bundled in one tech (along with other benefits). Maybe raise it to 7-10%? I reckon the main benefit of the tech is the reduced train time and increased HP for a sturdier eco that can be replenished faster. But Supremacy is a better, cheaper version of that. Perhaps the tech should be moved to Castle Age and have a slightly lower price. Just to be able to get that eco benefit a bit earlier. Maybe also just remove the teleport function. It can be replaced with even faster movement speed when garrisoning. Or have the gather speed be 5% overall speed instead (gather+move+attack - and maybe build?) That could actually be quite neat. edit: Grammar
All very reasonable points! I really like upping the general harvest rate to plus 10%. If it still felt weak after that then maybe I can take slightly more drastic action like moving into Castle age. Thanks Bjarke!
Siam only exists and referred to a country with a lot of ethnicity in 18-20 century. Thai is the term of a majority of ethnic group living there and was a term since ancient time.
While I still think the Elephant Archer needs a rework to its capabilities, this civ's anti-bonus damage bonus is the best shot I've seen at a civ making EAs viable.
I don't think so! Or at least, I don't remember any Civ 5 branding when I found that song. The original is linked on the civilization document, so if you happen to have time to double check I'd be curious if it were the same one.
@@robbylava th-cam.com/video/Pu70oNFbOnM/w-d-xo.htmlsi=C4biW9sKfc7I5myq It's a Thai folksong. Beautiful melody and lyrics, it's featured in Civ 5. It's called Pling Pling for short ^^
40:25 so the Mughals are already represented in AoE2 as the Hindustanis(they mostly present just the region of Hindustan - the North India and bordering countries like Nepal, Afghanistan, Pakistan, with a great role of Muslim there). And still I don't think that elephants fit Mughals, as Babur defeated and conquered the Delhi Sultanate in the First Battle of Panipat, in which the Delhi-and-vassals army already had a great amount of elephants. The eles were shocked by the Babur's army with a great variety of firearms. The First Battle of Panipat also was IMO the beginning of the end of mass using of BATTLE elephants in the Indian Subcontinent.
Yep! I was just pointing it out as the only historical evidence I could find of bombard elephants being used. Could be a cool unique unit for the Hindustanis, especially if the ghulam becomes a regional unit like I hope it will. Hope you enjoyed the build my friend! You were a huge reason that I ended up finishing this one.
@@robbylava I really enjoy every your build, as it connected with history and that's really important for me. Though I mostly agree with your idea with regional ghilman, but I still dislike that your soilder literally called "slave". Overall I think that expanding regional units is the best way of developing AoE2. I know that you don't have enough time but I still wait for your next concepts.
Wonderful! The fact that you liked it and are excited for more is all that I could ever ask for. Definitely open to changing things like the name "Ghulam", especially if you have another suggestion. That's just the one I always hear tossed around for such a unit!
If i had to implement hospitals into AOE2, it would be a building in Castle age, where you can recruit healing unit called "Field Doctor". What it does? Its Missionary with Healing ability only, but boy it heals really fast, faster than Byzantine monks. He is upgraded by monk techs. and last thing Garrison bonus: More like Garrison Tech. What will it do? You can turn normal house into defensive Bunker thingy. Villagers garrison and throw low damage spears, kinda like Burrows in Warcraft 3
Both reasonable ideas! If I were to do a hospital, which I am planning on doing at some point, I would definitely want it to have a healing aura of its own, but making doctors trainable from them sounds like a great addition! Your garrisoning idea is quite interesting. What would such a technology be called? And would the Khmer get a new civilization bonus, since theirs would be made less special by this tech?
@@robbylava guerrilla warfare? I mean southeast Asia is very good place for guerrillas to fight, even in todays world, guerrillas repelled American army back in the Vietnam war, and most of them were farmers with a gun
No doubt about that. My only concern would be that that is a very modern take on the region, kind of like we were discussing in the discord server. In researching for this video I couldn't find any evidence that that sort of warfare was particularly extensive during the middle ages, but if you happen to find a source that says otherwise I'm happy to be proven wrong!
@@robbylava Guerrila warfare is in every era. Its using the nature to your advantage, from small scale rebellions in mountains to Battle of Teutoburg forest, guerrila warfare comes in every shape
No doubt about that. Something about it feels a little bit off to me but I can't exactly put my finger on what -- I'd say use the idea in your own builds for sure! But I think I would personally hold out on seeing some more sources before making a definitive call on my end.
Glad you didn't get...Thai-ed up with this one :P A few points: - Khmer are pronounced "Kh-my". The "KhMER" spelling is from a French mistranslation. - The Armored Elephant is unique to South Asia as they lacked Battering Rams irl. There is no archeological evidence that India used them, because elephants. But we don't have this for South East Asia, which is why those civs never got them when the Indians were split up. This is similar for the Elephant Archer. While I am not sure about Thailand, a lot of South East Asian civilizations only mounted halberd-users on elephants, not bowmen (and the Khmer with their insane bolt-throwers). - I made a Thai civ myself a while ago, with an Imperial Battle Elephant that did bonus damage to unique units for the exact same reason haha!
From what I understand it's pronounced "Khmy"/"Khmai" in Khmer; in English it's pronounced "Khmer". So both would be correct. Seems the "r" at the end used to be pronounced in Khmer as well, but fell away at some point. It's apparently still used in some dialects.
Heheheh thanks Tyranitar! Great point on the pronunciation. I vaguely remember hearing this before, so I'll make sure to look into it. In regards to elephants: I could be totally off base with this, but I'm fairly sure I have seen some research that elephants were in fact used against barricades and fortifications in South Asia. So I think there's a LITTLE more justification for the Siege elephant than you describe, but I'm not very confident in that guess! The elephant archer, on the other hand, I think is much more justifiable. Even just in my research for this build I saw several references to projectiles being fired from elephant back, though these may well be modern anachronisms. Plus, if I'm honest, without the elephant Archer this build completely falls apart! So I'd really like to find a way to keep it, even if it turns out the history isn't perfect. Thanks for the feedback my friend! So cool that you did this civilization yourself -- the fact that we both came to the same relatively obscure bonus is absolutely mind blowing! Great to hear from you as always Tyranitar.
@@robbylava I mentioned the elephants bit because I have seen a few posts where people go "just give S.E.Asian civs all the elephant units" and it's just a more complicated situation than that. I mean, not even all the Indian civs have all the elephants haha. Thailand I wasn't sure on, so it was more "I don't know, but it's worth checking". And yeah, it was honestly pretty funny for me when I saw you did the same. Personally my version of the Thais was a bit more based on later parts of their history, so I had them as an "Elephant & Gunpowder" civ, with a Bombard Elephant as their UU.
A very valid point! While I would personally like to see the Elephant Archer becoming a little more widespread, the Siege elephant I couldn't care less about, particularly because I personally dislike how it's implemented. Main reason I gave both to this build was for more variety in their core army comp, but besides this build the only other Southeast Asian civilization I could see getting all the elephant units would be the Burmese. Certainly worth checking either way! I am more than happy to be fact checked here, and I very much hope it didn't feel like I was shooting down your suggestion! It really is a very important point to make. Bombard elephant was actually suggested to me by a commenter who requested the civilization midway through my drafting process! I was personally not able to find any source besides a single uncited line on Wikipedia, but if you happen to find anything else that verifies it's existence it sounds like an absolutely sick addition!
@@robbylava Yeah I get you. Honestly I think the Siege Elephant is a 100% historical addition. As the DLC was about India, they focused on the fact India didn't use battering rams and added them. Burmese I agree with. Their proximity to India at least makes them the most likely to get either. But mostly the Elephant Archer, because it actually fixes some massive problems with the civ. I can't remember my original sources. But they included more recent photos, and descriptions of the cannons being pretty small. So I gave them a shorter range than the bombard.
Yeah, that is super inaccurate. I'm personally planning a complete Shan civilization though, hence why I didn't propose they be shifted to this civilization! Definitely more accurate if the Shan weren't going to be added though.
Shan states was under Ming China indirect control at that time, so still better than using Khmer. A new civ like Siamese would better represent them. But actually they only joint Siam in a short period 1776-1893.
