Dynastic's Civ Craft - Ep 1, Huns

Hello, and welcome to DynasticPlanet has way too much time and ideas on his hands, the “Please send help edition.” Episode 1 – Huns


To get an idea, every so often or so I will be posting a new civ concept from my brain-meat repository every week or so. But first, a few ground rules I follow and you aspiring fledgling civ designers might want to consider as well:

• Secondary Objective markers that might be disabled during a quest (build no walls/Towers/Farms) should almost never be part of the equation of your civ's ability to advance or succeed in areas where that building or unit is unavailable.
  
  
• Likewise, essential buildings and techs should not immediately force an age up. If building 3 archery ranges brings you immediately to Age 3, well guess who might be boned on getting a full Thebes or Beorix Returns.
  
  
• It’s a good idea to have at least 16 buildings. These structures help define your civ.
  
  
• Core mechanics should remain core. Your civ not having villagers trainable isn't negotiable.

Read the Tech Tree!​

There's more, but I'll probably remember them later. Let's dive in! First: The spreadsheet, read it here.

TLDR​

If you're not going to give me just a little of your time the way I'm giving mine, here's bullet points of general features.

• Their Spearman is a 2 pop hulk, insanely cost effective but not pop effective. It is also their only infantry option. It may or may not have an age 3 tech to -1 pop slot. That’s a balance debate and yes it's so hulk its spear is only a 1 handed variety but they have a shield for missile armor.
  
  
  
• Can train Age 1 Cavalry at the Stables. They have a bonus vs infantry (with special rules vs Sparabara) and villagers. They are 1 pop but not as strong as Norse Raiders but are pop efficient, just not cost efficient compared to the Spearman.
  
  
  
• Age Up at TC unlocks when you’ve built enough barracks and/or Stables when you build the right amount total, 1/2/4 respectively. Age Up cost mirrors Celts. Early on, research time is reduced because military buildings take a while to build. Any combination of Barracks and Stables will do, and if destroyed after completion they still count to your tally.
  
  
  
• Their Kam is a religious man on the back of a horse. Much Faster at a speed of 10 but needs to eat food and might have reduced range
  
  
  
• Has at least 1 new horse or camel riding cavalry every age.
  
  
  
• Mangonels are 3 pop light versions of the Catapult units. Their splash is meh and their strength is also meh but its 2 less pop wasted per unit.
  
  
  
• Uses Trebuchets instead of Palintonons. Besides being more meme-worthy, they have slightly different stats compared to them and use a Sling slot instead of Siege Arm. They have roughly 10% more range but about 10% less base power.
  
  
  
• Their ships are weak but cheap. The raiding galley is a floodable 2 pop ship that will lose to Biremes without Micro but with masterful micro can really hold their own with their stolen belly bows ensuring a pinpoint shot, even if its damage and health are below other warships. Age 3 Razing Boats are 1 pop rowboats that require priest healing to restore as they cannot be repaired. They throw torches that eat through ships but don’t last long. Said ships don't even get access to boat armor slots, instead they use medium armor and are the only unit in the civ that does so besides the Spearman. These torches also cause buildings to catch fire.
  
  
  
• Speaking of limited armor access, cloth armor appears in one place: Caravans.
  
  
  
• Civ has no slot for Heavy Spears. In fact this civ has a slot for all gear types except Heavy spears and Scepters, meaning you should save the obscure gear for when you're ready to get legendary.
  
  
  
• Plunder Hall is a research building that has techs like Lasso (pulls 1 pop units towards the unit that activates their lasso and does snare/damage), and techs that cause effects when Huns destroy enemy buildings. Also lets you train your 1 Warlord, an aura providing Chief type unit whose aura increases bonus damage vs buildings by 25%. Seems a bit weak, but he can use actives to blow a horn for an area burst heal OR flat, unresistable area damage with very temporary stun. Both share a cooldown.
  
  
  
• Lasso, when researched, enables melee Hun units (spearmen, Tarkans, Heavy Camels) to throw rope at an enemy every 30 seconds. Said unit takes a 2x crit and gets snared. If naturally 1 Pop slot (as in before any techs/advisors and in both PvP and PvE) it also gets pulled closer to the thrower by a few range. The unit lassoed cannot be hit by another lasso for a few seconds and will flash to indicate.
  
