Advisor Suggestions

For Britomartus, you mean giving him a Royal Garden-type effect? That would make him quite solid, yes.

As for Village Elder, that change is basically just making him a much weaker version of Zeno. Effects that increase the Trade Factor is really only good for you if solo - It affects only your buildings, whether its the Dock or the TC. If co-op, you are trading with your allies TC/Dock, at which point your own Trade Factor is irrelevant.

Again, I feel that Village Elder should be completely seperated from Caravans and instead focus entirely on Villagers - Enough that he's worth considering on maps where you can make Caravans.

 

That would be interesting.

 

Makru the Mad Median suggestion - Very large health boost to Shieldbearers (Double health), very large damage boost to Bowman (Double Damage). Other stats can remain the same. This would allow for a Shieldbearer Frontline/Bowman Backline build that uses 0 gold.

 

So, a thought - Outside of the unit granting Advisors, no other advisors should be for "new players only until they get a Leg", mainly referring to A4.

First, we have King Agamemnon. Currently, King Agamemnon provides a 4% health and damage boost to all military units. He is also easily obtainable through Skirmish for all players both old and new.

Then we have a large number of 10%-ers - King Theode, Tusk Sharpener, Theokoles, that are very, very close to Agamemnon in overall unit power - Just off by 2%- But affecting only a single unit or a single category. Furthermore, several of these advisors are made redundant by existing Legenary Advisors - Of which, most are currently affordable after several rounds of the Babylon Ambrosia chain.

Additionally, not a single Epic advisor can compare with Legendaries, which has been steadily increased in power throughout all 7 Civs.

Thus, here are my suggestions to bring a number of Advisors into usefulness.

All Civs;

King Agamemnon - +4% all standard stats (Stats all units have baseline without modifications) for all military units. Give all players a quest to acquire Agamemnon upon hitting lvl 15.
Boudicca - Beorix was bad at 30 trickle. Crassus is solid at 35 gold trickle with significant population boos. Boudicca can be boosted up to 8, or even 10 all-trickle before she starts to even shake the viability of any legendary advisor.
Theokoles - Theokoles is currently used on any infantry that doesn't have a better A4 advisor - Mainly most spearman for Spearman-only quests, and potentially Hoplites, Hypas, Shieldbearers, Sparabaras, and Harjar's. I would suggest upping Theokoles to 15% health along with a small regen bonus, perhaps 3 health/second.
Timo -Timo got slightly nerfed in the range, but buffed for Throwers. Personally, outside of a small handful of maps where you can rush a Timo Palin to snipe an AI base before they can even start producing, Timo is rarely used. I would suggest the following changes to Timo.
1: Remove the Range bonus entirely. Palintonin Champion upgrade now gives 35/35% increase range/LoS. Throwers are changed to have their Champion Mode upgrade as well as stats.
2: Timo now applies the increased attack speed to Palins as well. Timo increases the tracking speed of Thrower and Palin projectiles. Finally, Timo adds additional splash to Palins and Throwers - +1-2 splash.
Xanthe - Xanthe is a very, very niche advisor. By gearing up a Fortress to have full LoS gear, along with Xanthe, you can reveal most maps quickly. Thus, you start up a game with Xanthe, rush A4 along with a Fort, andthen you can pause the game and view the AI.
However, in terms of using Forts as defensive placements - Forts tend to be sub-par compared to Guard Towers, as you can mass more Guard Towers in a single area, Guard Towers are cheaper and build faster, and Guard Towers do no miss moving targets, whereas Forts have terrible, terrible aim.
I would suggest bumping Xanthe's LoS up to 400%, to absolutely ensure that every map in the game can be revealed when using it for revealing, as well as adding a 50% cost and build time reduction to Xanthe, so that you can really slap down forts for defensive purposes especially combined with the A3 advisor.
Architect Tycho - Let's be honest, even on maps where you need to build a wonder very quickly, you don't use Tycho. Let's buff Tycho to 95/95% cost and build time reduction - That wonder should be coming down as soon as a Villager gets to the area to build it! Alternatively, Tycho could grant the PvP champion bonus to each Civ, which would instantly catapult him into the Meta. Maybe a bit too much, idk there.
Darius - Every civ, EXCEPT BABYLON has such amazing looking max upgrade towers. However, nobody can access those towers. There's been quite a bit of talk about making an Advisor to give access to these towers - Why not put in in Darius? When Darius is picked, gives access to ALL Tower upgrades straight up to the normally unobtainable Keep Towers in addition to his current range and LoS boost. I think 1k gold/600 wood is a good price for the upgrade. For Persia, Celts, and eventually India, Darius also gives access to Stronghold Tower upgrades as well - It'll have to be researched before Keep Tower ofc.

