Made a 5 minute video dedicated to this topic:
Are Cavalry Archers Too Hard to Micro Against Knights?
I tested how good cav. archers are and found them to be trash in comparison to the UU cav archers in the game. Having a slight improvement in their initial attack would make them more viable in castle age.
Here’s the results:
Cav archers - bloodlines, husbandry, +1 armour, bodkin
Knights - bloodlines, husbandry, +1 attack, +2 armour
Xbows - +2 armour, extra 2 to compensate for feudal age production and less upgrades from stable
Both armies are worth appox. 600 gold
10 Cav archers - 4 Knights live
10 Mongol Cav archers - 6 Knights live
16 Xbows - 4 Knights live
15 Kipchaks - 10 Kipchak live
9 Mangudai - 6 Mangudai live
10 Camel archers - 8 Camel archers live
TDLR: Against knights, cav. archers are just as effective as xbows. Their mobility advantage is reduced by their delay frame rate in firing the first shot. TBH I would stick to XBows in this particular scenario.
Just because CAs win against Crossbows doesn’t mean we can’t buff their Frame Delay a bit.
This change would barely affect fights against Crossbows…
Watch the video StoicSeaSlug made. To me is clear that:
Kiptchak 0 frame delay is OP.
Mangudai 5 frame delay is still good.
CA 10 frame delay is trash.
Man, it’s just too much… this huge difference between so similar units makes no sense at all.
Also people are saying that Thumb Ring is too good. And I agree that 100% accuracy should never be a thing for a ranged unit.
Anyway, Tatars have free Thumb Ring and their winrate is the lowest among all civs… one more proof that even with 100% accuracy CA’s are not very “OK” as you saying.
Cavalry Archers melt Crossbow. Double the HP and more damage output. Makes sense - I think CA are in a pretty good place myself.
But CA are more expensive, require more investment, and have less range. Try doing 10v10, 20v20,30v30, I’m sure at higher numbers that one range difference plays a bigger role. CA are meant to be micro’ed and maneuvered for better positioning, not for having direct fights with archers.
It doesn’t work out the way most of the time though. CA by virtue of being more expensive, more TT and can only be produced from castle age onwards will always be outnumbered by xbows. The range advantage also helps a LOT, it’s not until HCA and PT and decent numbers they start to be effective against arbs, but the xbow player would’ve done damage by then and you probably never got to that point
7% greater boost to firing rate - but CA deal 6 damage vs 5, so 20% greater damage. That difference only increases vs units with higher than 0 base pierce armor, such as Knights. Definitely more damage for CA.
Kipchak have 2 less range than Arbalest; they shred Arbs when patrolled, no micro. You can’t micro against CA with Archers, they’re too slow. I ran multiple tests. Parthian Tactics is very inexpensive and is a huge buff to CA, on top of having double the HP they have 2 additional armor.
Thanks for this awesome demonstration. Exactly what I was expecting. Frame delay is such an important thing.
I also think that the discrepancy between Mangudai/Kipchak/Camel Archer and Cav Archer is too big.
Either increase the frame delay for the unique units by 2 or bring down the frame delay of Cav Archers/Heavy Cav Archers to 7 or max 8.
Here I found 2 additional examples about Cavalry Archers being used in Tournament finals:
NAC3 Grand Finals (2020), Game 6 (Huns vs. Malians). Here, the TheViper wins by relying massively on Cavalry Archers.
AOElympics! Dry Arabia 1v1 Event (2020), Grand Finals, Game 1 (Magyars vs. Aztecs). In this game, TheViper won by raiding with CA’s until GG.
Those are good examples about the great ability of CA’s to raid bases, and regroup with meat-shield for large fights.
Not everything were wins for Cavalry Archers though, here is an example of them losing:
NAC3 (2020), Semifinals, TheViper vs Mr_Yo, Game 1 (Huns vs. Mayans). Here, massed CA’s lost the game for TheViper in Imperial Age. Mayan Eagle Warriors were overwhelming.
I don’t know if CA’s deserve a buff. The only thing I mention is that CA’s could become really dominant, especially at high APM games. They can catch any exposed villager, ambush small armies, and regroup for epic fighting.
Agree. Cav archers do have viable role in the game. I think most of us are hinting that we would like to see the frame delay reduced very slightly. Not as much as the UU cav archers but better than what it is now.
Any buff to FU HCA should be avoided. They already dominate to the extreme in lategame or in DM for a example.
I think those UU cav archers are overpowerd and not cav archers underpowered.
I would rather have the frame delay of kipshaks increased from 0 to 5, for mangudai from 5 to 7 and let cav archers stay around 10. Some similar treatment for camel archers maybe.
Then increase ca accuracy without thumb ring to 70% from 50%, other UU have even higher. Crossbows have 90%.
I don’t really agree here on the increase of frame delay for Kipchaks and Mangudai. While they have their pluses, they also have significant weaknesses in that Kipchaks lack Bracer and Mangudai lack the ring archer armor upgrade. This means that they both have a bit of weakness against foot and cavalry archers compared to many civilizations cavalry archers that end up with full range and damage with bracer +6 or +7 pierce armor with full armor (silk armor for Tartars)
Mangudai even lose in equal numbers let alone cost effectively to Turks and I believe Tartars
That being said generally agree on the rest of the points
No, no, no. Kipchaks do not need a frame delay nerf. They’ve been balanced around this, have found a niche, and even arguably could use a buff in Imperial Age. You’d have to change all of their other stats (by buffing them) to compensate. Mangudai are also extremely expensive, and lose to FU HCA on a cost basis and even on a pop basis vs other CA civs.
UU CA are fine as is. Castle Age CA is another question.
A lot of people are asking:
“Well so what was really changed about cav archers on DE? There’s nothing in the changelogs!”
The issue comes from DE itself - units stutter - all units
I mean it influences every unit but units with the longest fire delays have the most visible negative effect of stuttering
That’s because IF units with huge frame delay lose their attack action it’s a disaster but if it happens to a crossbow it’s less noticeable - they gonna shoot again sooner (there’s as well fire rate involved)
If the fire rate is smaller (so the reload time is longer) then the effect is worse as well.
Other units that got the worse side of the deal are Gbeto, War Wagons, mangonels and bombard cannons.
I’ve discussed this a lot in the Kipchak thread. This isn’t a good idea. It’s a buff that turns the Kipchak into just another CA. It makes it more powerful with micro while not helping it where it needs it, damage output in Imperial Age.
Kipchak don’t need range, they need more damage. Adding frame delay makes them pretty useless.
Not really. The only thing they do better against is Skirmishers (still lose) and Huskarls.
Low HP targets with good armor.
Even 3 base pierce armor is a difficult thing for them to deal with on anything heavier, like Eagles, Paladin, or Cavalier. Regular CA do a lot of damage, enough to bypass most peirce armor; at least, a lot better than Archers.
The thing that keeps them from getting outright slaughtered in these cases is the 0 frame delay. It lets them survive, and still requires micro. let’s not forget that micro requires attention, attention that could be put into your economy or elsewhere. HCA have a very, very good damage output. Even regular CA do once they get upgrades.
