+1 range makes sense if the upgrade cost is so large.
To me, it is unbeliveble how this upgrade is so expensive for what it offers. Even if the civ problem is still the terrible early game. In the majority of the cases you are very behind before the elite gc upgrade…
They are good at infantery, strong against cavallary and have 5/5 armour.
They need some weakness. I think +1 range is to strong because you can used them perfectly with a group of arbalest.
Maybe give the EGC more LOS that they can see Onager much earlier or give them a faster training time or more speed.
So you want them to have +1 range in Castle Age and makes them another generic foot archer.
Please stop killing the diversity of this game, units must have drawbacks, noticable ones, let me guess, you’d probably support reducing Mameluke gold cost. It’s the same suggestions, the easiest ones to implement, maximum benefit, minimum efforts.
What? No, I never supported that.
I said maybe, and maybe after the elite upgrade, OR a +1 attack in castle age adjusting the bonus vs cav.
Yes, just a 5 gold less, but that’s off topic…
You have a strange definition of diversity. Italians being forced into the same generic crossbow play as every other civ is not diverse. GC should add utility, and give the player a reward for investing in castles and committing to unique units. The fact that an Italian player would even consider investing in the Arbalest upgrade if they had Castles all over the map is IMO a problem. Crossbows and Arbs have the advantage of easy production with no stone investment, they don’t need to outperform against enemy archers.
I also dislike that Vikings are better off making Champions than Berserks, or that Lithuanians benefit more from Paladin than Leitis. All of these mean no diversity, civs feel the same.
Genoese Crossbow has already its own role that arbalest can’t get, which is killing cavalry, also Italians lack halberdier to force players to use the unit.
Leitis and Berserks also have their own roles and excel at doing that, if you want an example of a boring design from that perspective the Britons tbf, why you even go longbow when arbalest is quick to mass and do the same that longbow do
.
Longbow has +1 damage and +1 range over arbs. Not to get too far off topic, but I very much enjoy using all these unique units (including Berserk and Leitis), just a shame to see them outclassed by the generic option in so many scenarios. Like let the other 38 civs use that one, I want a reason to use the option available only to the chosen civ. Sure GC has that vs cavalry, but it’s somewhat undone by the fact that Arb performs better in a lot of situations. You’d never use GC against Meso civs for example,and that’s basically forfeiting one of the Italian civ bonuses. Look at the win rate of Italians vs Mayans and you’ll see what I mean, Mayans won 79% of these games at 1650+.
The Genoese Crossbowman has 1 melee armor, which is rare for a foot archer. How about the Elite version gets an additional melee armor, doubling down on the uniqueness of the unit? Combine it with a little cheaper upgrade cost, and maybe someone will ever research Elite in a competitive game.
Not that it matters much… armor is generally less important than range/attack for archers, especially melee armor.
Now, it has its use, and it’s unique, but it doesn’t define the GC, nor it’s its major selling point.
I wouldn’t mind a cheaper elite upgrade, but I doubt that GC will ever make it to the competitive scene apart from the occasional appearance.
Well, not that I care much if a UU is useless against 3 civs out of 39…
Such win rate is mainly due to the strong mayan early game on arabia (99% of the games) while Italians are a late game civ.
Against eagles, italians anyway have cheaper HC and FU champs, so they are mainly fine…
Most civs are forced into the same generic units, and just few civs consistently use their UU.
The reason why the GC doesn’t see much use, is because nowday meta is dominated by range and mobility (the same reason why infantry isn’t a viable option). The GC moves as fast as the arb, and have 1 less range. That’s why the arb is always preferable.
I’m not saying that we need to give them the +1 range. The GC is a niche unit, like the condo, and it’s just add variety to the already flexible Italian tech tree.
To OP: Absolutely not.
Also, future OP’s, I’m getting really, really bored with these topics. Feels like every topic is just a re-hash I’ve already put to rest. Spruce it up a bit, will ya?
Well, if new people keep bringing up the same arguments maybe there is a reason.
And you don’t “have to” answers, sometimes if you want a topic to die the best way is to ignore it. After a bit, people in favor will exhaust arguments, while if people against will post messages, it will give people in favor motives to keep posting.
When someone brings up an old, dead argument as opposed to a new, incisive one on said subject, it’s for no reason other than the person who decided to write up a thread on the subject failed to scan for previous conversations on the topic to familiarize themselves before slamming their face into their keyboard repeatedly in the recreation of a totally spent topic they’ve missed the boat on.
Which is how you get suggestions that have literally had 300 posts across 4+ threads being shot down because they are objectively terrible ideas getting reposted because “I can’t see the reason why we wouldn’t just do this.” IDK, have you read anything said thus far on the subject, or is it just you and your brain working this out?
I gotta ask do you not do any math before making these statements? Because it’s mathematically obvious that the melee armor from pavise and the default stats actually helps just as much as the extra HP. They contribute more or less equally.
