Basically, most ranged units are deadly when they massed up. This is not the reason for mameluke being expensive. Mameluke is ok to be expensive and be a niche unit because Saracens has camels and hence still counter cavalry well.
Not all probably. Spanish, Bulgarians and those civs (near one-third) lacking thumb ring except Britons dont play xbow.
+1 range may not help GC much in substituting halberdiers. They are still hard to reach critical number to counter cavalry but GC does not need +1 range to counter cavalry.
Giving them halberdiers and leaving GC alone as a niche unit will be the simplest solution. But recall that forum proposal of elite skirmisher for Turks is not adopted. It turned out to grant PA of turk scout. Accessing Halbs is not likely to happen.
Let it be available in TC like flemish militia after the elite upgrade or researching pavise with reduction of elite upgrade cost. (I prefer the former which is less likely to be OP). This helps production of GC while GC is not that spammable like producing in archery range.
Ok, @WoelsToWho. I understand now. I canât help you. Best of luck.
Elite is a power house because of the possible additional units you can mix it with, you need to try a wholistic approach to the game, cheaper BBC or FU monks, FU Hussar, in a very efficient manner they can deal with every composition you throw at them minus few civs with strong infantry (AKA Eagle Huskarl)
Iâm just saying the melee armor and HP actually does matter quite a bit. It affects how you can use the unit without bleeding gold significantly. In particular the melee armor and HP means that in most imperial situations you donât have to worry about hussars bleeding you dry of gold via bleeding your ball of archers.
E.g. If you manage to get the large ball of ~40 EGC (about 2400g w/ upgrade the same gold cost as around 30 cavalier w/ upgrade) that ball is unassailable by almost all cavalry because of the wholistic combination of high HP, armor, and high DPS. You donât really need a meatshield for EGC once they are massed because of this property except in a few rare cases like overwhelming heavy cav numbers in a team game. The cavalry can thus be used much more freely and in more of a support role rather than a meatshield role. Contrast this with most other archers which do need the meatshield to intercept things.
The math is what tells us that actually a 6 armor EGC would amplify this property. I get that hyperbole is easy but the implication 6 melee armor wouldnât matter much doesnât make a lot of sense. It contributes quite a bit to the ability to not even need a meatshield.
Saying the arbalest is always preferable implies this statement. It means that 1 range is such a handicap that the significant extra DPS and extra effective health canât generate a better return than arbalest including the castle cost. But arbalest are mediocre at best against a wide range of targets. Thus youâd have to be getting worse-than-mediocre results against a wide range of targets like hussar, lancers, elephants, heavy cavalry, camels etc.
Yes, it does have an impact, and the unit itself is designed to be an archer that can fight even in melee.
But still, when talking about archers, GC included, itâs still better to try to micro and reduce the close fights as much as you can. You still have more value into minimizing the melee fights with most melee units.
And in post imp, against hussars, most of the job is done by the anti cav bonus. HP and MA helps, but minimally.
No, itâs your congetture.
The arb usually is the preferred choice, and not just for the Italians, but basically for all archers civs. Then there are civs that use more often their archer UU, italians arenât among these.
Meta nowadays is focused on flexible units with range or speed, and thatâs a fact. That doesnât mean that units that doesnât fit in this meta are trash, but that most of the times the GC isnât preferred because it doesnât fit into the most common game-style, and so itâs underused.
Itâs not just about how the unit trade with other units, itâs about how they are used. More range means more room to micro, and better raids on vill.
There is also the problem of getting to have 1 or 2 castles to have a proper GC production, which often discourage people to use them.
I donât think giving additional range would be a good idea, as other people pointed out it would be probably too strong for team games.
On the other hand, when I tried the unit I felt like it doesnât really need too much the extra range to work out, itâs mostly an imp unit which is very effective at taking forward positions and snowballing from there with bombard cannons and meatshield in front (hussars, condos), against civs without bracer arbalests and bombard cannons.
What I found to be its main weakness in cav match-up, other than some difficulty to mass which has been quite mitigated by last balance changes, is the potential ineffectiveness in dealing with cavalry raids since, differently from halbs, you donât really want to split groups and keep them in your eco and you donât have the chance to place production buildings to reinforce exposed area as easily as you would do with pikemen/halbs. But again, additional range wouldnât do much to change this. In fact, GC perform way better on arena than on arabia as far as i know.
To me, the real problem of the unit is that it is from a bad civ, so basically you do not have time to mass them.
However this does not eliminate the fact that the elite upgrade is too expensive for what it does. +1 range would justify the cost.
Agreed. The civ may deserve halbs or a sort of pike buff, maybe by a new UT. But this would fix the civ, not the elite upgrade.
Well even assuming that itâs an issue, just reducing upgrade cost might be a better solution eventually.
I donât want to comment the âitalian bad civâ then, it looks like a clichè on this forum. What strikes me out is that apparently anyone has a strong opinion about italians, even if theyâre one of the least played civs. I doubt that those opinion come from actually playing them at this point.