Not a fan of the instantly seeded farms. It's an already tiny bonus that gets less impactful the more upgrades (including the unique tech) you get. What about, instead, they get a bonus where their farms are 2x2 tiles instead of 3x3? This would represent the fertility of their lands (by having proportionally more food per square) and the reduction of the drop distance, especially with multiple layers involved, would be an interesting farming bonus. This would also fit nicely with their first bonus, making your cities more compact, which is the theme of the faction you suggested.
The 2x2 farm bonus is allready in use by the Dutch, as replacement for their original farm bonus that let them place farms partially on water, which, while accurate, proved to be too much of a hassle.
That's quite an interesting idea Chris! I really like your reasoning for it. But, as Johannes rightly mentions, I do use a very similar bonus on my Dutch build and really like it there, so I'm not super inclined to change that one. Instead, I would be more inclined to go with one of my table ideas, as I agree with you that the instant reseeding is kind of underwhelming. The longer lasting farms idea is pretty cool since it synergizes so well with floating rice, but I also like the idea that farms are cheaper the further away you build them from a drop point, as it promotes a really interesting trade-off while also hypothetically giving you more room to build close to your town centers. Which do you prefer between those options? Or is there another one you'd recommend instead? Really appreciate the input my friend! And thank you for chiming in, Johannes.
Very interesting build as always! As a fun fact, I had tried to fiddle around with Thai as a "OP elephant civ" :D I like the castle unique unit to be a support role, so that you're not over reliant on castles for means of production, but you're still incentivized to make and mix them. I feel like it's much better than many unique units that just do a similar job as a standard units (like most of the infantry unique units which can most often be replaced by champions etc). Question about the villager teleport garrison ability: is there a "maximum range" for that? like if it's at the other end of the map, far from everything and it can teleport at the other end of the map, it seems that it's something that could be abused... It might come late enough in the game that it's not going to be game breaking anyway... I don't know. Ah also, do HC count as footsoldier for the purpose of the Thai elephant bonus?
Thanks a lot SeaDragon! Glad you enjoyed it! Totally agree with you about current unique units often being boring or redundant, I really try to push the boundary with those in my designs! And yes, the HC would count as a foot soldier for the elephant bonus, that was an intentional synergy! A bunch of other commenters are indicating that the Garrison bonus would probably be too strong. I didn't think it would be too bad since it is an imperial age upgrade gated behind an additional cost, but I think that your range idea is a good way of balancing it. My inclination would be having the range be based on the LoS of the targeted building, how do you like that idea?
Thanks for your answer! Basing the garrison ability of the vill upgrade on LOS would work. Usually the LOS of the buildings you want to garrison in is pretty large anyway, so it remains powerful. Ah and that surely incentivize picking up town watch and town patrol!
Absolutely! Those are technologies this civilization will really want to get for a lot of reasons, so it fits with their general play style pretty well I would say. Thanks again for the great feedback!
I thought the same, but Siam actually seems to be the less accurate of the two! From what I could see, they only started to be called the Siamese towards the beginning of the 17th century, give or take 100 years. It also is probably an exonym, meaning that it originated outside of the culture group themselves, and I prefer to avoid those where possible.
@robbylava yeah I could see that cause If I remember thailand is diverse with different tribes if I remember I know they fought khmer for their independence
@joshuareed2188 oh yeah, it has TONS of different tribes -- we are always going to have to simplify big time when we discuss the region. But, from what I understand, the Tai Peoples were definitely the most prominent, and among that group the Thai eventually gained dominance. Though that is probably an oversimplification heheheh
Yes I can't remember the dynasty that thai was under when achieved independence but Vietnam pagan (burma) pretty much mainland southeast Asia had different cultures and people tho I'd love to see aoe introduce them in either aoe 2 or aoe 4 I have a Philippines girlfriend she likes age of empires more than civilization and she disappointed that aoe hasn't tried to establish any old Philippines civilization
@joshuareed2188 The Philippines are on my radar for sure! Might be a little while till I get to them, but I completely agree they are much more deserving than they seem to be given credit for.
Good civ man. I have not created any SEA civs yet, that area is not my speciality, I'll leave that for pros like you. Hope to see the Thai added as well. (FASTER moving kings...you want to see a commit streak across the map?! Kings are already faster than Husain bolt hahaha) Teleportation should NOT be part of AoE. Rather starcraft. Please don't add more teleportation gimmicks to your builds. The ''healing'' of an object or building is referred to as ''repair'' sir. XD What I do know is that there are a handful of alterations I would love to see for some of those civs. 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) Gurjaras. Nerf Gurjaras by giving their ‘’Can garrison fishing ships in Dock’’ ability to an Africa/Messo civ team bonus that only has canoe navies. Songhai Team bonus: Africa/Messo civs with canoe navies Can garrison fishing ships in Dock. I love the Gurjaras especially their Shrivamshra riders, they are built to counter the boring, repetitive archer metta of a lot of ''pros''. I have been working on my African DLC of late. Red Sun of Africa DLC docs.google.com/document/d/1tFQJ3MC3JevgRZ1faHR6lg6_12EKRQhbnysW53pkpc4/edit?usp=sharing
Thanks a lot for saying so Ivan! I can see why you don't like the teleporting. I think there are times that such mechanics can be valid, particularly to represent extremely rapid deployment or repositioning of troops or people, but I certainly don't intend on including them in many builds! The fact that we had two in a row here is pure coincidence, I assure you. Your DLC looks sick man! I really look forward to being able to tackle more African civilizations as well
@@robbylava what could be a good idea is so use the mechanic seen in "Heroes and Generals" where you had tunnel openings that allowed villagers and military to enter one tunnel entrance and exit (teleport to a different entrance) at a different tunnel entrance . Showing like how the Vietnamese uses such tunnels for rapid deployment in the 1960s. Thus it will allow rapid deployment only if you have built such tunnel entrances in strategic locations.
I've considered stuff like that before. There's no doubt it was used in sieges, though I'm not sure I would describe it as having been rapid deployment, more like the only way they could hope to deploy anything past a heavy wall! In such a case I could see a "delayed teleport" working pretty well.
Are the new Romans or your Romans canon (for this channel)? Because I must note that the game's Romans already work 5% faster. The Thai were one of my first custom civs. I have them bombard elephants (because why not??) and like smaller farms or something pointless.
You know Guru, that's a great question. I honestly don't know whether I should use my Romans or the in-game ones! I think I'll try to address this in a future video, my inclination is to stick with mine but I wouldn't want to come across as arrogant by doing so. What do you think? So funny how for both you and I the Thai were one of our first designs. My initial draft of them was terrible, but I'm really glad I took the time to review the history and put something together that better meets the standards I strive for on the channel today! Thanks as always for taking the time Guru, it's great to hear from you
@@robbylava You're redoing the Saracens and Slavs and more, so I guess you just preemptively redid the Romans! I'm not wild about their in game design, honestly, since they stepped over so many other civs' toes (faster attacking war galleys from Saracens, faster firing scorpions from Celts, faster created militia from Goths). And what reflects their extensive fortifying!? Sorry, just a mini rant haha. Their design is kinda lazy, I think.
You know... Why The Thai, why not Siamese? Thailand actually doesn't exist as a culture until WWII. It's true that Siamese call each of themselves Tai for telling everyone they're not slaves, but they distinct from nearby civs calling them "Chao Syam".
Good question! My thought was that the term Siamese is considered somewhat distasteful today, at least from what I read online, and Age of Empires 2 does use some anachronistic names already. While I don't love anachronistic names, I felt like this was an okay time to use one since it could help avoid people getting needlessly upset. Plus, in my research, even in academic sources, the terms Thai and Siamese were used almost interchangeably.