Especially in castle age the 2 extra melee armor on top of 45 HP is one of the reason the unit is so strong.
If 1 range is stopping someone from getting good outcomes with the GC it’s because they are using it against units they shouldn’t be using it against. I have literally never seen someone complain about the 1 range vs infantry, cavalry, or cav archers with the sole exception of recurve bow CA while using the unit.
Not everything is resolved by math…
Now I ask you, did you read my post?
Because I explicitly said that it “has its use”, but usually it’s not that important. I never said that it’s useless, just that it’s doesn’t have a big impact.
In general, archers shouldn’t be on the front line. Yeah sometimes your archers are bunch up and they need to stand against knights, but the best thing would be to always have them on the movement, and micro down enemy cav. Or to have at least some meatshield in front.
When talking about ranged units, melee armor (not PA) is less important than range or attack, then HP and PA comes in, to make archers more resistant to other archers who can threaten them from distance. MA isn’t useless, but it’s less important.
When I said that 1 less range prevent you to get a good outcome? No please quote me.
I said that in nowdays meta, range and speed is what dominate the game. We can agree, not agree, but that is the present paradigm.
Maybe the problem is not about balance, but about incourage and “educate” people to try new strategies and approach, and I agree with you to some degree, but that wasn’t the topic of the discussion.
Yeah, maybe they didn’t found the old topic, or maybe they didn’t bother, we don’t know.
Consider also, that even if the poor guy that create this thread would have found the last topic on the GC/Italians, that even if he would have read it all, and at the end still disagree with the current situation (which is legit) and even if he would have posted his thoughts there, he would have been probably accused of necroing the topic.
Are you sincerely interested in why you are not more persuasive?
First, you’ve resorted to a personal attack, which is inappropriate and unnecessary. A thread may end because people don’t want to respond to you for fear of abuse, but that’s different than agreement. Other people may firmly hold opposing positions simply because they feel disrespected.
Second, you merely state opinions, which are no more or less valid than those from other people. Instead, you could demonstrate your beliefs in the scenario editor. A short video or gif would be incredibly persuasive.
Last, you exaggerate. For example, you literally state that equal range to other archers suddenly changes EGC into “an unkillable, impossibly efficient force.” It seems unlikely that they are so near to being OP, which makes your other claims seem suspect.
Anyway, you sound frustrated and so I wanted to take the time to explain why you are not convincing. I appreciate your passion – it’s just occasionally misdirected.
I knew that you’d support Mameluke gold discount. It’s the same systematic approach to increase acessibility at a price of diversity. Mameluke should be expensive, should be gold heavy unit (fit smoothly with Saracens eco), this UU is one of the deadliest ones once massed.
All civs are forced into a generic play of crossbows for your info, its the current restrictive meta, the narrowest one we’ve ever had so far in this game. 2 years ago you could see Plumed Archers, Organ Guns, Genoese, and even Gbetos.
Once they fix the meta- more units would be viable.
Genoese are deadly, they only need to buff their Castle Age version, Elite Genoese is extremely hard to counter considering Italians tech tree.
So since you seem to know so much, what changed that plumes, organ guns and gbetos are no longer viable in your opinion? Cuz from whst I see 2 or those have gotten nothing but buffs in the last two years.
The difference between normal and elite is some bonus damage and very minimal health. So how is elite such a power house if castle isn’t?
Instead of acknowledging my argument, you succeed in doing exactly what I’ve stated you’ve done - ignoring previous argumentation on the subject and thrusting your rehashed, pre-bunk suggestion into the conversation, ensuring the only people who will ever want to engage with you are people tolerant enough of this nonsense to engage with it or people with as little familiarity with the subject as you do.
You don’t like my framing of it? Too bad. I’m not attacking you by stating the obvious - You haven’t read prior discussions on the subject (or else your thread wouldn’t be so shallow in terms of actual analysis) and decided to simply thrust your opinion into the forums anyway without a second thought. You don’t like hyperbole. I don’t care. Hyperbole is not a personal attack. If you feel attacked, that’s on you.
It’s easy to mistake fact from opinion when you don’t read the subject.
No test here. Unless you’d like to argue a Genoese with one more range wouldn’t somehow make Arbalest a losing matchup. Go ahead.
We agree that the Genoese (at least massed, which archers should be) counters Cavalry, which is one of the normal counters to Arbalest, yes? Again, this is a fact not an opinion.
If you gave Genoese one more range, they would be efficient, or a counter, to every non-siege option in the game. Save Eagles, Huskarls, maybe Cataphract, etc. this is factual. If you literally only have to worry about siege, you will splash Hussars and/or BBC to counter it. Now, if you’d like to argue with this, go ahead, I’d love to hear what you have to say on the subject. It’s factual.
EDIT: I’ve trimmed the extra bit at the end because I don’t need to, nor should I, criticize your approach. I’d ask you actually engage the argument instead of claiming to be a victim of an attack as a way to criticize my approach without actually engaging the substance of my point.