  
  
• Villagers are more expensive but have pack animals bring the resources they gather back to the nearest dropsite automatically. Said villagers do gather slower than normal. You will need storehouses.
  
  
  
• The Pasture structure spawns sheep every so often, a great alternative to farming which Huns only get the first tech for, so eat lots of meat. Also has techs to reveal Huntables and Herdables. The Pasture is also a food only dropsite with an empower of maybe 30%
  
  
  
• Yurts are half price, half build time (but not halved pop slot) versions of houses, which your villagers and their pack animals can pass through without collision issues. They're easy to destroy however because they’re so frail.
  
  
  
• Tarkans have a melee attack with a light spear but a ranged anti-building/siege/boat attack with thrown fire (not that long.) Much like with Fire Boats, buildings will catch fire. For both units, this means the burning structure cannot train/attack/research/trade/accept resource drop offs or be repaired BUT they can still provide their pop slottage.
  
  
  
• Walls are weak and have a 1w/1s price tag. They build in an AoE but are very frail and have minimal upgrades. The upgrade they do get helps and also gives major crush armor but they still have less HP than Celts.
  
  
  
• Did I mention trebuchets being sling based gearslot? The Huns have a surprising variety of gear slots to fill and you might just actually make a real market for slings in PvE.
  

• The Huns combine their Age 1 food gathering speed tech into one tech, and get a second 1 in Age 2. It includes herdables in all ages. They also can upgrade Town Watch to Town Patrol for even more building LoS!

• New gear type: the dagger (and/or knife). You’re gonna see this badboy pop up in quite a few places on various units. In this civ, Light Cavalry and Scouts use them.

Was that still too long for you? Did it give you an idea of what to expect? Well let’s delve a little deeper into each and every unit.

So… Why Huns?​

A great question! The Huns open the world in ways you can’t do elsewhere. Gateways to China and Korea are now open. Scythia doesn’t do that, especially since Scythians are Indo-European while Huns are a Turkic/Mongoloid people. Huns fight China as the Xiongnu and Romans under Attila. There is so much game play potential for a nomad civ OR TWO, it hurts to ignore it... them.

The Huns were a major factor in shaping the end of an era and bringing on a dark age. Their power with horses and the Xiongnu had 2 Hump camels at their disposal.



Villagers with pack animals are the heart of a Hunnic, hands off economy that has no time to set up lots of storehouses like ‘normie’ civs. They cost more, maybe 15 more food, and gather maybe 15% slower, BUT the pack reindeer (in a game where bears are caravans and logs can get thrown further than catapults) carries the resources back for you. This enables you to save a lot of wood which you’ll need to get the jump on Barracks or Stables and you need that jump since unlike Babylon before their wood loss, Hun Age 1 units have some issues. Also if any gather rate horse armor starts to exist, you’ll need to start finding them asap. Their build rate is normal. The reindeer’s move speed is equal to that of their villager. So Zephyrus gets a ton of mileage on this civ.


The reindeer cannot be attacked, and obeys all collision issues their villager does. If the villager dies, the reindeer will make one final journey to the TC if the villager had resources in its pocket and the reindeer was attached. Force dropping will send the reindeer off on its own. This means Wheelbarrow (this civ doesn’t get Hand Cart as well) will make them a little faster as well.



Yurts have half cost and half build time of houses but have half the HP and pop slottage (sorta, they have 3 pop and a build limit of 40). The Hun player’s villagers and their pack animals, as well as caravans, can actually walk through yurts without any collision issues. You’re going to need these yurts too, especially if you want to use the Hun’s only infantry.