@@robbylava I'm not good at history research, but you might be aware that I'm from Thailand. I'm not saying I know more, and even thank you for clarification. I must say that I wrote this comment when I was 30% into the clip. And add that "Phrai" means "employed individual", and "Tai" means "free of employment", slaves are called "Tash", and "servers" are "Kha". They used to have humanity level like: Luang (master, royal) > Tai > Phrai > Kha > Tash. And Thai, as you said means any races that lives in Siam, this was coined by Rama V at the end of slave freedom grants, before WWI. And then Siam is renamed to Thailand by a WWII dictator general Por, to make it easier for everyone to talk to Siamese who often call themself Tai (Free man). So it's actually interchangeable, it's like calling Germany instead of Deutschland. In fact, it's the same logic. Deutschland is "Land of people", which people are "Germans", so Thailand is "Land of Free Man", which free man is anyone who lives in Siam. My memory might not be that good I might confuse some timestamp, but you get the idea. Thanks, again for your words.
@@cefcephatus fascinating! Well thank you so much for clarifying my friend, that's not only very interesting but is also very useful for me. I really appreciate your input and hope you enjoyed the build
Hello Robby! I waited for Thai for so long. Even if I don't know their history well they must be part of the game. I really like the first bonus. It shows well the Thai politic system. I am interested to see if the second will be enough to see elephants in the game. I like elephants but as they are now they are not a good option sadly. Maybe with this bonus it would change. The third bonus reminds me of the Inca's. I don't see it being that good of an economic bonus unfortunately. I love the team bonus on the other hand. The phrai luang sonds weird to me. I understand the gathering bonus and the HP boost but the teleportation... I mean, you already have villagers moving faster when they want to garrison. It feels a bit double down. For the campaign, I would say that the king from the 16th century is better as Thai have gunpowder units that are important for them. It would be a better option.
Hey, thank you so much Divicos! Really glad you liked so much of the build my friend! I agree with you that the reseeding bonus is probably not strong enough, so I think I'm going to go with one of my tabled ideas instead. And a comment or suggested that the teleport garrison could maybe work only within a fixed range, so that way the movement speed still can matter and it is more of an enhancement of that existing ability! Totally agree with you on the campaign as well, as well as fitting the time frame better he's just such a cool protagonist. Thanks as always for taking the time to watch and comment my friend! It's great to hear from you.
On a separate note; where are all the thai aoe2 players? Seriously, the leadderboard has next to no thai player, and in contrast, aoe2 in vietnam is HUGE. Wth is going on
That's a great question Felix, I have no idea! It would be interesting to see the stats as to whether adding a civilization to aoe2 made people from that region more interested in the game.
40:16
I would also like an elephant mounted hand cannoneer one day.
if they would have 200+ hp, 7 range and higher accuracy than Janissary...uff
@@ilidar, they would surely be expensive as hell.
21:00
In the late game this bonus will actually be proportionally weaker.
With the farming upgrades, the farms get reseeded less frequently, so the time lost reseeding then become less significant.
Thanks for doing another Elephant civ. I really liked the Imperial Battle Elephant idea.
Really liked the elephant bonus damage reduction. Would be surprised if that was clunky in testing. In general, it's good to have a mixed army and this is a perfect civ bonus for that.
Uparaja effect could be added in game in a general way, kind of how they added auto seed and auto scout as a life improve of the game. Maybe limit what AI could control but could be useful when playing vs hard com since computer can do several actions at the same time.
I hope to see Cannon elephant in future civ build. That unit in AOE3 for Indians is awesome.
Hey! Thank you so much for saying so! Really glad you think the bonus damage thing will work out, I was a little nervous about that.
An AI advisor is actually a really interesting idea as a broader addition to the game. Especially for lower level players in casual matches who don't want to worry about messing around with micro! Such a cool suggestion man.
18:16
This makes me think of a civ bonus where elephants would take less bonus damage from enemy units the more infantry you have around them.
20:06
😂
Well, it seems you think the same thing. 😂
Or at least similar.
Noice! So glad you did the Thai! They’re so long overdue. It’s bizarre to me that they didn’t add them with Rise of the Rajas. They’re literally the only civilization in the region that didn’t get included and they are one of the most prominent and important ones. I suppose if we were to include one more from the Southeast Asia region perhaps the Hmong/Miao might be a potential future choice, even if I don’t know too much about them. Well done as always bro.
The big potential civs in the area, by my reckoning, would include the Cham, Mon, Shan, Thai and Lao. Probably some others I'm forgetting, most likely in Burma.
Hmong, Miao, and so on would be the ethnicities that would be the reason to rename Chinese to Han imo, as they would fall into the mainstay Chinese cultural sphere.
@@Crossil Dang, I didn't even know about these groups. I guess there's way more than I thought there were. But yes, I agree. So much potential and history to explore in this region.
Thanks for saying so smaoproducts! Really glad you enjoyed my friend. And a very good analysis Crossil, I think that's pretty much identical to my own list
@@robbylavaa new suggestion for Siamese civ
Castle age unique unit -Elephant arqebusier
Barrack unique unit- Phrom Krong Chok an unit that can increase the attack of all elephant units by +3 no upgrades available in caste age
Stable-Imperial battle elephant after researching White elephant
Heya Robby,
Thanks for another great build! You just keep coming up with new and distinct ideas. I especially like the combined arms bonus encouraging using units together. The heavy elephant focus is also nice.
Just a few other things to note:
1) Signaler Elephant: Sounds interesting. I like support units, so it's nice to see more of those. It'll especially help armored elephants, since they are so slow. Also, maybe it should have healing > fighting instead?
2) Phrai Luang: Always good to see the TC get some love. I'm not sure how useful this one is, though. Since they lack the final mining and wood upgrades, maybe they should get +10% work rate from this. (Also, minor note: I believe ph is pronounced "p" in Thai, as opposed to "f" in English.)
3) Imperial Elephant: Another thing that's always welcome: unique upgrades to units! This also fits well with the Imperial Skirmishers of the Vietnamese. I imagine this one to be rarely used, though, since the price is so steep. But cool to see nonetheless!
4) Jaturungkabart: I think this would also fit nicely as a unique upgrade to either the spearline or swordline. With the combined arms theme it wouldn't be out of place for them to have two unique upgrades either.
5) Uparaja: You mean we could utilize god-tier AI micro against human opponents? Yup, probably better left in the tabled section.
6) Sakdi Na: Sounds like a cool concept. Definitely one to be used at some point in a build.
Hey Bjarke ! Thanks so much for the feedback my friend! I'm certainly glad my bills continue to deliver in your eyes, and I'm particularly please do felt the theming landed well on this one!
I would definitely agree that the Imperial Battle elephant might be too expensive, I was trying to kind of match the paladins price tag, but since cavalier is so much cheaper than elite battle elephant that might not have been a great comparison. What would you recommend I reduce it to?
As for the Jaturungkabart, I would have 110% gone with it had it fallen within the time frame, but it seems unlikely that it existed as a military unit before the late 1600s. I really hope I'm wrong about that though!
Thanks as always for taking the time to watch and comment my friend.
Hard to say. At the very least flip the food and gold cost. 1200 food/1000 gold might also be good. It'll probably almost exclusively be used in drawn out team games anyway, so maybe it's not that big a deal.
Great starting point. I'll look into it!
Since we talk about S.E.Asian, I really want Malay got overhauled like India, turn em as new region, i mean Nusantara (Indonesian/Malay archipelago) have its own distinct architecture than "Cambodian" style south east asian building style we had
We can had at least 4 new civ based of Malay: Sumatran/revamp Malay (Sriwijaya empire), Javanese (proper civ for Majapahit campaign), Bruneian (Brunei kingdom) and Malaccan ( sultanate of Malacca)
And having harbor as and karambit as regional units
Yeah, Malay split would be great!
I adore this. Friggin brilliant idea Ambone!
Of this hypothetical subdivision, which would you be most interested in seeing?
@@robbylava Gonna chime in here because Indonesia is one of my fav regions in general. I think Javanese would work the best.
They were very distinct from the Malay, especially in terms of gunpowder weaponry. At the zenith of Javanese power, even fishing ships were often armed with cannons (called cetbangs, which could be a UT or maybe a UU both on land and water?). They pioneered the craft of firearms, Java Arquebuses were regarded as the best in the world for a while (maybe this could be a good UU, something like a conquistador but long ranged and on foot). Maybe they could get some nice skirmisher bonus too, it could even reflect how they crushed the cavarly archer civ (Mongol) invasion.
