They have 4 pierce armor and they don’t need castles. The problem is that Knights are better everything and they are good vs Archers too
-10F
Elephants Archers:
Their Elite upgrade should be cheaper
Elite should need less time to be researched
+1 range
Teutonic Knight:
I think they are good as unit but you their Champions are very similar
I think they training time should be decreased to 10 seconds
-5F and -5G
Ballista Elephants:
I think they are better than Elephant Archers overall but their cost should be reduced to 100F/70G
They should lose their -2 siege armor class
War Elephants:
I totally disagree with you here
Genoese Crossbowman:
Foot Archers should recieve +1 pierce armor in general
Their training time should be reduced to 16 and 13 (elite) seconds
Elite Genoese Crossbowman +1 damage
Condotteiro:
-5G
+4 damage vs Eagle Warriors
Affected by Pavise
+1 pierce armor
Samurai:
-5G and +5F
+0.05 speed
Karambit Warrior:
-5F and -5G
Shotel Warrior:
-10G and +10F
Steppe Lancer:
I think Lancers are Knights should be totally different units
-5G
Fire Rate buffed to 2.0
Resist to conversion
Might be not enough but I will give them some love in my custom civilization concepts alongside with gunpowder units and infantry
Civ 1: Steppe Lancers attack 20% faster and 15/25% cheaper in the Castle/Imperial Age + Imperial Steppe Lancer available in the Imperial Age
Civ 2: Steppe Lancer recieve +2/3 melee armor in the Castle/Imperial age + Unique Tech gives Cavalry Archers and Steppe Lancers +3 vs Infantry
Civ 3: Cavalry related upgrades are researched 80% faster + Unique Tech gives cavalry (expect Camels) trample damage
mamelukes are absolutely horrible, which is why you never see them, and they should be buffed, there are however a lot of instances where samuray are better than champions, (in Imp where you have castles it takes 3 minutes to have a decent samuray army, they are even strong without elite upgrade, while it takes ages to get to champions). shotels always felt like a weird unit to me, but they can be usefull to fast counter trash and rams in imp, karambits are much more viable than champions for raiding and you can avoid unfavorable fights much better. ballista elephants suck for everything except cutting trees. Genovese crossbows can be very strong in teamgames against battle elefants. most uu aren t designed to be the always have to go for it army of the civ, like plumes and munguday, they are situational but get their uses.
Mamelukes are the only uu i have never seen in a Game, no matter teamgame or 1v1, they need to be buffed or changed completely.
you counter them by not letting them get imp, almost all civs get crossbows or a good ranged uu, if someeone goes fc mamelukes, he should straight up die, which is why you never see it. you can go monks, halb, crossbows, siege+halb, there are a lot of counters.
I still think the Zealotry is Saracen’s main problem because it supposed to make them a Camel civ but it’s very expensive compared to everything. I’d like to see -150F and -300G because it has weaker affects than Farimba and Mamelukes are very gold heavy
Unique Units should be better ON THE BATTLEFIELD than a corresponding Generic unit available to that civilization to justify its production from 650 Stone Castles
So War Elephants should be better than FU Paladins in the Field of War. But they are NOT, in any practical situations. Because any battlefield will always have Pikes, Faster ranged units and/or Monks.
Mamelukes should be better on the battlefield than Saracen 170HP Camels. But they are never better because only 10 random Skirm shots take them down, they need ridiculous micro to even function and their base attack is low.
Which ones do you honestly think are weaker then the generic counterpart?
Except they are far more population efficient and have far more pushing power then a paladin does.
we’ve already shown you how badly halbs trade vs War Elephants, and pikes are even worse.
ranged units? War Elephants have 7 PA and 600 HEALTH. good luck taking them down anytime soon.
monks are the only direct counter and you can easily mix in some light cav to take them out.
only 1 civ has 170 HP camels, and they are a UU for that civ. so that isn’t a fair comparison at all. at best they should be better then the Heavy Camel, since that is the comparison you want.
and 10 skirms = 70 damage = either is still alive.
No Generic Unit available should be able to do everything a UU can do.
In fact, a UU should be able to do everything a corresponding generic unit can, and then have perks ON TOP of that, AND be at a similar or lower price, to justify production from Castles.
Like Berserks do for Vikings, Chu ko nu for Chinese, Longbows for Brits, Plumes for Mayans, Keshiks for Tatars, War Wagons for Koreans, Conqs for Spanish, Arambai for Burmese, Camel Archers for Berbers, Jannisaries for Turks, Magyar Huszar for Magyars,
The UUs above are perfect examples of this principle in action and they are also the ones well balanced, and seen moderately (neither OP nor super niche=underused)
you’d have to re-balance civs like Persians, Indians, Khmer, Aztecs, Franks, Teutons, and Huns to get their UU to the level you want them to be at. even @LAyZeeY agreed that if you wanted to rebalance civs around using UU as the core of the Army, Elephants would have to be toned down.
also, i rarely see Britons Longbows.
also, i’m beating a dead horse that you ignore frequently here, but when was the game ever designed around UU being the core of every civs army? Just because that is what YOU want means absolutely nothing. But you have options, you could go design your own mod like that.
I never said I want every civ to have a UU core of army
I said every UU should be seen frequently enough to be a viable option for each and every civ.
Buffing an unused unit to be viable(read: viable option, not OP) never made any civ OP. It only adds a non-meta/extra-option/unique strategy to that civ.
It makes them Strong? More Flavored would be a better term. OP? No.
The things I stated above are ONLY necessary conditions to justify production of a UU from Castles. And nothing more.
And those conditions must be satisfied for every UU INCLUDING Jaguars, TKs, Samurais, Karambits, Missionaries, Turtles, Condos, GC, War Elephants, Ballista Elephants, EAs, Shotels, Flaming Camels, Mamelukes and Kipchaks
And they are evidently not satisfied for the above Unique Units, which is why we rarely see them.
there is tons of data out there that proves this wrong time and time again. in literally every RTS that has ever existed. giving a civ more options will always lead to an increase in performance of the civ overall.
besides. unless you can prove to me that elephant archers would be say perfectly balanced cost effectively with the counterpart cavalry archers, one or the otehr would always be superior. if cav archers are superior, then EA remain “unseen” (despite the fact that i’ve seen them 3 times from viper alone in the past month). if EA are superior, they are made instead of Cav Archers. which means they are stronger option and thus Indians got buffed because they now have a superior option.
you further contradict yourself when you say that UU should be able to do everything a generic does and be cheaper too. so lets look at Infantry UU as a good example.
it has to be cheaper then Champs.
it has to do what champs do and have a bonus on top of that.
so its a straight up buff to their cost, and to what they do, and they get some perk on top of that. and you somehow think that won’t make those civs stronger? how?
imagine Jags sitting at 40 food and 20 gold.
they have 5/5 armor base, 20 attack, 2.0 attack rate, and 75 health.
and you somehow think that isn’t a buff to aztecs?
or how about berserks.
they actually see use.
we reduce their cost to 40/20 as well.
they have 18 attack, 2.0 rate of fire, 5/5 armor, 75 health and regeneration on top of that.
and you somehow think that isn’t a buff to Vikings?
oh better yet. since UU have to be at a similiar or lower price. we have to buff Plumed Archers who currently cost 30 more wood and 10 more gold then a generic arbalester. you think that’s not going to be a buff to them?
you realize to see Elephant unique units in 1v1 games they would require rebalancing around a lower price and thus have lower stats right?