Each civ has several playstyles. Actually, all civs have many playstyles, even though only a few (but always more than 1) are viable. For instance you could play Teutons like you play Mongols, with scouts+CA. It’s just that if your opponent isn’t your potted plant you will have trouble.
The game is designed differently, but sometimes there is overlapping in playstyles even in AoM. Like Kronos and Loki being 2 rush factions based on myth units, or Odin and Ra being two factions for fast heroic.
Steppe lancers have a role : failing to counter Korean knights cost-effectively (Over buffing civilizations - #38 by Ptee92). Giving them to Mongols has 0 risk to be inbalanced.
A nerf to attack (that is still equal to that of a paladin) , followed to a buff to production speed. That’s not what I call “nerfed very hard”
False, Camels counter knights, but are just a waste of ressources against elephants. Many UUs like Teutonic knights, boyars, ect… can kill knights, but not elephants. It leaves massed Genoese crossbows/Kamayuks, Mamelukes and War elephants as the only UU that counters BE. FU Paladins have less trouble against Mangudai I guess? The actual difference is that monks and pikes are bigger threats to eles than to knights. But Indians don’t have any problem vs either.
Or you know, the BE was designed with 4 civs only in mind, and it remained good, unlike SL.
It’s literally the time of the game where you have at least 3 TCs spitting villagers non-stop. It’s here that it really starts to kick in.
Indians aren’t only about camels. They were meant to have no knights in part because of the Imp camel, of the food bonus, and likely other reasons as well. Also, they aren’t much better at camels than Sarracen and Malian, and on part with Berbers.
Khmer lack Champion, Thumb ring, they lacked Hussars and Arbs at release. They proved to be very weak (unlike Indian) so they got new techs and a food bonus because of that. Indians never were bottom tier like that. Also, Khmer already get HC and Ballista elephants on top of Battle eles, and no one ever though having all of these would make them inbalanced.
Slavs don’t get eles, and the boyar isn’t that good (people prefer Cavaliers). Khmer were bottom tier at start, so giving them something real strong was necessary.
Why shouldn’t we give Battle eles to Indian? Indians using eles in warfare is already represented by the fact their UU is an elephant unit. And more important, this game has never been so close to have all civs balanced close enough to each other. It’s no time to start altering everything just so that an historical fact (indian eles) can be represented twice instead of once.