@@robbylava Javanese tho, because as Indonesian myself, the Majapahit campaign play as Malay is felt wrong, ethnic Malay and their identity more towards Sriwijaya kingdom, Malaccan, Bruneian, etc, is bit awkward for Indo and Malaysian bros seeing Gajah Mada, THE Javanese warlord, but you play as Malay civ. And force levy is legit the most old medieval Javanese warlords will do to their own people,
Also revamping already exists Malay also fits for new "Sriwijaya" civ, with little bit tweak toward monk, instead fast age progression, because in Jambi, Sumatra, they have old ruins of medieval era Buddhist Academy run by Sriwijaya
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muaro_Jambi_Temple_Compounds
@@ahmicqui9396 i know The perfect UUs for Javanese
- Bhayangkara: elite Majapahit royal gueards Excel in both archery and spearmanship (today in modern Indonesian "Bhayangkara" is formal name for police force)
-Jong ship: Big tanky warship, but low attack and clunky due it's size, can carry units like as transport ship
The Thai, my beloved! I absolutely adore Mesoamerica for sure, but SE Asia is a close second.
I rarely point this out under aoe vids, but the Khmer is actually pronounced something like "K'mai". You do a lot of actual history here though so I mention it.
They avoided not only the Mongol conquests but European colonialism, arguably the two most devastating events in world history. The Thai really are something, eh?
The bonuses and UUs you created for them are extremely interesting, I love that. They'd probably be extremely op though... not that I'm complaining haha
Excellent to hear Ahmicqui ! I'm delighted that you liked it! Hopefully they wouldn't be too OP heheheh
Another commenter also mentioned the pronunciation issue, I'm definitely going to look into that and address it in the next recraft. Thanks for mentioning it!
Great to hear from you as always my friend. Thanks for taking the time!
Hey Robby, A unique unit I had in mind was a cataphract-boyar elephant which was a battle elephant which had high melee armour so it can defeat other battle elephants, also did bonus damage to infantry and also took no elephant bonus damage but still takes the cavalry bonus damage. It would also have super low pierce armour, so archers can counter it, and gave you a reason to use your own battle/imperial elephants to tank archers. Also, one of their unit techs could be elephants deal more trample damage at a larger radius, basically cataphracts with logisitca but elephants instead. So the Thai army composition would be both battle/imperial and uu elephants to deal with archers, infantry, cavalry. While bombard cannons to deal with siege and hussar to deal with monk or remove hussar, so they have a weakness to monks. I also think they shouldn't get armoured or archer elephants to stay consistent with the other south-east Asian civs. Anyways, thanks for reading.
Really cool idea! I could see a lot of people being very nervous with the design like this, but I quite like it!
35:29
I'd like to point out that a bonus that increases the amount of food farms produces is a "slow burn" wood bonus more than a food bonus.
The food production rate isn't increased, what you get is that you spend less wood reseeding farms, after you got all the food from it, so only after quite a few minutes.
Now this is actually quite a fun civ! I do haven an idea though for a video or just in your free time. You could ask an ai like chat got or something to make a civ! It's really awesome
Well thank you for saying so Ozzy! And that's a really interesting recommendation, I've obviously seen chat GPT videos cropping up all over TH-cam but have never thought to do one myself. It could be cool to see how the bot tries to design a civilization I've already tackled myself, what do you think about that?
@@robbylava that would be great too! I've tried it myself and it gives incredible info!
Lovely! I've put the idea on my future to-do list, will probably give it a crack at some point down the line. thanks again for the input!
Hey bro can you make a civ concept for the 'Marathas'
I could very easily be convinced! But I don't know a lot about them -- could you give me a super brief summary of the civilization to kickstart my research?
@@robbylava Here is a shortly described history of marathas
They existed before the millennium but came to power with the rise of Shivaji Maharaj.
The Marathas were a prominent regional power in India during the 17th and 18th centuries. They emerged as a powerful Hindu warrior caste and formed the Maratha Empire, which was founded by Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in the mid-17th century. The empire reached its peak under the rule of his descendants, particularly during the reign of Chhatrapati Shivaji's grandson, Chhatrapati Shahu.
The history of the Marathas can be traced back to the decline of the Mughal Empire, which had been the dominant power in India for several centuries. As the Mughal Empire weakened, various regional powers started asserting their independence, and the Marathas were among them. Shivaji Maharaj was the key figure in this process and is widely regarded as the founder of the Maratha Empire.
Shivaji Maharaj was born in 1630 and established an independent Maratha kingdom by 1674. He employed guerrilla tactics and innovative military strategies to challenge the Mughal Empire(currently Hindustani in the game) and other regional powers. He built a strong navy and a disciplined army known as the Maratha Navy and the Maratha Army, respectively. Shivaji Maharaj also implemented administrative and economic reforms in his kingdom, focusing on decentralization and the welfare of his subjects.
After Shivaji Maharaj's death in 1680, his son, Sambhaji, succeeded him as the ruler of the Maratha Empire. Sambhaji faced significant challenges, including Mughal invasions and internal conflicts. He was captured and executed by the Mughals in 1689.
Despite the setbacks, the Marathas regrouped and continued to expand their influence under the leadership of Sambhaji's younger brother, Rajaram. However, Rajaram's reign was marked by continuous warfare and Mughal invasions. In 1707, after Rajaram's death, his widow, Tarabai, assumed power and became a prominent figure in Maratha history.
One of the most significant turning points for the Marathas came with the rise of Chhatrapati Shahu, the grandson of Shivaji Maharaj. Under Chhatrapati Shahu's rule, the Marathas experienced a period of political stability and territorial expansion. The empire reached its zenith during the reign of Chhatrapati Shahu's Peshwa (prime minister), Balaji Vishwanath, and later his son, Bajirao I.
Bajirao I, often referred to as Bajirao the Great, was a highly skilled military commander and strategist. He expanded Maratha territories to the north, south, and west, effectively establishing Maratha dominance over large parts of India. Bajirao's military campaigns were highly successful, and he is remembered for his victories against the Mughals and other regional powers.
The Maratha Empire continued to flourish under subsequent Peshwas, but it faced challenges from internal conflicts, rivalry between different Maratha chiefs, and invasions by external powers. The empire gradually weakened in the late 18th century due to a combination of factors, including the rise of the British East India Company and the third battle of Panipat in 1761, where the Marathas suffered a significant defeat against the Afghan ruler Ahmad Shah Durrani.
By the early 19th century, the Maratha Empire had fragmented, with various Maratha chiefs ruling over different territories. The British capitalized on this fragmentation and gradually annexed Maratha territories through a series of military campaigns and alliances with local rulers.
The Marathas played a crucial role in Indian history, challenging Mughal authority and offering a strong resistance to foreign powers. They left a lasting impact on Indian culture, architecture, and administration.
Lavo was not a Thai kingdom, it was a Mon kingdom. The first Thai kingdom was the Sukhothai.
I knew that Lavo wasn't Thai, but I did read that it was a Tai kingdom, something of a precursor to the later Thai states. Did I get a bad source? If you can give me more information that would be very helpful!
This is one that I went in-depth trying to figure out appearances for before your video came out. To note, I also included the other Tai into this grouping, so Shan and Lao also were included in my speculation.
Going broad, there are Shan in two first Bayinnaung scenarios,, alongside the all-Thai brawl of the fourth scenario (barring the Nat Enchantresses). In Le Loi there's a Lao state in the fifth scenario, which is Tai. Finally, there is a possibility of adding the Thais into the Suryavarman campaign, where i would personally make the enemies in Suryavarman 3 (hostile locals) be Thai as a sort of random migratory group you run into (they were in the area at this time, I think, and them being migrants is historically accurate), and of course the Lavo Kingdom of Suryavarman 5 being Thais as well. A correction, though, I think it was a Mon kingdom at the point in time when this scenario is happening, but I wouldn't mind it being depicted as Thai as long as the Mon aren't around.
