Its actually hilarious how weak to Skirms this civ is, Dravidians are too but atleast they kind of make it up with having better skirms themselves. Not having knights is bad (or Eagles) and it really shows in a matchup against Eskirms.
You really have nothing good to make in castle age with all that eco, crossbow is mediocre with no thumbring and opponent being free to tech into mass Eskirms in castle age without much care, Rathas have the same problem and they’re slow to get going, the melee switching is gimmicky at best with its massive hitbox pathing. Their best unit IMO is Elephant archer right now but its not always ideal unit to make especially against Eagle civs.
I think it’s perfectly fine, and certainly is a good addition to the game. I believe this in no small part because I’m one of the devs for the Rome at War mod, and this ability forms the basis for the Legionary, so I feel obligated to defend it. Besides, the original devs intended it for the Samurai, it just didn’t get added at that point.
But both of them are at least 33% faster than EA and can outrun skirmishers. Bengalis EA are in fine spot with extra armor and husbandry. Dravidians EA, and honestly all of Dravidians army in general, have very high damage output but very low speed and even low HP.
Stop nitpicking, it is clear that War Wagons and Conquistadors are much cheaper and can run away. Those units can deal more much damage in Castle Age than Elephant Archers to the enemy base.
Dravidian Elephant Archers can’t run away from Skirmishers while being much expensive and less DPS than Conqs.
While true, I don’t think it’s actually that big for Dravidian Elephant Archers. With Bodkin and Thumb Ring, their damage is 8 and rate of fire 1.36, for same range. and 100% accuracy with Ballistics. Conquistador’s rate of fire is 2.96 and 16 damage in Castle Age, on top of having only 70% accuracy.
Conquistador’s advantage is that it needs no upgrades and is more mobile. It’s only slightly less expensive, but about the same DPS as DRAVIDIAN Ele archers (unless my understanding of AoE2’s rate of fire is wrong). It’s why you need Elephant Archers to be countered by Elite Skirmishers, unless you want Dravidians to have a less mobile Conquistador spammable from Archery Range.
Then again, from this thread, it seems that would be a solution to make them less terrible, so…
Not necessarily true either. Bengalis are seemingly popular in DM, closed maps, and teamgames.
It’s slightly funny how I don’t even count their UU when I think of their strengths in those modes. Rathas for me are just very underwhelming and should get a buff, but that likely won’t appease the problems presented in this thread. They just feel like a worse version of any power UU, while also being twice as annoying to control. Their only use case where I feel like ‘oh this is nice’ is if I’m against Rams or Eagles, which is slightly niche anyway.
And if Akoskaaa10 wants to complain about a small group of Skirmishers 2-3shotting an expensive unit, Rathas are one I’d agree with. Them getting countered hard by Skirmishers is just tragically funny.
DM=No one plays
Closed Maps: Only on Fortress. On Arena they are not strong, only average
TeamGames=Straight Up useless. On closed maps SO+Halb counters them, on open maps as a flank they are straight up lose to any civ, as a pocket they don’t even have units.
20 Food is a big difference. It allows you to have much better boom. You can never afford Thumb Ring if you go for such an expensive unit. Conqs run left and right in the enemy base, 1 tapping villagers while Elephant Archers cannot do that.
Why did it have a 10k tournament just recently then?
They only cannot run left and right (which is important, not denying that, it’s the reason why Conqs are better at raiding). Damage wise, Dravidian Elephant Archers are better after Thumb Ring. So yeah, early Castle Age you’d favour Conquistadors, a power UU, later in the Castle Age when comparing damage output, Elephant Archers do that.
If you plan on one-shotting a villager, sure. If you plan on killing villagers, no. Dravidian Ele Archers are slightly better in damage output.
(However, this is not the Dravidian thread. Bengali Elephant Archers are tankier, but don’t have nearly the same damage output and are less accurate. Castle UT just feels like a worse Thumb Ring if you’re going for Elephant Archers. It also gets censored on the forums, so clearly it’s a bad tech…)
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Since when though. It used to be fine.
While less accuracy is problematic, it’s okay for Bengalis as they have all the HP and armor along with bonus armor. I’d like to bump their toughness by a making PT available in Castle Age which will help Ratha against skirmishers as well. Or make Ratha upgrade cheaper by giving a wood discount on university techs.
Cheking on the AOE wiki, on realease they had TR and champion. They lacked arbalesters instead.
The identity of Khmer is something I regret a lot. They are such a fascinating and exotic civilization historically speaking, and their bonuses are also really unique to reflect this. But watching them being played as a full cav civ just completely breaks the immersion for me. Khmer were known to have awful horses, like bengalis. Cmon, they lived in a rainforests, no cavalry tradition can be developed there. They should have tried to keep the elephant and scorpion identity.
I know, I know, historical accuracy is not a priority, It’s not a history simulator. It’s just that, as I said, being so exotic and intresting their gameplay feels quite generic. A busted generic gameplay.
Edit: I know it has nothing to do with the current thread, but it’s something I wanted to say not worth its own thread.
I think this could be worth its own thread, to be honest. I spent about 16 years wanting Khmer in the game, but I find the implementation of them quite weird: no Monk/religion bonus and a fairly standard Monastery; no naval bonus; no stone-related bonus; two building-related bonuses but I can’t make historical sense of either of them. Yes, they have elephants, but otherwise I’m not sure where their design comes from.
Bengalis feel much more distinctive somehow - I like them thematically and I really want to like their gameplay… But it’s hard to enjoy being so heavily countered by Skirmishers.
Actually, I talked about the topic in this post I made some time ago
Thing is they would end up being very similar to malays if made completely accurate. I could forgive having random bonuses that doesn’t reflect anything specific like the house and buildings bonus if at the end of the day your armies more or less fit the culture.
Instead when I see khmer I see this
It’s toe to toe with the old indian camels in level of incoherence.
Arabia is sort of an indicator of civ versatility as its supposed to be a map where all sorts of gameplay is feasible. So civs that are good on Arabia are usable on a wide variety of open land maps, and feasible on either hybrid or closed maps. Whereas civs that are bad on Arabia are going to be very niche and have their niche maps and formats where they’re feasible.
really? Amazing! #####