+1 range for Elite Genoese Crossbowman

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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Presently, the Elite Genoese Crossbowman is outranged by even a lowly skirmisher. Even a standard crossbowman has the same range as a standard and elite skirmisher. The extra range of the standard crossbowman is also important for harassing woodlines and sniping villagers.

All other unique archer units have at least five range:
Genoese 50hp, 1/0 armor, 4 range
Plumed 65hp, 0/2 armor, 5 range
Rattan 45hp, 0/6 armor, 5 range
Longbowman 40hp, 0/1 armor, 7 range

Yes, the Genoese have bonus against cavalry. But if the opponent is heavy cav, it is cheaper to tech into Halberdier and have trash production from barracks rather than pay for the elite Genoese upgrade.

The advantages of going with Arbelesters over Elite Genoese is:

  • Total upgrade cost is lower
  • Don’t need castles to produce
  • Can amass army in earlier ages
  • Can produce skirmishers from same buildings if facing archer civ
  • Can produce hand cannoneers (20% discount) from same buildings if facing infantry

So, why not make make the Elite Genoese have at least 5 range?

5 Likes
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Because it’s more interesting to have a UU that’s good against cavalry but bad against archers.

BTW

Italians don’t have Halberdiers

6 Likes
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maybe you should look at the italians tech tree again.

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Italians also have pavise fu arbs. The GC is just a little nice addition for them against cavalry civs. You just mix in a few of them, you don’t mass GC.

GC perfectly fits it’s role in their comp - i don’t think there is any need to change GC right now.

If there was any change I would make to italians I would increase their aging discount a bit and reduce their Tech discount a bit in the exchange, to make them less naval focussed. The resulting better timings would have much more impact on land maps than water.

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5

genoese crossbows are balanced with less range for TGs so enemy arbalests can take them down, with extra range them would be much harder to deal with here.

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What that you’re asking is basically making Genoese just another Ranged Unique Unit, flat base range of 5. Good Bye diversity.

You forget that if they had +1 range they would win both Archer civs and Cavalry civs, including CA and most Unique Units. 4 range gives room to strategy, ladies and gentleman its an RTS game after all.

Anyways, if you’d want to buff them you’ll have to do it in a better manner, not the easiest generic way. Examples:

  1. Giving them hidden Armor bonus vs. Siege. With this huge shield they should do much better agaisnt Mango, the reason we dont see them at Imperial Age is the fact they worth only in masses like all foot archers which requires the player to begin creating them in Castle Age, the reason none makes them in Castle Age is Mango, they are the worst foot archer in the game when facing Mango, especially in Castle Age where they dont have BBC to protect them.
    Having hidden armor bonus would make them more micro-able and heal-able by Italians monks.

  2. Fix the meta, the reason we’vs stopped seeing pretty much any unique unit on Arabia especially is a result of the current meta which is the narrowest we’ve ever had, no room for inovation or out of the box strategies, 2 years ago in the “very” old Arabia things where different.

6 Likes
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Ngl, the missing range is a difficult to play with. I prefer the way Plumes were balanced, missing 1 attack but have full range, and the attack is made up for by bonus damage against intended targets. On this note, the Rattan and Longbow both have 7 base attack (11 with upgrades), which also makes them much more effective against high pierce armor targets (eagles take 3 damage from longbow/rattan but only 2 from arbs/genoese).

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I honestly think Elite Plumes need - 1 range, having both speed and range plus that PA and HP, is too much honestly, with less range the mobility would be far more important.

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Plumes are different story as you don’t mix them with other archery. GC are designed to mix in your arb balls for some extra punch against cav. And they fill this role quite nicely.

Plumes are more comparable to cav archers tbh.

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Yea but thats why cav archers have less range than arbalests, to make mobility far more important.

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I just though about GC a bit
 I think for a unit which is often just an addition to crossbow or arb balls the upgrade cost is actually way too high.

I think we had the same discussion also with other UUs that have similar roles in the army comps of different civs. This kind of units should have less upgrade cost. I think it would be fine if GC would only have like half of their current upgrade cost. Especially as the upgrade is really underwhealming. Just a bit more xp, some bonus damage and a bit faster training
 That’s for this amount of ressources for a unit that is just an add-in to your main line is a bad joke.

I think if they want to change something with GC the elite upgrade cost should be reduced significantly.

3 Likes
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Oh no. You’re right. That’s even worse. ‘Gee, people won’t use Genoese because they can just use cheap halbs? Better remove their halbs.’

:cry: indeed

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Cav civs tend to lack bracer, so their skirmishers can’t outrange genoese xbows.

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GC need to be weak agains archer line. They melt paladins and cavalry archers. Otherwise they wil become and absolute unit

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Keep Genoese sufficiently distinct from regular Crossbowmen please. So no extra range for them. The Elite upgrade does provide too little benefit for Genoese Crossbowmen, though.

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Uh, Magyars, Berbers, Huns, Spanish, Bulgarians, Burgundians, Byzantines, Lithuanians, Khmer, Mongols, Tatars and Poles say hi. Nothing wrong with these civs having bracer, and the Cav + Skirm combination is a powerful one, since the skirmishers counter halberdiers and archers.

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Consider that now, the naval discount is paired with the uni discount, so you would nerf their land strength too


They are already decent against siege, the only thing holding them back is actually exactly their range.

With their +1 base MA and 5 more HP, they can survive in castle age a direct hit from a mango. In imp, they can survive a direct hit from a onager (not a SO thorough
). Not that you should take direct hits, since they leave your GC more dead than alive, but still, if it happens you know that you don’t lose the unit, and that you can garrison them in the castle for healing.

There is no such thing. In reality, yes you have a moment when you have both arbs/xbows and GC, but only because you are switching into the latter.

If it’s early enough in the game that micro still counts, you don’t mix in xbows and CG, because the latter won’t hit anything in a group when the xbow fire 1 tile sooner. If instead it’s the late game, and you simply patrol, then GC are simply the best choice (they are tanker and slightly less gold intensive).

By all means, you can do a ball of both, but onestly, if you have transitioned into GC, your ranges are better off producing skirms than xbows. Especially if it’s the late game.

Yeah, I agree, it wouldn’t hurt.

Or, the +1 range could be given to the elite GC, since the upgrade is expensive


Alternatively, you may given to the GC a +1 damage in castle age, like other suggested. You need to adjust their bonus damage vs cav, but overall, you would have a stronger unit.

Or again, you just overall indirectly buff all their archers by also discounting their university (the building, not just the techs). It needs to be a discount of either about -150 wood, or about -50 wood, to make it different than the bohemians bonus.

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Nothing that’s wiped out by an Onager shot or a group of Skirmishers is at risk of being an absolute unit.

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Address the insane elite upgrade cost before that.
I don’t know why most UUs have so exaggerated upgrade costs. They are already much harder to mass than regular units.
Now if we talk about cavalry UUs the high cost might be justified, but for archer and infantry UUs most of those elite upgrades are too damn expensive.

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That or at least reduce the cost for the pavise UT, since basically it cost as much as what Italians saves up to castle age plus ballistics.

1 Like