The Swiss - Aoe2 Civilisation Concept (including tech tree)

In this video you will see the brand new civilsiation concept about THE SWISS, a civilisation of superior infantry with mercenaries that ruled western Europe!

Timestamps:
0:00 The Swiss
0:46 History
4:04 How to design a civilisation & other considerations
5:15 Civ icon, architecture, wonder
6:18 The first unique unit
10:07 The second unique unit
14:28 The unique technologies
17:15 The civilisation bonuses
22:18 The full tech tree
26:53 Strategies & possible tweaks

[haarex.]

Crazy underrated. I hope someone big in the community will bring attention to your channel, you totally deserve it.

[Xandalfo]

Very well thought out Civilization! As a Swiss I love the attention to detail, including Willhelm Tell and the Pike-Square as well as the wood-framed buildings and the St-Galler Wonder. I also like that you dismissed the obvious team bonus of giving the imp. halb to everyone with a good reasoning.
I feel they are quite a strong civ and I'd love to play them, although lacking in cavalry and archer line which are meta so I guess it would be quite well-balanced.

[Salnax]

As someone who has also tried designing the Medieval Swiss as an AoEII civ, this was very interesting to watch. Especially seeing the concept you came up with was pretty different than what I came up with, even when based on the same bits of history.

Basically, my Swiss were largely built around the fact that, starting in the Castle Age, their Pikemen and Halberdiers got +1 range, similar to the Steppe Lancer and Kamayuk. My reasoning was that Swiss polearms users were so famous because they fought in organized formations, and the best way to capture this would be to give them a bonus that helped them when a large number of units were fighting together at once. That way, the Burmese and Japanese could still arguably have the best Halberdiers in the game while the Swiss were #1 in another category.

Instead of being a tech, I made Reislaufers the unique unit (and unlike you, I only felt they needed the one). They were basically a Kamayuk that had less HP and Speed and a bit more Attack and armor. The Team Bonus was that other civs could train them from their Castles, which I thought was a reasonable way to capture the idea of Swiss mercenaries.

Probably the best thing you did compared to me was that you made sure to give a nod to foot archers and Hand Cannoneers. My Swiss could field fully upgraded Arbalesters and HC's, but there was nothing that special about them. I'm not sure what to make of anti-trash HC's, but it's at least more interesting than my concept was in that regard.

So yeah, I'm interested in seeing what you come up with in the future. I've put a bit of thought into making civ concepts, and am curious what you've got to offer.

[tristanoliver]

Great video.
I disagree on not giving the last two blacksmith upgrades for archers. Feels like the UU gets unusually punished by not having these. It also makes your gold costed HC's slightly weaker as well.

[obsidian]

Noice!

I was going to make my own Swiss civ concept literally today, but yours seems all around a cooler and more planned out civilisation than mine was going to be. Good job!

Edit: Also, I think I'd like a Steppe Lancer civ next, since only 3 civilizations have them and none have a focus on Steppe Lancers. This could be the Khazars, Tibetans, Uyghurs, Khitans or Manchus (unless there are other possible Steppe civs).

[Kunaimaru]

I'm half Swiss, half Irish. Your channel have everything i wanted.

[Soas_Records_Official]

These new civs seem more balanced than the new official ones! I'd love to try the Swiss, have you ever reached out to forgotten empires about these? Your civ ideas are amazing and are worth considering officially if you ask me

[nefftron]

I love how much thought and effort you put into these videos. Great work! Some thoughts on the civ design itself:

