And, yeah, regarding conods, they could return their gold cost…
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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.
No. Unique Units need only have a niche role. The civ has to be good, not the Unique Unit or the Unique Techs.
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.
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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.
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Wrong. UUs are niot supposed to be Super units, or Signature Units.
They are not even supposed to be trained all the time, except for a few civs.
AoE3 had an overreliance on UUs and Super Cards, and it turned out completely unbalanced.
UUs are Unique, not good, not great, Unique.
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?
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Never going to happen.
Remember the AoC days when Spanish went for Mass Conqs, because it was over-efficient, and had virtually no counters?
I do, and I hated Spanish then.
Another comparison: the Mameluke.
This is the perfect UU, from a design standpoint. It is a counter to Paladins and Elite Battle Elephants, that does not have to engage in Melee, and therefore can avoid all retalion from guarding Halberdiers and Pikes.
The Mameluke does nothing that Saracens could not do with Heavy Camel + Elite Skirmisher (which trump Paladin + Halberdier), but it performs that same function in a way that is UNIQUE, which is the whole concept of an UNIQUE Unit.
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I agree with @Parthnan that it would be preferable to see more UUs. However buffing JWs is very risky since they belong to an already top civ.
The units I would buff are the ones of the weak civs:
- organ guns -> more rof
- genoese crossbowman-> less TT
Also condos would be interesting, especially being a team unit. I was thinking of letting them to return the gold cost as saracen monks after researching a rech…
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Jaguar is not used because of stats or cost, is not used because how situational is. Aztecs have one of the best infantry in the game, so they can win infantry battles against almost everyone with standard units. So Jaguar is left to use only against civs with stronger than Aztec infantry. What mean just late game Slavs, Japs, Teutons (with TK) and partialy Goths (standard Aztec champion will be good enough, but maybe we want to have some more punch)
With Samurai is really similar situation.
Misionaries - probably enough for them will be boost their speed. But they cannot pick up relics, so this is one important monk activity they cannot do.
Condos - practicly only thing they need in reality, is bonus vs Eagles. With their speed they will become Eagle hunters.
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The parts I agree with are the Steppe Lancer part, Ballista Elephant part and maybe Indian Eles. Most of your compilaints come from not realizing the uu’s are sometimes situational.
Hun Knights will never be a better raiding unit than Tarkans.
Teutonic champs and knight-line will never be as effective in dealing with melee units as TK’s are.
Persian Palas can never replace War Ele’s sheer destructive power.
Italian Genoese Crossbow can hold its own against Generic Arbs AND is one of the best counters to anything with 4 legs.
Italian Condo is and has been a very very situational unit. Used only against gunpowder and not really anything else.
Japanese Samurai are also a very situational one that is used against other uu and trash.
Malay karambit are not in any way similar to champ line. Karambit are fast to produce and move making them excellent against monks/mangonels and for raids.
Ethiopean shotel warrors with huge damage and move speed are one of the best raiding units and can also snipe buildings fairly fast.
What I’m trying to say is that some units are situational and they are not made to be better versions of generic units most of the time, we should learn to analyze the situation and play the units at our disposal to their strengths. Except for the Steppe Lancers 11. They need a cost reduction to even be relevant.
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Relating condos I would say a possible mechanics would be to let them to return the gold cost. Bonus vs eagles can work as well, but I would push towards something differentiating them from champions.
I was thinking of a tech to make the situational units more common.
You research this magic tech and every x minutes you get a free UU (from your castle) if you have less than y UUs.
Say:
x = 5 minutes
y = 5 units
The tech could be even going available to every civ: civs like mayans would be not affected at all since, realistically, you want to have more than 5 plumes.
Civs with unused UUs will get a free group of them. This can be particularly good for Elephants UUs. They will be just a small addition to your army. So you will see just some of them but in all the games.
The tech will basically add variety to the game. And you can give it only to civs with bad UUs if you are scare by balancing.
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Holy ■■■■? A balance discussion post that is not stupid and makes actual points while considering good game design? That’s a first.
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Not good idea.
Because this will forced player to play with units he dont want to have, messing with compositions.
And I dont see how this can be balanced, consider different prices of UU, and fact the price not alwyas reflect their power.
The point was just to make the game with more variety. If you make y = 3 units it is balanced because almost irrelevant. But at least you will see 3 EAs per game. Now it is zero.
Of course, the stronger the UU, the more useful is the tech, but even if you get 3 WEs in 15 minutes it is not game changing…
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Say that the tech is for Elephants instead of UUs. So it is available to every Elephant civ (6 civs).
And that you get a free elephant every x minutes only if you have zero.
I would say that in a knight war, having just one WE is not game changing… again, i do not to buff civs not deserving a buff (khmer), but this would mainly give variety to 1v1 games…
Still you should avoid to take a direct fight vs the enemy elephant with your knights… so it would be a bit strategic
Cool alt account bro
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Thanks, worked a long time to get this one set up.