 

Civ-specific A4 Advisors
Norse;
Theode - With Beorix's latest iteration, Theode has been powercrept out of viability - Beorix offers 10% health as well as 10% movement speed, 10% reduced cost, and to top it all off the miniscule impact-high number 100% increased damage on the Chief. Personally, rather then trying to buff Theode, or nerfing Beorix, I would competely change Theode to instead affect Harjar - Whether it's giving them a large crit damage boost as mentioned on the forums, or giving them even more armor and tankiness, Theode would perfectly suit Harjar's as an A4 advisor.
Ingrid - On their own, compared to every unit in the roster, Raiders are solidly average - Having up to 1.2k health with a health oriented build, or up to 55 DPS with a damage oriented build, while they don't excelt they are decent. However, Ingrid and Raiders also exist at the same time as Finnulfr - With Finnulfr, damage oriented Horsemen can have up to 80 DPS along with 1.5k HP per pop, or up to 1.8k health with 60 dps - This leave Raider's as the subpar cavalry. Ingrid needs some significant buffs;
1: Increase the critical strike chance to 45%.
2: Increase the health regen to 8
3: Add in a 1-1.5 range increase -This will resolves Raider's main issue of being unable to bring their massive numbers to bear.
These 3 changes combined should make Raiders on par with Horsemen, without giving Raiders the same bonuses that Horsemen currently have.
Babylon;
Babylon is overall much more balanced with their epic A4 advisors compared to their Legendary advisor power, giving Babylon perhaps the most varied number of builds. While some of their units are lacking (War Chariots, Slingers), they have 2 viable mass from Barracks and 2 optimal mass from Stables, in addition to a viable if somewhat clunky mass from Siege.
Thus, I only have 2 suggestions to Babylon A4 Advisors.
General Zu - Royal Guards could use a 15% movement speed boost to better allow them to close with their enemies. Around 8 MS RG's cease to be clunky and bulky and instead become very smooth, and this should allow them to hit close to that without having to acquire Bahram's or IKG.
Makru the Mad Median - Overlaps with many other advisors due to his high general purpose. Useless for Siege Towers due to Amytis. Useless for Sappers due to Zopyrus. Bad for RG due to Zu. Bad for Chariots due to Sargon. Subpar for Lancers and MA due to Nebu. Subpar for both Ram Ships and Biremes due to Tryphon. Subpar for Palins due to Timo.
This leaves Makru only being viable for Spearman, Shieldbearers, Bowman, and Slingers - Of which, only Spearman are a viable mass, and only in Spearman-only quests.
My suggestion for Makru has already been stated in this thread, but I'll stat it again - +100% health to Shieldbearers, +100% damage to Babylon Bowman, giving Babylon a strong Backline/Frontline setup that uses only Wood and Food.

Rome;
Rome is a bit different from most other civs - All 3 Legendary advisors are quite firmly out of reach of the average new player, with Pompey being the most reachable. This means that Epic Roman A4 advisors do get plenty of use. With that said, I would still like to suggest a change to Mark Antony.
Mark Antony buffs Gallic Horsemen's damage by 20%. Pompey and Crassus are both considered superior to Mark Antony for Gallic builds. I would suggest changing Mark Antony to instead allow 25-50% of all Auxilla Camp units highest bonus damage to be applied to all unit types - Making Mark Antony also a pretty good advisor for Slingers and Bowman, and changing how one approaches gearing these 3 units.

Persia;
Unlike all other civs, Persia's A4 advisors all have a viable build that uses them, with no alternative legendary advisor for those builds. With that said, if Tycho is buffed to provide the Champion Mode wonder buff to civs, then Bahram will need to be changed.

Celts;
Celt's have Amboriax for Bowmen builds (Slinger builds are non-viable), and Acichorios for Swordsman builds. Vercingtorix has direct competition with Brennos, who is currently both affordable and superior.
I would suggest making Vercingtorix to buff spearman - Like a previous suggestion, have Vercingtorix to give Celtic Spearman 30% of their highest bonus damage to all unit types.

Egypt;
Of the 3 Egyptian advisors, Seth is the only underutilized one. Tusk Sharpener has also caused balance problems when compared against Khepri. I hereby suggest the following changes
Seth: Seth also gives Chariot Archers 40% increased attack speed, allowing players to better kite with them if they prefer that playstyle.
Tusk Sharperner/Khepri - Boost Khepri's health to 20%, and give Tusk Sharpener 15% damage and movement speed. While Elephants are quite strong on easier quests, on harder quests Sobek is far more prevelant. This will help to both boost War Elephants on harder quests, and also cause Khepri and Tusk Sharpener to have more distinction when it comes to War Elephant builds.

