The Shu - First Impression

TheViper | Professional Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition Player for GamerLegion | Sponsored by Re-Bo

[stecknryan]

Why does a warcraft streamer get early access to the civs?

[pokefuranku]

Arbalest firing like Chu Ko Nu is the intention, I think, they invented the weapon after all

[BelialTnTn]

So in a previous patch there was that bug that allowed to "hunt" trees for food.
It ended up being a bonus for a civ.

[merdufer]

"Bolt Magazine" is their way of giving Chu Ko Nu to Shu. "Chu Ko Nu" was named after a famous Shu strategist, who was said to have improved on the design of the repeated crossbow.

[annaairahala]

I think Shu's hero is pretty situational. Saracan Bimaristan monks are both cheaper and easier to get yet have a similar effect to the hero. The other two both being cav seem like they'll be the stronger ones

[AhmedHan]

This might be a top Forest Nothing civilization.

[CenturyOldPanda]

1. Halberdier in front to counter enemy knights (with extra HP when stacked)
2. White Feather Guard in front to further slow down the enemies units (again with extra HP when stacked)
3. Archers and / or War Chariots raining down arrows from behind (especially with White Feather Guard slowing enemy units down, thus giving you even more time to rain down arrows)
4. Liu Bei provides healing to your infantry so they survive longer. (not available until Imperial age though).
5. Throw in siege units for support.

But they have no early eco bonus and not evening getting iron casting hurts, so Shu sounds like they have a weak mid-game, but can snowball at late game once they get Liu Bei and get their imperial tech researched.

[BetterWithOliver]

The person who invented Chu Ko Nu is actually from Shu, so it makes sense that their arbs have extra arrows just like Chu Ko Nu.

[MerdaPura]

Best 10x shared civ bonus forest nothing civ for sure

[annaairahala]

7:39 they added that this patch, check your hotkeys

[thomasfplm]

5:20
I think it would be better if they were a chronicles style civ, not a main game civ.

10:03
I think the slow down effect on an infantry unit won't do much.
On cavalry it would be useful to either run away or to finish enemies.
On ranged units it would be really strong, unless the effect was quite small, but even small, it could still have an impact.

[FloosWorld_AoE]

1:23 That's also straight out of AoM and AoE 3 with the Snare effect.

[haoguo]

The three kingdom DLC is weird. These should be campaign “civs” in the chronicles during the early medieval period. They should not be used in ranked games, because they are essentially Chinese kingdoms at a specific period of time.

[olddoggeleventy]

It will be interesting to see the new civs and the established ones. It's what has kept this game fresh and full of vitality. I'm looking forward to all the exciting gameplay.

[UniDocs_Mahapushpa_Cyavana]

Kind of sad that there are so many unique/regional units beyond what is usually allowed, but there are:

• no additional unique/regional technologies.
• very few unique/regional buildings and the ones there are often annoying/rarely used.

Buildings and technologies can show the flavour of the civs better than the units can.

[BramVanroy]

The heroes and heroes boosting units takes me back to Battle for Middle Earth!

[mb]

@00:40 lumberjacks dropped off 600 wood and generated 60 food by that moment, so does that mean that ratio is 10%? Doesn't seem like a big thing, probably wont allow any ground breaking Dark Age strats but I could be wrong.

[noahshipp]

That's interesting how if you slow down one unit, and your opponent is moving them as a group, it effectively slows down all of them. Rewards micro, and is potentially better than it is on paper.

[Qlmmb]

The heroes are the thing that makes me most leery of the direction the DLC is taking. The effect mechanics are... "doesn't really feel like it belongs, but could be fine/interesting if implemented well, " so it's an "it depends" thing. Heroes... have very very rarely worked well in strategy games, and usually the games where it works are fully built around them as a concept, which is very much not how AoE2 plays/was designed.

[aaronshumate]

I really don't like the introduction of heroes in multiplayer.