-I really like the effort to have a bonus reflecting each part of the pike/shot/bow triad that made up the Swiss formations.
-I'm worried the Imperial Halb upgrade is too costly. It is the best halb unit for a trash fight, but you're spending 1350(!) gold total to get there, and 750 more than the other civs you're comparing them to in a fight. That's a ton of gold to commit, especially when their other signature units are an archer that costs even more gold and a HC that costs less food but, again, more gold; and this civ has no gold-related bonuses to make their stack last longer. I know that with every other unit upgrade line the later upgrades are more expensive but an exception may be merited here.
-The TB makes their trade carts faster than every melee unit in the game except for Cuman Hussars. That may be deliberate but it definitely makes them insanely difficult to raid with anything except CA. Otherwise, the 15% faster gold generation overlaps quite a bit with Spanish. Other potential options could be giving trade carts way more HP or armor so they're hard to raid without making melee units worthless, or making having markets work faster so the carts can be built/rebuilt a lot faster.
-The Heavy Arbalester is framed as an archer that is solid against melee in Castle Age, but then the Imp upgrade only adds pierce armor. Doubling down on the vs. melee aspect may have some merit here (especially since they have now Ring Armor). That said, I guess I'm not quite clear what the strategic niche of the UU is compared to a hand cannoneer.
-Stripping Architecture or even Masonry could be a good way to balance their cheap military buildings, as it will make it a little easier for an opponent to clear up production buildings in a late-game push. Keep hoardings so their castles aren't worthless though.
-You emphasize the power spike of early Imp arbalest as an option, but without Bracer I just can't imagine that ever being very viable. The +1 range and attack from Bracer is just too important.
-With that in mind, the early Imperial age for this civ seems really really hazardous. Crossbows and knights lack major upgrades, and their pikemen are entirely generic (besides their super-niche Castle UT) until the Imp Halb upgrade comes in, and that upgrade is both expensive and behind another expensive upgrade.

Once again, really love these videos! Like Sebastian, an attempt at a steppe lancer-focused civ would be cool, since it's a unit almost totally forsaken by the actual devs. You could also try making your own Battle Elephant civ to represent the Tamils or Bengalis or something.

[yoyodude-aoe]

So the whole civ dies to arbalest?
It doesn't seem to fall off too much in imp.
Considering you need imp halb upgrade over the halb upgrade which is expensive enough already.
Then we have the amazing Gold only hand cannons, I like the concept but I think the cost should be food and wood only and then reducing the gold cost to (let's say) 40/45. Or the cost needs to be pretty low if the gold cost remains the same or increase as gold is the most precious resource in imp, so researching a tech for a unit that increases that isn't very good, also those hand cannons will be pretty weak without last armour.
at bottomed out market prices it's actually better to buy food for regular hand cannons than to pay hundreds of res for a UT that eventually make the unit more costly(in gold terms as it's expensive in imp);
Suggestions:
If 2nd UT was a civ bonus instead than we might see a synergy with fast imp into gold only hand cannons and the food goes into pikeman or onager upgrade.
The formation UT also seem like a good civ bonus for early castle age xbows.
The 15% faster siege can be switched into a UT as it's not as impactful imo in early castle age and can be picked up in mid castle age if you want to go for siege.
I think this civ really needs bracer, as it doesn't really have anything going for themselves in imp except for siege and inf, which comp isn't very great on its on as it takes too much time to get going, bracer on their arbs will give them a good chance in early imp to get to those options;
The blacksmith without it is just too horrible, there's only 1 more civ that lacks 3 post imp techs and that's celts but they have woad raiders and way superior siege than this civ expect bbc.
Pikeman directly being upgraded to imp halb(skipping regular halberdier altogether).
A small dark/feudal age eco bonus for the early game.

Final thoughts:
I think this civ might be good on open maps with saving on thr buildings combined with the eco bonus that I suggested.
On closed maps, having very little to no eco bonus will make them struggle for thr most part but if they can get to their dream comp of inf and SO BBc then they will be unstoppable.
Sorry for the rant earlier,
I really like your passion and dedication towards researching and making these civ designs, I just think that they are not very balanced sometimes.
Thanks for reading through it all, you get a clown cookie 🍪

[armchairsaurus]

Absolutely blown away by the quality of the content. I'm glad to see there is another youtuber out there with a passion for the historical side of AoE. Will follow you:) And as a Swiss I enjoyed this video of course in particular

[rickardberglund]

Hi MantisAoE. I've also been thinking about how to make The Swiss (+18more) in to an Aoe2 Civilization. However, I turned them into a defensive civ. With these Civilization bonuses
. The spear line has double attack (3=6 4=8 6=12)
. Castle and towern + 1 range
. Town center + 3 melee and pierce armor
. Starts with an extra flock of sheep
. Team bonus, Caravan är free
Unique unit ??? I forgot Wilhelm tell so I gave them a defensive Swordsman instead (think a Condottiero but with more armor)
.castle age Technology Trade road +5 melee and pierce armor for Trade Cart wood 350 glod 300
.Imperial Age Technology Falchion +2 attack for the Unique unit, Champion and Cavalier food 450 gold 500

[mrcat]

How about the Croats civ concept that will be very interesting. Also I love your civ concepts they are very accurate and balanced keep it up!