So using the Tai classification those are all applicable. Dividing them up divides them as stated. I wouldn't be surprised you have ideas of doing these other Tai groups and more.
I do wanna say, though, that the civ placement in Bayinnaung is one of the worst in the game, overall.
Really nicely done Crossil! I totally agree with your assessment here, you caught a bunch that I didn't even think of!
37:13
I don't find it particularly clunky.
Just like the monaspa gets attack from nearby monaspa and knights, the elephants can get anti bonus damage armour from being near foot soldiers.
Hi Robby. Nice video. And as you probably understand, I have also come up with a Thai civ.(though it should be said that I came up with all the bonuses before Dynasties of India)
.Farms generate gold
. Battle Elephant upgrades for free and immediately
. Villager gets 1+ armor for each age (+4)
.House +2 Line of Sight
.T Elephants +2 attack vs buildings
Unique unit Spear Elephant (think an Elephant version of the Steppe Lancer) Food 110 gold 75, Hit points 250=300, Attack 8=10, Bonus attack 6010vs Elephant and 5=5vs cavalry,Rif 2.0.. Melee Armor1 Pierce2=3, Speed0,8, Line of sight 7=8, Upgrade cost food 1000 glod 800.
Castle Age technology White Elephant Food 350 gold 300 Battle Elephant 33% cheaper
Imperial Age technology Sea gypsy wood 500 gold 300 Ships cost -10%and are trained 10% faster and +1 Range war ships
Interesting design! You also had a focus on farming and villagers I see. The small amount of navel stuff is quite interesting as well!
So how did you come to your bonuses from a historical perspective?
@@robbylava Why I gave them the specific bonuses was mostly because they are not found in the game. And they fit an Elephant civ. And why the technology Sea gypsy Because apparently there is a group of people called that.And Unique unit Spear Elephant because you usually use men with long spears against those who drove the elephants (that's why they have an attack bonus vs elephants)
Farms can be planted on Shallows maybe? 39:50
Cool but a little too niche I think! It would almost never come up. Though as an Easter egg sort of side effect I think it could be quite cool.
like the civ very much, another bengali with both battle elefants and elefant archers but with an actual focus in them. loved floatin rice, loved the UU, loved the imperial elephant, everything else kinda don't
i would have focused in faster farmers in general, maybe even giving battle elefants in particular a slight armor bonus to see if they can resist spears a bit better even with the same weakness in the big picture, or an infantry bonus against spears, the hospital as a unique building like you said actually would work, a midly expensive building (i would say wood and stone or stone and gold) that will give a non stackable regen bonus equal of that of a monk healing that unit as long as the unit is in the aura of said building and giving an imperial unique tech to increase the speed and area of hospitals.
-faster farms
-battle elefants resist spear line better
-imperial battle elefant as unique upgrade
-hospital as unique building
team: farms are seeded faster
that's the only changes i would say, period.
do their elefant archers get partian tactics? still with access to hand cannoners that isn't so important cause the rol they will fill is a way to kill enemy pikes and halbs to protects your battle elefants stampeding through your enemy forces.
giving them nearly fully upgraded generic champions is fine to represent their infantry protecting their elefants irl without disrupting most interactions in game cause champions are already a somewhat good unit to kill halbs.
also, keeping floting rice food regen slower than the farming rate of an uninterrumped thai farmer is very important so that farms do not become infinite sources of food with an only 1 time payment of wood.
this is of the best civ build i've seen here, i actually see this happening very close to what you say and trully functioning without breaking the game apart
Wow! Thanks a lot Daniel! I am delighted and gratified that you think this one works so well! Don't worry, the floating rice replenishment rate is much slower than a farmer work rate -- I think it works out to somewhere between 100 and 150 bonus food, assuming zero interruptions.
Hope you've been enjoying all the content man!
Finally south east asians
39:39
Or you first build the farms and then the mill.
You don't keep the bonus for reseeding it, but get an immediate economy.
But I don't think it would be very practical.
Hey man you have an outstanding ability to craft civilizations and I good knowledge of history. You should get in touch with the guys working on the Romae Ad Bellum mod. A total conversion mod taking AoE2 into Antiquity. Probably runs 700BC to 300 AD. You could really help them out I think
Jeff my friend, that is genuinely one of the most touching compliments I have received about my work on this channel. I really appreciate you saying so and I'm very grateful that you hold my silly projects in such high regard!
I will admit, I have thought about reaching out to them, along with all manner of Age of Empires TH-camrs, to see if I can pick up some traction. I suppose I just don't know how well received such an outreach attempt would be, do you reckon they'd have any interest in giving me the time of day? And if you happen to know how to contact them, that would be fantastic information as well! I don't know if they have a TH-cam channel or anything, let alone an email address I could shoot a message to.
Either way, thanks again for your kind words. I really hope you continue to enjoy the content my friend, and I look forward to seeing you in the comments section more going forward!
44:26
I just thought of a bonus that I don't know how strong would be, but could be funny.
Since they planted rice on flooded lands, those farms would be more annoying to run through.
So the bonus would be that enemy units move slower when walking over your farms. 😂
I can even imagine someone making farms in the middle of the battlefield, specially on choke points just to make the enemies slower. 😂
Thank you for doing Thai Civs!
Can you split civ into Lanna and Ayotaya Civ (Including Lan Chang Civ too!)?
Thank you for your idea!
My pleasure, I hope you enjoyed!
Lanna is absolutely on my list, which would be split from this one of course, but I don't think I've ever heard of the Lan Chang before. What were they like?
@@robbylava Lan Chang Province was named after the ancient Lan Xang kingdom, to which the area had once belonged. Its name means a 'Million Elephants'.
@MammothSaltyGachaponOfficial very cool! Do you think it would be more appropriate to have a Lan Xang civ instead, since Lan Chang was only a sub province within that greater Kingdom?
@@robbylava Up to you! But i want to hear your impression on Lanna Civ. Because i made some Custom civ on name Lan na.
Absolutely, I'll give it a whirl sometime! My to-do list is quite long, so I apologize in advance if it takes a while to get to them, but I promise I will eventually.
Campaign recommendation - The Tai Ahoms. Establishing a state in Modern Assam (India). You can Fight Burmese and Manipuris in the beginning. Then, campaign goes on to fight the Mughals beating them and finally ends with figthing the colonial powers.
A great point, but I actually think that the Ahoms have enough material to be their own civilization!
I'm really surprised why. The developers didn't add "Thai civ" in AOE2. The way they have a cool history and are related to other Southeast Asian civilizations
Couldn't agree more. A really baffling omission.
I might add 1 more potential campaign if you want some diversity. Queen Jamadevi a former princess of Lavo and the founder of the Haripunchai kingdom in northern Thailand. The story focuses on her expedition from Lavo to the North, war with the Lua kingdom, and ruling Hariphunchai.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camadevi
A wonderful idea! A friend told me that I might actually be able to add Lavo as a civilization as well, so my inclination is to save her for that. Do you think that sounds feasible?
I think her story fits Lanna kingdom as a standalone civilization more but yeah. I'd love to see your theorycraft in that ones. Even though Lavo is an important kingdom, it is not mentioned much in our history lesson but even after merging with the Ayutthaya kingdom it is still be very important stronghold city for Ayutthaya and became the unofficial capital in some reigns. If you need some candidates for Lavo. I think King Ramesuan, the 2nd and 5th king of Ayutthaya (Yes, he has 2 reigns) son of Uthong might be fit. He rules Lavo as a prince. He has the war of succession with his uncle and his nephew and also has war with Lanna kingdom in the north and war with Angkor in the east. Very much a potential candidate. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramesuan_(king_of_Ayutthaya) @@robbylava
@@pongtepsrikanta6304 great suggestion as well. Do you know of any good demonyms for the peoples of Lanna and Lavo that I could use for the names of those civilizations?
