Thry have situational viability though. Which is what you refuse to acknowledge, so they don’t need to be removed.
Tell me, in which of these ‘situations’ you talk of is a War Elephant viable over bigger army of Persian Paladins?
There is an IMMENSE ground between “viable in serious play” and “scenario editor unit”. The game has millions of sold copies, serious ranked players are only a tiny part of the playerbase, the others are definitely going to use the units you mentioned and don’t care if it’s not optimal. You’re also forgetting that even top level pros sometimes play for fun and like the existence of bad/troll strats.
No, I’d love most of them to be viable and balanced, but realistically that’s not going to happen soon. To be clear: my point is not that ALL the units you have listed shouldn’t be viable ever, but that most of them don’t bring enough to the gameplay to justify interest and changes that would possibly break the balance for 3 months (for example: Pre-patch Steppe Lancers).
Take War Eles for example.
I love War Eles, and would love seeing them in KOTD3, but it is BY DESIGN extremely hard to make it work in Castle age, when you don’t have economy, you need fast units to raid the enemy eco and avoid monks / archer kiting, and you don’t care about pop-intensive units. So it’s not just about the cost and stats, you’ll basically have to rework Eles completely. Then you’ll have to make sure civ matchups stay the same. Then, you’ll have to make sure the new Persians feel better to play than before AND are not oppressive (Look at how many people complain about Arambai on Arena). That deserves its own topic, tests, experiments, and educated thoughts about whether the new game is better than before: you cannot just list 10+ units and say “buff until they are viable”.
The units should be balanced around the optimal, so that as many units as possible are seen in that optimal, which would mean that all these unit-lines which appear are now well-balanced in an acceptable range.
And the units listed in the topic do not ever appear in optimal play(real competitive games), ever.
This is the reason why balancing is based on pro/serious play only.
team games are an excellent example of where they see use.
the thing you REFUSE TO ACKNOWLEDGE is that the War Elephant is actually very strong, the problem with them is cost.
so tell me parthnan - since you want to see them in 1v1 play - how would you buff the War Elephant so it sees 1v1 play, without impacting their already strong team game play?
so you balance a unit like the siege tower around serious 1v1 play and now its absolutely broken on arena, fortress, etc.
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No.
That’s where you’re wrong.
The game should be balanced so that it’s fun to play for both sides, that’s all.
If missionaries, TKs, War Eles, etc. had never been introduced in the game, would you suddenly say the game we have now is great and balanced ?
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Well then let me tell you,
It’s NOT fun to realize you’ve just wasted tons of food AND gold on ETK/EWE/EEA/Ballista Ele/Flaming Camels etc… not knowing that they’re supposed to be a weak unit, and they have always been a impractical and infeasible unit 99% of the time
And see someone go for the typical Knights/Xbows/Plumes/Eagles, basically the meta units, not realizing these units were always meant to be the optimal units, and that’s just how it is.
This means a player will need to first go on community pages and learn which specific units have been made the chosen optimal ones, and which are just useless traps, which even though they cost much more than the meta unit, hardly ever do the job.
Same with many UTs some of which are completely useless, and others are borderline OP, and yet they look and cost similar.
THIS is the same situation as having a few powerful optimal meta civilizations, and others which are crap 99% of the time. It’s that bad, and it’s actually happening right now with units. And UTs too.
If I said “impractical and infeasible unit 100% of the time” that would be a refusal to acknowledge. But I did say “impractical and infeasible unit 99% of the time”.
This is all about the frequency of that specific ‘situation’ when the otherwise non-optimal unit (i.e. useless resource-waster crap unit) becomes viable. It’s not about denying the existence of the situation.
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no he wouldn’t, because its too xbow and knight centric for his taste.
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Would you also complain that you didn’t know skirmishers counter archers ? That cataphracts are strong against camels ? That you lost against Goth while spamming longbows in your first ranked game despite them being an infantry civ ?
Any good game out there has several hidden, broken, counter-intuitive mechanics. Despite your claims that’s what makes new players GAIN interest. If all the things to learn are obvious then you end up even more frustrated when you lose, because you feel like you learn nothing from the loss.
You’re balancing at the top level of play, but at the same time you want them balanced for people who don’t know how the game works…
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Because units that are underpowered, by definition are underpowered for both, pros and noobs.
If a unit that costs 200F 75G from 650S buildings doesn’t work effectively 99% of the time, while a unit that costs 60F 75G from 175W buildings does(for the same civilization), then the former is definetly underpowered. GROSSLY underpowered.
Units that are optimal, can be OP if they are seen dictating every game, and/or do not have any other similar units they share this Optimality with, and this OPness would also hold for both pros and noobs.