[Fenet]

I really appreciate all the work you put into this video 👍
Unfortunately I don't this this civ will play out very well:
You mentioned that archers should work fine in the late game. I doubt that very much. Lacking Bracer and the last armour is Kamikaze with archers or skirmishers and Hand Cannons are not always a good idea. The unique unit sounds nice at first, but it will get totally destroyed in post imp because they have 2!! less lange than skirms and archers. Siege Onagers, even with Siege engineers sound nice too, but it is incredibly expensive and time consuming to get there.

In conclusion:
-The civ is incredibly slow with bad cav choices in imp and no bonuses in castle age for cav
-The archers are strong in castle age with full upgrades, but also don't have bonuses. In imp they lack armour and ranged upgrades, so archers are not a good option and hand canoneers are very situational
I-nfantry is great in the entire game, but remains very weak to archers and move very slowly
-Siege is very very good but slow to get going
-The UU is OK in castle age but will be complete shit in imp with only 6 range and low armour. Plus they are also 33% more gold expensive than regular archers
-The first Unique tech is fine, but the second one even weakens the civ in post imp when gold is rare
-I think this civ would get smashed in early imp because siege is not upgraded yet, archers het no upgrades and infantry alone is just bad. Even in later stages of the game I think they have no answer to any type of archer, whether it be skirms, arbs or cav archers. In trash wars they have no counter to skirms as well with very bad light cav

[Faaa]

Wow, that was very well thought out and nicely done! As a Swiss I really hope the devs actually do something like this in the near future! The only thing I personally would change is the wonder. I would prefer the "Grossmünster" Cathedral of Zurich since it was actually build in the medieval times (1100 onwards) and is more iconic imo.

[jakob]

First of all congratulations for your amazing work. I like your well designed videos very much. While watching this video, i thought the house of Habsburg could be a nice addition.

[gabrielefarina]

I always thought about the swiss civ concept. I agree on the type of UUs, however I would have made the swiss pikemen with +1 range (like kamayuks) or with a mechanics similar to the one of ghulam. The first unique tech is way too situational. If you really want it it should be a bonus, not a tech, nobody will spend for that. I like the idea of formation, but I will be more meaningful a mechanic similar to the one of the hussite wagons. I agree that team bonus should be related with market, but we already have bohemians, spanish and hindustanis. Free coinage would have been more interesting in team games, allowing more slings and interesting strategies

[danmin]

The image of Heavy Arbalester looks same as Genoese Crossbowman?

[kevinhurzeler]

well done! really enjoyed your video 🇨🇭

[andrewhomestead]

Great concept and cool channel! As I was watching, I was thinking a unique economic bonus could be the ability to garrison herdables in mills for a slower yet stead stream of food (sort of like a relic). The bonus would reference the diary production of the Swiss (although I know not all herdables are cows). Balancing might be an issue though. You would need it to generate enough food to encourage players to garrison at least some of their herdables, yet not too much or it could snow ball. The players would have to decide how many of their herdables to garrison vs harvest (which would probably be influenced by type of map and/or their opponent's potential play style).

[ReddoFreddo]

Here's my idea: The unique unit should be a Landsknecht, not technically Swiss, but based on Swiss military ideas, you can give it a different name too if Landsknecht is not historically accurate, but make it a two handed swordsman with a cool skin, that makes pikemen more effective when in their vicinity, like the Roman unique unit. The idea is that Landsknechts turn a halberdeer army into a melee force that's (almost) as effective as an army of Champions, with bonus damage against cavalry. The Landsknecht may also have bonus damage against men-at-arms-line units, or against pikeman units.

The castle age unique tech should allow your allies to also build Landsknechts, echoing the popularity of Swiss mercenaries throughout late Medieval Europe, and when allies create landsknechts, the Swiss player receives a trickle of gold.

The Imperial Age unique tech would be called "Pike and shotte" and would make hand canoneers more effective when in the vicinity of spearman-line units.