Pissed off because he doesn’t have a horse of his own, the Hun Spearman overcompensates by being 1/3 more expensive than a Greek Spearman yet having at least 50% more base stat. The problem? 2 pop slot inefficiency. The Hun spearman can easily and COST EFFECTIVELY destroy 1 spearman, but 2 enemy spearmen more than compete. So the strategy to counter them is to hold out against a spear rush until your numbers let you catch up. When it comes to destroying cavalry, then these guys have no competition as they need to earn that extra pop slot somehow. When fighting cavalry, they really have no equal mind you with high base power and a decent bonus of at least 4.5x. Of course, if Spearmen aren’t your style, then…


Maybe you’ll enjoy Age 1 Light Cavalry that uses 1 pop slot. With their bonus vs infantry (except Sparabara until you hit Age 2), Light Cavalry are fast and punish a player who doesn’t defend themselves. 2 Light Cav can beat 1 spearman, and possibly 3 can beat 2 but we’ll see, but 1v1, Spearmen should all be at 20-5% HP remaining upon finishing the fight (or Egypt Spearmen might lose but win cost effectively.) Sparabara breaks more evenly but costs less. Also if you go Light Cav, you don’t have any snare so units MIGHT be able to escape if enough are alive. Light Cav are best used if you think you can get into your opponent’s base and hit hard enough with a bonus vs. villagers. Under that helmet there’s some war paint that you just can’t see.



If things are getting tough, build Palisades, your special wall, which is, at this point, a standard wall with a 1s/1w cost per tile and has the ability to have the villager build in a ‘radius’ around the wall, so if you’re building a layer of walls, you can build walls ‘over’ the wall for some shenanigans.


Whichever unit you focus on, the Huns demand military prowess. Both units can be warded off by building enough spearmen but it really comes down to what you want: Mobility vs snare.


Building 1 of either building unlocks the Age 2 button at the Town Center which uses the Celtic price tag but for Age 2 is much faster.

Age 2 only unlocks 2 new troops. But there's more here than some soldiers.


Skirmishers aren’t going to make or break your Hun armies but this civ might struggle hard vs archer balls otherwise. While more on par defensively with Peltasts with high pierce armor, they still plink against the armor of non-ranged units very hard. Nothing to likely write home about, but bowman civs must contend with these units from the Barracks. Despite not looking like it, they wear a torc. Likely stolen from some Indo-European.



Hailing from the Steppes that they’re named for (this picture was found while looking up Xiongnu,) the Gobi Raider is a mystifying unit in a few ways. First and foremost he rides a camel and throws an axe. He’s not very tough but has a little cav armor. He’s also not as fast as most cav, but his 10-12 range attack does cav type damage from an awful frame delay. Their biggest hurdle is in creation, having a 3 resource and 3 pop slot cost to use. Gobi Raiders can really sting but unlike Decurion, they don’t have the durability to make their 3 pop nature seem all that easy to hold onto, especially under archer fire, in fact he acts more like a shorter ranged cav archer who strikes cav armor instead of missile (and cav damage is the least resisted damage type.) They have a bonus vs infantry and a small one vs cavalry (2 and 1.5 respectively,) but with no infantry armor, spearmen will eat them up, and you can’t micro hit and run forever! Even the greatest players will need to keep their hands on the eco, and at 3 pop slots each, you won't have much pop to spare for a distraction Light Cav attack. Definitely no slouch though. They also cost 3 resources like other melee units with a reaching attack.


Age 2 is all about extremes. Either your units are frail supportive military function troops ala Skirmisher or Light Cav raids, or they’re extremists in the other direction that use 1 too many housing spots ala the Gobi Raider and Spearman. This is afforded to the Hun player because Hun Villagers don’t need to worry about rebuilding Storehouses all that much and Yurts are easily massed. They can easily gather all the safe stone/gold/wood/food around the TC without any true delay to gather time and don’t need to waste building a second TC on top of local resources unless you want to do so defensively.


This civ needs to micro. And yet at sea all of these facts are simultaneously true (their Fishing Boats are standard units)



Raiding Galleys are warships that use 2 pop slots and have a sub 100 wood cost of 60 although 80 gold can be a lot. But this ship is frail, like maybe 400 HP and deals maybe 35 damage. But it has a few advantages. First, it’s faster than most warships even if only slightly. The bigger boon is its non-missing bolt. The Raiding Galley NEVER misses. So without micro you’re going to suffer huge casualties vs the ever pop effective Bireme but with micro, you WILL win eventually but a wrong move is far more painful than the reverse. With their lower base attack, it will take longer for Raiding Galleys to kill boats, but it will eventually break through. Of course like with Gobi Raiders, the Huns demand a lot of your micro or you lose your fish.



