Are the Halberdier Anti-cavalry, Anti-camel and Anti-elephant bonuses too high?

A quick poll and discussion, as I want to see if people think Halbs are too strong as well as too spammable against mounted units. Or if they think +60, +30 etc against al mounted units(including CavArchers, Unused Elephant units etc) is 100% justified.

  • Halb Bonus vs Cavalry is too high
  • Halb Bonus vs Camels is too high
  • Halb Bonus vs Elephants is too high
  • Halb Bonuses are not too high

0 voters

It is a fact that many mounted units never see play in the game, and it could be good if we could remedy that. And also that Standard Infantry in comparison to Halberdiers don’t see any play.

Personally, Spearman and Pikeman bonus values are understandable, but the Halberdier have quite a huge jump in bonus damage, as well as base attack, compared to any other trash unit upgrades. Especially the massive anti-elephant bonus seems to be a bit overkill to put on such a spammable cheapest unit. And that considering Elephants of any size are not the metagame, and are hardly seen. :cry:
And now the recent buff vs Camels, was probably a bit overdone, honestly :frowning_face:

These are the many bonuses that this most spammable unit costing only 35F 25W unit has.

10 base attack with upgrades
+32 vs [Cavalry] (and also CavArchers)
+28 vs [War elephant] , for a total of +60 vs all Elephants
+26 vs [Camel]
+17 vs [Ship]
+17 vs [Fishing Ship]
+11 vs [Mameluke]
+1 vs [Eagle Warrior]
+1 vs [Standard building]

The Pikemen line is very well balanced and doesnt need any changes.

6 Likes

Halbs were introduced specifically because Pikes weren’t doing enough against Heavy Cavalry/War Elephants as is, so no, i think the Halb is fine, especially considering most civs don’t get Camels which have higher health allowing for more staying power.

you still need 2 Halbs per Heavy Cavalry minimum to take them down usually, so the price and ability to be spammed is not a problem. Halbs are a cost effective, not population effective counter and lack offense in other areas to offset the huge bonuses they get vs Cavalry.

3 Likes

I don’t think it’s too high against cavalry. But i think it might not be fair for Cavalry Archers.

2 Likes

which is okay because Cav Archers have the range and mobility advantage, and a good chunk of them have bonus vs spears too.
also those civs that get Parthian Tactics get bonus damage as well.

7 Likes

it does your argument no good to use hyperbole, most cavalry units are used in some form or another, whether that be 1v1 or in team games.

the unit was literally introduced because the pikeman wasn’t holding down the fort against heavy cavalry, and that was before said heavy cavalry got Bloodlines.

the anti war elephant armor bonus only went up 3 points from the pikeman. the total bonus damage only went up 13. when you consider that Elephants are the most population efficient units in the game, Civs are going to ABSOLUTELY NEED a cost effective way to take them down, as they won’t be able to take them down population efficiently.
it literally takes 5 Halbs to take down a single elite war elephant without losing any Halbs in the process.

team games say see them a bit, even at the highest level.

5 games within the past 5 weeks of Elephants being used. just from one players youtube channel.

4 Likes

I think it got overbuffed vs Camels, but other than that is fine. if we just look at the patch history of the Pikemen/halb line on the wiki, you can see they buffed the camel damage like 3 times over the course of the HD DLCs, and most of those nerfs were targeted onto the Indian Imperial Camel, but that also made other generic camels and heavy camels way less viable than normal. (in my opinion)

I know someone will immediately jump in saying “Oh but the camels dont take bonus damage from structures anymore it was nerfed etc…” but eh idk if that is a good enough reason to make them so weak vs pikes, it’s still a low base attack, low pierce armor unit and buildings still have +1 bonus vs them.

As an example of how strong pike is vs camel, with +2/+2 on both units, a castle age Pikeman kills a castle Age Camel in 1v1 combat, with the pikeman having 7 hp left. edit: and a knight vs pikeman, knight wins with 24 hp.

6 Likes

that’s not a really good example though because pikes are designed to kill cavalry, and camels are not designed to kill non cavalry.
not saying i’m against toning them down against camels, but its a flawed example.
it would be like saying that the m@a are strong against spears/skirms.

that’s working as intended.

2 Likes

I think he’s got a point though… The counter to knights is killed more easily than the Knights themselves… By the 2nd counter to knights… Im also not too comfortable with that. Too many things kill camels too easily for the gold cost.

But then im in the boat that camels are too weak in general, specifically races like Ethiopians, cumans and byz(even with the cost)

4 Likes

except its not the first or second counter to knights. its two different counters.
one is an anti cavalry cavalry. the other is an anti cavalry infantry unit.
which means in theory the anti cavalry infantry should win head to head.
that said, i did say.

3 Likes

What mounted units? Camels and elephants? Since you have said i can only guess… Have you tried using elephants backed by scorps in a TG? They’re berserk and halbs get shredded before they can do their job.

Camels don’t see as much play not only because of halbs but also since they’re countered by archers as well as spears anyway and can’t raid as well as knights(except india) .

What other mounted units are “never” seen?

Never is a very extreme word… And is completely off in this case.

3 Likes

the least seen mounted unit imho is the cataphract due to its insane cost (note i’m not including units like the missionary here, for obvious reasons).

4 Likes

Halbs are an absolutely terrible unit against anything but cav. They need to be very strong against that if it’s their only purpose.
Also heavy cavalry is extremely strong (handicapped by pathfinding to be fair), as they are among the strongest units, but also very mobile. They need some hard counters and I think the game overall does a very good job at balancing that.

Elephants are fine as well, they’re just more of a teamgame unit (unlimited gold) than 1v1 - but that’s okay I think.
They’re just hard to balance as making them viable for 1v1 would very likely make them oppressive in team games (they’re already close to being that).

4 Likes

spearman-line bonus buff vs camels is something I never understood. It was introduced after African Kingdoms expansion because indian camels were OP and by far the strongest pocket civ in the game, but as a result, civs like byzantines, turks and saracens really got a big hit. (these pocket civs occasionally make camels as pocket in TGs)

In AoC, camels took about half bonus damage as regular cavalry. This made total sense, because camels are a relatively soft counter to knight line, are nearly as expensive as heavy cavalry and hence should perform roughly equally well vs spearmanline as heavy cavalry.

in 1v1 games, since camels are so fragile vs pikes, they’re pretty much only useful for early castle age until the opponent mixes in pikes.

8 Likes

They are fine but the spearman line needs a bit of speed boost.

1 Like

haha yeah i also imagined the missionary was auto excluded… and ironically the cataphract kind of counters the halberdier, so literally disproves parthnan haha

1 Like

yeah this makes sense as well. but its a tough one wrt indian camels, they either need to nerf the indian camel if they nerf pikes, or buff all the other camels… i think i would prefer a buff on all other camels

Don’t agree with a false causation-consequence sentence. The resources being nearly equal doesn’t mean the unit has to do the same thing as the other one. A ram costs waay more than a halb, i don’t demand it do better than a halb against the knight line.

Very True, its a pitiful story for Camels…
This thread is also a must-see for devs…

2 Likes

In AoC, camels took about half bonus damage as regular cavalry. This made total sense, because camels are a relatively soft counter to knight line, are nearly as expensive as heavy cavalry and hence should perform roughly equally well vs spearmanline as heavy cavalry.

Yeah, but back then camels still had the ship armor class, so they would literally melt under castle fire, which made them horrible at raiding.

The problem with camels has always been indians. You buff the camels a bit and indian camels end up being OP all over again. I honestly am not sure how this can be fixed without breaking something.

1 Like