Not really except maybe elephant archer. That’s just 10% faster than Khmer with worse quality.
Exactly, Having Urumis trained in barracks upon reaching castle age and buffing Urumi base speed to 1.15 tps would mitigate the castle age problem. This will also make Urumi as fast as Eagle warrior and Indian Dynasties DLC units like Ghulum and Chakram. This is the least bit Devs can do to make castle age viable for Dravidians.
Even if its a civ bonus at 40% speed increase for all elephants without husbandry, It will not be OP since Dravidians don’t have elephant discounts and can’t spam them. The food cost will make them play castle age forever. So its balanced.
I am not a fan of Urumi build in castle by default. If it had to come to a direct replacement for knights, I would rather give them a different UU (either ike Shrivamsha, eagles, condotierri, or a buff to scouts or BE)
I don’t think so. All elephants faster is huge.
If we focus on BE only, they would be by default faster than huskarls/berzerks with squires. You don’t need as many BE as the opponent has knights. I think 1 BE without BL > 2 FU knights in castle age. And 1 BE is more expensive than 2 knights.
The current problems of BE is that they are slow, so monks convert them and pikes catch them and kill them, and that they cannot move around the map like a cavalry or fast infantry. You are partially removing these weaknesses with the BE movement speed (can run away from monks/pikes and chose fights). And skirms counter pikes + monks.
So i’d say Dravidians would argubly have the best castle age elephants in the game. Maybe not against historical accuracy according to many people, but against their current design for sure.
The idea would be fine if the BE were further nerfed (ex. no cav armor). And no need to put EA and SiegeE into this.
And if we really want to give Dravidians a viable knight replacement fir team games and niche 1v1 situation, it is only one of:
- Light cav igniring armor from castle age
- fast but weaker BE
- some new UU from standard building (that is not urumi if possible)
- A somehow cheap unique building that can train urumis like Bulgarians (not a fan of this though)
Along with 40% speed boost, removing Chain Barding Armor should ensure Battle Elephants are balanced. But that will weaken Light cav further. Already scout rush is problematic for Dravidians. They don’t have amour advantage Teutons have either. In maps like arena, you can easily chase down Dravidian light cav and make sure they don’t get relics.
Either light cav should have the civ bonus too or tech tree should be reworked to have bloodlines and Husbandry. This will ensure that there is a cost effective response when opponent goes double monastery. These discussions buttress how important mobility is in castle age.
They lack Elite Battle Elephant. So even giving them plate barding armour will not buff them. Since battle elephant is only viable in the imperial age and also they lack Elite Battle elephant. Also 40% tech would be behind castle unique tech anyways.
Even giving them Elite Battle elephant with Plate barding will not make them top tier Battle elephant civ.
I understand that you want to replace Medical corps with a new unique tech. But the cost would be too high. U would need Villagers on stone as well as farms to be able to reach this stage. Getting it as a civ bonus will ensure that you have a Knight replacement as soon as you hit castle age.
Historically too, South India had very good elephant armies. They caught elephants from the wild and tamed them. It doesn’t make sense to research a unique tech for it. The +15 fish carry can be exchanged with Khmer for this.
Sure I do agree on it. Dravidians need a answer in castle age without researching a tech in castle. Bengalis got a instant +3/3 armour which made then good civ in arena atleast. But a change for Dravidians should make them viable in open maps and atleast playable in closed maps.
So giving redemption is top priority for sure and a instant mobility bonus or some other unique bonus is needed to solve their castle age problem.
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