For Lanna they are an ethnic group called Tai Yuan of Khon Mueng but basically, we call them northern Thai or Just call them Lanna same as their kingdom.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Thai_people en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lan_Na
and for Lavo, I think you can use Lavo as their demonyms as well as their kingdom, Some might say they are Mon but Mon people also have great potential civilization of their own so I suggest that you call them Lavo it fits more. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavo_Kingdom . @@robbylava
This is been extremely helpful. Thank you so much for your input my friend! Can't promise it will be soon, but you will see these ideas on the channel at some point
Quick thoughts:
-- Building rate boost is nice, but not certain how impactful it would be. I do like that is incentives more novel methods of constructing your base.
-- Reduced bonus damage for eles + foot soldiers. I do like the historicity and the unique gameplay this would encourage, however again I'm not sure how impactful this would be (especially in castle age) since Bengalis already have -25% bonus damage (and conversion resistance), but without the need of additional infantry-micro.
-- Insta-Farming: it is a small bonus, but a little helpful
-- Speedy-Vils sounds quite fun, just a slight boost to safety for the most part. This also encourages forwards a bit, since (if you build a forward tower, for example) you can then run your villagers back home away from danger faster or send new villagers forward much faster.
-- Gate-keeping: is interesting, but very small and probably not that important. If you trigger more than one gate though (i.e., walk through three gates in sequence) does it trigger more than once? I presume not, but if so, then it is probably OP haha
-- I like both UTs, their effects are subtle helpful, but quite distinct from what exists in the game
-- The signaler UU sounds fun, having true support units that you don't want to build many of is definitely not something commonly seen in AOE2, but makes a lot of sense. I do think that the speed boost for elephants likely should be a bit smaller (I think you have it at +15/25% regular/elite?), since it is superior to the khmer 10% for battle-ele-only bonus and mixing in 1 signaler ought be very easy to do, and getting 1.5X - 2.5X the khmer bonus for all elephants sounds a bit too much.
-- The Thai super-villagers is also kinda fun, but I will say that teleporting garrison doesn't really appeal to me. That mechanic is both strange and not very realistic 11. As for the gather rate bonus, I'm not sure what number you might want to settle on, since 5% is just the roman eco-bonus, although a higher number would probably be too much.
-- Imperial battle elephant is a good idea in principle, although I'm not certain that it would play well in practice. The existing battle eles are already in the class of super hard to reach, but ultra-powerful late game units, that rarely are seen because they cost too much, but then when they are seen can often be stupidly OP because of their absurd pop-efficiency. So I think that adding another massive-cost imperial upgrade will only intensify that aspect of the unit, which may not be very good.
Their tech tree looks kind of bad, given all the usually important upgrades missing, leaving them mainly gunpowder and elephants -- both hard to reach late-game unit compositions. Their eco, I think, is also slightly overestimated in your ranking, since although they have a lot of nice bonuses related to economy, most of these are small, tangential, or locked behind UTs/UUs. Overall, I like direction of the design and I like a lot of the bonuses, but I think the civ as a whole would struggle a lot with a poor tech tree, their elephant-addiction, and their collection of generally hard to leverage / smallish bonuses
Another fantastic review as always! It's such a pleasure having you regularly in the comments section Simbelmynë.
Very good catch about the gates! I can't believe I didn't think of that, will definitely fix that exploit.
Your points about the teleportation and gather rate bonus are both good. I was actually strongly considering upping the gather rate, since nerfing the teleport is definitely in the cards. I don't personally mind it being similar to the flat bonus the Romans get since they come about it so differently and it's bundled with other benefits. Kind of like how the new centurion unit kind of steals the Japanese faster attacking infantry -- I have plenty of problems with the design, but that's not one of them.
But also roughly sums up my feelings about the signal elephants move speed thing. It's definitely going to be better than the Khmer on average, but they will have it passively which will help with things like reinforcing, plus signalers are fairly easy to kill once you get on top of them. I have another thought on how I'm going to take that bonus, but in the meantime maybe a nerf to the aura's range could help?
Definitely agree that the civilization is late game focused and will likely struggle early game. One consideration I had was swapping out the instant farms thing for a stronger farming bonus, such as the ones I mentioned in my tabled ideas. How do you like that idea?
Great to hear from you! Thanks for taking the time
In regards to the Phrai Luang gather rate bonus: Because they miss the final eco upgrades (that increase gather rate), the only real benefit here is an increase to farming. Other than that they are worse off than civs having access to those. But they do have the advantage of having it bundled in one tech (along with other benefits). Maybe raise it to 7-10%?
I reckon the main benefit of the tech is the reduced train time and increased HP for a sturdier eco that can be replenished faster. But Supremacy is a better, cheaper version of that.
Perhaps the tech should be moved to Castle Age and have a slightly lower price. Just to be able to get that eco benefit a bit earlier. Maybe also just remove the teleport function. It can be replaced with even faster movement speed when garrisoning. Or have the gather speed be 5% overall speed instead (gather+move+attack - and maybe build?) That could actually be quite neat.
edit: Grammar
All very reasonable points! I really like upping the general harvest rate to plus 10%. If it still felt weak after that then maybe I can take slightly more drastic action like moving into Castle age. Thanks Bjarke!
Siam only exists and referred to a country with a lot of ethnicity in 18-20 century. Thai is the term of a majority of ethnic group living there and was a term since ancient time.
While I still think the Elephant Archer needs a rework to its capabilities, this civ's anti-bonus damage bonus is the best shot I've seen at a civ making EAs viable.
Well thank you for saying so! That was absolutely my intention, poor elephants need some love
Man this was one you've had for over a year?
Yes indeed! So this version looks very different from my original drafts. I had much lower standards for research when I started the channel!
24:23
I like this unit.
Civ 5 Music in background? Pling pling song?
I don't think so! Or at least, I don't remember any Civ 5 branding when I found that song. The original is linked on the civilization document, so if you happen to have time to double check I'd be curious if it were the same one.
@@robbylava th-cam.com/video/Pu70oNFbOnM/w-d-xo.htmlsi=C4biW9sKfc7I5myq It's a Thai folksong. Beautiful melody and lyrics, it's featured in Civ 5. It's called Pling Pling for short ^^
40:25 so the Mughals are already represented in AoE2 as the Hindustanis(they mostly present just the region of Hindustan - the North India and bordering countries like Nepal, Afghanistan, Pakistan, with a great role of Muslim there). And still I don't think that elephants fit Mughals, as Babur defeated and conquered the Delhi Sultanate in the First Battle of Panipat, in which the Delhi-and-vassals army already had a great amount of elephants. The eles were shocked by the Babur's army with a great variety of firearms. The First Battle of Panipat also was IMO the beginning of the end of mass using of BATTLE elephants in the Indian Subcontinent.
Yep! I was just pointing it out as the only historical evidence I could find of bombard elephants being used. Could be a cool unique unit for the Hindustanis, especially if the ghulam becomes a regional unit like I hope it will.
Hope you enjoyed the build my friend! You were a huge reason that I ended up finishing this one.
@@robbylava I really enjoy every your build, as it connected with history and that's really important for me. Though I mostly agree with your idea with regional ghilman, but I still dislike that your soilder literally called "slave". Overall I think that expanding regional units is the best way of developing AoE2. I know that you don't have enough time but I still wait for your next concepts.
Wonderful! The fact that you liked it and are excited for more is all that I could ever ask for.
Definitely open to changing things like the name "Ghulam", especially if you have another suggestion. That's just the one I always hear tossed around for such a unit!
Now you have dip your toe into South East Asia, I am curious your take about the Mons.
Have a look at Wareru for a good campaign idea!
Excellent suggestion E L! My list is pretty long right now but I'll put it down for the future for sure, thanks!
27:55
This makes the reseeding bonus even weaker 😅
If i had to implement hospitals into AOE2, it would be a building in Castle age, where you can recruit healing unit called "Field Doctor". What it does? Its Missionary with Healing ability only, but boy it heals really fast, faster than Byzantine monks. He is upgraded by monk techs.
and last thing
Garrison bonus: More like Garrison Tech. What will it do? You can turn normal house into defensive Bunker thingy. Villagers garrison and throw low damage spears, kinda like Burrows in Warcraft 3
Both reasonable ideas! If I were to do a hospital, which I am planning on doing at some point, I would definitely want it to have a healing aura of its own, but making doctors trainable from them sounds like a great addition!