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Then why the AoEzone people hate us when he start again with nonsensical claims lol
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according to him archers can micro against and win against skirms
@parthnan still waiting for you to answer this question
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Any argument, or logic you have, to add/retort on this?
Also, why were Knights, Crossbows, Halbs and Siege Rams chosen to be the optimal ones? Why not Longswords, Scorpions, Non-Khmer Elephants, HC, Petards, GC, Flaming Camels, Camel Riders etc?
Is there any reason or explanation? Or did you just accept this is the ground truth for your whole life, without question?
That is blatantly wrong. At low level Persian Eles are excellent units, MUCH BETTER than paladins, because people don’t know the weakness of elephants (monks/hit & run). At lower levels micro-intensive units are also much worse, nobody can hit & run without fucking up their whole economy so elephants are even better.
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Man people is right now having problems with Khmer elephants being Oppresive in team games and you say that a unit with is the same buth +4 times stronger should be buffed even when they still have 50% trample damage and up to 24 attack that kill halbs in 3 shots and eat alive any unit in their path LOL.
Still even at low levels they are too expesnive to be porduced and most people will go for paladins or anything.
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I am not talking about Khmer Elephants, do you understand this?
How many times did I write WAR elephants
War… WAR…WAAAAR elephants, good?
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Just compare, both units are clearly the same type
Battle Elephants are cheaper and have much lower stats yes, but Khmer have good eco and strong bonuses that are able to reach 21 damage, remember when they got up to 23 damage before DE, just oppresive because they were produced at the stables
BUT I am currently talking (and this thread is only about) SPECIFICALLY THESE units:
1. TKs
2. Shotels
3. Jags
5. Missionaries
6. Flaming camels
7. Gbetos
8. HCs
9. Orjan Guns
10. Genitours
11. Ballista Elephants
12. War Elephants
13. Elephant Archers
14. Steppe Lancers
16. Genoese Crossbows
17. Siege Towers
18. Turtle Ships
19. Mamelukes
21. Longswordsmen
So please do not confuse between units that look similar, but are VERY VERRRY different in terms of viability
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every RTS has situational units. not every unit must be used in every age. the Militia line is strong in the early game and the late game.
Siege Towers are strong on maps like Arena. let me ask you this - how would you change them to be better on open maps, without absolutely destroying them on Arena?
the reason the war elephant isn’t used isn’t because 3 knights do a better job (they actually cost more in case you didn’t notice), the problem is 200 food is expensive as crap.
because they are all decent all around units. they can be used against most units without problem. whereas say the huskarl only has 1 place where it shines. against archers.
because that is the way the game is designed? clearly you don’t like the design of the game. doesn’t mean it has to change to fit you. and todays game is too fast for unique units to realistically see play.
its simple - every game will have optimal play, this is true in every RTS ever. the longsword despite all your complaints has its uses.
its also too cheap to realistically have too much power. notice that it costs half the gold of an archer, and 1/4 of the gold of a knight (basically).
good luck making them good short of an overhaul. too slow.
belong to a solid civ, at best need a gold cost reduction (very small).
belong to the best civ in the game. why does aztec need more options? also how would you buff them without making them overpowered?
situational uses.
already trade more then cost effectively, but many people don’t like suicide units.
at best these need a frame delay reduction, but they belong to a solid civ.
many agree these need love.
again i actually see these played, it just depends on teh matchup.
tell us oh wise and mighty parthnan, how do you make these units strong enough to see 1v1 play without breaking team game play? go ahead.
funny how you skip 4, 15, and 20. hmm your list isn’t as big as you make it out to be.
also these two many are okay with buffing.
arena/fotress unit - how do you buff in open maps without making op elsewhere?
gold cost is there for a reason, i’ve seen them used at the pro level though.
many in favor of reducing the gold cost slightly.
literally just won a game.
again parthnan, why do you ignore other peoples questions but demand answers to your questions?
you said earlier you wanted reasonable discussion but reasonable discussion goes botgh ways and you refuse to answer questions asked of you. that isn’t reasonable.
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Because knights, xbows, mangonels are interesting units. They reward good micro, positioning, and good decision making as to when to take a fight. Even xbow vs xbow is an interesting matchup.
Most of the units you mentioned are just slow things that can be kited to death, have uninteresting bonus damage and most importantly promote dull rock-paper-scissors mechanics.
Current game:
If you go xbows, and the opponent goes knights, it’s a 50/50 matchup
Conclusion: fair & fun
Parthnan’s ideal game where Xbows, Knights, LS and camels are viable:
If you go LS, and the opponent goes Camels, that’s a 100/0 matchup
Alternatively, you go LS and they went for xbow now that is a 0/100 matchup
Conclusion: unfair & unfun, reduces the game to strategy picking ie. luck or better scouting.
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