Features five non-invasive improvements, improving Medieval Siege play from beginners to 2k4 experts.
Heavily focused on Dark to early Castle Age. This is NOT meant to balance civilizations NOR to reduce Hun War occurences, but to open mirror matchups to more strategies, thus making AoC more fun.
Inspired by pro players posts on AoCZone along with private discussions, CarlosFerdinand Patch, Cysion's AoF, and my personal experience watching expert streamed/recorded games/[You must login to view link].


I) Changelog

A - Scout Cavalry +1 attack against Scout Cavalry, +2 against Eagle Warrior.
Eagle Warrior +1 against Eagle Warrior.

B - Barracks, Stables, Archeries built from Feudal onwards support 5 population; stay at 1500 HP after Feudal.
Palissade Walls 3W, Stone Walls/Gates 1500/2000 HP. House, Lumber Camp, Mill, MC, Blacksmith -25% HP.

C* - Starting from Feudal, Militia-line cost 50F 20G & -4s, Goth infantry discount reduced to 25% (from 35%).
Cavalry Archer-line cost 40W 60G, Hun Cavalry Archer discount reduced to -10% Castle/-20% Imperial.

D - Crossbowman and Long Swordsman research cost inverted - Xbow cost 200F 65G, LS cost 125F 75G -;
Elite Skirmisher cost 200W 100G (-50W, -60G), 100% base accuracy (was 90% base accuracy).
Crossbowman created 6s faster than Archers instead of 8s.

E - Cartography is free (still needs 60s to research), Coinage and Banking cost +50F +50G.

* Due to these two general discounts, Goth Militia-line and Hun CA cost almost identical than before.
Despite what the Tech Tree said, Goth infantry previously cost -35% due to a bug.


Also corrects bugs from 1.0c: Fervor works, Monks carrying relics suffer from Scouts/Eagles anti-Monk bonus, Chemistry gives +1 attack to TCs, Goth Perfusion make Barracks work 66% faster (instead of +100%, intended was +50% but it would be a too important reduction), Elite Janissary is trained as fast as non-Elite.


II) Explanations

A - Allows to kill more easily a Scout/Eagle stealing a boar in front of your eyes, without nerfing boar luring with Scout - eg. in water maps, on Scandinavia, etc. - by any means.
This bonus doesn't affect their upgraded units (Light Cav, Hussar, Elite Eagle Warrior)

B - Incite Feudal rushing for non-Hun, eg. when putting down a Stable after a 22 pop up, pop limit will increase from 25 to 30 without worrying building a House. Improves non-Hun DM dramatically.
Weakens Buildings and Walls which were too cheap/strong, inciting most civs to go Drush, Wall, FC to Xbows.

C - Usage of Swords aside from (post-)drushing situations/Goth, as well as no-Hun Cavalry Archers was nearly useless, owing to cost-effectiveness in the first place.

D - Nerf sempiternel Xbow/CA play to more varied Castle Age armies, especially in 1v1's.
The need to buy Thumb Ring to get Skirm +10% accuracy was ridiculous, considering 1) it doesn't increase Skirm fire speed, whereas ALL other Archers get increased fire rate from it 2) Aside from Skirms, Thumb Ring only affects arrow units (not even gunpowder), so why would it affect javelin-throwers?

E - Unlocks allied vision much sooner in the game resulting in more dynamic, clearer team games.
Lowers Stone Wall + Sling power which was a really cheap and hard-to-stop tactic, especially on open maps.


III) Pro player quotes, linked to each improvement

A - 20 Jun 2014, 08:01 GMT » Skittle (F_aLc_enSchrei)
"-300 for you, +300 for enemy is a difference of 600, you don't need to get 2 boars stolen for that..
and making a farm eco instead free boar food (which is much faster too) is just a disadvantage that can't be solved by "smart play".
And the time good players spend on stealing the boar, especially with an eew, is not even worth to be mentioned.
they don't "lose" anything through it, maybe a bit of scouting time."

20 Mar 2014, 15:56 GMT » TheViper
"The fact is that at the highest level being two boars down is basically like having lost the game already. You're so far behind that unless your opponent makes heavy mistakes, you lose the game."

B - 26 March 2014 - 6:20 pm by [INoV]CarlosFerdinand
"Palisade Walls are too cost-effective and one of the main reasons for game to be all about FC even on arabia.
Stone Walls are too cheap for how much they make any non-siege assaults virtually impossible. On many maps you didnt even need to mine stone to full stonewall."

11 Jun 2014, 01:17 GMT » TheViper
"The only truly overpowered thing in this game are stone walls and the HP on most buildings. That's what limits strategies and development in that aspect of the game. Which is also why most civs are so limited to drush fc."

10 Jun 2014, 16:02 GMT » MaximuS
"Hunwar is most entertaining, first because they got scouts and second they got no houses. While other civs in feudal waste their wood on houses in hunwar u just put stable and make fights much more fun."

C - 26 Oct 2012, 22:26 GMT » TheViper
"NEVER would I tell a player looking to learn and improve to make m@a after the 13-14 minute mark, it's a complete waste. On lower levels it can pay off, but if you're looking to improve, it should take you to a higher level eventually and you'll find out that m@a doesn't work as it used to. It's a useless unit"

28 Aug 2013, 23:36 GMT » TheViper
"you'll lose every game you play vs a evenly skilled opponent if you try to go longswords with any other civ than goths"

24 Sep 2013, 19:02 GMT » CarlosFerdinand
"Cavalry archers are only a popular unit with huns, and rarely/never used with other civs (mongol CAs find occasional use). Huns have clearly the best HCAs practically speaking."

D - 26 March 2014 - 6:20 pm by [INoV]CarlosFerdinand
"Drush followed by FC and xbows severely limits strategic options in AOC. How less the xbow upgrade costs make it possible to do xbows almost universally at early castle age even if enemy goes skirms."

11 Jun 2014, 00:37 GMT » Mr_Yo
"other civ 's main strategy in arabia is drush wall fc mostly...."

21 Feb 2014, 07:24 GMT » TheViper (to CarlosFerdinand)
"Xbows didn't get nerfed with your change, only the upgrade cost was raised slightly. It's not a direct nerf on the unit, so with such a change you'd be forcing civs the ranged units path even more than before."

E - 13 Jan 2014, 20:07 GMT » Biz
"teamgames in aoc are often boring and repetitive because the lack of allied vision (as well as the unit balance) leads to static play. every other RTS has the 'cartography' equivalent unlocked from the very start of the game. in aoc it's not even affordable before 22 min (or later) in a competitive game."


P.S: This patch doesn't change your game language, but the side effects of this advantage are:
old discount of Hun CA, old costs of Xbow, E Skirm and LS upgrades, old value of Goth Perfusion will remain in the tech tree.