This article has been approved and can also be read at the University. - Leif Ericson

As we all well know, the current water warfare model in AoE2 is completely and utterly broken. I've seen several discussions come up about it in the G&SD forum as well as the Modding forum, so I figured I'd just write up an article once and for all that we can use for future reference:


The rock-paper-scissors model of naval warfare needs to be fully implemented from the moment you can build warships. Water warfare in AoE2 fails epically from the start because the Galley is the only warship available in Feudal, so it is what everyone will be building. Once you have a standing fleet of Galleys, it makes far more sense to keep teching into the Galley-line than investing in any other ships. The Galley-line is far more cost-effective than any other ship type, and that the nature of their stats mean that once a (relatively low) critical mass is reached, nothing can counter them except for a greater number of Galleys or a comparable number with superior upgrades and/or unit micro. The Galley-line is additionally far more effective against land units than any other ship type (except for Demo Ships on shallows, but that's very niche and situational), which makes water control all the more vital (and Galleys more effective) in a water map.

So here's a few things to consider:

1) Create weaker versions of Fire ships and Demo ships that are available in Feudal to get the triangular combat model going right from the start.

2) In general, the stats of the ships need rebalancing. Fire Ships should have enough pierce armor that Galleys should do just about as much damage to them as archers firing on rams do (or maybe 2HP of damage/hit instead of 1). That will make the Fire Ship-line an actual hard counter to Galleys as intended. They may need more HP as well to counter the fact that Galleys can still be microed to fire, retreat, and outrange Fire Ships.

3) Since mass Galleys will then die miserably to the rebalanced Fire Ships, Demo Ships will come into play more (they do melee damage, so they'll be just as effective as ever against fire ships regardless of tweaks to fire ship pierce armor) because they will be needed to counter Fire Ships. Demo ships need more HP than they have in AoK:TC, but not too much more (probably only 10-20 more HP than they do now, and should still have crap pierce armor but could have a little more melee armor). That will make them a requirement to use to counter mass fire ships.

Once points 1-3 have been implemented, some tinkering with stats will doubtless be needed, but that's something that can wait for when you're testing as it's nigh impossible to narrow down the exact numbers beforehand. You may need to do further tweaks to cost, HP, armor, attack, speed, and even training speed if needed. As a general guideline, though, for a revised water warfare model:

a) Fire Ships should always beat similar numbers of Galleys and be more cost-effective in this matchup as well. The nature of a counter unit is that it allows a player to win a battle with lesser numbers if they are using the proper counter, but still naturally lose if they are greatly outnumbered.

b) Demo Ships should absolutely wreck Fire Ships and in low equal numbers beat galleys as well. Demo Ships should cost more gold than Galleys or Fires, though, to make up for the fact that their blast damage can absolutely annihilate tightly-packed masses of ships.

c) Mass Galleys should destroy Demo Ships before they can reach them, and should be more effective against land units than any other ship (except for Demo Ships on shallows).


Generic Cannon Galleons are a perfectly-balanced unit as they are because they fit the niche of a siege ship that is great against buildings but only marginally effective against other ships. Spanish Cannon Galleons are a good example of awful balance, though, because when massed they're a super-unit that nothing can counter. Sure, their cost is quite large, but once you have a dozen or so of them with a few other ships as support you slaughter everything else cost-effectively.

One last thing to account for is ship UUs. You need to provide some sort of incentive to use them. They should be a better, more cost-effective version of the unit they're modeled after, and relatively feasible to upgrade. Longboats aren't used because they cost more than the Galley-line and the Galley-line is effective enough at winning water wars in the current broken model. Turtle Ships just cost a ton and are hard to mass. You can get a couple out but they still die easily (and cost-effectively) to mass Galleys (Turtle Ships are mostly a Fire and Demo Ship counter due to their low fire rate, high damage, low range, low speed, and high cost). If you rebalance water warfare as per above then you'll probably see more usage of ship UUs because it won't just be a race to who can mass the most galleys.

Also, elite ship upgrade costs need to be decreased. The whopping cost of the Elite Longboat and Elite Turtle Ship upgrades are insane when you compare them to the upgrade costs for other ship types. Just in terms of gold cost, you can have 15 Galleons for the cost of the Elite Longboat upgrade, and 26 Galleons for the cost of the cost of the Elite Turtle Ship upgrade. That's not even taking into consideration the gold cost needed to build the ship UUs after that.

With a rebalanced model, you should hopefully see all ship types used and more interesting water warfare as opposed to the same generic grush (Galley rush) build that currently occurs on every water map.

[This message has been edited by Leif Ericson (edited 03-15-2017 @ 11:53 PM).]