Portuguese always had extremely poor Cavalry contingents, and were over-specialized in Infantry and Engineer corps. Why would they even have Cavalry bonii?
I understand the Bloodlines and Husbandry tech, since we bought Horses from other countries that had renown for them, but our Cavalry contigents were always just scouts or few noblemen that had them because they needed them.
Portuguese Cavalry was one of the worst in the world, in the Middle Ages. We had, on the other had, some of the best Infantry and Engines, and the best Navy of the period.
I dont get why so many people without game knowledge give Civ changes feedback. Giving Indians Elefants would make them way overpowered and is just not doable.
Age of Empires isnt complete correct with history and will never be because it would destroy civ balances.
Why? Khmer bonus is faaaarbetter than indian one, and their elephants are faster and stronger. And yet people argues if they’re op or not. Why are you so sure they will be broken?
If khmer are not op pocket civ, the indians won’t be either. If khmer are consider super op, well, indians are arguable
Good balance is the most important argument. We can also discuss giving Chinese all gunpowder units just for being correct with your history argument which makes them completely overpowered. If you give Indians Elefants from stable, you give them a neutral non-trash Cav Unit. There is a reason they dont have Knights.
If you make advices on balance and civ changes, you always have to consider that the game is balanced and not broken like we had it with the Step Lancers at the start of DE.
Could just grant Indians non elite War Elefants. Woukd be a nice twist since no one lacks the tech currently (there is a reason why teutons lack ligh cav, huns got no onagers, Turks no spearman, this adds intersting edges to civs) .
This allows some castle age slow alternative to camels but the imperial age would not be touched much.
Isn’t this kind of a silly request? After all, it’s not like they don’t get elephants. As far as historical accuracy is concerned, the existence of elephant archers more than satisfies that requirement.
If you want a more realistic way to help the civilization have more elephants, think of good ways to improve the elephant Archer. Adding battle elephants is a drastic change for an already decent civilization.
I know people will say Ele archers more than enough to portray Elephant use in India, but let me tell you that would be wrong, because, Indians have always used Melee elephants with Mahouts not just Archers atop them.
So the position of Indians is similar to Khmer, who get Battle elephants(with bonus) as well as Ballista Elephants(with double bow) to portray their use of Elephants(which was actually much fewer than Indian Elephant use)
Their Stables LITERALLY show elephants being trained inside them, and yet they cannot access the unit that perfectly fits the description.
Also, one can complain that the Battle eles are wearing SE Asian hats therefore Indians cant get them, but even that does not hold as India has always had borders with SE Asia and people wearing straw hats are in eastern India as well.
And Europeans always used heavily plated Lancers and had Cavalry Crossbows (Cranequins) instead of cavalry Archers, yet none of those are in the game.
No one even complains taht they are missing.
Indians are a Camel and Archery Range civ (only miss Arbalest). Elephants would literally do nothing for them, except push up their already high winrate in 1600+ rating games.
They have a much better boom and economy than Khmer, and better Gunpowder units (Khmer are likely losing Bombard cannon in next patch).
No reason to give Indians anything else. at all. elephant Archers are already their Elephant unit.
Since the ancient Chinese gunpowder weapons were mostly the minor-caliber cannons such like the fire lance, San Yan Chong (three-eyes gun) and Hu Dun Pao (crouching-tiger cannon), adding only the hand cannoneers to the archer-main Chinese may be more correctly and not influence the balance too much than adding all gunpowder units.
And Europeans always used heavily plated Lancers and had Cavalry Crossbows (Cranequins) instead of cavalry Archers, yet none of those are in the game.
No one even complains taht they are missing.
As of now, there are no ‘Cranequins’ in the game. When they are added for one civ, then i wouldn’t mind if the other Euro civs get them. It would be fun. As of now, the Heavy Cavalry Archer can be considered a similar counterpart.
Whereas, as of now, there is already melee elephant unit at the stable that has been given to 4 other civs that border India, that the Indians are still denied access too even though their stable literally portrays elephants being trained. And even though the Mongols have now been retroactively given Steppe Lancers in a similar fashion
Hence the request for Indian battle elephants will have higher priority than cranequins naturally.
That is not the point. The point is that Indians do not need Elephants.
It is clear that devs wanted to add them in with DE (Elephants in the Stables), but have chosen against it for some reason.
I think it would just overcompensate the lack of Knights, and take out one of the incredibly few weaknesses Indians have.
They have almost the full Tech Tree otherwise.
They should have never done it, since it opened the flood gates.
even though the Mongols have now been retroactively given Steppe Lancers in a similar fashion?
The Mongols are just as strong as Indians(Actually higher overall winrate from before 36202) and yet they got Steppe lancers retroactively, they also didnt need them did they! lol