Saigas are pretty damn cool. Seriously! Look at dat face, hot damn! They’re like an Antelope who assimilated with a Star Wars acid trip. This is a real animal sadly now critically endangered which once roamed the Steppes of Russia and Mongolia. As a Caravan, their ‘incentive’ to work is not a yummy on a stick: it's fear! A dummy hunter with a hunting bow sitting in the cart acting like a Scarecrow (scare deer?) motivates the Saiga to run away! What, you thought Huns were nice people?


They are really very standard caravans in every way. I just thought I’d give these creatures some love before they likely go extinct in the wild during our lifetime. Are you depressed yet?

If making sure the memory of an animal doesn't suit you, what's wrong with you? Fine! We could go for a camel alternative. Look it's a camel with a basket case, you basket case.






The Plunder Hall building is a research facility at this point in the game, and this early, it serves to help keep your spearmen relevant. Lasso tech I’m not sure it should pull units closer (as you might pull an enemy spearman into your camels) or just have a crit and heavy snare at a distance.


You can also research Pillagers in this age. Anyone who’s played Warcraft 3 may recognize this as the ability to gain slight resources from attacking enemy buildings so give a plink against enemy buildings when you get a free opportunity, it might be rewarding. This Pillager tech also causes any farms you destroy or assist in destroying (a unit of yours hit it in the last 15 seconds) to grant you some food.


I hope you built at least 1 other Stable or Barracks during your Bronze Age adventures, because that’s the catalyst to unlocking Age 3 which may or may not use less research time but definitely still has the Celtic price.


Age 3 Time BABY

Let's go up!


This hulking mass of a Mongolian barbeque maker is the Hornbogar… wait what?! Well, it actually comes from an ancient Norse (Geats are from the Norselands) quote.

It reads as such: "Eigi gera Húnar oss felmtraða né hornbogar yðrir."

Literally: "We fear neither the Huns nor their hornbows."
It’s literally a hornbowman but with a cooler sounding name.


The question is, do you fear the Hunnic Hornbogars or are you brave like the Geatic king? They’re so horny that they even wield a war horn instead of traditional gear slots, which sadly means these boys get no MAGs like Woads, nor any soldier accessories but there is some paint if your fu-man-chu needs more pizazz.


They’re a good shot well worth their lack of speed, although he does get some war paint to go with that rad mustache. They have a higher than normal range but that’s mostly to circumvent the lack of Archery Range factory techs (though train time reduction and +15% HP/Damage aren’t shabby at all). If you prefer your archers to be more mobile but less ranged and a less pop effective punch….

Without a specific unit bonus, the Hunnic Cavalry Archer is more like a 2 pop slot generic, comparable to the Chariot Archer, although more mobile with less range much like other civ’s mounted archers. Cav are going to turn them into whatever kind of cheese is endemic to that culture, but they have a few saving graces to make them worth your time: they have slightly more range AND speed compared to the Mounted Archers, +1 to both stats. Like Celtic Bowman, they have more power to compensate for a lack of a bonus. They also have 30 missile armor, which is actually huge and really helps them raid in and out of defensive towns and lets you survive tower assaults. If you want to talk about pure damage to pop efficiency, 2 Hornbogars outmuscle a Cavalry Archer every time and 1 will outdps vs Infantry super well, but in mobility, the Cavalry Archer cannot be beat and its pierce armor lets other fast archer units know who's boss: Carpentoms. Well you can outrun those.


Tarkans finally give this civ a new melee attack unit, and it only took 2 ages… and even then, the Tarkan isn’t a cut and dry melee attacker because when attacking boats, siege or buildings, the Tarkan throws torches (represented by Fire pots) that do bonus damage against them. Unlike boats, these fires cannot miss and they do cav damage. In melee, the Tarkan’s power is fairly average with no bonuses, but as a building and even siege destroyer, he’s legit. His fire has an added effect against buildings: they catch fire, taking minor damage over time and halting all functions. Burning buildings cannot train, fire arrows, accept resources, research, be repaired, or do any other functions I may have missed. Houses and Town Centers still provide their population spots even though nobody wants to live in a burning house. Get him a nice lance and a good firepot.



