I feel either some of the generic Imperial Age upgrades are too cheap, or elite unique unit upgrades are too expensive.
The Woad Raider upgrade costs 1000 food and 800 gold, and you get +15 HP, 4 attack, and +1 bonus damage against shock infantry and buildings. Meanwhile, going from Cavalier to Savar requires just 1000 food and 600 gold, and you get +25 HP, +2 attack, +4 attack bonus against archers, +1 melee armor, and +2 pierce armor. It’s ridiculous that the Woad Raider upgrade is more expensive than the Savar.
Kipchak upgrades require 2100 resources, which is a questionable price for a significantly nerfed unit.
The Throwing Axeman upgrade requires 1750 resources. It’s not a bad upgrade, but still pricey compared to how reasonable the upgrade costs of some other unique units, such as the Leitis or Mameluke, are.
The Janissary upgrade requires 1600 resources. The upgrade isn’t bad, but the problem is that they are probably one of the only units that are totally useless to train non-upgraded ones in the Imperial Age. The other Castle Age gunpowder units still bring value in the Imperial Age, while Janissaries don’t because Hand Cannoneers are already available upon reaching the Imperial Age, and they are better than Janissaries in every aspect, on top of also being cheaper. Hindustanis get Shatagni Hand Cannoneers with the cost of only 800 resources, and they shred even the Elite Janissaries. The upgrade would make sense only if you had already around 15 Janissaries in the Castle Age. But you don’t because their only appeal was their longer range in the Castle Age.
The Castle age Janissaries had +1 range, +9 HP advantage over generic hand cannoneers at the cost of being more expensive and %15 less accurate.
But now Now they have only +4 more HP at the cost of being still more expensive and being even more inaccurate %25!!! Why would I pay something that just a more expensive, -%25 less accurate, lack of bonus damage version of a hand cannoneer? It’s straight up inferior version of hand cannoneer in every aspect.
A caste age longbowman still has range advantage over a generic arbalester.
A mangudai still have anti siege advantage over heavy cavalry archer.
What advantage does Janissary have over generic hand cannoneer now? And the worst part is the competitors of longbowman and mangudai (xbow and cav archers) still requires upgrades while hand cannoneers requires just a very cheap chemistry to unlock.
They straight up ruined the Janissary-Hand cannoneer balance by buffing hand cannoneers and nerfing Janissary’s range without compensation. Now they turned one of the most iconic unique unit of a supposed Gunpowder civilization’s into a trash. And gave 9 ranged %75 accurate, armored uber unbalanced hand cannonners (which can be obtained by the half of the price of the Janissary upgrade) to an already overpowered civilization.
The cost of an upgrade should not only correspond the raw worth of stats improvement, but also a way to balance the civ.
We would not nerf the Savar upgrade cost because it is too cheap for its stats boost, we would nerf it because Persians are already very strong upon reaching imperial and a cheap stats boost make them win too easily while not struggling in the early and mid game.
We would not buff the Kipchak upgrade cost because it is too expensive for the stats increase, we would buff it because the civ would lack the power spike that most other civs get with bracers when stable units are off the table.
Why are Janissaries more expensive than Castle Age hand cannoneers when Janissaries lack bonus damage, are 25% less accurate, and require an expensive elite upgrade just to be an okay unit?
Previously, they were more expensive because they still retained their +1 range and +9 HP over generic hand cannoneers, and the accuracy difference was only 15%.
Janissaries were perfectly fine until they ruined the Janissary-Hand Cannoneer balance by buffing hand cannoneers and nerfing the Janissary’s range.
Their 8 range was what made them worth training in the Castle Age. And when you had some masses in the Castle Age, it was worth grabbing the elite upgrade.
But now, there’s hardly any reason to train Janissaries in the Castle Age. And when you have no Janissaries left when you reach the Imperial Age, it’s just better to get 15 hand cannoneers instead.