Your garrisoning idea is quite interesting. What would such a technology be called? And would the Khmer get a new civilization bonus, since theirs would be made less special by this tech?
@@robbylava guerrilla warfare? I mean southeast Asia is very good place for guerrillas to fight, even in todays world, guerrillas repelled American army back in the Vietnam war, and most of them were farmers with a gun
No doubt about that. My only concern would be that that is a very modern take on the region, kind of like we were discussing in the discord server. In researching for this video I couldn't find any evidence that that sort of warfare was particularly extensive during the middle ages, but if you happen to find a source that says otherwise I'm happy to be proven wrong!
@@robbylava Guerrila warfare is in every era. Its using the nature to your advantage, from small scale rebellions in mountains to Battle of Teutoburg forest, guerrila warfare comes in every shape
No doubt about that. Something about it feels a little bit off to me but I can't exactly put my finger on what -- I'd say use the idea in your own builds for sure! But I think I would personally hold out on seeing some more sources before making a definitive call on my end.
Glad you didn't get...Thai-ed up with this one :P
A few points:
- Khmer are pronounced "Kh-my". The "KhMER" spelling is from a French mistranslation.
- The Armored Elephant is unique to South Asia as they lacked Battering Rams irl. There is no archeological evidence that India used them, because elephants. But we don't have this for South East Asia, which is why those civs never got them when the Indians were split up. This is similar for the Elephant Archer. While I am not sure about Thailand, a lot of South East Asian civilizations only mounted halberd-users on elephants, not bowmen (and the Khmer with their insane bolt-throwers).
- I made a Thai civ myself a while ago, with an Imperial Battle Elephant that did bonus damage to unique units for the exact same reason haha!
From what I understand it's pronounced "Khmy"/"Khmai" in Khmer; in English it's pronounced "Khmer". So both would be correct.
Seems the "r" at the end used to be pronounced in Khmer as well, but fell away at some point. It's apparently still used in some dialects.
Heheheh thanks Tyranitar!
Great point on the pronunciation. I vaguely remember hearing this before, so I'll make sure to look into it.
In regards to elephants: I could be totally off base with this, but I'm fairly sure I have seen some research that elephants were in fact used against barricades and fortifications in South Asia. So I think there's a LITTLE more justification for the Siege elephant than you describe, but I'm not very confident in that guess!
The elephant archer, on the other hand, I think is much more justifiable. Even just in my research for this build I saw several references to projectiles being fired from elephant back, though these may well be modern anachronisms. Plus, if I'm honest, without the elephant Archer this build completely falls apart! So I'd really like to find a way to keep it, even if it turns out the history isn't perfect.
Thanks for the feedback my friend! So cool that you did this civilization yourself -- the fact that we both came to the same relatively obscure bonus is absolutely mind blowing!
Great to hear from you as always Tyranitar.
@@robbylava I mentioned the elephants bit because I have seen a few posts where people go "just give S.E.Asian civs all the elephant units" and it's just a more complicated situation than that. I mean, not even all the Indian civs have all the elephants haha.
Thailand I wasn't sure on, so it was more "I don't know, but it's worth checking".
And yeah, it was honestly pretty funny for me when I saw you did the same. Personally my version of the Thais was a bit more based on later parts of their history, so I had them as an "Elephant & Gunpowder" civ, with a Bombard Elephant as their UU.
A very valid point! While I would personally like to see the Elephant Archer becoming a little more widespread, the Siege elephant I couldn't care less about, particularly because I personally dislike how it's implemented. Main reason I gave both to this build was for more variety in their core army comp, but besides this build the only other Southeast Asian civilization I could see getting all the elephant units would be the Burmese.
Certainly worth checking either way! I am more than happy to be fact checked here, and I very much hope it didn't feel like I was shooting down your suggestion! It really is a very important point to make.
Bombard elephant was actually suggested to me by a commenter who requested the civilization midway through my drafting process! I was personally not able to find any source besides a single uncited line on Wikipedia, but if you happen to find anything else that verifies it's existence it sounds like an absolutely sick addition!
@@robbylava Yeah I get you.
Honestly I think the Siege Elephant is a 100% historical addition. As the DLC was about India, they focused on the fact India didn't use battering rams and added them.
Burmese I agree with. Their proximity to India at least makes them the most likely to get either. But mostly the Elephant Archer, because it actually fixes some massive problems with the civ.
I can't remember my original sources. But they included more recent photos, and descriptions of the cannons being pretty small. So I gave them a shorter range than the bombard.
The Shan from Bayinnaung 1 and 2 are also Tai. I really dislike that they picked the Chinese to represent them.
Yeah, that is super inaccurate. I'm personally planning a complete Shan civilization though, hence why I didn't propose they be shifted to this civilization! Definitely more accurate if the Shan weren't going to be added though.
Shan states was under Ming China indirect control at that time, so still better than using Khmer. A new civ like Siamese would better represent them. But actually they only joint Siam in a short period 1776-1893.
Just like in aoe4, when an essential historical part like the Byzantines is missing, u have to choose between HRE and Ottomans to represent them😊
Not a fan of the instantly seeded farms. It's an already tiny bonus that gets less impactful the more upgrades (including the unique tech) you get.
What about, instead, they get a bonus where their farms are 2x2 tiles instead of 3x3?
This would represent the fertility of their lands (by having proportionally more food per square) and the reduction of the drop distance, especially with multiple layers involved, would be an interesting farming bonus.
This would also fit nicely with their first bonus, making your cities more compact, which is the theme of the faction you suggested.
The 2x2 farm bonus is allready in use by the Dutch, as replacement for their original farm bonus that let them place farms partially on water, which, while accurate, proved to be too much of a hassle.
That's quite an interesting idea Chris! I really like your reasoning for it. But, as Johannes rightly mentions, I do use a very similar bonus on my Dutch build and really like it there, so I'm not super inclined to change that one.
Instead, I would be more inclined to go with one of my table ideas, as I agree with you that the instant reseeding is kind of underwhelming. The longer lasting farms idea is pretty cool since it synergizes so well with floating rice, but I also like the idea that farms are cheaper the further away you build them from a drop point, as it promotes a really interesting trade-off while also hypothetically giving you more room to build close to your town centers.
Which do you prefer between those options? Or is there another one you'd recommend instead?
Really appreciate the input my friend! And thank you for chiming in, Johannes.
Very interesting build as always! As a fun fact, I had tried to fiddle around with Thai as a "OP elephant civ" :D
I like the castle unique unit to be a support role, so that you're not over reliant on castles for means of production, but you're still incentivized to make and mix them. I feel like it's much better than many unique units that just do a similar job as a standard units (like most of the infantry unique units which can most often be replaced by champions etc).
Question about the villager teleport garrison ability: is there a "maximum range" for that? like if it's at the other end of the map, far from everything and it can teleport at the other end of the map, it seems that it's something that could be abused... It might come late enough in the game that it's not going to be game breaking anyway... I don't know.
Ah also, do HC count as footsoldier for the purpose of the Thai elephant bonus?
Thanks a lot SeaDragon! Glad you enjoyed it!
Totally agree with you about current unique units often being boring or redundant, I really try to push the boundary with those in my designs! And yes, the HC would count as a foot soldier for the elephant bonus, that was an intentional synergy!
A bunch of other commenters are indicating that the Garrison bonus would probably be too strong. I didn't think it would be too bad since it is an imperial age upgrade gated behind an additional cost, but I think that your range idea is a good way of balancing it. My inclination would be having the range be based on the LoS of the targeted building, how do you like that idea?
Thanks for your answer! Basing the garrison ability of the vill upgrade on LOS would work. Usually the LOS of the buildings you want to garrison in is pretty large anyway, so it remains powerful. Ah and that surely incentivize picking up town watch and town patrol!
Absolutely! Those are technologies this civilization will really want to get for a lot of reasons, so it fits with their general play style pretty well I would say.
Thanks again for the great feedback!
Fun fact! Thailand offered to send some elephants to Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. He declined 😢
That would have been epic.