Hun Rams are considered humanoid, although unlike this picture taken from Syd Meyer’s game, the Hun Ram has a War Horn, as the idea is more 2 guys with a ram and 1 guy blowing a horn to keep rhythm. This ram also needs food and can be healed but not repaired.


So about that healing. If you want some support for your armies, the Priest, look at him!


The Kam (a type of Hunnic Shaman) rides a horse just like the bulk of the Hun army. He converts and heals, following the ways of Tengriism. Has the ability to keep up with mobile horse armies, and even wears horse armor. The horse however doesn’t care about gold and needs a healthy meal of food. So this is the first priest that uses food on top of the usual gold cost. And might be the first priest that fits in well with the cav heavy mobile late game meta.


Train the Kam at the Tapinak, a basic priest training facility with no other purpose so the building doesn’t deserve its own section.


So how do you feed these armies? Farms are as effective here as they are for Babylon, which is to say not very and there are no gardens to supplement your supply. Even though their upgrade to Town Watch, Falconry, enables vision of all unclaimed herable animals and huntables, you’re going to find supplies run thin. Enemies might just kill and build on all the meat just to keep you from finding it.


There’s a safer way to feed your horses and men.


This cute sheep is the icon for the Pasture, a 200w structure that breeds sheep automatically every so often. I’d say every minute, (this time can be cut down twice by research available at the Plunder Hall) There is no micro involved in the spawning of the sheep, it’s automatic. On top of this, the Pasture is a food dropsite as well with a 33% empower to any food brought in, even from farms. This makes it very efficient but herdables do tend to get stripped of meat much faster than farms so there is some micro involved early on. Horses love mutton and lamb shanks! To prevent getting too many sheep, each pasture might have a limit and there might be a limit to the number of pastures. The only tech this building has causes the sheep that spawn here to not be stealable by enemies. Do you smell pathing shenanigans in PvE against exploitable AIs? It smells like wool.



Speaking of Plunder Hall, besides the aforementioned Herding tech to reduce the spawn time of pastures, there is, in this age, a further tech to the Pillage line causes buildings Hun units assist in destroying to turn into smoldering piles that cause snare and demoralize enemies for 15 seconds after destruction and cannot be built upon. Also increases food gain from destroyed farms. The final tech is “Hit and Run” which improves the rate of fire of ranged units, Gobi Raiders and Raiding Galleys as well as reducing their frame delays and granting a slight boost to move speed. This tech is integral to allowing your Raiding Galleys to keep up at a time when other ships can start catching up to them (the Raid Galley Champion doesn’t increase movement speed) Of course the other way this civ keeps up at sea is even more unorthodox.



This is a boat, or rather it’s the image of the attacker on the boat. This Razing Boat is more of a raft with 2 rowers and the torch throwing guy. These boats are 1 pop and it shows in both price and durability. This feeds into that whole pop efficiency shtick that the Huns run with, and goes the other direction. The Razing boat is a zerg at sea, one is just a trickle of water, 10 can flood a small fleet, but each one dies relatively fast. In fact these boats feel so ‘not boat’ like that they can be healed by priests like humanoid Siege units, and wear Medium armor like humanoid siege units. Granted they can’t quite toe to toe like a Fireship possibly even in equal numbers as each boat maybe has 200 HP at most. They also have the Tarkan’s burn effect on buildings. Their best strategy is likely to swarm past the navy and burn the docks asap. Much like Raiding Galleys and people spitting facts, he doesn't miss.


Age 3 really puts an emphasis on that mobile army. Unlike most civs, you can actually fit a priest or 2 into your raiding parties if you can afford it. Why kill the villagers if you can turn them, effectively killing them in one ‘hit’.


Age 4 closes this off with only a few new units. To enable it, you need to have, over the course of the game, have built 4 stables or Barracks and then pay the Celtic price. Easy enough to fulfill this request.