Either this or some relevant improvement like the +1 range. The upgrade is too expensive for what it does, so if it doesnât change the effect, it can change the cost.
I think this comes from the fact that the civ is still very bad and the majority of us has just bad experience with them. Personally, I do not think that a cost reduction of the elite upgrade is the solution (despite it is needed).
I dont really see what the meta has to do with the balance of a unit. A balanced or OP unit that people ignore for the time being is still balanced or OP respectively. The meta units are by necessity a subset of all useful units. Because of this the meta doesnât really say much about what isnât used.
Obsessing over 1 range is more or less a textbook case of distinction bias. If youâre using it to fight units where the range is a big deal (siege, arbs, skirms) the range isnât going to help much.
Like I get that your reasoning explains why people donât use the unit. But I donât see why people potentially being irrational matters here.
Yeah I donât understand why they have poo poo range
I donât understand your usage of distinction bias. Textbook examples here:
The simple summary is: âwe tend over-examine and over-value the differences between things as we scrutinize themâ.
In your example, does +1 range (4->5, 25% improvement) matter to a ranged unit. Yes, very much. You claim no, but others argue that it would make the unit OP. So, it seems like this is a legitimate consideration. Range helps attack woodlines and kill opposition.
Secondly, is the elite upgrade to expensive for the value it provides? 900 food and 750 gold for the boost in HP and bonus damage. In fact, valueing EGC over GC for the price might be a great example of distinction bias, where the minor differences are overvalued.
+1 range for a ranged unit only significantly matters for killing other ranged units. But if youâre using GC for that purpose youâve made a losing decision anyway as imperial age siege and archers do very well against them once micro is used.
Against cavalry, infantry, and cav archers the +1 range makes minimal difference and is more than compensated by the extra HP/armor.
Does it affect the ability to raid? Slightly. Itâs fine to claim the 1 less range is annoying sometimes. Itâs another thing to claim itâs literally a deal breaker because that is clearly not the case vs itâs intended targets. That is objectively overvaluing the effect of 1 range. Remember distinction bias is about overvaluing differences.
Yes the elite upgrade is too expensive.
Expensive and doesnât do much. It gives 5 HP, and slightly more bonus damage to cav. Amor is unaffected, and I believe it is the only archer upgrade in the game that does not increase Pierce Attack or Range.
Honestly itâs not true.
The elite upgrade reduces also training time from 18 to 14 seconds and that is crucial for a unit that needs to be massed.
Same thing we can say about the bonus vs cav: +2 is a big thing for archer units.
The problem is that itâs too expensive but itâs really important in my opinion.
Training time is a good point, I didnât realize this and itâs significant for limited production from castles. If you have a group of GC created in castle age, creation time is not an incentive to buy the elite upgrade when you hit imp.
I still think itâs the least significant elite upgrade for any UU. 7 bonus damage makes them slightly better vs cavalry, but even at 6+4+5=15 they are fine in that matchup before elite upgrade. Itâs any other unit type that they struggle with, and even infantry or other archers are a threat to GC with their short range. The elite upgrade does almost nothing to help here.
In my opinion, the cost of the Genoese crossbow elite is very expensive for what it gives, the best solution would be to lower the cost of the imperial upgrade a little or give it +1 and 10p + of hp
Sorry for the delayâŚ
Itâs the reason why people make such topics. Itâs not that if a unit is outside the meta is useless, but meta unfortunately it the measure for the balance of a unit.
I mean, if a unit is rarely used, itâs legit to ask if itâs truly balanced.
Well, if we donât have the patience to try to see their point of view, and eventually arguing against them (or in favor) then we canât complain if people donât understand the units.
Personally, I think that a unit that isnât part of the meta, isnât necessarily unbalanced, but itâs not fine either. The GC might be good on paper, and I actually agree with you for the most (Iâm just trying to find a middle ground between who wants to buff them, and who doesnât) but still, apart from the math, there must be a reason why people donât use them?
But itâs not actually âlegitâ when you assume that the actors involved are perfectly rational. The entire discipline of behavioral economics exists because almost every human on earth exhibits some combination of quirky/irrational decision making behavior. Many of these quirks are quite common. So people in that discipline catalogue and document these behaviors. And when thereâs evidence those also exist in AoE2, they canât just be brushed aside âbecause theyâre prosâ.
But if that reason isnât rational then what can be done? I mean Mr. Yo just used coustillier to come back from a major villager deficit and win vs Daut. Yet from the way people describe going castle age unique units youâd expect this to have been a horrendous decision. Itâs this kind of irrational behavior which I constantly harp on by saying âYou canât assume X because âŚâ.
The elite GC upgrade could be given all sorts of bonuses: +1 range, +5-10 HP, +1 dmg -1 bonus damage, a lower cost, etc. None of these would break the game. But by the same virtue the only reason theyâd have much effect at all is if the unit is already pretty good.