Scythian Civilization [Nomadic Mobile gameplay]

Hello AOEO Project Celese Forums!

Just coming from Mr. Paul Flores' excellent article on the Romans! Can't wait!

I'd just like to discuss this separately.

I'm really really really hoping that Project Celeste undertakes creating a truly NOMADIC civilization, the Scythians. Once I'm freed up after I finish I finish my The Last Khanates mod for Empire/Napoleon Total War, I'm ready, willing to learn the modelling/texturing/rigging/animating workflow pipeline of AOEO and hoping to contribute.

Empires Apart with the Mongols really nailed down what I see as nomadic civilization in an RTS game. I have a gut instinct feeling that the Age of Empires 4 would probably steal most of the thunder and ideas from Empires Apart for the Mongol civilization. Here check out the description of the Mongols in Empires Apart: https://empiresapart.gamepedia.com/Mongols

Already, when I saw Babylonians getting the Ox Cart as a mobile storehouse, that's exactly what I was thinking AOEO needs for a NOMADIC civilization. I still find it very odd that Babylonians who were city and wall builders are so nomadic and with units like Lancer (I think it fits better with nomadic than Babylonians). Shield-bearer REALLY fits Babylonians in my mind. Imho, Babylonians are more of an infantry rather than cavalry civilization. Persians more archer civilization, but I have my own historical biases. I'd rather see Babylonians get extra Palisade walls or an extra mini-Fort/Castle kinda like the Bulgarians got with Krepost' than see them as a cavalry civ. Just my 2 cents.

Some features of a NOMADIC civilization such as Scythians that I'd LOVE to see in AOEO:
- Villager drop off 30% of their wood gathering as food, resulting in a wood-focused economy when natural food supplies run out
- Buildings and siege units are built out of [UNIQUE BUILDING: perhaps War Host] which unpacks into buildings for free and can repack at will, allowing for a high amount of mobility.
- [UNIQUE BUILDING aka War Host] costs a single population each which disappears when the unit is packed up
- Town Center can be packed up and transported across the map when resources in starting position run out
- All buildings produce a small amount of population, NOT just houses
- Houses are Yurts or Gers and can double up as Outposts with good visibility range or as herdables container
- No walls
- Only Cavalry units, no Infantry units of any kind; only through specific Advisors perhaps, that's it
- Cavalry units with bonus against infantry
- Cavalry units with higher armor
- Cavalry units with bonus against spearmen
- Cavalry with malus against Camels. Camel troops hurt cavalry more.
- No Farms
- Instead of Farms, Pastures: herded by a Shepherd as infinite but slow Food resource
- Hunting bonus food
- Can't forage berries
- Instead, placing Pastures near Berries increases yield, perhaps?
- Also Pastures can train Herdables like Sheep, Horses, Camels for food, cost Wood or Gold. THis is fast Food needed in a pinch, for example
- Market just like any Scythian/Nomadic civ building can pack up and move around, no need to rebuild it
- Instead of Castle as a building, it's a [Horde] of Cavalry Archers in an animation loop of the Cantabrian/Central Asian circle, just running when not under attack, but firing animation when under attack. Long time ago, I tried to make this work for AOE2HD... now I'll try to get to that in AOE2DE for Cumans for example.
- Shaman priest who provides evasion and anti-snare for the cavalry troops
- Unique building that provides increased speed of the units in its vicinity... aka creep from Starcraft II. Wait, upon further inspection, Millaria built by Engineers is the same thing, huh? hmmm might need to rethink this one then... perhaps Roman Millaria only increases speed of Infantry and Archers, foot soldiers? While the Scythian unique building only increases speed of Cavalry not Infantry/Archers or foot units? Compromise? Or just keep brainstorming something more unique and fitting?
- Access to Bactrian or Two-Humped camels of their own. So far in-game AOEO I don't think there are any Two-Humped Camels. Actually in the The Last Khanates mod for ETW/NTW, I have obtained/paid for Bactrian/Two-Humped camel model and have made it into a new mount with its own weight and parameters. Working on this right now. Even have an armored version with chainmail. So Cataphract Camels essentially
TLDR: Bactrian Camel Riders and Cataphract Bactrian Camel Rider units
- Horse Cart or Bactrian Camel Caravan as a mobile storehouse
- Wanderlust ability on Scouts and Villagers: If they stop and are idle, their vision grows to 2x the vision of the normal villager or scout... this is to simulate that they take in the surroundings and are good trackers
- Bloodlust ability on ALL military units: Increases their damage and attack speed as long as they continue to kill enemies. Or vice versa. If they kill X number of enemies in Y amount of time in Z radius, then they can earn an activatable Bloodlust that increases their damage and attack speed for A amount for B seconds. Kinda like Total War: Warhammer 2's battle mechanics for Greenskins and the Dark Elves, you know what I'm talking about?
- SCYTHIAN/Nomadic economy is weak but simple: their main resources are wood and gold for their cavalry archers and siege weapons, with a bit of food for their melee cavalry.
- Temple as Kurgan field
- Altai metalworking and gold-gathering rates are higher than other civs. Scythian Golden Man and many excavations show that they were rich in gold and loved to adorn their noble armors in gold. Altai mountains provided one of the earliest instances of iron-working, stirrups (odd that Norse get it), and prodiguous gold-mining
- Effectively operate on only three resources. Stone needed for upgrades for blacksmith, and that's it

I just went bullet by bullet point from the Mongols description from Empires Apart game. I LOVE civ designing like this. I hope that I'll soon have the time to dedicate to this pet project.