The only UU considered to be too costly to upgrade is Genoese crossbowman.
Woad Raiders can be troublesome even to xbow mass if they get enough number. Throwing axeman is ranged melee unit, which should be compared to chakram thrower and gbeto. Kipchak is CA UU, which should be expensive to upgrade.
I beg to differ. One of the mods is friendly towards me due to my messaging him about other issues in the past. I shall attempt to ask him to intervene.
I have also thought the elite upgrades tend to be pricey myself. So I decided to make a partial list of elite upgrade costs and compare them to the generic unit upgrades
longbow: 850f/850g (more than archer → arb, but longbows are generally stronger)
cataphract: 1200f/800g (comparable to paladin upgrade)
woad raider: 1000f/800g (Think the gold price could be dropped a little - are getting 15hp, 4 atk, some bonus damage)
Chu Ko Nu: 1105f/1105g (after discount - very pricey)
Throwing Axeman: 1000f/750g
huskarls: 1200f/550g (expensive, but I think they justify the cost)
samurai: 750f/650g
mangudai: 1100f/675g (+2 atk, 1 melee armor - HCA is 900f/500g, so a bit more expensive, but I think Mangudai justify it)
War elephant: 1350f/800g (battle elephant is 1100f/700g - both pricey, but both are powerful if you can mass them)
mameluke: 600f/500g (relatively cheap compared to other UTs)
Teutonic knight: 950f/500g (high food cost, but Teutons should be able to afford it. Cheaper than MAA->champion)
janissary: 850f/750g
berserk: 1075f/475g (like Teutonic knight, cheaper than milita->champ)
longboat: 750f/475g (a fair bit more expensive than galleon’s 400f/315w - can easily justify a price drop I think)
jaguar warrior: 1100f/500g
Tarkan: 1000f/500g (cheaper than paladin, but +50hp, +3atk, and +1 PA? Significant increase in survivability - getting enough to justify the cost)
War wagon: 1000w/800g (vs cav archer 900f/500g - could drop a little, but Koreans don’t really use cav archers over war wagons from what I’ve seen)
Turtle ship: 650f/500g (did get a price drop not too long ago, which is showing here)
Plumed archer: 700f/1000w (notably no gold cost - so will inevitably be able to afford in late game, even if gold is scarce - I think that can help justify a higher upgrade cost)
conquistador: 1200f/600g (pretty strong unit, and gets a good boost in survivability - still a pricy upgrade, but doesn’t need much else outside of bloodlines/husbandry to be effective)
Kamayuk: 900f/500g (less than militia line, more than spear-line)
Genoese Crossbows: 900f/750g (a lot for a tech that gives 5hp and +2 bonus damage)
800f/600g (for comparison, hussar tech is 500f/600g and light cav 150f/50g - seems reasonable and fairly comparable to hussar tech in price)
boyar: 1000f/600g (less than paladin upgrade, significant survivability boost)
camel archer: 1000w/500g (comparable to cav archer)
genitour: 500f/450w (fairly inexpensive and no gold cost, but is a trash unit)
shotel: 900f/450g (less than militia-line)
gbeto: 900f/600g (comparable to militia-line)
organ gun: 1200f/500g (pricey, but siege units are pricey to upgrade - much cheaper than getting to siege onager)
caravel: 700f/525g (more expensive than galleon upgrade, so can justify a price drop)
It looks to me like the elite upgrades tend to be comparable to upgrading an entire unit-line. There are a few outliers (cough mameluke), and the unique ships (excepting turtle ship) could use a tech price decrease.
I think there is some room for elite price decreases. But after comparing the UU upgrade costs to generic unit-line costs, I don’t think it’s as badly needed as I used to.
The Woad raider and Kipchak Elite upgrades definitely feel like they’re over the top.
The elite versions in age 4 just dont seem as impactful as they are in age 3, so a large upgrade cost on top of a power drop makes very little sense to me.