The Heavy Camel is the ultimate end game troop for the Huns. This sword and shield, armored camel rider can cut down enemy cavalry who think they can compete at the saddle with the Huns anywhere from the Danube all the way to the Great Wall of China. They have some bonus damage armor, some cavalry armor and good durability for a camel. They could be a little faster as 8 speed isn’t the best, but it’s faster than the spearman and can definitely go toe to toe with any cavalry. Definitely both a pop AND cost effective unit.


The meme, the dream, the 90kg stone flung 300m away. The Trebuchet is as much a siege unit as any other, and easily fits, in this era, for any civ east of the Ural Mountains. It also has some shoutout potential to any AoE2 players, and I’ve seen enough Hun media portray their use, from corporate Borg’s new Mulan rehash, to even a 2001 Attila the Hun movie having Trebuchets. Granted it’s a little bit of a stretch, since the Wall kept China safe enough from the Xiongnu (but crossbows were even more important). Still, it’s a Trebuchet, and more importantly, Slings are now valuable. Gather your Ice King slings and get them for the Horde!


Compared to Palintonons, Trebuchets have 10% less power, but 10% more base range and have opposite pack and unpack timers.


Mangonels are here too. Yes! If the Roman Onager is a 4 pop version of the Catapult/Ballista, then the Mangonel is a 3 pop version, and it shows with a few issues, namely its building bonus is like, 1.5x in PvP and is maybe 2.5x max in pve. Its splash radius may be a little bigger because rocks tend to spread but the DPS stat is definitely lower than 14.


Look, if you want some Kill Build and don’t think you can cast Uma Thurman, I do have some good news. Let’s look at our buddy Plunder Hall: he finally has a soldier to train.


Besides another Pasture tech, Plundy has a unit to train, as in literally just 1 unit.




The Warlord is like a Chief or a Primus, but his aura in and of itself is underwhelming. Sure +33% building damage is actually pretty nice if placed next to trebuchets or Tarkans, but he’s a bit of a lump in open combat with an average attack that has no bonus besides vs buildings. Or rather, he would be a lumpy ignorable be if he didn’t have a war horn. These mounted leaders have 2 special abilities kinda like Beorix but they share a cooldown. First is his inspiring blow which heals all nearby allies instantly for like 100ish HP. The other does about 100 true damage to enemy units and stuns them for half a second. These abilities have a 30 second cooldown though a Champion tech can help mitigate the issue.


These abilities need to be controlled by the player and activated so keep aware of the Warlord and give him a hotkey if you feel you must since he doesn’t automatically have one.




This Chinese style palace was built in Southern Russia in Xiongnu territory in 100ish BCE. Well, finders keepers, the Xiongnu got their Hans on this, this Southern Russian palace is known as Tashebinsky Palace. Build it yourself to and just... Wonder!

Conclusion​

So in conclusion, how do the Huns play? Well, very military micro with a focus on swift cavalry. The civ says “Don’t worry about your economy, all too much, we’ll run ourselves, now go fast!” Not necessarily hyper aggressive, but they have a military that will get work done and at fast speeds, but only if you control it well.


The Huns want you NOT to pay attention to the economy in many ways:

• They don’t need many storehouses
  
  
• Yurts build super fast
  
  
• They can get resources from attacking enemy buildings
  
  
• Can spawn a lot of sheep from a building that does dropoff empowerment for food.
  
  
• Their villagers, while they gather slower than Egyptian villagers, have pack reindeer that bring resources to drop sites for them and can pick up 2x as many resources per trip. Did I forgot to mention that this civ doesn’t get any Hand Cart? Wheelbarrow is not missing and does increase the speed of the reindeer.

Another theme of this military is the nature of volatile EXTREMES! The units are either niche like the Skirmisher and Light Cav, or big staples that demand maybe too much food like the spear man or Gobi Raider, but time will stabilize their bloodlust into more efficient cav archers and heavy camel riders as well as the ability to copy local siege weapons as well as the ability to launch attacks from a meme machine!



So... now that you all read it!!!!!
Tell me what you think! Collaborate as I'm not sure you know how much more fun doing hard work is when people work together and team up! By all means, join the fun, great things can come from great ideas! Dont miss this chance!