I'm a modder myself in other titles, such as Total War series and this constantly comes up to my mind. I've finished my Crimean Khanate Expansion mod adding the Crimean Khanate playable and with custom units, models, textures, horses, equipment, bows, arrows, and so on. However, once I realized that I could expand the map by converting Wasteland regions into Full Regions, I'm now working on adding the Kazakh, Kalmyk, and Khivan Khanates to both the map and with unique units, models, textures, rigs. Basically, my idea was to port EU4 (Europa Universalis 4) units into Total War Empire and Total War Napoleon titles. I've learned the entire pipeline, so I don't just re-texture that's it, I actually port the entire military unit model of the soldier, complete with helmets, weapons, shields, bows, and I re-rig this model to the bones of the variant mesh used by ETW and NTW. It's a slow, painstaking process but worth it! Yet, the issue I'm running into now is that I over-engineered the Crimean Khanate with all the "fantasy" and "unique" goodies leaving little to the three other Khanates. So now, I'm paring down very much similar to what sounds Paul and Project Celeste team have gone through with regards to the Persians (no War Elephants, less chariots, I believe there is a scythed chariot via an Advisor but that's it) and the Celts being good at siege (that's more of a Romans thing, I'm glad the Celeste designers highlighted Romans as more siege plus engineer with Millaria construction [I'd love to see some kind of road building by Engineers but Millaria comes close to that]). I dub this project of mine The Last Khanates mod for Empire and Napoleon Total War, in similar vein as the Last Khans expansion for the Age of Empires 2 DE with the Cumans, Tatars, Bulgarians, and Lithuanians.

Looking forward to the discussion. If Scythians were already suggested in another larger and existing thread, please do let me know.

 

Thank you very much for your responsive feedback, cogent analysis, and constructive criticism (going bullet by bullet point for three main proposals), AndyP! Much appreciated!

Devil's advocate, I'd argue that IF and WHEN the Babylonian Ox Cart is permissible as a mobile storehouse, that already breaks the AOEO design to be permissible for more pushing on the mobility/nomadic tone of a civilization like the Scythians or Huns. My proposed Centaur race in Warcraft III had a similar mobile storehouse, Kodo Packbeast. I made that unit way before the Babylonians of AOEO came to be. So when Babylonians Booster Pack came out, I felt very vindicated in that design choice. Actually, I got so much flak from Warcraft III community for having a unit act as a mobile drop-off resource spot because it was literally unprecedented. However, in AOEO, there is now a clear precedent. I'm just pushing the envelope that much wider.

Also, one could argue that the Roman Centurion having a ranged (pilum) attack is treading too much on Persian Immortal, right? Imho, I think that 15 second cooldown and that it's not always up DOES change the meta and it's permissible, different enough from the Persian Immortal. So see, I don't see my ideas are that crazy, really lol Based on a December 21, 2020 video of Primus Pilus Roman officer as a chariot with Two Lions... umm that's not historically accurate, but it's HELLUVA fun and very Roman, so one MUST have fun with this as well, especially in cartoony AOEO, c'mon! So when I propose a Bactrian Camel Chariot (never actually a historical record of such lawlz) unit with 2 or even 4 camels in tow for NOMADIC civ (Scythians/Huns) you have no counter! Lawlz, I'm just kidding and joking around with you, but not really hahaha

Actually, I think a NOMADIC civilization needs a cavalry unit that is both ranged and melee like the Persian Immortal but for a cavalry unit. In Empire Total War for example, there were no cavalry archers that could double up as a decent lancer charge cavalry, so I combined the two into one, a Cavalry Archer Lancer, not as good as a dedicated lancer, but much more versatile. Actually, for a NOMADIC civ in AOEO, that'd be my first available unit or a unique powerful unit for Age3 like the Persian Immortal. In short, first available unit for a NOMADIC civ has to be a cavalry unit and then Age2 provides the anti-cav unit, similar to the Persian Sparabara in Age1 but followed by Spearman (anti-cav) unit in Age2.

Yet now, I do see that these two elements of Babylonians really do steal the thunder from a nomadic civilization: 1) Babylonian Ox Cart as mobile storehouse and 2) Lancer with charge upon Champion upgrade. Imho, those two do not belong in an infantry-centric civ like Babylonians, but that's just now legacy, untouchable design of the AOEO originals.

For my own mod, offline solo, I'd definitely remove those two elements from Babylonians and add them to the Scythians/Huns instead, while designing something much more fitting for Babylonians: perhaps 1) Mini-Fort available in Age 2, stronger than a Tower, but weaker than an Age3 Fortress, in lieu of AOE2DE Bulgarians and their Krepost' 2) Instead of the Lancer mounted on horseback, a more fitting cavalry unit for the Babylonians would be the Babylonian Onager Chariot (clumsy, heavy cart pulled by four onagers, or semi-wild asses aka donkeys). For Champion upgrade, instead of the current Lancer's chargex3, this Babylonian Onager Chariot would have AOE damage, similar to the Persian War Wagon but in close melee proximity range. Just some thoughts.

Once I wrap up with my ETW/NTW mods, first I'd like to learn AOEO modding and the tools/pipeline on how you guys achieved Romans. Once I have that done, I'll start working on my version of the Scythians/Huns in an offline/scenario mode as a foundation and then once that becomes rolling, we can have a compromised/AOEO-palatable version up on the Celeste server dev side. How does that sound? Of course, after you guys release Romans/polish/balance/tune them up upon release. So that gives me time, I hope enough sufficient time to get up to speed.

Andy, where can I find AOEO modding guides? I think that's a level beyond what most people on AOEO search for in the forums, for example.