Greeks;

Greeks all have the worst epic advisor balance out of all 7 civs. Every single A4 advisor has overlap with Legendary advisors.
Ptolemy has overlap with Toxotes. I suggest moving Ptolemy to be a Gastra-only advisor, and significantly boosting their utility the following ways
1- Ptomelias grants Gastra full Splash Damage Immunity, thus removing the threat of splash damage to a Gastra deathball.
2 - Ptomelias also gives Gastra 30-40% movement speed bonus, allowing them to better take advantage of their unique attack animiation.
Seleucus - I see 2 different ways of approcing Seleucus. First way is to give Ballista 4 pop baseline, like in Champion mode, and remove the pop benefit from Theimstokeles. With this, Seleucus will be good for players who want to use Ballista purely as a building breaking siege instead of Palins.
Alternatively, Seleucus can be made to buff Ballistra Triemes akin to how Atilius boosts Enneris - Perhaps with giving Ballista Triemes a further range and LoS boost?
Solon - Hippokons benefit more from Aristocrat then they do from solon, and Aristocrat is currently affordable. On the other hands, Prodromos are also viable with Aristocrat. Sarris, however, are not - And the buffs from Aristocrat don't really fully benefit Sarris like they do the other two.
So we can turn Solon from a weak Hippokon advisor, to a very, very powerful Sarri advisor.
My suggestions are as follows:
1 - Solon gives Sarris a gargantuan Crush armor boost.
2 - Solon gives Sarris a large amount of Ignore Armor.
3 - Solon gives Sarris 1 pop.
I feel that these 3 changes will make Sarris into a strong, viable PvE build.

 

On the topic of Marduk - After doing some number crunching with another player, at +100% extra damage on Bowman, Marduk would have to spend long periods of time on buildings, and as the army distribution is mixed between Bowman and low-damage Shieldbearers, wouldn't actually be that impactful.

Thus I instead suggest changing Marduk to +100% health on Shieldbearers, and making Bowman's bonus damage vs infantry apply to all damage types at 100% of the rate.

This would give Marduk ok damage output to buildings, strengthen it's damage output vs other unit types to make up for Shieldbearer's low damage output, and also affect how players would want to gear Babylon Bowmen, making Theseus an incredibly strong damage pick.

 

This is a suggestion from user @UR_Coolblade that was posted on the Discord in the suggestions channel regarding Odysseus.

update Odysseus from the reduce cost of rax and castellum to all military buildings offer 5 housing space
Perks: 1) you can reach the 200 pop in age 1 with it , as there is no limit on how many military structures you can make (this is very nice on quest with limits on age up, as you can generally only unlock more pop space via town centres)
2) it can reduce the dependency on town centers and houses to a degree, if the player simply does not care about villager count in a caravan intensive economy
3) it can save on wood a bit as you no longer have to build the houses, or that many houses (military structures are more expensive than houses so in some scenarios players will have to strike a balance) 4) if you loose houses that you may have used as a makeshift wall , you won't be burdened by pop cap as the military buildings will offer a grace space to pop

 

It's a bit difficult determining the strength of Conservation for sure, especially since every node benefits from conservation differently due to different base amounts per node - Gold/Stone are the easiest comparable examples, each Gold node has 3000 gold, each Stone node has 1000 stone. Thus 50% conservation on Gold provides a full 1500 gold per node, whereas on Stone 50% conservation provides only 500 stone per node - Thus as a state Conservation is 3x stronger on Gold nodes then Stone Nodes. Of course, Stone is only spammed on defensive buildings, whereas almost every military unit in the game costs Gold.

Wood is a more irrelevant resource to conserve - There really aren't any meta comps in which you constantly have to replace wood based units currently - Deathballs have very low rates of unit loss, backline units also have very low rates of unit loss, and nearly all Wood based units are essentially backline or frontline. Main maps in which conservation might be important are water maps - But even then there's often enough wood for most experienced players to get by without it.

Then you have Aapep's conservation, which is a bit redundant on the vast majority of maps - You either have access to Farms, which have infinite conservation, or you have access to Fish on maps where Farms are banned, and there you use Finnbar.
Thus Aapep has the very small niche of extending high food acquisition from Huntables. However, the total amount of time extended via huntables is pretty small - only ~15% more or less due to Aapep also increasing the gathering rate. Furthermore, unlike Farms which minimize the amount of time loss due to movement (Which can be a major contributor for food/second considerations, especially in the early game), you are constantly losing potential resources as you move between berry/huntable nodes as they run out. There's also the competiting Shepherd which has a similar effect, just can't scale it up much outside of Babylon - Though at least it's infinite for as long as the game lasts.

So yea. Conservation is a stat that's even hard to quantify it's impact - In general, completely running out of resources on a map spells failure as you failed to even push. If you are failing to push, Conservation will only extend the time that you are failing - It won't be enough by itself to push out, and the AI often gets stronger as time goes on (They start bringing out Palins, they get all their techs, ect ect).

Personally, I think that Conservation on A1 advisors can be drastically increased, and even added to a couple of advisors (If Shepherd is kept on the TC and isn't moved to Houses/Longhouses, he'll need Conservation for sure).

Going into this more, I would even suggest having some of the A1 resource advisors - Rockhound especially - give passive resource trickle, perhaps TC dependent. So Aapep, Thutmose, Rockhound, and Klein could give TCs 1 of their respective resource trickle per second per TC to keep constant game value.