First off the factions plays extremely differently from Abbasids 1. I favor this faction the most of the new civs i tried and seen played. And i like it so much because I see a lot of implementation of ideas that i had hope for Delhi to have: strong strong focus on camels; versatility; strong healers with impactful mechanics and high health pool; and a lil RNG to keep things spicy.
However i digress; this post is about how some of the age up options do provide meaningful bonuses while others are dull.
Let’s start with the list of great ones.
- Casino;
- villagers;
- fast and cheap age up;
- 50%extra healing and permanent mass healing;
- free desert raiders over time.
Now the bad ones.
- Wood cached
- Free blacksmith upgrades for the specific age.
I’ll likely go into details why i love or hate each option but for now I’ll focus on the bad ones and why they are bad.
The idea of getting a sum of wood instantly cache isnt in itself bad but we dont get enough wood to really impact game momentum compared to the villagers options. I get the contrast; one is instant resources and the other is potentially infinite resources overtime. Nevertheless when instant resources option can be gathered in 4min or less by villagers option??? What exactly did you achieve in the instant cache?
Next the blacksmith free upgrades is the worse option by far because it still requires a blacksmith AND that you have already researched the upgrades previous to the age you’re entering??? At least the wood cache option can more readily be integrated.
Wood cache can grant you 2 millitary building or fast tc at feudal.
Free blacksmith upgrade its not even existing no one cares about that tech(its that bad).
The wood is useable but worthless by comparison to the other options; 300w is too little. Gong Casino, even though its a gamble!!! EVEN if you got 3 resource rolls you’d instantly trade 375g for 450 (stone)-600 resources; that’s an instant net of 75 stone up to 225 food and/or wood. Mine you the resource gambles are the worse of the long term investment options AND the casino KEEPS ON GIVING.
Meanwhile you could go for a guaranteed wood age up option but only get 300w?? And thats it??
THIS IS HOW YOU CAN FIX THE WOOD OPTION. Do NOT give more wood. Instead reduce the cost of all wood buildings by 15-20%!!
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I like the instant wood cash aswell putting a TC at 4.30 min (if not bellow) is very interesting as it is impossible to contest unless the enemy goes for dark age aggression. It puts you one step ahead on for the early game it has a lot of potential imo. In later ages it’s indeed quite useless paying a few millitray buildings or farms with it isn’t really good so a wood discount comming at some point might indeed be a good idae for later ages.
Casino is the broken wing comparing anything else to it isn’t really fair 
like the villager one is really good in feudal until the casino gives you more vills.
Free blacksmith is bad yeah outdone by the desert raiders in imperial and really not valuable in earlier ages
a 4min30s TC still costs you 750 resources plus 2min30s building * number of villagers_multiplier cost; so thats 450 of your gathered resources. For that same 450 own gathered resources you could have gone Casino and get potentially a combination of villagers/traders which instantly provide waay bigger momentum booster. Thats no build time instant impact.
IMO a static 300w cant compete that what RNG; which at WORST gives you 4 choices of resources? Which you still could leverage instantly into 2nd TC.
As I said : Casino is the broken wing comparing anything else to it isn’t really fair like the villager one is really good in feudal until the casino gives you more vills.
But I think that the wood one is still decent just that casino in feudal is better than every single wing on land maps at the moment.
You forgot Atabeg in your list (the one that increase HP of units).
It seems quite niche, but i figured it could be quite useful if put in siege workshop, on Culverin since it makes springald need 1 extra hit to kill a culverin (but it makes no difference on springald vs springald or culverin vs culverin).
If you don’t care about casino, i think could be good as a choice to age up to imperial. and if you play against a civ that doesn’t have culverin, but you know there will be siege battle. China comes to mind as main opponent i would go with atabeg.
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