Aztec treaty/late game problem

Aztecs in team games are pretty good it’s just when it come to 40 me or long treaty games is where they struggle.

They are not that good if your enemy knows what he’s doing, like massing skirmishers, dragoon cav type and cannons while maintaining them behind the walls, towers, or other obstructions that Coyotes cant reach easily.
That really hits the aztec eco because they are only meatshield and have to waste tons of resources just to kill 1 army.

In the end, Aztec eco will lose.

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Exactly one of reasons why Aztecs suck in treaty. The arrow knight also needs a buff.

generally the ratio of cost to pop - - where 100 res is 1 pop at base - - tells you how strong a unit is. Uhlans are 2 pop 150 res, so they’re weak per pop. Eagle runners are 150 res for 1 pop, they’re extremely strong. hussars and muskets are 100 to 1, being the baseline for their unit class. crossbows are 80 res for 1 pop, meaning they’re weak for pop. Why am i going on about this? Because arrow knights are 125 res (slightly adjusted now, right? by a few res?) for 2 pop. That pretty much sums up what a colossal disappointment these units are

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Exactly what in your opinion should be done to arrow knight?

bump to 160 res (60f 100c probably) give them 12 damage and 50 siege, make their support card additionally add +1x vs artillery. increased base siege would scale better with the other upgrades for a lovely, max siege of 137.5 if i havent done my math wrong. max ranged damage would bump up to around 37. I think its extremely important that arrow knights are weakish per pop because eagle runners are so strong per pop, but they’re just too poor right now. As the only unit that fills the role for aztec, its just too much of a weakness.

From a population point of view:

  • Against a falconet: they currently deal 200 pierce damage every 6 seconds for 2 pop, which is more or less one fourth of a culverin for half of the population.
  • Against infantry: they currently deal 20 damage every 3 seconds (with 1.5s cooldown), which is 33% more than a skirmisher and with +10 range for twice the population.

Moreover, they will propably get +50% damage from cards (kinghts attack +15%, knights combat +15%, arrow knight support +20%). So:

  • they should be fine against infantry (as aztecs also use slingers), especially as they are very resource efficient, as you highlighted. Moreover I htink most skirmisher units only get +15%
  • they are still weak against artillery, even thuogh it is their main purpose. Well at least they now do not die in one falconet shot anymore, which is a relief.

So I think the +1x multiplicator against artillery that you proposes if more than fair (especially from a card). Increasing the damage may be more tricky as we do not want them to be to strong in the role of a skirmisher / longbowman.

They actually do 220 ranged damage vs artillery every 6 seconds which translate to 55 damage with the 75% range resistance that the falconet and most artillery have which is not great. They also lack elite upgrades which is why they have so many combat cards to make up for not shadowteching. At the end you only get 105% more hp and 120% more attack for the arrow knight after legendary upgrades and all combat cards sent in. Which is below average. Some units from other civs get up to 150% more hp/attack which is crazy when compared to aztec units. Btw 2 culverins (8 pop) can 1 shot falconets while it takes 16 arrow knights to 1 shot falconets. 16 x 12.5 dmg per shot = 200. Idk about you but I don’t want sacrifice 32 pop for units that barely kill artillery and won’t add much to your unit composition. That is why arrow knights need a buff. Bring it more in line to the hauraca by giving it siege damage for range damage. 14 attack with 1 aoe splash damage would be good, 2x vs artillery.

we could just give them a special anti-artillery attack that bypasses range resist, allowing them to me more specialist against artillery

The reason why I think this is possible is that the Marine has a separate attack against ships from the normal range attack, which deals a tonne of damage to ships.

Why 220 ranged damage ? isnt it 10 (per shot) x 5 (multiplicator) x 4 (rate of fire)

I didnt notice knights do not shadowtech im fortress age, which makes them weaker.

I thought about giving siege damage, but then thought it would be too difficult to balance, due to 30 range. With your suggestion they deal 14 siege damage at 30 range every 1.5s to non siege units, which is insanely good for their price. Basically the damage of a skirmisher for not much more resources while being strong against cavarly and artillery and outranging skirms by 10 range ! And all of that “only” for the cost of 2 pop.

Using current stats and ranged attack, it may be good to first double their damage and cooldown, so that we need 8 arrows knights instead of 16 to one shot a faconet.

Hurracas are not that fair a comparison as they get outraged by falconets and get 0.5 multiplicator to cavalry. So we could give a similar multiplicator for arrow knights too.

So in the end dansil92 is probably correct that balancing the arrow knight may require increasing its cost to something closer to twice the price of a skimisher.

Or, as TeenagerApple0 suggest, try to give them siege damage only against artillery.

I agree with upping their cost to 60 food 90 coin but with 14 siege damage and 1 or 2 aoe splash and .5x or .75x vs heavy cav. Huaracas actually out range arrow knights by 1 range after all upgrades btw and only cost 120 resources. If you have 14 siege damage and 1.5x multiplier vs artillery it will take 10 arrow knights to 1 shot falconets. Imo this is the way to go, it will be better vs artillery and vs light infantry but worse vs heavy infantry and heavy cav.

That would be solved by giving them more multiplier against them as yabusames have (obviously less cause greater range)

This way they can be buffed with firepit, we have to remember that siege damage is not affected by it. Firepit is the only way aztecs have to get “upgrades” that other civs have

Yes I took into account fire pit, if you give them 14 siege damage its better than 12 range attack. If you give them 14 range attack it’s too much. With siege you no longer need the fire pit to make it a good unit.

5 months later we are in a worse position. Options??

AK Siege Tolerance (In addition to Ranged Tolerance).
Bonus against skirmisher for the coyote runner.

no amount of coyote tweaks is ever gonna fix azzys lack of a ranged splash damage anti-infantry

and no amount of changes to arrow knights will make them viable without making them broken. an infantry that counters artillery is literally a colossal middle finger to the counter system

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I dont understand why they became mortars useless, with them they were in a not that bad spot.

About AKs, maybe a malus vs HI??

i have quite a lot of thoughts on the subject but I’m not sure its even worth writing out, since it will never be implemented

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I think that with the coyote runner and the arrow knight we could do something similar to what was done with the nizam (statistics change depending on their formation).

For the coyote runner:
image

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Cover Mode: Does not lose speed, instead loses 50% in stamina points. (All other stats with this formation remain the same.)

I think speed is more relevant in a situation where you want to stalk the cannons.


For the arrow knight:
image

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Staggered Mode: Lose 30% Tolerance to Projectiles (40% is reduced to 10%), but gain 50% Tolerance to Siege.

It could work, but Im not sure if adding more micro is a good idea for a core thing in gameplay as countering artillery is.