What a fantastic fun fact. Time to share this at literally every social gathering I go to until the day I die.
Imagine gattlingturrets on Elefantos
10/10 I agree!
25:38
I'm not a big fan of the teleporting.
Wouldn't thai be called Siam back than thought thai was what they called themselves around the 18th or 19th century to be more modern
I thought the same, but Siam actually seems to be the less accurate of the two! From what I could see, they only started to be called the Siamese towards the beginning of the 17th century, give or take 100 years.
It also is probably an exonym, meaning that it originated outside of the culture group themselves, and I prefer to avoid those where possible.
@robbylava yeah I could see that cause If I remember thailand is diverse with different tribes if I remember I know they fought khmer for their independence
@joshuareed2188 oh yeah, it has TONS of different tribes -- we are always going to have to simplify big time when we discuss the region. But, from what I understand, the Tai Peoples were definitely the most prominent, and among that group the Thai eventually gained dominance. Though that is probably an oversimplification heheheh
Yes I can't remember the dynasty that thai was under when achieved independence but Vietnam pagan (burma) pretty much mainland southeast Asia had different cultures and people tho I'd love to see aoe introduce them in either aoe 2 or aoe 4 I have a Philippines girlfriend she likes age of empires more than civilization and she disappointed that aoe hasn't tried to establish any old Philippines civilization
@joshuareed2188 The Philippines are on my radar for sure! Might be a little while till I get to them, but I completely agree they are much more deserving than they seem to be given credit for.
Good civ man. I have not created any SEA civs yet, that area is not my speciality, I'll leave that for pros like you. Hope to see the Thai added as well.
(FASTER moving kings...you want to see a commit streak across the map?! Kings are already faster than Husain bolt hahaha)
Teleportation should NOT be part of AoE. Rather starcraft. Please don't add more teleportation gimmicks to your builds.
The ''healing'' of an object or building is referred to as ''repair'' sir. XD
What I do know is that there are a handful of alterations I would love to see for some of those civs.
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)
Gurjaras.
Nerf Gurjaras by giving their ‘’Can garrison fishing ships in Dock’’ ability to an Africa/Messo civ team bonus that only has canoe navies.
Songhai Team bonus: Africa/Messo civs with canoe navies Can garrison fishing ships in Dock.
I love the Gurjaras especially their Shrivamshra riders, they are built to counter the boring, repetitive archer metta of a lot of ''pros''.
I have been working on my African DLC of late.
Red Sun of Africa DLC
docs.google.com/document/d/1tFQJ3MC3JevgRZ1faHR6lg6_12EKRQhbnysW53pkpc4/edit?usp=sharing
Thanks a lot for saying so Ivan!
I can see why you don't like the teleporting. I think there are times that such mechanics can be valid, particularly to represent extremely rapid deployment or repositioning of troops or people, but I certainly don't intend on including them in many builds! The fact that we had two in a row here is pure coincidence, I assure you.
Your DLC looks sick man! I really look forward to being able to tackle more African civilizations as well
@@robbylava what could be a good idea is so use the mechanic seen in "Heroes and Generals" where you had tunnel openings that allowed villagers and military to enter one tunnel entrance and exit (teleport to a different entrance) at a different tunnel entrance .
Showing like how the Vietnamese uses such tunnels for rapid deployment in the 1960s.
Thus it will allow rapid deployment only if you have built such tunnel entrances in strategic locations.
I've considered stuff like that before. There's no doubt it was used in sieges, though I'm not sure I would describe it as having been rapid deployment, more like the only way they could hope to deploy anything past a heavy wall!
In such a case I could see a "delayed teleport" working pretty well.
Are the new Romans or your Romans canon (for this channel)? Because I must note that the game's Romans already work 5% faster.
The Thai were one of my first custom civs. I have them bombard elephants (because why not??) and like smaller farms or something pointless.
You know Guru, that's a great question. I honestly don't know whether I should use my Romans or the in-game ones! I think I'll try to address this in a future video, my inclination is to stick with mine but I wouldn't want to come across as arrogant by doing so. What do you think?
So funny how for both you and I the Thai were one of our first designs. My initial draft of them was terrible, but I'm really glad I took the time to review the history and put something together that better meets the standards I strive for on the channel today!
Thanks as always for taking the time Guru, it's great to hear from you
@@robbylava You're redoing the Saracens and Slavs and more, so I guess you just preemptively redid the Romans! I'm not wild about their in game design, honestly, since they stepped over so many other civs' toes (faster attacking war galleys from Saracens, faster firing scorpions from Celts, faster created militia from Goths). And what reflects their extensive fortifying!?
Sorry, just a mini rant haha. Their design is kinda lazy, I think.
No need to apologize, I definitely agree! Though of course I'm pretty biased, heheheh.
You know... Why The Thai, why not Siamese?
Thailand actually doesn't exist as a culture until WWII. It's true that Siamese call each of themselves Tai for telling everyone they're not slaves, but they distinct from nearby civs calling them "Chao Syam".
Rachasap is basically Khmer Language + Sanskrit.
Good question! My thought was that the term Siamese is considered somewhat distasteful today, at least from what I read online, and Age of Empires 2 does use some anachronistic names already. While I don't love anachronistic names, I felt like this was an okay time to use one since it could help avoid people getting needlessly upset. Plus, in my research, even in academic sources, the terms Thai and Siamese were used almost interchangeably.
@@robbylava I'm not good at history research, but you might be aware that I'm from Thailand. I'm not saying I know more, and even thank you for clarification. I must say that I wrote this comment when I was 30% into the clip. And add that "Phrai" means "employed individual", and "Tai" means "free of employment", slaves are called "Tash", and "servers" are "Kha". They used to have humanity level like: Luang (master, royal) > Tai > Phrai > Kha > Tash.
And Thai, as you said means any races that lives in Siam, this was coined by Rama V at the end of slave freedom grants, before WWI. And then Siam is renamed to Thailand by a WWII dictator general Por, to make it easier for everyone to talk to Siamese who often call themself Tai (Free man).
So it's actually interchangeable, it's like calling Germany instead of Deutschland. In fact, it's the same logic. Deutschland is "Land of people", which people are "Germans", so Thailand is "Land of Free Man", which free man is anyone who lives in Siam.
My memory might not be that good I might confuse some timestamp, but you get the idea. Thanks, again for your words.
@@cefcephatus fascinating! Well thank you so much for clarifying my friend, that's not only very interesting but is also very useful for me. I really appreciate your input and hope you enjoyed the build
Hello Robby!
I waited for Thai for so long. Even if I don't know their history well they must be part of the game.
I really like the first bonus. It shows well the Thai politic system. I am interested to see if the second will be enough to see elephants in the game. I like elephants but as they are now they are not a good option sadly. Maybe with this bonus it would change. The third bonus reminds me of the Inca's. I don't see it being that good of an economic bonus unfortunately. I love the team bonus on the other hand.
The phrai luang sonds weird to me. I understand the gathering bonus and the HP boost but the teleportation... I mean, you already have villagers moving faster when they want to garrison. It feels a bit double down.
For the campaign, I would say that the king from the 16th century is better as Thai have gunpowder units that are important for them. It would be a better option.
Hey, thank you so much Divicos! Really glad you liked so much of the build my friend!
I agree with you that the reseeding bonus is probably not strong enough, so I think I'm going to go with one of my tabled ideas instead. And a comment or suggested that the teleport garrison could maybe work only within a fixed range, so that way the movement speed still can matter and it is more of an enhancement of that existing ability! Totally agree with you on the campaign as well, as well as fitting the time frame better he's just such a cool protagonist.
Thanks as always for taking the time to watch and comment my friend! It's great to hear from you.
Thai my country
Their probably being strongest Southeast Asian civilizations
On a separate note; where are all the thai aoe2 players? Seriously, the leadderboard has next to no thai player, and in contrast, aoe2 in vietnam is HUGE. Wth is going on
That's a great question Felix, I have no idea! It would be interesting to see the stats as to whether adding a civilization to aoe2 made people from that region more interested in the game.
First!
Imperial battle elephant would be more fun as a second team bonus